Tiny Album Review – Dorian Concept, “When Planets Explode”

Nine seconds into Dorian Concept’s debut artist album When Planets Explode, and you already know you’re listening to something different. Twenty-eight seconds in, the feeling deepens. Forty-five seconds, and you’ve been pushed off the diving board. Finally, one minute in and you’re surrounded by spider webs of tingly audio madness. Hook, line, and dirty electronica.

Dorian Concept (Oliver Thomas Johnson) has discography credits reaching back to 2005 with some singles and remixes, but When Planets Explode is his debut artist album, and quite the experience it is.

Time, speed, structure, tonality and intent all play hocus-pocus with each other in each of the tracks on this album, though more effectively in first half of the album. A rough, broken down-tempo chug lies underneath most of the synthy abstract textures that he presents, while in the others the beat can be more indeterminate and spacey. Ultimately, though, it almost doesn’t matter how fast the actual beat is going, because you aren’t going to be able to keep up with it anyway.

Cue the tracklist, hit the play button. Giddy-up.

When Planets Explode –

“Clap Beep Boom” is a spectacular introduction into the chaotic and barely controlled audio mangling that happens for the next 32 minutes. More than hear them, you can feel the rhythm and lead segments expanding and contracting, changing their individual swing settings, some parts speeding up, others slowing down simultaneously. You can almost see Dorian turning the knobs in front of you.

“Freehanded Monkey” feels like a walk into an audio insane asylum; the notes in the main hook feel like you’re trying to squeeze peanut butter out from a toothpaste tube. Of all the tracks in the album, this is the one, to truly enjoy it, you just have to let be.

In “Color Sexist”, there’s a tonal phrase in the lead line reminiscent of Jeff Samuel’s fantastic track “Fire” that could keep you happy just playing it on repeat, wondering to yourself, “how the hell do you make that sound?” Listening to the song is like wandering through a park in the daylight kicking people in the shins because you’re convinced they can’t see you.

In “Mesh Beam Splitter”, a slow rolling sine bass wanders on top of a drum-and-bass times two snare drum loop. Think an ocean of dark red Jell-O being spooned over the Little Engine on Meth that Could. Eventually, it all gets covered with coconut sprinkles of arpeggiated modal squawks.

“The Fucking Formula” (originally released in 2008 as a 12”) is possibly the most accessible track of the album, with a dark sawtooth lead line that sounds like a swarm of bees, playing a repeated melodic phrase that gets heads nodding over a basic but happily grimy hip-hop beat.

The second half loses some of the energy that’s been gained so far; shortly after “Four Teen” starts with its quicker and more insistent kick drum you’ve zoned out and can just let yourself wash along in Dorian’s experiments with layers (and layers and layers) of heavy, buzzy bass and lead combinations, moving sort of aimlessly and restlessly around in the headspace he created for you.

“Her Marshmallow Secret” brings you back a little bit with some evolving church organ chords back into a dubby, stripped down arrangement. Voices taper in, eventually giving way to a squelchy, bent lead sequence that talks back and forth with a bassline and some atmospheric pads.

“Two Dimensional”, the last track on the album, is a lullaby to set you back down in the world of the living, a simple two minute piece to ground you back in reality.

When Planets Explode is definitely a meditation on the possibility of soundscaping within the constructs of a musical concept. It’s noisy, it’s random, it’s freeform, sometimes it’s a little shrill, and you may find yourself concentrating so hard on finding something to concentrate on that your lose track of the shattered audio edits that wander around the stereo space.

The album ends a touch abruptly, leaving the listener waiting for more, maybe something bigger, or perhaps some more definite release from the tension, but perhaps that’s what Dorian’s next productions will have in store. Look forward to them …