Acid is dance music in its natural state and no 1983 record from your dad’s basement crates will convince me otherwise. It can growl like techno, it can jack, it can fuel paranoid EBM and industrial dystopian nightmares — it can change into whatever you want it to be with whatever you wrap around it and somehow still sound like itself. These words also could have been written in 1987, ’97 or 2017, because the best thing about acid is its stubborn refusal to be assimilated. Other electronic music once meant to piss off old people and make other people hump speakers in dead loft cemeteries has now been smoothed out as the furniture music for wine bars and boutiques. That will never happen with acid because it never blends into the background. It’s always, stubbornly, greedily about itself.
Another good thing is that an acid track always reaches back and connects itself by umbilicus to the great acid tracks that have come before it. On Kerrie’s latest EP for I Love Acid‘s vinyl label, you can follow these timelines back based on sonic patrimony. “Blackshadow Interloper” evokes the filthy acid of Chicago, of Jack Rabbit’s bubbling squelch and the machine-swing of 808 metronomes. There is something far more sinister in “pHO” — an acid sound from further out in the prairie, so deliciously thick it feels like it’s dripping out of the speakers like honey. “Magneticon” brings a totally different sensibility here — something out of the Bronx, replete with post-brownout pawn shop specials and a hip hop sizzle. Posthuman slaps the ass of “pHO” like a jockey until it approaches something of a gallop. These are “hand numbered and stamped” in an edition of 303 copies, which is also a nice touch if you manage to get one, as I believe these are already sold out.
Kerrie: ILA022 (I Love Acid / July 2020 / 12″ Vinyl)
A1. Kerrie: Blackshadow Interloper
A2. Kerrie: pH0
B1: Kerrie: pH0 (Posthuman Remix)
B2: Kerrie: Magneticon
Back To Life: Originally published in 5 Mag issue 183 featuring Phenomenal Handclap Band, Boddhi Satva, Milly James and more. Support 5 Mag by becoming a member for just $1 per issue.
