Howard Thomas - Skin Breaker

2LP Vinyl - SS100

Five years since Howard’s cult classic album as H-Fusion for The Death of Rave rewired heads with its haul of ‘Captured Entities’ ranging from crankiest atonal techno to reckless weirdo Jit, his ’Skin Breaker’ album frames a cooler head going deep in-the-zone on bucking, offset machine rhythms synched with some of the strangest electronics we’ve heard from Detroit in a minute. It marks 23 years since Howard first served a mix CD on Sound Signature, and nearly 20 since he cropped up on its ‘Sound Sampler, Pt.1’ comp, over which time he’s earned a cult reputation for his uncompromising grasp and slant on 313 fundamentals, daring to f*ck with the format from deep under its hood to resonate with a diasporic rhizome of Afro-futurists, as well as those in thrall to its inspiration.

In concept and construction ’Skin Breaker’ is tacitly and robustly emblematic of Detroit’s clinamen toward sci-fi and techno that has urged waves of Afro-futurists since the early ‘80s, from The Electrifying Mojo to his influence on Juan Atkins, thru the mythos of UR, Abdul Haqq, Drexicya and the American intelligence of Theo Parrish, and far beyond. In line with the title and perplexing allure of ‘Captured Entities’, the seven expressive engines of ‘Skin Breaker’ instrumentally imply a feeling of alienation and search for a sense of proprioception - effectively, one’s place in the world - that has long been key to the contemporary Afro-American cultural identity, historically reaching back to Sun Ra and George Clinton.

With notions of displaced heritage and provenance in mind, Howard Thomas metaphorically models his ideas in propulsive binds of extra terrestrial tone and rudely offset rhythm that bumps bodies off the grid to properly unusual frequencies. It’s done to strikingly weird effect in the lagging, atonal jag and subaquatic sonar of ‘Foreign Body’ and the pulsating whorl of ‘Fossils’, and more forcefully implied in the Rob Hood-esque monotone of ‘Intrusion’, whilst riding the finest line of jack attack velocity and panicked intensity in the 9 mins of ‘Needlelike’, and sculpting his groove with that oft-imitated, but never bettered, brand of motor-oil spattered, hands-on tactility with the grungy bass and squirming bleeps of ‘Tie Up’.

It’s just unmissable stuff if you favour electronic music built with the rawest finesse and most direct, psychotomimetic effect, or simply have a clue what we’re banging on about. IYKYK!!!

Condition:

Media: Mint (M)

Sleeve: Mint (M)

Track List: 

A1. Skin Breaker
A2. Fossils
B1. Intrusion
B2. Melt
C1. Needlelike
D1. Remote Viewer
D2. Tie Up