Solenoid

Supernature

(ORAC)

Record Review by Michael Byrne

Previously published in Williamette Week

The first time I saw David Chandler, a.k.a. Solenoid, he was performing behind camouflage mesh and wearing a flak helmet while crouched over a table of drum machines and synthesizers, unleashing volleys of 4/4 beats. It was like he (and his Cascadian Knights compatriot Paul Dickow) were mounting an assault on the dance floor below. Indeed, there was no defense. And, as expected, there is no defense from Solenoid's Supernature (ORAC), 40 minutes of electronic dance love and glorious brain fuck.

Chandler doesn't let his productions wander far from that dance floor, yet he never lets them be governed by it, either. He keeps his album well within the realm of head-scratchability, throwing in initially ignorable glitches, analog fissures and tightly packed beat sequences. At the disc's crux, that driving force is barely traceable: On the fourth and longest (at six minutes) cut, "Bezoar Tides," Chandler is matching no fewer than three beats, while playing with an atmospheric synth line and washing the mix with irregular acid baths. For a while, the album is nearly without break, linked by that almost eerie synth and, of course, a near-resolute faith in dance continuity. Two-thirds through, however, on "Acid Mule," Chandler's history in experimentalism appears, and Supernature is flipped on its back: The beat drops out, replaced by an undulating bass line, a subtle undercurrent to carry the dance floor while the melodies veer into creepy atmospherics edging on clamor. Two tracks later, he truly kills the beat for the first time, in favor of a bent acid/viola mutation, only to have it return in force 50 seconds later in heavy 4/4 bass pounds. Given the gritty three-minute synthscape that follows, that beat seems to be mere bait. Take it.