Review - connexionbizarre
Hansel - Lorentzian Lineshaper
CD, D-Trash Records, 2006
www.hansel.org
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Hansel hails from Boston, and has come a long way since their first full-length, "Respond_Violence" (2002). With a more focused and direct second album, "Lorentzian Lineshaper," the irrepressible duo of Alan Flux and M.X. Lopex have sampled, programmed and vocalized their way into an underground breakbeat mash-up of rock music meets industrial attitude that spawns quivering little 'cores all over the place. It may sound somewhat messy, but this is the intention - not to mention the price worth paying for afterbirth this tasty and chock-full of crunchy goodness. Hansel's versatile sound, ranging from gritty lo-fi to clean and lustrous, is a diverse and distinctive grafting of hip-hop, illbient, digital hardcore and old school industrial. Most notably, Hansel recollects and channels that feel of 'industrial' music that was happening well before the genre became synonymous with EBM and futurepop.
The strong vocal aspect of "Lorentzian Lineshaper" (better than their murky debut, these well-executed lyrics are lucid and in the forefront) lends the album a decidedly hip-hop imprint, a genre from which Hansel draws much of their inspiration. In opposition to that aspect, however, are crashing breakbeats and digital hardcore stylings that draw comparisons most obviously with genre legends Atari Teenage Riot. Full of vehement passion and often paranoiac, frenzied or adrenalized, "Lorentzian Lineshaper" locates itself thematically on the boundaries of post-apocalyptic desperation, a first-hand witness to the paradoxical struggle of human survival in an immeasurable and empty universe. Hansel injects its robotic atheist vision with emotional content via the integration of classical instruments and orchestrations; strings feature prominently throughout the album - for instance the excellent, anxiety-filled "Mind Control" or the forlorn and vengeful "We are Important" - and "The Uncertainty Principle" even enlists a choir of angels to substantiate its bleak saga.
Instruments are often sharp and biting in their clarity, a superbly glitchcore treatment, while vocals - from spoken to screamed - rely on distortion to push Hansel's existential agenda. From edgy drum & bass rhythms ("Waking the Ghost") to dark fractured beats (title track), buzzing bass frequencies to unrelenting snares ("Pyslents"), and grinding guitars to skittish acid ("Zlotnik [Future Mix]"), the elements that define "Lorentzian Lineshaper" layer over one another seamlessly. In one hour of album length, Hansel packs in a solid seventeen tracks. Thus song durations (the longest at five and a half minutes, the shortest at just over two) are in keeping with their self-professed goal of a traditional 'rock band' format. Perhaps to drive home their unique twist on pop sensibilities, "Heart Breaker" is in fact a Pat Benetar cover. The combination of Hansel's skeptical mindset and hybrid sound makes "Lorentzian Lineshaper" a formidable release, and its crowning touch must be the fantastic album artwork.
-- Dutton Hauhart [9/10]
WELL NOW WE"RE IN SEATTLE AND HAVE A MILLION FANS!
SOME OLD SOME NEW, SOME BLACK and NO JEWS
FRESH FROM GERMANY WITH THE OLD SKOOL FLAVOR!!
DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND WE WILL BE RELEASING A NEW FULL LENGTH ALBUM!!!!!!
IT WILL FEATURE 18 NEW TRACKS, including THE HIT "SMASHED TRASHED (HELLZ HALLWAYZ), AND THE WEST KOAST KLUB HIT "SHAKE YOUR BOOTY (ABSOLUTELY)'
SO IF YOU WANT THE LIMITED VINYL *2000* COPIES PRESSED, YOU NEED TO PAYPAL ME (EMAIL ME FIRST, NOT HANSEL, I NOW HANDLE ALL ORDERS) TEN DOLLARS THE FIRST 200 WILL BE PRESSED PINK AND BLACK SWIRL
WE ARE KALLING IT : "you and whose army? tied up in NOTZ''
SO SUPPORT HARDCORE HIP HOP FLIP FLOP DRUM MACHINE DRIVEN BEATS WITH LYRICAL DEPTH TOM ROBBINS WOULD ENVY
....and you are more than just the part which you encapsulate, for our symbol is the phoenix, the symbol of rejuvenation, the legendary Egyptian eagle of the skies with red and golden plumage, who burns in its nest of myrrh and rises ever new from its own ashes. The final answer to all questions are within you yourself, in the innermost eye which conceals itself from you, because it itself is the see- ing, for I am the symbol of the spirit which recognizes itself in its own eye and of the shadow which conceals itself in light. Do not think, merely remember. In recognition of the recognized, beyond understanding, mankind knows, without knowing, that he knows. For now he knows why he cannot know, but because he knows this, he knows--and is silent! Only in silence is there nothing more which could be expressed in words, and it is no longer a matter of the images behind the truth, but of the truth behind the images behind that throws the one who recognizes back upon himself: upon the truth behind the mask which his image of the recognition hides! For I am nothing because I am all! For being everything I need not be anything else, for I am now the all-encompassing, all-penetrating, all-illuminating “I myself!” ---> S o l v e E t C o a g u l a <---
I am Baphomet, the god of the Templars, and advocate of the damned and guide of the souls through the underworld. In the ancient mystery cults, the priest worshiped me under the name of Abraxas, Venus/The Morning Star, or Lucifer who unites aspects of the darkness and light in one single godly image; but in truth I am substance imprisoned, the world-creating spirit. The material illusion of this manifested reality who moves amongst the realm of the shadows within the Veil Of Maya. Between my horns is a torch alight as symbol of the spirituality which allows itself to be perceived as light, for I am the bringer of light though the darkness. And so I bring mankind the hidden knowledge when I appear in their minds as a field of energy, and they sense my thoughts and believe they are their own: For I have no physical form, but I am just a point of light moving in their brains. You too have just visualized me as an image, for I am the seed, called in- sight by you, which leads the soul back to it's own origin.Through me you encounter who you really are, and through me u lose yourself in the one whom you encircle in ever new images of shifting perception. So I am the godly spirit, who has materialized himself in order to show you how you can form ideas from energies and then, from these, substance. And now you arise in me out of the force of totality as a spark of god, projected into space and time. For it is I who creates you through feeling you because you are a part of that which is I, for I am everything which is. Only when I have completely penetrated you, is all the longing of the flesh assuaged. Then you will become like god and recognize good and evil. But understand that I am more than just the part which touches you here, and you are more than just th
New album ARX KAELI - Highway. released on label Acidsamovar, Russia. Cd packed in wooden box with laser engraving, covered a grey varnish. Time 62 min. Tracks recorded between 2005 - 2008.
when they ask where is hansel I say stuck in the brain of alan the mastermind behind it all. But they don't see it no they wont understand a damn thang.
Master FUX
Nicholas GrittSara Cygma
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