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LP
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BNR 243LP
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The Boysnoize Records catalogue contains more than a decade of milestones in the life of Angeleno DJ and producer Pilo. His signatures -- a focus on sound design, and a digital crunch evocative of hardware rather than software -- are present from the very beginning, but the evolution of Pilo's skill and sophistication is clear as he stretches from electro to experimental to techno and back again in a slowly oscillating gradient. Yet despite his dozen or so releases in just as many years, G.L.A.M. is Pilo's first proper album. That the record embraces the cyclical nature of time is apropos; the artist's journey towards self-actualized mastery always ends with a new beginning. Over the eight tracks of G.L.A.M., Pilo reaches deep into the dream that first ignited the passion that has driven him since. For a chosen few internet-connected American teens in the aughts, the sounds of European electro (and electroclash) trickled down their ethernet cables and instilled a fantasy of exotic, sartorial, sexually-fluid hedonism that felt a world away from the hard-edged masculinity of the hip-hop and skate cultures dominant at home. Pilo opens G.L.A.M. expressing this idealized fantasy with the track "Superstar DJ," channeling the tongue-in-cheek self-celebritizing of Miss Kitten and The Hacker
's seminal work. On the track "A Slow Thinning Halo," Pilo might be conjuring the haunting vocal chops and chiptune simplicity of early Crystal Castles, but the whiplash snap of his drums and sizzling production are all his own. "Spend the Night" is G.L.A.M.'s least nostalgic -- and most unashamedly pop -- offering, with the mic being passed between Sana and DEEVIOUS. DEEVIOUS' sultry singing rides atop the bassline as it hypnotically struts across the floor, while Pilo's skillful arrangement, deft rhythm programming, and atmospheric control elevate the songcraft into full-spectrum worldbuilding. The closing track still references aughts sounds, but it borrows so widely and prolifically that Pilo's reassemblage can only be described as singular. Here, Pilo pushes his engineering into psychoacoustic territory, as the eerie, beautiful melancholy of "One Last Embrace" explodes into a thrashing bassline that warbles like a drowning memory, struggling against the sinking weight of time. Pilo allows it to survive for 16 electrifying, gut-wrenching bars before letting go. In G.L.A.M., as in Pilo's career, as in life, every ending can only be a new beginning.
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12"
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BNR 168EP
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Pilo makes his debut on Boysnoize Records with the pure dancefloor grit of his Flourishes EP. Following his breakout Boys Noize collaborative single Cerebral (2015), the rising star has hit full stride with a four-track assemblage packed with his signature textures and ethereal mesh. Flourishes brings out Pilo's full range as it puts forward both the relentless darkness seen in past productions coupled with a fresh emotive momentum. The result is a new direction for Pilo and an evolving soundscape far beyond his years. And his mom loves it. "Axiom" features Dean Grenier.
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