Australian music magazine Cyclic Defrost reviews Cancerboy…
I am flattered that Cyclic Defrost, one of the largest and most important Australian music magazines and blogs, reviewed Cancerboy. Thanks to Joshua Meggit for his loving words! You can read the original article here.
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Techno albums on the theme of cancer are hardly commonplace, and Glitterbug’s Cancerboy, producer Till Rohmann’s examination of his childhood struggle with cancer, cloaks disease and machine rhythms in a uniquely institutional form of anxiety. It’s conceptually closest to Matmos and their A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure but sonically more like the soundtracks of Jeff Mills, replacing science fiction with an all too real science fact.
Any fan of electronic music who has spent time in an intensive care unit will be aware of the musical qualities of the various bleeps, whooshes and tones that emanate from life support devices, and this is where Cancerboy begins. ‘Backwards’ is a field recording from the hospital front line, the human presence foregrounded in the laboured Vader-like gasps, surrounded by machine blips and claustrophobic din. These quantize into rhythmic components in ‘To Guess’, a Herbert-like skipping house track that grows both more jazzy and more gloomy as it progresses. By ‘Undertow’ the references are more abstract, acid squelch, heavy bass and reverb all straightforward Techno markers, but the collapse into frenzied electro retains Glitterbug’s idiosynchratic stamp. ‘Those Hopeful Moments’ sounds anything but, a downcast study in Minus linearity, the beatless grey whine of ‘From Here On’ bleaker still, while the vast neon chords of closer ‘We’ll Still Be Here Tomorrow’ offers hope, via the trance-tinged euphoria of Kompakt and Border Community.
Rohmann is wise to keep the direct analogues with the hospital limited, and one finds closer affinities working back, linking dub house shimmers, synthesiser tones and echo with the sounds of treatment. While many of these pieces could be extracted as functional dancefloor tools, the sequencing and variety of styles on presented argue for a linear and narrative listen. It would be too easy to tiptoe around this sensitive subject and offer uncritical praise, but that would be unjust, as Cancerboy is an original and convincing study of hope and dread, mortality and music, and a cohesive and moving album.
Joshua Meggitt