Dharma – Technology And Truth
To call Dharma commercially viable is to do her and her bedroom beats a great disservice. Yet, relatively speaking, which is to say when compared to the majority of her label-mates at Skrot Up , Miss Kevyn Greene is a kitten. Despite this, her debut LP Technology And Truth is anything but playful.
With no evident concession to populist thinking, Miss Greene has a patient album on her hands, none of whose 8 tracks are throwaway, and one that’s entirely suited to its reputation as having been manufactured beneath her desk. One can only assume she did it in the dead of night too, letting her inner-weird spill out into aural space.
Though the opener “Apocalyptic Expectations” announces itself on some scuffed beats (perhaps borrowed from a mid-80s Michael Jackson ), it soon devolves into lo-fi hisses and lazy-sounding sci-fi synth that supports Greene’s distorted, near-spoken vocal. And there’s a clever little lollop to the budget sequences and drum patterns of its successor too. Insidious, yet darkly catchy, Greene tampers with her lyrical contribution on “Slave Boy, Teach Me Geometry” to the point of rendering her words sanity-questioning whispers.
Technology And Truth’s tempo then rises for “The Circle Of The Black Thorn”. It chirrups lightly in 8-bit frequencies and synthesised bass repeats while Greene spits like a teutonic automaton, which, though odd for a Texan, does seem to draw favourable comparison with Anika ‘s fine, nearly-dub efforts from earlier this year.
Ever heard an anaemic rave-pulse? You’ll find one on “Material Equivalence”, and it comes spliced with disjointed readings of the alphabet, electronic interference and whipcrack drum interjections. Ever been underground on planet Cybertron? This is what they listen to. And if ever Cybertron did an Atlantis, “Home Sweet Hell” would be the soundtrack. On the flip, it bubbles into life with nauseous synths waves and later rings with tortured murmurings, skipping drum-machine and nervous twittering.
More a track proper, “Sick Dog” lurches like something not at all right, howling and pulsing like a body-popping zombie amid distant air-raid sirens and a warped 80s synth-line. Late on, “Dark Magicks” finally gives in to Greene’s compression, nearly disappearing entirely into a sea of static from which only a haunting synth and clapping drum-line emerge.
Don’t complain when your normal-looking neighbour starts cranking out the beats at midnight; he or she may well be trying their hand at something like Technology And Truth. Grab a few beers instead, and go join them beneath the desk. In Greene’s house, it seems there’s a kitchen sink and a spaceship under there. You never know what you’ll find.
~Technolgy And Truth is out now on LP on Skrot Up .~