Trevor - Becoming A Bed (2019)

ALTER presents the debut LP release from Melbourne's Trevor, aka graphic artist and Total Control drummer James Vinciguerra. ‘Becoming A Bed’ gathers seven tracks that run the gamut between battered drum-machine beats, minimal-wave, scratchy noise and spoken word. ‘Romp with Monty’ is the album's least demented moment and delightfully evocative of it’s title with simple melodies and rigid drum machine patterns. A sharp contrast to ‘Cabbage Land’s flailing gabber and breaks combination, resembling something akin to Jamal Moss or Beau Wanzer experiencing a severe breakdown of both mind and hardware. These hybrids of erratic, free percussion and wild synth blurts (see also ‘Midi 2’) lend the album a charming edge, favouring a playful kind of experimentation which extends to the album’s calmer moments too. ‘Bedtime Story’ provides one such bit of respite and the only appearance of Vinciguerra’s voice, processed here in a cold, curious monologue that ruminates on lethargy and illness, atop looping dark ambient textures. It's position in the album providing a centrepiece of cavernous and confounding simplicity.

Elsewhere, tongue-in-cheek end skits sound as if they were heckled at the end of a gig and then decidedly left on the tape. The reckless rave of closing cut ‘Speed Ave’ reflects this in-the-moment sensibility, the machines being close to escaping their captain. It may provide the most didactic dancing effort on the record, but neatly aligns with a loose and uninhibited mindset that skirts around the same warped techno vision as label affiliates Cru Servers or Acolytes. This is music for the most fun of dancefloors