Augustus Muller (AKA Gus of Boy Harsher) teams up again with Four Chambers to release 'Cellulosed Bodies', which features two scores, 'Crash' and 'Automaton', through imprint Nude Club Records. Four Chambers is the self-described “project” of experimental pornographer Vex Ashley, filmmaker, photographer, and cultural phenom. Both scores serve as accompaniments to films released by Ashley last year through Four Chambers.
'Crash' and 'Automaton' demonstrate Muller’s mastery of stark, industrial soundscapes. Yet, Muller takes the compositions further - introducing club elements such as ‘nu disco’ tendencies and vocal samples. Thus, he embraces the theme of body meets machine as explored in the visual content of the films.
'Crash' is an homage to David Cronenberg’s 1996 film of the same name. Both Ashley and Cronenberg explore the eroticism of car accidents, a fetish that feels both mechanical and gory. This violent juxtaposition is Muller’s ultimate inspiration. Featured in 'Crash', “Body and Machine” is a pulsing, synth anthem, exhibiting both synthetic echos and playful plucky highlights. “Perverse Technology” is a groovy and discordant number, where “Sharing a Smoke” has a somber austerity, you can almost see the hands pass across leather seats, shattered glass against sweaty bodies, and open-mouth kisses in the headlights.
'Automaton' experiments came from the isolation brought upon the pandemic, which turned many into digital fiends. Ashley explores the fixation of technological intimacy, with Automation, a sci-fi feeling porn that features a severe computer entity and trapped prey, succumbing to pleasure. Unlike, Crash, Muller uses less “industrial” sounds in 'Automaton', instead favoring synthetic instrumentation.“Who is in Control” and “Observation” are chilling examples of this - compositions that feature oblique strings and organ like synthesis. Songs such as “Subdue Yourself”, featuring vocal samples of dominatrix Miss Marilyn, are deftly human, yet “speak” from the perspective of the machine.
Ultimately, both sides of 'Cellulosed Bodies' play with the mercurial erotic relationship between body and machine. A soundscape that is both haunting and humble, Muller’s follow-up with Four Chambers features some of his best score work.
“You belong to the machine, you are nothing, you are use, you are there to be taken…
credits

this album will be released next year by Hydeout Productions, the japanese indie label (hydeout.net).
Emancipator - Guitars / Keyboards / Samples / Production
Cindy Kao - Violin / Additional Vocals
Thao Nguyen - Vocals on "Soon It Will Be Cold Enough to Build Fires," "When I Go," and "Good Knight."
"Some albums just feel so good, so cool, you can誸 help but feel good while listening to them.
Emancipator誷 Soon It Will Be Cold Enough is such an album. Incorporating hints of jazz, electronica, trip-hop and down-tempo into its violins, keys, various samples and the occasional female voice, this 19-year-old college student has put together a release worthier of the attentions of a record label.
Taking a liking to music at an early age, the quality and professionalism of the production is in stark contrast to the fact this artist can誸 even legally buy booze yet. 褽ve?sweeps in with some modified harmony vocals then shows off both Emancipator誷 piano skills as well as the beautiful violins of Cindy Kao, whose work is peppered throughout the 65-minute epic. 襍oon It Will Be Cold Enough To Build Fires?plays around with some lovely acoustic guitars, a sampled horn and some left over vocal cuts from another track.
The rhythm of programmed drums and wash of beautiful violin on 褹nthem?reminds me a little of Moby and DJ Shadow, the tribal beat opening and subsequent electronic bass on 褿ood Knight?feels like some of Bobby Cochran誷 (Hands Upon Black Earth) best work, the driving bass and Kao誷 violin on 襆ionheart?feel like the soundtrack to dusk, while the voice of Thao Nguyen on 襑hen I Go?sings 襬ff key,?as she puts it, but really her style is addictive, sexy and the sound of her lovely speaking voice when she says, 襓ou are nourishing. That誷 what he said?gives me a chill.
The amount of work that went into this album is amazing. As Emancipator himself states, ?蒳nstrumentation on the album was either played and recorded by myself, or was programmed from scratch using individual 詏neshots,?which are basically just recordings of single notes being played. Many of the melodies or bass lines were constructed in this way ?by pitch shifting and moving around individual sounds like sound legos.?
The fact that this is funded not by a record label, but by a college student who does this in his spare time, is admirable. Pop onto his site you can even download some remixes (including his mash up remix pairing Sigur Ros with Mobb Deep. Hearing Mobb Deep rap 襂誱 only 19 but my mind is old?has so much added weight when melded like this). And, to boot, the music is damn cool. Highly recommended."
- reviewed by John Dunphy

花伦乐队专辑

Electronic