Phonotaxis - Phonography

Phonotaxis

Phonography

[Phonotaxis; 2008]

4.9

I must admit I found this because of Doujincore, a site that uploads doujin music X times (read: whenever the fuck they feel like it) a week. The only reason I bothered listening to this as because of the main post having the words “This is not the shit I’m looking for.”. Given the heavy bias for J-Core on the site, I decided to download this for shits and giggles, hazarding the guess that it was probably ambient or mellow, and I hit the nail on the head. Still, I wondered why the hate right off the bat, as much worse shit has been shared on their servers for seven days, more deserving of verbal assault, so only why do they feel to call out an album now?

All of the tracks have a bit of ambient influence in them, but utilize it in different ways. flashback utilizes instrumentation and vocals, but feels too uniform to prove of any interest. The polyrhythm drum and bass sections in the second half of bulbous scape overshadow the forgettable first two and a half minutes. harmonoise desperately tries hide the fact that the piano playing is dry, lifeless, and forgettable with crackling static. Despite being the longest song on the album clocking in at over eight and a half minutes, tight light go space has neither buildup or payoff and even less variation. orange is the highlight and the keeper of the release, implementing jazzy rhythms and instrumentation styles with soft synths in background. One of my biggest issues with Phonography are the inconsistent pause times between songs, with some ranging between 5 seconds to a near whole minute.

So nearly 40 minutes of music later, I finally find the answer to the question I asked myself earlier: It’s because it wasn’t lively enough like their precious J-Core. These are the same people who turned their nose up towards the zenith of C77 SUBHUMAN while not batting an eye at an extratone-heavy fecalrocket like PURE EXISTENCE. I can just see them rolling their eyes while groaning when having to upload something that doesn’t average 170 BPM. What rational reason would their be to let a whole load of crappy albums slide without a well-deserved slap upside the head and feel the need to call out something like Phonography that is merely mediocre at worst? Genre-racism.