Profligate

Profligate

Finding The Floor

Not Not Fun

Philly trawler Noah Anthony’s pulverized industrial designs under the black Profligate flag have grown increasingly caustic and cracked, culminating in the eight misery beat clawhammers comprising his sophomore full-length, Finding The Floor. What’s particularly impressive given Anthony’s history in form-frying outfits like Form A Log and Social Junk is how deft and purposefully these pieces are arranged – asylum weaponry fashioned from scavenged hardware. Of the record’s eight cuts, only “Can’t Stop Shaking” has seen release before (though the LP version is a fresh edit); the rest rip through variously frenzied frequencies of slaughterhouse techno, basement desperation, maniac minimal wave, heavy breathing, and shattered glass dub. Only the closer, “We Can Have It All,” hints at an escape hatch, glassy synth-pop bliss pinned against a Belgian new beat rhythm. All in all a slaying, sleek selection by one of our favorite heads in the game. Electronic body music as existential prison break: “Can’t stop shaking / can’t stand myself.” Mastered by Alex Nagle. Sleeve design by Noah Anthony.

Profligate

Videotape

Not Not Fun

The retirement of Noah Anthony’s Night Burger alias dovetails fluidly into his latest & greatest burned-mind industrial complex: Profligate. His new operational mode retains the aggressive bleakness and concrete atmospheres of previous projects but sculpted into more vigorous, streamlined shames. Videotape marks his 2nd vinyl release (after an excellent debut, Come Follow Me), and it expands his agenda with menacing clarity. “Videotape” is a pummeling ascent of drum machines, flatliner synth, and strobe-lit sequencing. The flip, “Conditioning Trench,” rides a dystopian bass line strafed with Roland claps and paranoid textures through grey voids into an exquisite vanishing point. On the fringes of negative techno, but refracted through a rawer, more basement worldview. A bracing statement by a long-flickering light in American underground music. Recorded in Philadelphia, PA. Artwork & design by Christine Jones.