Free Release Friday
Listen to this.
Socket Science: Ephedra
2010, Astor Bell
Socket Science’s second release, Ephedra, is a study in themes and hooks. Each of the album’s three tracks study similar territory–poppy, danceable, moderate-speed electronic music that begs to be in rotation in most people’s iPods.
There are few complaints that I have with this record, other than the criminally small track number. Socket Science’s studies of pop hooks and melodic themes sound short despite their anthemic time span. The tracks are probably too long for the casual listener, certainly far too long for any kind of radio play, however the hooks are so solid you will want to hear their repetition constantly.
It is EPs like Ephedra that really ask the listener why netlabel music hasn’t become a larger part of people’s listening attention. Netlabels are perfectly suited to microcultures. Different than subcultures, microcultures are small communities that are based around specific media and neglect the full-fledged ideological development of subcultures. Today’s highly fractured, yet highly networked society is especially condusive to microcultures, which begs listeners to broaden their horizons and pick up releases like this one.
Socket Science’s studies in themes and hooks are epitomized on “A Friend of the Family,” which features a seven-dwarfish whistle as one of the thematic hooks used in the song. The whistle isn’t exactly inventive in its execution, but it is skilled in terms of its study. Played close to its rhythm, like most of the great sample-based songs of the late 1990s, the rhythm pulls together the theme in “A Friend of the Family” to keep the song flowing freely.
It is this care and attention that epitomizes the worthiness of Socket Science to any electronic fan’s iPod. The deftness and clarity with which the artist executes these three studies of theme and hook is a nice addition to any electronic collection. It begs the microculture, “why not listen to this?” This music is enjoyable, it is marketable, and it definitely has its place.
Mp3s and cover art via Astor Bell
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Louis Korom IV is a writer and designer living in Denton, Texas.
[...] Fine US music and movie site Gather Round the Mic just published a kind review of Ephedra, along with some general thoughs on netlabelism and microcultures as subdivisions of subcultures. Thought I’d pass it on, read it here. [...]