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ج ن نƧEL--und Bacc uЯ—Round2אורجَنَّة // starvingpoet
Female:pressure is a network of musicians, producers and DJs so wide and disparate, it is sometimes difficult to digest. Spend enough time on there however, and you will encounter genius equally wide-ranging in nature. A recent encounter of mine has been NYC based Rose Joyce, aka starvingpoet. Joyce's work is chaotic, unpolished and above all else, captivatingly unconventional. A fitting comparison might be (for those who were lucky enough to catch them), the codine-dipped early twitter-released collaborations of Actress and Zomby; frenetic beat experiments with an overarching aesthetic somewhere between grime, ambient, trip-hop and industrial.
Where many producers use Soundcloud as a tool to tease listeners with upcoming releases or entice labels with one or two key selections, Joyce's profile operates like an open diary. Most tracks fill just a few minutes, launching directly into their midst's with little concern for traditional structures. The effect is to thrust the listener into unfamiliar sonic worlds, leaving them with the same tantalising sense of suspense as they begun with.
If you expected Joyce's released works to follow a more coherent format however, you'd be sorely mistaken. As it stands this is just ج ن نƧEL--und Bacc uЯ—Round2אורجَنَّة at the moment, a Bandcamp LP self-released by Joyce compiling 13 of her most daring sonic escapades. From the opening fizzed-out glitch of '夕Yūu LooP Trix Fox Trax AO夕' to the album's closing, 'Pythic Mother Of Pearls And Prostitutes' which is part amphetamine charged ghetto-house, part Gladiator closing sequence, there is never a dull moment.
This is not to say the release doesn't have its more introspective moments however. 'LSD LUX' sounds like being directly wired into a computer mainframe at the Hadron Collider, discordant chimes and reversed percussion darting between one another. 'Yweastern Syvx 109 °' on the other hand places plummeting orchestral samples alongside jarring thrusts of static, like the culmination of several acid trips all at once.
It's clear from the DIY nature of Joyce's work and releases that these mark early steps for the starvingpoet project, yet the quality of her productions is mature way beyond the realms of Bandcamp released debuts. What is even more startling is the fact the tracks included here feel as if they've been put together in short live sessions; freeform and largely improvised. Listen to the way in which 'From Pearl Fountain FloorsᘔჷܨBL_|ack HAllsSϛܨϨ' for example maneuvers gently from sultry bass-grooves to hollowed-out static drones.
In short, ج ن نƧEL--und Bacc uЯ—Round2אורجَنَّة is overspilling with fractured ideas and is all the better for its unorthodox nature. I greatly look forward to the next development.
- Published
- May 24, 2016
- Credits
- Words by Theo Darton-Moore