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Pete Swanson, “Punk Authority” (Software, 2013)

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It has been quite a while since Swanson’s last major statement (2011’s Man With Potential) and that situation that has not been changed by the release of this 4-song EP (which is only slightly longer than last year’s excellent Pro Style 12″ single). Punk Authority shows some very promising evolution though, ingeniously tweaking Pete’s love of thumping four-on-the-floor beats while significantly cranking up the punishing brutality. In theory, that should make for yet another great Pete Swanson release (and it arguably does), but the content is not always on the same level as the leap forward in style, making this EP sometimes feel comparatively bloated and light on hooks. 

Punk Authority begins in absolutely brilliant fashion with the title piece, as Swanson unleashes a lopsided, lurching beat amidst an avalanche of distorted sub bass, insistently repeating bleeps, and metallic-sounding groans. Characteristically, the kick drum is bludgeoning and ribcage-rattling, but the overall feel is light years away from the dancefloor. Rather, “Punk Authority” sounds more like a hyper-dense take on early industrial, as its crunching, odd-time beat amidst the surrounding chaos strongly evokes a factory full of massive machinery gradually malfunctioning and falling apart. Which, of course, is awesome. 

In fact, it might be the single best thing that Swanson has ever recorded. Unfortunately, Punk Authority‘s momentum begins to rapidly flag with the second song. While I love how gleefully ravaged and blown-out everything in “C.O.P.” sounds, suffocating ugliness alone is not quite enough to sustain a piece for 7+ minutes. By the halfway point, it is clear that Pete has said everything he is going to say and it all starts to feel very plodding and repetitive.

Thankfully, the remaining two pieces are a bit better, even if they fail to make an impact as great as the opener. “Grounds for Arrest” departs from the EP’s template by featuring a recognizable house beat, but Swanson uses it artfully rather than bluntly, stopping and starting it to again mimic an increasingly unstable piece of massive machinery. It also boasts a number of other cool features, like well-timed sizzles of static; thick, insistently burrowing bass; and some very ruined-sounding synth melodies. In fact, the only thing stopping it from approaching the brilliance of the title salvo is that it winds down after just over 3 minutes without ever evolving much.

The 13-minute closer “Life Ends at 30” suffers from exactly the opposite problem, as it badly overstays its welcome (it is almost as long as the other 3 songs combined). That is hugely exasperating, as Swanson again makes inspired use of a house beat, jacking up the distortion and crunch so much that it sounds far more like a rock crusher than a dance beat. Everything else about the song is equally extreme and overloaded, which is why the duration is a problem—it is an absolutely exhausting and unrelenting sensory assault. Music this one-dimensionally bulldozing really needs to be brief to maximize its impact, as such a densely punishing torrent of sound becomes very deadening very quickly. Some of the individual parts are absolutely crushing though—a more condensed edit could have been a stone-cold classic of relentless, mechanized brutality.

Ultimately, Punk Authority occupies the rarefied territory of a release that is equal parts masterpiece and misfire. Both the aesthetic and the production are on a level that towers above nearly everyone else currently making beat-driven noise: no one else sounds like this…and even if they did, they would not sound nearly as great doing it. 

I honestly do not know what Swanson could possibly do that would top “Punk Authority,” nor do I think most of the remaining pieces could have been any heavier. Swanson’s sole misstep seems to have been releasing this EP before the songs were fully perfected, as most pieces are either too long or too short and the weakest ideas are perversely given the most time. As far as I am concerned, Swanson’s evolution can stop here: he has found the perfect aesthetic—now he just needs to perfect the songs.

Listen here.

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Pete Swanson, “Man With Potential” (Type, 2011)

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In the wake of the short-lived mid-2000’s noise explosion, many of the genre’s leading lights either moved on or began experimenting with clever ways to make dissonant chaos sound fresh again. Swanson, formerly one half of Yellow Swans, takes a stab at the latter here by incorporating thumping 4/4 beats into his aesthetic with intermittently bludgeoning success. However, the album’s best pieces are still those where Swanson sticks closest to his familiar terrain of blackened, brooding heaviness.

Appropriately, Man With Potential begins with its most bold and striking piece, “Misery Beat.” It starts with almost three minutes of throbbing synth pulses and layered skittering, stuttering electronic bleeps and squiggles… then kicks into a relentless house beat. I am still pretty confused about how I feel about it, which I guess is a good thing. Such a dumb, obvious beat had a definite sell-by date as far as I am concerned and I don’t think nearly enough time has passed for it be re-purposed into serious music. 

Nevertheless, the effect is a dramatic one and Swanson doesn’t use it to soften his music at all: instead, he escalates the chaos by piling on tortured-sounding guitars, strange burbling, and squalls of static. I think Swanson’s instincts were ultimately good, as it is a heavy and visceral piece that is probably amazing live, but it definitely draws some of its power from cheap thrills. That goddamn beat is impossible to ignore: even gnarled and ruined house music still basically sounds like house music.

The thumping continues with “Remote View,” but it is much more down-tempo and melodic. I’m not fond of it, as it resembles a mediocre Gas song with a thin layer of hissing, stuttering noise piled on top (though I like the weird seagull-like swooping sounds). It is the album’s undeniable low point. Swanson gets some minor momentum back, however, with the somewhat superior “A&Ox0,” which takes similar cues from down-tempo electronica, but it is far more mangled-sounding: the central melodic motif sizzles and breaks apart as it tries to push through the patina of hiss and white noise. It’s a pretty neat effect, but the melody itself isn’t particularly strong.

The second half of the album is much better. It is also less beat-driven, though “Far Out” approximates a much more slow-burning “Misery Beat”: there’s a lot more tense bleeping, swooping, whooshing, rumbling, and pulsing before the kick drum assumes supremacy. Also, it is well-served by its bleakly minimalist melody. It is arguably the best of the rhythmic pieces, but the two comparatively beat-less pieces that follow are the album’s highlights.

The lengthy “Man With Potential” is a masterpiece of chattering, shuddering density. It culminates in a wonderfully forlorn and slow-moving synthesizer progression, but the texture is what elevates it into something truly amazing. With crystalline clarity, Swanson creates an impossibly layered mass of sound that can only be described as “a thousand malfunctioning robots trapped in a small room.” Later on, he piles on even more layers (a heartbeat, something that sounds like a bubbling pool of lava) and it gets even better. It’s simply a massive, quivering wall of sound that sounds like no one else.

The closer, “Face The Music,” brings the beat back, but it is quite buried and secondary this time around. The core of the song is essentially its strange melody and lurching pulse, but the beat successfully adds a sense of urgency without drawing attention away from the real show. Also, it is largely eclipsed by the grinding, roiling mayhem that Pete ultimately unleashes on top of it all. The melody is pretty great here though—easily the best on the album.

Swanson is definitely onto something promising here, but he isn’t quite there yet: Man With Potential feels like a transitional album where he has yet to find the perfect balance between the various facets of his sound. As a noise artist, I’d say he is inarguably at the top of his game though: these songs are unwaveringly sharp, vibrant, seething, and inventive. Unfortunately, beats and melodies make soundscapes seem an awful lot like songs and Pete is still a bit hit-or-miss at making those elements work with maximum effectiveness. That said, wielding strong beats and melodies without drawing focus away from the surrounding texture is no small challenge and Pete succeeds far more than he misfires.