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Portion Control
"Wellcome"
Format:
DCD
Online date:
29/4 2004
Label:
self released
Genre:
electropunk
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Portion Control, the name, the myth is back! This time with an album full of atmospherics, noises and beats. Portion Control is the band who taught Ogre how to sing and Bill Leeb how to make simple but efficient bass lines, among other things. Portion Control are living legends when it comes to electronic industrial. Few who have heard them can ignore them. After releasing classics like “The Great Divide”, “Rough Justice”, “Raise The Pulse”, “Go-Talk”, “Hit The Pulse”, “I Staggered Mentally”, “Step Forward” and “Dirty vs. Universe”, among others, it’s almost impossible to ignore this huffing and puffing trio, eventually they will blow your house down.
So are they as vigorous now as they were, on this cyberpunk soundtrack? Yes and no; it seems they are taking a more experimental laid back approach to music on this double CD release, but there are still more straightforward tracks with lyrics urging us to break free from this world of simulacra and simulation. Words like “give me tension and attention, give me anger and aggression” in a song called “Coma”, or the words “see what you want through blind eyes, see what you will ignore the truth… you cannot see the misery” kind of speak for themselves don’t you think? These two tracks are probably the ones that people will like the most. This because they are less experimental, danceable and there are lyrics in them. There are a few more tracks with lyrics, but these songs are either long, like “Onion Jack 2”, or the voice is “hidden” with vocoders as in “Intravenous” or just totally inaudible as in “Barely Alive”. Some other lyrical snippets are present here and there like “is this me running to me” in “Is This Me” and sampled “lyrics” like “technological fucking civilisation” in “Earl Of Kennington” and “this is Hi Fi” in “Fidelity”.
The album is a total assault on your audio senses, it’s hard rhythmic electronics and if you’re ready to be counted step forward. This is not for the squeamish or softhearted so all of you out there listening to Suicide Banano, Vietnamese Nation or Puta Omega thinking it’s the hardest, most complex stuff ever, approach with caution. It’s uncompromising, defiant, relentless and fierce even in the more ambient tracks. “Wellcome” features all the trademarks of Portion Control and it’s an unbroken genealogy from the afore mentioned albums. The only downside here is that it’s a double CD deal. Not all tracks are necessary some are just fillers with no real purpose at least that’s how I as a listener perceive them and sometimes some tracks work better as background noise, and of course we all would like to hear more of Dean Piavannis voice. When you have such a special and unique voice to use, you should. Still it’s better than the great majority of streamlined, slick mass-produced things being released right now. It’s been a long wait and it has been worth it. This album will be a new Portion Control classic and the tracks “Coma”, “Earl Of Kennington”, “Onion Jack 2” and Blind Eyes” are new classic tracks, all in all placing Portion Control in the avant-garde as well as in the fringes of the mainstream insisting on attention and change.
I urge everyone interested in electronic music to go to www.portion-control.net and order the album, you wont be disappointed, and if you don’t like it then at least it will be good karma.
/Magnus Nilsson
Check CDDB tracklists for this record:
Portion Control"Wellcome"
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Reader Opinions
Is life is?
Name: Topka Ull (208.184.65.77)
Rating: 2
Love is all around, lets all around the world to play
masterpiece
Name: rompler (213.38.166.131)
Rating: 10
hugely impressive electronic opus
brutal beats, tons of atmospherics, low fi, hi fi...unlike anything else released in years.
PC are flexing their muscles ... and nobody can touch them...
wellcome has so many twists and turns... the amount of innovation on offer here is staggering...
from the moment you handle the unique packaging to the first few bars you know you are witnessing something very special...
there website has a few short samples ... try thenm out...
Final verdict: 10/10 (most obvious, not)
Name: Kristian (213.113.27.134)
Rating: 2
End Message - 1:43 instumental, with some sort of looping backgroundsound and randomized returning sounds.
Barely Alive - 5:09 instumental, a drumloop in a slow tempo and a looping backgroundsound above that, nothing else beside track 1.
Is This Me - One of the two noninstrumental tracks on this record. We're getting a nice surprise of the intellectual and inspiring text of this track as it consists of the lyrics "Is this...". 3:20 long.
Blue Man Sees Red - This was exciting yet another instrumental, plain track, this time 2 minutes and 20 seconds of soundinterference.
Earl of Kennington - An instrumental track, can it be better? 4:24 this time.
Blind Eyes - The other of the two noninstrumental tracks on this album. Pretty obvious that this track was inspired from one of the 242s tracks on the album Fuck Up Evil (Waste).
Holly Lodge - Guess what. Instrumental. Pointless sounds composed in a 2:51 long piece.
More Than Just a Nuisance - Can it be an instrumental track? YES! Pointless? YES! Tempoless? YES! 1:59 long. Bonus: In the end of the song there are a pleaseant surprise of 20 seconds of sinus.
