Heavy Rotation 002: The Glitch Mob | Crush Mode.

Can I get a late pass?

I stumbled onto The Glitch Mob by happy accident a couple weeks ago, via a software-related question in Ask Metafilter (kinda like Yahoo Answers, only a hundred times less ignorant). I'd only heard about "glitch" in passing, and knew that it was a subgenre of electronica, but had never took it upon myself to explore and listen to any of it.

Unsurprisingly, there are several types of glitch, the most interesting to me being "glitch hop" which is:

... marked by the DSP laden sonic tapestry and twitchiness of glitch with a more hip-hop style framework. The beat tends to follow hip-hop's break-derived conventions, falling into a range between 85-100 bpm. Instead of using just traditional drum kits, glitch hop's "nerdified drums" are augmented with clicks, bent circuits, and sometimes the cut up vocals of the MC.

Whoa, okay. It sounded like an interesting mash-up of stuff that I already liked. Since I was in the mood to try out some new sounds anyway, curiosity found me on The Glitch Mob's website downloading their free mixtape, Crush Mode.



Soooo I think I've found my new Friday/Saturday night soundtrack for the next month. Not for the faint of heart or eardrum, this album taunts -- no, dares -- you not to blast it. Over the course of twelve seamlessly-blended tracks, Crush Mode smashes your senses with a barrage of aggressive bangers that wouldn't seem out of place in some underground nightclub movie scene. Not that this is trendy hipster music -- these joints bleed a combo of testosterone and vodka, and I'm pretty sure they would probably complement your choice of uppers for the night quite nicely.

But even without a little baggie of amphetamines, the album does its job like a champ. Be forewarned: These are bass-heavy automatic headnodders tailor-made for pre-funking at home, and close-quarter bouncing in the whip on the way to the spot to get your drunken pop-lock on. Cop this music, because Crush Mode does just that: It kicks you in the grill, spikes your drink and frankly, doesn't give a damn. The funny thing is, you'll be saying hell yeah right along with it.