Minneapolis collective Emerald Suspension is the experimental art collective that combined stock market and economic data to make experimental music on their album, “Playing the Market”. Their creative spirit now takes on new life with their second full length album, “DIVINATION”. If you took all the sweet-greasy-tasty bits of techno, big beat, industrial, punk and rock and smashed it down into one real trip of an album, you’ll end with some of the tracks from “DIVINATION”. Emerald Suspension is loud, aggressive, and in sync with its own transgressions, and with each passing track, they increasingly sound like a genre of one.
In small doses, it’s thrillingly visceral stuff. But over multiple tracks, the relentlessly pounding breakbeats, the eclectic spoken word interludes, the wayward samples and sounds can hit you like a sledgehammer. The title track “Divination” is polished, aggressive, eclectic, and shows just how talented Emerald Suspension really is. It’s a slow, strong big beat tune mixed with cyberpunk sensibilities, harsh and distorted guitars and noisy twisted synths.
“Six Feet Closer” is an awesome track with a bigger than life beat layered with industrial styled rhythms. Infused with both male and female robotic vocal interludes, the song will remind you of something out of a terrifying sci-fi movie. Once you come to appreciate the crazy and the unexpected, you’ll come to love every song on Emerald Suspension deliver.
And the reason is easily explained. For all the experimental sounds the structure of their songs are fairly conventional, it’s what’s inside those structures that differentiates itself from the mainstream pack.
This formula allows the least adventurous of us to not be frightened away by totally unrecognizable soundscapes. Yet at the same time there are truly few bands that are able to conjure up such an iconic and menacing sound as can be heard on “Mildred Pierce / Millard Fillmore”, without directly falling into some hardcore genre.
There’s no pretension to these tracks, no slick intro’s or interludes involved; all that are present here are some of the most explosive tracks ever recorded, put together in a tight and cohesive manner. There’s no carry over, no self-indulgent rehashing of themes; each track on offer is identified by its own singular and distinguished sound.
“Not Available” is filled to the brim with ingenious hooks and sounds, plus a huge pile of character making sure that there can be no chance that Emerald Suspension will be overlooked in the near future.
A steady beat plows its way throughout this song as an inspired keyboard line tumbles its way around the listener’s ears. It’s all incredibly effective, and somewhat soothing at the same time, if that sounds at all possible!
Across the board everything put out on these tracks is phenomenal, whether it be deftly distorting the hell out of guitars, or turning keyboard samples in on themselves, the production work is unrivaled at times.
Expanding on ideas introduced elsewhere, and maybe in a mixed bag of genres, it is clear that Emerald Suspension is playing with something new here. This is the sound of the future, happening right now, and the excitement of these tracks seeps through on every note, sound and noise.
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