- Warp artist patten cultivates a loose yet distinctive aesthetic on his Kaleidoscope label. Just about any kind of music is fair game for its releases (vocalists, beatmakers, noiseniks and club heads have all appeared in the catalog), but they're all arranged and presented in unusual ways. From small-batch tape runs to one-of-a-kind live recordings, patten likes to play with formats as much as stylistic conventions. The latest permutation of this ethos is a vinyl series called 50/50, which joins two unrelated and decidedly uncomplimentary EPs onto one record. Vanilla Hammer's Diss Patches—also digitally available as a standalone release—arrives opposite Seductive Atmospheres by Aldous RH, and it's an oily, often unclassifiable batch of freeform electronics. None of the artist's eight productions ever quite hit the three-minute mark, and yet each one crams a lot into the small space.
A current of disjointed techno runs underneath Diss Patches, and Vanilla Hammer mainly sources his ideas from that wellspring. Though an experimentalist like Actress might be his closest relative, Vanilla Hammer dabbles less in elusive, impressionistic beats and more in physicality and maximalism. Take "Inbetween Places" and "A Slow Shadow"—perhaps the least dance-friendly cuts on the EP, even though they're fashioned from chiseled percussion, burly low-end and smatterings of chopped melody or noise. On the other hand, a track like "African Minerals" finds Vanilla Hammer applying his busy production style to a slippery, drum-centric 4/4, while headstrong openers "Photo ID" and "Bike It" split the difference between early Autechre and Opal Tapes regulars like Best Available Technology. Even as Diss Patches jumps between styles and methods, it maintains a fluid and discernable sonic identity. And the effect is no less than intriguing.
Tracklist01. Photo ID
02. Bike It
03. African Minerals
04. Crabskin
05. Inbetween Places
06. A Slow Shadow
07. S p a c e
08. Please Act Like Civilized People