DFA is one of those labels you can pretty much always count on -- no matter who the artists are, if they're on DFA you can be sure the music will be lots of funky, trashy fun. And indeed,
Black Meteoric Star's self-titled compilation of 12" singles is full of funky, trashy fun tracks -- the problem is that they're built on a concept that doesn't work very well. The concept is a sort of maximal minimalism: the sound is dense and busy, but the actual musical content generally consists of one or two phrases that are repeated endlessly with little variation. "Death Tunnel" and "Dominatron" are two of the chief offenders; the former consists of one lick and two chords, and goes on for over six minutes. Yes, the texture changes slightly over the course of those six minutes, but nowhere near enough to maintain interest. And those two tracks are the shortest ones on this collection by far. The similarly monotonous "Anthem" drags on for over ten minutes, and "Dawn" -- though it does change things up by starting out as white noise that gradually resolves into a synth pop beat reminiscent of
Erasure -- sits on a single idea for nearly 18 minutes. With every single track you pretty much hear all of the musical content in the first 30 seconds; what remains is repetition with nearly imperceptible variations. For some people this may be just what the doctor ordered; for others, it may send them to the doctor. ~ Rick Anderson