In The Tape Deck this month, Nooga.com spends time with new cassettes from More Eaze, Ziggurat, Asymmetrical Head and SLEEPiES.
More Eaze, “BodiezNc0de”
More Eaze is the moniker through which Marcus Maurice (AKA Marcus Rubio) crafts perfect pieces of abstract electronics filled with undulating rhythms and looping melodies. In his past work, he’s often hid these catchy bits of tone and texture under a host of frayed effects, but if you listen closely, their spiraling musical threads are eventually revealed. Mixing both acoustic and wired patterns, he distills his influences down to their bare melodic elements before reassembling them in a fashion that proves their ecstatic utility. He skips around through genres, laying out a complex and interconnected web of sounds and emotions that can’t easily be traced back to any specific aesthetic.
On his latest cassette, “BodiezNc0de,” he approaches his past from a pop-oriented perspective. Make no mistake, however, these are still wildly inventive songs that buck any idea of traditional structure. The production is as meticulous as always, even when the sounds seem to be warring with one another. But this collection feels far more song-centric than his prior releases, which always felt more impressionistic than purposely regimented. We’re still privy to the weirdness from time to time, but in general, he opts for a more ordered euphoria. Warm string melodies play against the spokes of his electronic tendencies as each song unfurls into a series of complicated examinations on political differences, conceptual ideas of the body and the persistence of physical form.
