Free Death- Tyrone

Artist: Free Death
CD Title: Tyrone
Label: Crunch Pod
Reviewer: Matthew Johnson
Date: 11-19-05

There are a lot of power noise artists that incorporate breakbeats and drum ‘n’ bass into their sound. You’ve probably heard it: frantic beats and distortion, too fast to dance to, interspersed with samples of industrial machinery or horror films. Now, if you took that basic premise and replaced the mechanical sounds and shrieks with finely chopped samples of disco funk, you might be able to approach the sheer wackiness of Free Death’s newest opus. Bearing some resemblance to Defragmentation or perhaps Not Breathing’s more off-the-wall antics, Free Death’s sound incorporates humor, funk and liberal doses of punishing, abrasive drum machine programming. “Unlearn” and “Davey” are full of frantic funk and jarring glitches, and “The Roughest Diamond” incorporates everything from chunks of smooth jazz to discarded refuse from those Gregorian chant CDs that were so popular in the ‘90s. The comparatively less extreme moments are no less compelling. “Insane Beatings” is catchy but abstract, with head-nodding breakbeats as groovy as they are distorted, while “I Am the Devil” is like trip-hop run through a demonically possessed sequencer. “Use Your Head” is also relatively laid back, with crunchy hip-hop beats adorned with horn samples straight out of a ‘70s cop show. Funky and funny, heavy and heady, Free Death defies easy categorization but should appeal to fans of the in-your-face underground techno noise of projects like Alec Empire’s solo material, the Mash Up Sound System or the aforementioned Defragmentation.

Visit https://www.crunchpod.com/freedeath/ for more information on Free Death.