First Dog To Visit The Center Of The Earth

On Every Machine (Never Come Down, 2010)

For: Mouse on Mars, Boards of Canada, Gold Panda, Excepter

Byline: Pt. 2 in our ongoing obsession with the adventurous dog and his endless quest for subterranean spelunking.

Woah there, First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth. Woah there, Boy Fruit. Wha’ happen’ here? You may recall back in March, when the TOME was first made privy to the existence of this wildly creative, talented regime of off-the-charts experimental noise-scramblers that Boy Fruit was the one making the singles, not FDVCE. Well, the tables have evidently turned. Boy Fruit’s latest (reviewed here) sunk his muted songs even deeper into the mud than before, circumventing the need for real melodic motifs with a wallowing texture that stewed humbly in its own tasty porridge of gloppy sound making for an at-least-as-satisfying listen to its predecessor, Repulsive. And so here, on the flip-side of things, is FDVCE, not half a year after the release of the amazing Colossus Archosaur, with an album that finds the artist really discovering the advantages of stabilizing noise and a seemingly random, multi-faceted palate of textures into a more rhythm-centric approach with some surprisingly banging beats and very compelling melodic hooks to front. FDVCE: we’ll make a producer out of you yet. Now, this of course isn’t always the case with On Every Machine, but it’s at least noticeable on a fairly large scale... and make no mistake, none of these are “pop” songs in the slightest. But check out the raga-stomp of “P-Queen”—though rife with machine-gun, percussive stabs and a rhythmic variance that rivals Aphex Twin in complexity, underneath it all is a head-nodding, driving forward motion that’s all but unstoppable. “Inner Dudsmind” and (the hilariously titled) “God Damn it, My Neighbors are Barbecuing?” find success in a similar way, the latter especially, having a faster groove with outer-space synths and nervous triangle patterns. The track sounds like the follow-up single to Geogaddi that Boards of Canada couldn't quite figure out for The Campfire Headphase... but you know, weirder. And harder. “Gator 6” meanwhile draws on a techno base, utilizing similar textures as Mouse on Mars did on Idiology, but again... weirder. So I guess the point is that none of On Every Machine will likely make it into your local discotec, lest the cool crowd in your town happen to be a bunch of freaky-deakies. But you and me and some other like-mindedly geeky music nerd friends of ours should be able to rock this one down in my mom’s basement next weekend at my birthday party. We'll just have to keep the volume down, and lights out by 11:00. We're going to freak out and it's gonna be amazing.

To me, what’s most impressive about FDVCE is his keen sense of space, timing, and volume—how each sound is so distinct and direct, yet mixed with constant and complete proportion to whatever else is going on, even while pieces and parts rise and fall and constantly fluctuate in texture. Some sounds are just so awesomely loud and robust, they’ll rattle your skull until your brain is mush, which is a much more pleasant experience than it might sound. Listening to On Every Machine is like being Neo in the Matrix movies (oh no I didn’t!) and seeing everything in digital binary to the point where all the random 1’s and 0’s come together to magically create a beautiful, harmonious din that surrounds your very essence. I’ll sum up shortly and sweetly... you’ve already waited long enough to get obsessed with First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth. If you’ll notice, there’s no shiny, glimmering link down below that says “free download” anywhere on this post. That’s because both FDVCE as well as his equally inventive buzz-cousin Boy Fruit are both officially on a (really sweet looking) Chicago-based label. It’s not too late for you, however... you should absolutely visit the Never Come Down label’s site and haul in as much from these two astounding young men as your little hard drive can carry. GO!

—Craw’z 5/26/2010

First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth Official MySpace

Never Come Down Official Website (buy here)

Directed by Ryan Watson

Boy Fruit

Froot Da Loop (Never Come Down, 04.2010)

For: Early-Animal Collective, Black Dice, Pumps! era Growing

Byline: Less beat-oriented release by the prolific Ohio-an and perennial Tome fav.

Welcome to the second installment of the Tome's coverage of the interstellar weirdness that is Boy Fruit. Boy Fruit's last release, or should I say last month's release (this dude is the Fassbinder of bedroom drone-pop), was rightfully praised up and down by Crawf (read here). It seemed Crawf couldn't get enough of Fruit's oozing, syrupy beats and pitch-shifted synth lines. With the release of Froot Da Loop, the stakes are raised, but not in the obvious direction. The beat-heavy Repulsive gives way to a more textured, murky swamp-scape of sample-based collages, pitch-shifted everything with ample volume swells that make for a much more cerebral headphone experience.

The album opener "Tribal Fruit Dance" had me bobbing my head for a good minute until I noticed something strange about the track. There is no percussion at all. None. The percussive nature of the track is dictated simply by Boy Fruit's deft knob-twirling fingers; loops ebb and flow, get louder and fade out, creating a tide-exchange rhythmic effect. A stunning introduction and a stage setting musical statement of what to expect on Froot Da Loop. Getting busy beneath the surface, Boy Fruit infuses Froot Da Loop with a legion of swirling voices, gloopy synth lines, distorted electric guitars, and New Orleans big brass and high school marching bands, achieving a communal order of strange sounds crawling over each other for attention. Keeping all of these characters from spinning out of control and hurting someone is Boy Fruit's keen sense of timing, that intangible sense of when to put a volume swell here, exactly where a horn sample would kill it, or where to put that reverb-ed out loop that goes "whoooaarrrmp!" on this track. You know, the things they don't teach you at school. Like Crawf said about Repulsive, everything is pitched dooowwwwn, giving the whole album a murky, underwater feel filtered through the muted abscess of a busted ear drum. Strong percussion still underpin several BF compositions including the excellent last two tracks of the album, "Vegan Idiots" and "Adios Amigos!". Given the near-absence of the beat heavy production of Repulsive, Boy Fruit offers an earthbound pastiche of terrestrial sounds and sample heavy drones that stretch Boy Fruit's astounding musicianship into areas that receive less immediate returns but factor way more into street cred and growth as a musician. I am sure someday (in the Blade Runner-esque future) "froot da loop" will be a phrase that works as an adjective meaning to squash the mid-range and bass to create an awesomely disorienting sound.

For example,

"hey cyberdude, I'm wondering what I should do with this part here."

"Just froot dat loop!"

*Jumping high-five*

Urban Dictionary here we come.

Ryan H.

Boy Fruit Myspace

I am sure this is available somewhere on the interwebs, I would suggest contacting BF yourself and ordering a copy. Music this cool should get rewarded with some cold hard cash.