Review Summary: certainly the weirdest thing you'll hear all day.
Noer the Boy exists in a realm beyond definition. To call his work a disheveled take on glitch, trap and dubstep would be to merely scratch the surface of the man's brilliance in regards to his innovative and exploratory production style. Upon first listen a whole lot of "why" is tossed around the psyche. This EP is downright silly, abrasive, challenging and messy. If most electronic artists "paint their sound with the precision of an air brush", than Noer the Boy is attacking a sketchbook with a carpenter's pencil, and doing so brilliantly. After a couple more spins of
SPILLEDNOISE, the "how" of his sound begins to be the topic of intrigue, and once well acquainted Noer's 2016 EP, the genuine brilliance of his work reveals itself in singular instances of perfection amidst compounding complexity and audial gymnastics.
Those familiar with The Dillinger Escape Plan will be able to draw parallels between their influence on hardcore and what Noer the Boy is doing to the aesthetic principals of the west coast bass music scene; calculated soundscapes spinning around moldless and spastic archetypes held together with scotch tape and sheer will power. Noer the Boy's music is essentially a complete inversion of modern dance music; a twisted and chaotic antithesis to everything that makes the population's feet move. Constantly off-kilter and downright bizarre, the man is clearly out to break ankles and erode people's sanity. With
SPILLEDNOISE we get a real variety show of influences and ideas. Bastardized takes on just about every electronic genre can be heard and his production style is well-versed in taking advantage of creating physical soundscapes and absurd sonic geometry. Tracks like "Femmfatale" and "Goodnight Oakland" offer more mellow contrast to the heavier bangers which for the most part, mercilessly invade all the wrong corners of electronic music with a zeal completely unique to Noer himself.
Bass music is witnessing a real revolution right now, and Noer the Boy still remains a comfortable few steps ahead of the current trends. If wild, bizarre and heavy are adjectives you enjoy paired with your electronic music, then
SPILLEDNOISE is certainly not an album to miss out on. For anyone less acquainted with the Northwest bass music underground, this may not stand as the most accessible listen but will still reveal inklings of a brilliant microcosmos existing in a scene drowning in cliche and stagnation.
