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5 January 2012

Diamond Catalog: Magnified Palette (NNA Tapes)

DIamond Catalog is yet another alias of Pat Maherr, the man responsible for the Type Records project Indignant Senility. I find Diamond Catalog to be way more engaging than his IS moniker (though I’ve enjoyed that music as well). Magnified Palette is an oddly squirmy, elusive four-track mini-album, with a playfulness that reminds me of the weirder outer limits of industrial music in the late 80s or early 90s (Illusion of Safety, Doubting Thomas, Nurse With Wound’s more rhythmic indulgences). “Slith’d On” is a cool rhythmic track that combines insistent drum programming with looped effects and found sounds, always changing shape as it evolves. Its churning samples sounds like industry gone awry, perhaps channeling the ghost of David Tudor’s living electronic organisms. This chuggy persistence continues in “Valveneration,” but its slower pulse gives it more of a dub flavor, despite its swirling amalgamation of effects and noises. This play between rhythm and noise is at the heart of every track, explored in ways that both feel like a throwback to my industrial listening days as much as they seem to look forward in that way that music always seems to, mixing and matching sounds and aesthetics in ways that can feel familiar while they strike a chord that feels particularly refreshing. There’s a full deluxe release of remixes available as well by now, though I’ve been too wrapped up with the originals to have gotten to them yet. Highly recommended!

Buy it: NNA Tapes | Boomkat | iTunes | Amazon

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