Gargling garble from the inner-most psychosis of mechanical anatomies bloated digital organs, one…man? – stands responsible for some of the best, most enthralling, ridiculous & stand-out hard-Breakcore, spastic Glitch, Speedcore speckled extreme IDM what-the-fuckery over the last decade plus – x3 Duran aka Donna Summer & if I am not utterly in error? – Jason Forrest himself?! Deranged, playful, underhanded, puerile & most frequently offloading in extremist territory, these fast, raucous choppy distortion-prone neuron-smashers run riot like some kind of inflamed erogenous disease. He does not always hit the mark, but his better tracks/releases scorch & soar pretty much at an altitude all of their own & for me claim the ultimate crown of digital-WTF at it’s most mottled? At least in the IDM/Breakcore/Glitch related strain. His rabid synths, preposterous 80’s/early 90’s console/arcade sound effects samplings/content & choice –sped-up helium sounding cartoon/90’s Miami House/Rap samples injected through distorted pathogens create a kind of corybantic carnival of neon cataclysm, with plenty of rutting & frottage. Aside from the scope & scale of the madness-quality & the blurting & spurting pizzazz, this guy really’ really knows how to construct a decent song, programme & escalate some of the most slamming & delicious breaks & choppy renegade Jungle squall. The drops, progressions & the sound/production quality are always hitting the target dead-on. Triple oxymoronic – contrary to the evident expertise, x3 Duran/Forrest? often tears his work a new pustule by plastering tacky Rave & other deliberately kitsch & tawdry cheap sleaze into it’s exposed entrances….trust! – it works an absolute charm.
Now then! To this particular release – “Over Hard”, a….. “full length”!!! It’s a ten tracker & it’s actually, at least for x3 Duran’s standards, somewhat pacified (again, for his standards, this is DEFINITELY not soft shit but it’s not as out-of-control & bone disintegrating as much of his other work). Less of a mauling from Breakcore & Glitch & more Dance-Floor-friendly (mostly) & mid to low tempo liaison, an odd-bod splice of Dub-Step, IDM & Techno through the inevitable x3 Duran prism of disrupted form. Only one track out of the ten on offer really knocks me for several-thousand, the immaculate Homicidal Drug Rage, a short snap of freak-Breakcore swollen to mutation by the delicious merging of super Glitched old-arcade-game FX flux. Pretty much everything else on the album is engaging & very interesting, but causes nowhere near the stupefying stimulation of his full-throttle material.
In that respect you could say overall that this is one of his weaker moments, but if you have not been dunked into the realm of x3 Duran, this is a pretty good place to start. His best work is mostly on compilations, many of which must be out of print (lotta’ this shit came out on LP’s in the Breakcore underground yonks back) but this is a suitable induction indeed. Honestly.. “nobody does it wetter”.
PS: the fuckin’ cover!?!?!
Rekd: 2008?
Label: Cock Rock Disco