Yoshitaka Hikawa & Swan Meat - Knife Splits Ice

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  • The Japanese edit and collage artist Yoshitaka Hikawa and the US sound designer and poet Swan Meat, real name Reba Fay, are internet collaborators. They've been working together online for over a year, sending stems back and forth and sculpting tracks over a lengthy process of editing, sampling and remixing until their individual signatures merge into one. They inhabit similar sound worlds individually, making experimental club music that's glitchy and mercurial with a futuristic pop sensibility. Their compositions tend to be short, abstract and non-sequential bursts of sharp and shattered sounds, often with other strange bits of audio in tow. Knife Splits Ice is their first proper release as a duo. This record is partly inspired by Fay's experiences in hospitals as a young adult, and its title doubles as a metaphor for glacial tonality and glinting surfaces. "Casual Surgical Slang" steers the clinical concept with self-deprecating humour. Cold thuds, blips and smashing glass rattle around a deadpan delivery of the phrase "Does it hurt?," which is occasionally responded to with cartoonish "Ow" cries. The standout is "& Wrench Aught Of Death," the longest tune on the record. It features a spoken-word piece from Fay and a poignant and opalescent instrumental. "Nightmare Aftercare" ends the record in a tornado of samples—including Evanescence—and destructive noise. This EP is difficult but powerful.
  • Tracklist
      01. Everywhereigoicarryaknife 02. Casual Surgical Slang 03. No, No, No 04. & Wrench Aught Of Death feat. DJH 05. Nightmare Aftercare feat. Ssaliva
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