Artist: Giant Claw
Album: Mirror Guide
Format: Digital / Vinyl
Release: May 14, 2021

Music by Keith Rankin
Visual art by Ellen Thomas and Keith Rankin
Mastered by Starkey

Giant Claw - Mirror Guide

Artist: Giant Claw
Album: Mirror Guide
Format: Digital / Vinyl
Release: May 7 or 14, 2021

Music by Keith Rankin
Visual art by Ellen Thomas and Keith Rankin
Mastered by Starkey

Artist Statement:

I have been recording Mirror Guide off and on since my previous album Soft Channel came out in 2017, working on pieces in my spare time while co-running Orange Milk Records and trying to make a living as a freelance visual artist. 

I wanted Mirror Guide to feel less frenzied than some of my previous music, and decided to use a hyperreal string sound as a lead instrument the rest of the sounds could orbit around. I improvised long stretches with the digital instrument and picked moments that elicited some emotional response in me as the foundation for each piece. It helped to imagine a small synthetic ensemble playing every additional part, considering the choices an individual might make if they were focused primarily on their instruments’ role within the group. 

In my improvised sessions I also gravitated towards what I called a ‘bouncing ball’ rhythm - later described to me as an exponential rhythmic sequence. After thinking about how genres often center around a core rhythmic pattern I adopted the sequence as another consistent feature for the album. 

In the past I’ve cut up pop acapellas as vocal elements, but on Mirror Guide decided to work with several artists I had come to know from three very different music scenes. I traveled to Pittsburgh for a few days and recorded with vocalist Tamar Kamin (from the band the Van Allen Belt) generating hours of improvised and lightly prepared melodic material that I later edited into several songs. I also incorporated more poetic almost spoken word vocals from Japanese musician and photographer NTsKi and a small segment of screeching moans from fellow Ohioan Diana Gruber. 

More generally I found inspiration from artists like Paul Lansky, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the range of emotion in the music of Geinoh Yamashirogumi Orchestra, best known for scoring the Akira soundtrack which is a longtime favorite. I was also encouraged to complete Mirror Guide through conversations with the late composer, tape collage pioneer, and friend Noah Creshevsky, who gave me several boosts of confidence after hearing early versions of the music.

Giant Claw - Thousand Whys (vocals: Tamar Kamin & Diana Gruber)

Giant Claw - Until Mirror (vocals: Tamar Kamin)

Giant Claw - Disworld (vocals: NTsKi)

Giant Claw - Mir-Cam Online

Giant Claw - Mir-Cam Startup

Giant Claw - Earther

Purchase / Stream
↳ https://ffm.to/solve-1

'Solve' is the second single from the forthcoming pop injected EP 'Clockwork Chloe' which is to be released in due course. This single was the last to be created and conceived from the entire project.

Lyrics

The world won't make any promises,
So make them for yourself, baby,

A dillema, a conundrum,
You can't solve it with a simple solution,
A conundrum,
No universal rectification,
A conundrum,
You can't solve with a simple solution,
A conundrum,
No universal rectification,

Songwriting, vocals and recordings by Drew Holliday
Production, mix and master, artwork and graphics by Drew Holliday

http://citytronix.com/
www.patreon.com/citytronix
www.instagram.com/citytronix/
twitter.com/CITYTRONIX

Clockwork Chloe

Solve

CITYTRONIX 'Solve'

BOILER

See here for more info: https://bit.ly/3tHubxS

Truth Serum [MP3]

JQ, 'I Bite My Nails Till They Bleed' (2021). Courtesy Post-Geography, Los Angeles.

Taken from Razmiel (@razmiel) new EP YAIRKU Part 1, out June 3, 2021, via 𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓾𝓻.𝓁𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓁 (@xxxglamourxxx)

Read: https://bit.ly/3vtfvnT
Pre-order: https://bit.ly/34ivPeR

Here’s your first deep dive into the mysteries of a dark, grim planet called YAIRKU full of twisted, gloomy monsters. This chapter is about glowing jellyfishes drifting in the ocean and huge metallic worms endlessly drilling new tunnels underground. You’ll visit a few cursed, underwater caves and try some of the fruits growing there.

Good luck
xoxo

~ _ ~

The only fish IDM out there.
“YAIRKU Part 1” creates absolutely captivating micro-ecosystems filled with bubblegum glitch. While blasting wet, spacey, elastic beats, it's building sci-bio storytelling and vibrant textures that will make you really soft.

~ _ ~

Razmiel:
“I focused on sound design, textures, layers and the possibilities of telling the story with sounds that don’t necessarily have a melodic sense, but instead a very expressive timbre and vibe. I preceded composing each piece with a few weeks of prep work in which I’ve collected and created sounds fitting the given concept. I tried to bring these creatures to life with all sorts of weird sounding noises and one-shots glued at 3am in Serum.”

