INTERVIEW: Charles Hoffman

Charles Hoffman

AUTOreverse #14, Summer 2011
CHARLES HOFFMAN
interviewed
by Ian C Stewart

Is there anything you're feeling particularly mouthy about at the moment?
Lately I'm really obsessed with self-importance. I work in web development, and I seem to run into a lot of it in those circles, but it's kind of everywhere in society these days. So many people try so hard to look like something that not only they're not, but also that doesn't even make sense to be. The "creative class" is this myth that messes with your head. People spend money they don't have to try to look like a big wheel, when you're really just like, making silly fun websites that only make money by selling advertising under the false pretense that anybody pays any fucking attention to it. There's so much in our society and economy that's just absurd right now but that people take totally seriously.

REVIEW: Dislocated Tones - "Compound Fractures" compilation, 2011

Dislocated Tones - Compound Fractures, 2011

DISLOCATED TONES
Compound Fractures, download 2011
Here's a fun compilation that's all over the place, stylistically speaking. Chuck Hoffman's opening track is called "Feline & Toddler Vomitorium," it's a neat pile of Casio sampler loops. "Twenty Four" by Arcade is noisy and spaced-out dub, can it be? Yes, it can be. Large beats and fractious beats, and squelched synth stuff. I enjoy. Sampleman also takes a funk-friendly approach with "Small Pink & Black Alien". "Carbon" by Yenoc is another toe-tapper, with its upbeat synth burbles and vocoder vocals. The majority of the other tracks are quite noisy and abrasive., in a couple of cases straddling the line between noise and order. "Ophelia As A Cyborg" by Haru Yasumi is a noisy bit of FUNK, so it's what, IDM, is that the category? That is the noisiest funk track this side of my own work as FZZY PMPR. I like it a lot, though all of the pieces were interesting in their own ways.
Ian C Stewart