An Incomplete Guide to VORPAL Music

Vorpal is a musical mad scientist. His electronic compositions fall somewhere between the IDM musings of Aphex Twin or µ-Ziq and the short attention span splattertronics of Kid 606 or Venetian Snares. His closest compatriot, stylistically speaking, might be Squarepusher, but without the Jaco Pastorius bass shredding. Despite the occasional blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick edits that border on the cartoonish, the majority of his material has an undeniable groove, although attempting to shake your booty to it might end up looking more like a St. Vitus dance. He is an incredibly patient beat programmer, layering intricate levels of breaks and samples into elaborate productions where the whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts. He is also extremely clever, as song titles like "Pinot Noir Film" and "Hip Hop Wabisabi" might evince, and his ability to chop up a sample (for example, the piano figure on "Gymnopedie V1.01") just to the point where it remains familiar yet not quite graspable; the resulting loop will torment the listener as its source flits to the edge of memory and just as soon escape recognition. And the most amazing quality of An Incomplete Guide to Vorpal Music is its visceralness; it's so nearly tangible that you can imagine it convulsing about in front of your eyes as a series of maniacally leaping shapes and colors that converge to resemble a skittery sketch of an epileptic breakdancer.