Artwork by blondschopff
www.instagram.com/blondschopff/

Master by radek sirko / duy gebord
duygebord.bandcamp.com

Music video by cybernakulum
youtu.be/23AcPdBfkp4
www.instagram.com/cybernakulum/

Released by 𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓾𝓻.𝓁𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓁

YAIRKU Part 1

Premiere: Razmiel - KSET [𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓾𝓻.𝓁𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓁]

Remix via @athingisathingisthething

Jan Julius (they/them) and Noumenal Loom are excited to present Meat Shot Idyllic, a queer future-pop celebration of the unstable collective utopias that arise in opposition to the nihilistic dystopia of our capitalist present. Pulling broadly from experimental internet dance music, contemporary pop and a spread of radical sci-fi and queer art across mediums, Jan Julius melds hard-hitting dance music with off-kilter sound design and richly emotional storytelling. The characters in these songs find liberation in dreams of genderfluid multi-sexed bodies, orgiastic squatter communities, and flaming apocalypses, all portrayed by Jan Julius with the joy, fury and yearning that accompanies feeling like there must be a better future somewhere.

MEAT SHOT IDYLLIC

JAN JULIUS - TONI MILKUS (athing Remix)

Millennium Bug Live 2018​-​2021 (GEN047) out now on Genot Centre on tape & digital.
Limited edition of 151 C36 tapes with on-body printing pro-dubbed by Headless Duplicated Tapes. 
https://genot.bandcamp.com/album/millennium-bug-live-2018-2021

Millennium Bug Live 2018-2021 (GEN047) by https://soundcloud.com/giantclaw presents an ensemble of living pieces, performance re-imaginings explicitly reframing these works as systems of possibilities and interpretations. Haptic, gestural, tense, constantly on the verge of transformation, these selected renditions reveal themselves not just as linearly sequenced polished constructions but as fluid textural zones to traverse freely, colorful scenes to zoom in and scope out of. Still, their presentation is no less lucid, precise or meticulous than the studio cuts, but offer clarification and new perception through staging them explicitly, resulting in a sound realm that is even more plastic, alive and in-your-face.

// About Millennium Bug Live 2018​-​2021 (GEN047)
/ Keith Rankin about the album
“Millennium Bug is a selection of live recordings from various performances I’ve done between 2018 to 2021. For my live setup I take apart tracks I’ve made on the computer, chopping them into miniature wav files and one-shots that can form new arrangements when loaded onto my Roland SPD-SX drum pad sampler. Most of the songs on Millennium Bug come from my albums ‘Soft Channel’ and ‘Mirror Guide’ except “Loner Bug” “Soft Target” and “Drops of Primed Water Leading to Another World” which are non-album pieces. 
I’ve always loved the actual act of performing music, but everything else surrounding IRL live shows has been a source of anxiety in my life since I was a teen. I used to perform constantly, almost masochistically trying to “face the fear” - but it never really went away, and it took a long time to accept that living the life of a touring musician wasn’t something I would be happy doing. Online streaming or pre-recorded events, especially in the past few years, have provided an outlet to perform without that anxiety, so I wanted to capture the period of time with a live album.”

/ Dave Shen about the album art
“After listening to Keith's demo, it gives me an immersive feeling. I feel that it is endowed with a strong "destructive power". This "power" provides a lot of inspiration for my cover creation. Behind this cover is actually a simple story, and I want this album to tell this story by itself. In this story, I refer to the monster "Taotie", which can devour everything, from the ancient Chinese book "Shan Hai Ching". I let it act as a destroyer and devour everything around it. In the process of constructing this story, I want to express is not only the act of destruction. Order and destruction exist like Yin and Yang of Tai Chi. They are balanced. In short, the inspiration for all this creation was born in the demo, which promoted the visual creation of this album.”

// Bio
https://soundcloud.com/giantclaw is the musical project of visual artist and https://soundcloud.com/orangemilk co-founder Keith Rankin. His music has explored a wide range of electronic music since the early 2010s (as Giant Claw and also as part of the groups death’s dynamic shroud and Cream Juice) and his visual art has been seen on album covers from artists like Rico Nasty to institutions like the MIT technology review. The most recent Giant Claw album ‘Mirror Guide’ was released in May 2021.

Music by https://soundcloud.com/giantclaw
Visual art by Dave Shen: https://daveshenwebsite.github.io

Buy tape & digital

SAMPLES

sv1 - sample pack 2020 [demo] (BANDCAMP)

managed to sift through many files and caught a solid 50+ demos that span from 2018 'til current, lasting just over an hours worth of material in length. Here's to a more hopeful new year!

tracklist coming soon...

https://citytronix.com/
www.buymeacoffee.com/citytronix
www.instagram.com/citytronix/
twitter.com/CITYTRONIX

Trilite

CITYTRONIX 'Trilite'

Written, Produced & Mixed by Laces
Mastered by Joker

FOLLOW LACES:
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FOLLOW NLV RECORDS
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Web: https://www.nlvrecords.com

Giant Claw - Thousand Whys (vocals: Tamar Kamin & Diana Gruber)

Orange Milk Records

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