Aboutface – 8 Esoteric Oddities To Confuse People At A House Party

Music

Despite being a relative newcomer to the music scene, Aboutface has already signalled intention to succeed and break down any walls that may carelessly get in the way. With a release filled with field recordings, acoustic and analogue sounds out now on vinyl and on the way digitally on 19th October, we asked Aboutface to piece together a selection of esoteric oddities – here's the message that we were greeted with as a response, along with the tracks above;

"That purgatorial period of a weekend, the time that quite often follows a club or an all-nighter partying. Usually between 12pm and 3pm at someone’s house, it’s the moment when the recipients of my, and some of my friends record collections sway from the 4 x 4 to the back door. It’s the time to weed out the week, or better ‘weird out the week’, and it’s a fine balance between munity, an empty room, rambunctious laugher and some form of elucidation through a short dipping into the esoteric realm; I take particular pleasure in introducing a game-changer after several hours of single tempo dance music, and this is coincidently the perfect time to do so. The ‘game-changer’ was coined by Psyché Tropes label head Steven McInerney, it’s an ambiguous title ever in flux; the criteria remains the same- the context of the change and it’s effect on the audience in that moment, but as soon as the first gamer-changer drops, any subsequent game-changers’ effect then diminishes and you are then open to ‘the ridicule’. Either way, there certainly will be some people leaving the party. Here are some game-changers that either my peers or I have introduced at that perfect moment, or may well in the future."

The Hazy Path To Misunderstanding is released digitally via Dark Matters on October 19th. Vinyl out now.

LISTEN

Jan Jelinek - Primetime

11 mins of spiralling down a proverbial rabbit-hole it draws you in with playful sounds before sucking you into a cerebral vortex, introducing a rather sinister narration that quickly changes the context. I have yet to be able to play out the full record in a house-party/gig situation, it usually freaks people out to the point someone physically changes it. Pure Genius.

Jan Jelinek - Primetime

11 mins of spiralling down a proverbial rabbit-hole it draws you in with playful sounds before sucking you into a cerebral vortex, introducing a rather sinister narration that quickly changes the context. I have yet to be able to play out the full record in a house-party/gig situation, it usually freaks people out to the point someone physically changes it. Pure Genius.
Edgard Varêse And Le Corbusier - Poême Électronique

A three-track tape performance that was played through 425 speakers at the Brussels World Fair…In 1958! The early Musique Concrete weaves through tape manipulated sounds, chanting, moans and various atonal stabs. The dynamic range makes this quite effective and almost violent at times. Seminal.
Èlg - City H

I could have chosen two or three from Èlg’s bizarre but genius 2012 album Mil Pluton, but chose City H because of its ability to surreptitiously blend in from techno, then eases you into their bleak world. Usually when the rave sounds/jibberish comes in, that’s the moment.
Pita - Get Out

Released in ’99 on the fantastic Editions Mego, this was introduced to me during a lecture when I was studying sound art at L.C.C. Lets just say it has a dramatic shift in colour at around 1 ½ mins. I think this is one of the simplest and most beautiful pieces of music ever, a game-changer in many ways.
Rolando Simmons - Total Annihilation

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Whimsical and suitably silly sounding, detuned glissandi and a cat like lead synth. People usually just piss themselves when this makes a careful introduction. Effective in diverting a sustained period of ‘serious music’. Absolutely love this.
Alien Porno Midgets - We'll Meet Again

Short but effective. I was tempted to use the fabulous 7” Our little grass shack in Kealakekua, but this one just trumped it. Sometimes you have just got to reduce the bitrate, nothing else will do.
Psychic Tv Themes – Part Viii

Couldn’t really have the term ‘esoteric’ without some Psychic TV included. Ritualistic, polyrhythmic and again always a struggle to play all the way though (well not for me, for others). Great minimalist drumming and screeching, always a winning combo in my opinion.
Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business

A firm favourite executed perfectly in the past by DJ/artist A’Bear. What I would like to call a ‘Contagious game changer’- people remember and look up themselves to go about some game-changing of their own. Leeds based Post-Punk funk politica, and it’s fantastic.