Nozomu Matsumoto: Sustainable Hours (LP, The Death Of Rave, April 2020)

I’m not sure, but I think that Nozomu Matsumoto might use the same speech synthesis programme as Eartheater does on, say, C.L.I.T — or, at any rate, it seems to make the same kinds of errors in its prosody. This is pretty emphatically where the similarities end, though.

This record is the soundtrack to an installation by Nile Koetting. And it definitely has an art gallery vibe to it: it is undeniably polite ambient. That’s not meant to sound dismissive. Politeness can be nice sometimes, right? Maybe it would be better to say that, with its chiming, rippling synth lines and its gentle hum and its seaside field recordings and so on, it is very serene and very charming. Of course, the trick to the thing is the robot voice calmly reciting the lyrics of hardcore punk acts such as the Misfits, Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Crass. Oh, and Sid Vicious’s Born To Lose gets a rinse, too, its nihilist tone sparking beautifully off the utopian sci-fi blooping synths and the echoing fountain samples on Night | Disco. You’re probably imagining that this is a daft gimmick that would wear thin well over the course of 43 minutes, and I understand why you’d think that, but somehow is done with enough restraint that it really works.

I bought this from Boomkat. They call it Electronic.