Altered Zones

By Michael C. Powell

Black Dice are often considered the noise band for people who like pop music, cresting with their chromatic 2004 effort, Creature Comforts. While dissonant and structurally fluid, the trio's music was striking for its warmth and a playfulness, qualities widely missing from the power electronics scene of the early aughts. With his solo project, Eric Copeland takes the opposite approach, creating pop music for the noise kids. His 2007, Paw Tracks-released Hermaphrodite album combined discernible synth melodies with frenzied freeform thrash, and Copeland hasn't turned back since.

His latest full-length, Waco Taco Combo, picks up where 2009's Alien in a Garbage Dump left off, albeit with a more tuneful ear. While retaining the disorienting effects of his more cacophonic earlier work, the vaporous pastiche of extraterrestrial dance rhythms and destroyed dub see Copeland at his most accessible yet. No, you won't find any verses, choruses, or hummable melodies on Waco Taco Combo, but you'd be hard pressed not to bob your head to booty bass summoner "Krankendude," or the wobbly, warped jazz groove he lays down on album opener "Land of Foot." Warbug" brings into focus a truly mischievous chopped and screwed psych-out, while the live version of "Beatlemania" conjures a tightly wound dance hit poised to shut the club down.

Of course, Copeland still indulges in wild experimentation, especially toward the record's final lap. "Wao Taor Condos" propels demented, woozy beats over a bed of creaking static. The 17-minute, kaleidoscopic musique concrète of "Spangled" closes up shop-- a cohesive medley of song sketches, murky half-bangers, and field recordings of street sound he captured while assembling the album during a six-week stint in Copenhagen. Though Copeland has not completely eschewed his noise roots, Waco Taco Combo is unequivocally his most song-oriented work yet. Headphone-rattling rhythmic intensity à la Growing and Excepter are a new priority this go-round, but sculpting dense and subtly wonked soundscapes is still job one for this spirit warrior.