July 2008

The Archives

• 07.08.08
  Spazzy Joyfull Something-core – The Death Set   Singles (0)

  

  Stumbling around the internet in search of music is a pastime of mine. There’s a lot of methods to scrape out the strange & new nuggets from around the web. A ton of sites offer free downloads, contained within mailers or in the nooks and crannies of their websites. A few of my favorites do come from a email lists: Oh My Rockness deals out a handful & Filter gives you one each Monday when they send out their email list.

  A lot of times, I’ll just grab whatever freebies the web has to offer, shove them in my iTunes and let random work its magic. Via this method a lot of weird and interesting things that I probably wouldn’t have give the proper time to have gotten my ear. This week I’ve assaulted several times by The Death Set and their song ‘Negative Thinking’. From the Kraftwerk-by-way-of-an-Iowa-methlab drum programming to the earnestly fuzzy vocals, the song drips with a minimalist intensity that, once adjusted to, is inescapably charming. Each time the song would pop on, the chopped up samples scattered over the intro would always make me think that early 90’s industrial mp3’s had found their way into my library*. Once the buzzsaw guitars appear the whole affair propels itself forward, propped up on the chanting vocals and an almost calming layer of keyboard. Maybe they’re something like Atari Teenage Riot for the modern days, who knows, but like most of the other bands from Baltimore that have popped up on the radar lately…the key is the jittery, infectious fun.

  The Death Set follows that unspoken citywide manifesto to a T.

  
  
  

  The Death Set – Negative Thinking

  
  

  * As a result of this post, I will now devote my free time to writing a virus that forcibly downloads Front 242 & really early Thrill Kill Kult onto your computer. Look for it 4th quarter ‘08.