Pete Swanson spent the better part of the last decade exploring ambient noisescapes with his musical partner Gabriel Mindel Saloman, as part of the Portland duo Yellow Swans. After parting ways in 2008 Swanson took his love for noise and ambience in new directions, using them to drive techno into distorted realms of acid bliss on releases like 2011’s Man With Potential and 2012’s Pro Style, both on the Type label. Swanson returns tomorrow with his new EP Punk Authority, out via Software/Mexican Summer, and on the new record he turns the noise up to 11 with a blistering sound that funnels keyboard and beat loops thru over-driven, highly saturated effects to create an aggressive strain of mutant techno. The result turns ideas of ambience up-side down by producing fields of noise so dense and pummeling as to induce a sort of catatonic, k-hole stasis in the listener. This is the kind of music that will be used to de-frag robots in the future! Don’t miss the video for “Grounds For Arrest“, below!
Pete Swanson “Grounds For Arrest”