Infernal Demon Keito – Facechain
Album information:
Artist: Infernal Demon Keito
Album: Facechain
Type: Full-length (LP)
Release date: 27 July 2017
Label: TKX Vault
Format:
- Digital download (TKX Vault, 2017)
Recommendation: ☀☁☁
A quick note: Facechain is not related to the artist Facechain who released their debut album on Dream Catalogue shortly after TKX Vault published this album. Confusing, I know.
Facechain is the second album released through TKX Vault by Infernal Demon Keito1 – the alienated2 alter ego of Keito Shimuguchi. Released during a hot summer of 2017, Facechain is an ambient/noise ghost tech work that is close to the kind of music released on the Pyramids label, which is related to TKX Vault in that both labels share several projects/artists and are imprints of the Dream Catalogue label. It consists of a single thirty-one minute track.
In contrast to the ghost tech released by Halo Acid,3 Facechain is not “dance music for introverts” – in fact, it’s barely dance at all. Facechain revels in the dark, gloomy corridors of the city and/or mind that invite you to come down and take a walk sometime, see how you like it. To use an extended metaphor – if Halo Acid is the underground Chinatown dance party going on at midnight, then Facechain is the shaded guy leaning against the wall a few blocks down whose face is perpetually obscured by shadow and is only visible due to the smolder of a cigarette.
The song begins with a few minutes of shifting, stuttering static as if a radio is trying to tune into a station that’s a few kilometers barely out of reach. These mix with high-frequency/feedback-esque metallic sounds. The high-frequency sounds gradually get louder – although the static never dies throughout the song – and at approximately the ten-minute mark, some semblance of ambient synthesizers poke through the background with a surprisingly clear, underwater tone. From here, the ambient tones and high-frequency sounds swap focus until the track ends without climax toward the end. The overall effect is furniture music for imbalanced androids; Facechain does well as background listening (however bizarre) and is effectively produced for headphones. The coalescing sounds equally reward active listening.
Tracklist
1. Facechain – (30:56)
1Initials of which are “IDK”. Coincidence? … Knowing TKX Vault, probably not.
2I’m so proud of this double entrendre.
3Owner of the Tekres label, also released Days of Night through TKX Vault in the label’s first run.