Dracula Lewis – Permafrost

The raw numbness, the machinelike quality at the core of this music should not be underestimated. It’s almost abrasive in its nothingness.

The raw numbness, the machinelike quality at the core of this music should not be underestimated. It’s almost abrasive in its nothingness.

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Oh my word this is fun, Dracula Lewis – the gentleman behind the marvellous Hundebiss Records is much talked about and it seems with good reason on this evidence. A strange and short blast of bubbling hails Chrome Riderz, which sounds like some ridiculous fantasy music for a children’s toy advert: a sweep of tinny synths and samples join forces with a beat of sorts simmering away in the background. It feels utterly anarchic music, a sort of fizzy, snappy head rush of high register noises…  And with some kind of incantation we stop and run headlong into the title track, which is best described as a bleak exploration utilising a clumping beat and a repeated chant which sounds like some kind of daft call out. The raw numbness, the machinelike quality at the core of this music should not be underestimated. It’s almost abrasive in its nothingness.

Anyway… the same template is explored further with Marble Eyes; which is slightly more upbeat, but only by a fraction. By the end the vox get increasingly scrambled by samplers. Magnificent. Last up is Spacies which is some kind of bedroom sci fi track; sounding like a stoned whimsy that Edgar Froese or Aphex Twin would have turned out. It’s messy, static and brilliantly spacey, all at once. And it keeps going for 6 minutes, which is far too short. Amazing nonetheless.

It’s brilliant.