TUNGSTEN GRASSHOPPER - Pyrrhic Victories (Fencing Flatworm; England)
'Lectronic bug wheeze, tappy tap mic efx, glitch and twitch, plastic
dinosaur poo, EQ wind gush, non-dense slow-poke katydid dances. and music
for cats. You too, if you like to boogaloo with spiders and orange
moonglow. Mo' good-humored 'perimental sounds from the excellent Fencing
Flatworm label over yonder in Leeds, England-still-swangs-like-pendulum-dew.Eddie Flowers at www.slippytown.com

Tungsten Grasshopper - Pyrrhic Victories

Tungsten Grasshopper inhabit a compound-eyed alien landscape similar to the scraping insect menace of labelmates (and friends) Klunk. But their minimalist clicks and bleeps, although more varied in a Space Invaders kind of way, are less crunchily distinctive than Klunk's, failing to create the latter's magnified world of nature documentary horror. From The Leeds Guide, May 2001 (widely available around Leeds and nearby towns, £1.50)

Tungsten Grasshopper - pyrrhic victories

This 40 minute CD is made up of 12 diverse tracks of abstract unhurried sketches using a multiplicity of sounds. It is not unlike some of the electro-acoustic music put out by those famous french labels (who I can't remember at present), which has always come across as a bit humourless & staid. However, I found this disc to be a well accomplished composition(s). On 'surface noise' it starts off insectile and gradually transforms into delicate feedback & 'urticaria 2' is easily the best piece here, amusing & organic. Review from Cheeses International, August 2001 (mail order service and newsletter - focuses mainly on hard/abstract electronics and experimental musics) 15 Liverpool Road, Islington, London, N1 0RW steve.cheeses@btinternet.com

TUNGSTEN GRASSHOPPER: "Pyrrhic Victories" CD-R (Fencing Flatworm Recordings)
Song by song: "Brittle": It's fluttering and rattling, close-up sounds, no rhythm, no nothing. sharply, perfectly detailed. Nice. The tension builds, "oooh what's going to happen!". Not much. "Dog": Why is it called dog I wonder? Is that a dog breathing? It sounds cold, ill. "Everyone I knew is dead": A very melodramatic title. The
music is weird, claustrophobic. "One for cats": Is this the sort of thing cats dig? I doubt cats are so bizarrely, coolly calculating as this music would suggest. "Plastic dinosaur": All i can think of is Toy Story. This one almost has a groove. "Starry wisdom": Barebones, unknowable sounds, it's getting all 'complex'on me. Not
a bad thing. "Surface noise": Does it mean 'pond-surface noise'? The clicking, the brainless reflexes of the water boatman as, machine-like, it devours the pond scum. "Urticaria": Perhaps the most appropriate song-title on this CD. This is truly brilliant, the fizzing sound of eczema and of alopecia. "Urticaria 2": This one,
however, sounds like an LCD game. "Narwhal: Ooh, I feel all funny. A little bit sad, and far-away. The 'bass' rhythm detracts. "Urticaria 3": Missed that one. "It was sunny the day she died": Digital closeness as a metaphor for misanthropy. The closer we get to the machine, the more we see the machine in ourselves. No pattern is unguessable. 7/10.

from sunnydaysout website