Onion Jack 2 - 24:57 long instrumental of put together sequences. Yeah!
Lozenge - Here we do a little Chemical Brothers, plainly some bigbeat. 3:45.
Disaster - Blippblopp in 4:11 minutes, around 120 BPM maybe...
Craze - Ah, some drum'n'bass. 2:51 long and yes, instrumental.
Fidelity - 8:47 instrumental and incoherent.
Pure Menace - 4:28 instrumental and incoherent, starting to get tiring.
Intravenous - Instrumental with some guitars and randomized upcoming vocodervoices, 5:28.
Shitter - 0:26, thank god for that!
Paralyzed - Wow, one of the few tracks above 120 BPM. But... Yes -> Instrumental and 5:54 long.
Stair 4 - Yet another pointless instrumental track, 1:23.
Element 118 - 1:24 instrumental.
Onion Jack - 16:33 long. Feels like it's not a synthrecord I'm listening to anylonger. My thoughts goes to Aphex Twin and Future Sound of London.
Xfrontiervanilla - Same shit as earlier just 3:33 long.
Parasite - Some drum'n'bass here again. 3:02.
Prime - Some sounds here, some sounds there and suddenly we have a song of 1:22 minutes.
Coma - 5:51 some vocals here, not bad.
319 rip - This one is good and 11:05. This one really reaches out compared to the rest of the tracks, not.
Electric Hymn - Some randomized chosen noisesounds with a little reverb and delay. A fine ending of this brilliant record. 1:12.
Most obvious a choice of nomination for "best record of the year".
But does it work live? No hardly, Portion Control does have to choose one of their older tracks for their livegigs.
The advantage of WellCome is that one only have to hear one of the tracks to know how the rest sounds.
Final verdict: 10/10 (most obvious)
I like instrumental. But as this sounds like Aphex and FSOL and they are pretty much better then I advise you to buy something with them instead.
To Rauz
Name: Magnus Nilsson (213.89.134.1)
Interesting since I in the review actually said/wrote nothing about the other bands I mentioned. Not a single word. I only said/wrote that PC are less compromising and that people who are used to that sort of music should take it easy when listening to PC. Ok, so I made fun of their names, but that's not exactly trashing now is it? Relevance? Well they are pretty well known names in electronic industrial/EBM/whatever, so I think there's some relevance.
MaNi
PC review
Name: Rauz (80.217.61.163)
I will probably buy this cd but not because of the review - trashing other bands (whether you like them or not) in a totally unrelated manner like this turns me off...
pc are back
Name: jase (172.189.224.243)
there are not to many who can produce pure factory floor muscle than these boys.they deserve more attention.thank the bloke who bought them out of retirement.cool cd.nuff said.
Beyond reproach
Name: Peter (168.103.230.86)
Rating: 10
Two discs was a nice appetizer but I could go for a whole box set, thank you very much. PC are violently alive! This album reminds me of why I love electronic music as much as I do. Flawless.
Definitely kicks ass!
Name: Anders Eklund (217.208.99.54)
Rating: 9
This album kicks some serious ass! They've managed to create a surprisingly fresh and original mix of their old sound with some more modern sounds and they've kept it simple. All you need is a groove and some sheer force!
Punta Omega
Name: Magnus Nilsson (213.89.134.1)
OK, maybe it was unnecessary to call them Puta but I got carried away with this new PC release and well I don't know what to say really. To Punta Omega: I appologise. You are probably really nice, but I just don't like your music, sorry.
wellcome
Name: J Simon (213.38.166.131)
Rating: 9
listen to this to understand why PC are so important to electronic music. it's a breath of fresh air when so many releases are just weak re-hashes. It's sheer power, diversity and intelligence cuts through... never clean or over produced it's an amazing production...restored my faith in darker electronic music...
Fluid beatnicking
Name: spookytone (62.97.196.2)
Rating: 9
Lovely album, just got it (three days after order.. live in europe) and already ive decided to push it to the top of this years releases, shifting and beating the hell out of every corner of the laidback/aggresive elements in me body.. it sounds so effeciently RIGHT electronic dating NOW! but still so very minimal & retro with a Noisy ambience, its CORE surfacing above the structuring.. aWEsOMe DISCS!!
classic electronics
Name: elecjay (62.255.184.86)
Rating: 9
I've got 'wellcome' and it is amazing each time i listen it grows on me. it's a monster release with so many twists and turns... if you like 'difficult electronics' you cannot ignore this release. wellcome back
PC review
Name: Brian (130.225.92.227)
Nice review, I will order the CD, but why these silly words about Punto Omega, they are a new band that kicks serious ass, more than PC will do in the future, I think a lot of people had forgot them, it´s long, long time ago they were a name, nearly 20 years was Psychobod Saves The World released, in 1986, come on were in the year 2004!
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