RCRD LBL

M.S.K.

MusicBlog

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Website: http://www.myspace.com/deejaymsk

Bio: "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light" (Mark 13:24)

It was when we were in Tokyo, Para One, Surkin, Tacteel ... (more) and I, we had this label night at Club Yellow. Went great, except when some French-looking guy came up to the stage and gave me a piece of paper that said "Your music sounds like the apocalypse is upon us." I honestly thought it was a compliment, until said French guy and a small horde of Roppongi scumpats met us at the door a couple hours later, VERY angry at us for hastening Armageddon. There was this English girl, gurning hard, who started to beat up our Japanese friends and handlers. Then Surkin did something totally necessary and deserved but totally unacceptable and gruesome at the same time and that was the end of it. In the course of the night I had amassed a good stack of CDs, demos, promos and the like, and MSK's demo was in there.

This new artist of ours is somewhat shrouded in mystery, as befits a guy called "MASK". We know he's been active on the Japanese scene since 1994 and that's about it. And now, in the waning hours of civilization, we give you Lunar, one of our heaviest records, and urge you to see it as a sign in the sun, a flaw in the moon, a dimming of the stars.

And so it happens, MSK's peculiar brand of floor-packing techno is gloriously relentless, quite dark, even claustrophobic. After an innocuous bass 'n' beat prelude, Side Story launches into the build-up to end all build-ups, a seething, snarling beast ostensibly in search for some innocent people to maul, for some buildings (hospitals and nurseries, preferably) to destroy. And when Das Glow shows up and reports for remix duties, whose side do you think he choses to be on? Not ours. He's right up there with the demon-beast, taunting us puny humans with his own style of deft programming, acid synth lines and abrupt breaks.

Doom is here, sure, and a number of great tortures are visited upon us, but Lunar is also a redemptive record, with the title-track and its edit managing to fuse melody and terror, like when it's so dark and noisy in the club that even the walls seem to heave and quake, that your friends look blurred and messy, but at some point the music shifts and shivers and here they are, your friends, faces glowing, kind and benevolent and always willing to help out if you happen to stumble, get ditched or pass out. (less)