Hester "Hiss" Bramble
Role: Broadcast interference artist, experimental voice loopist Status: Voluntarily off-grid Individual Signifier: Still heard laughing faintly at 0400 hours.
Picked Off the Wire Shelf
The Marx Trukker – Couldn’t See Too Clear for Edges
LOG 083 – Picked Off the Wire Shelf
It came in on a CDr, handwritten in permanent marker, wedged behind a cabinet labelled 'UNMARKED RHYTHMS'. Slight coffee stain on the label. No case. Just wrapped in an old flyer for a club that no longer exists. We fed it through the drive. Waited. Then it started looping.
This is Couldn’t See Too Clear for Edges by The Marx Trukker. A wonky, battered take on lo-fi techno, jazzwise beat science, and hissing half-tempo machinery. It's dance music that doesn't try to make you dance. More likely to make you tilt your head.
Rhythm Through Fog
The record lives in the cracks between genres. Kicks duck behind feedback. Synths gurgle like broken fridges. There's brushwork, vibraphone, field recordings of water. It's not chaotic. It just doesn’t care about structure. Every track feels like it was made in a bunker, late at night, with the heater off.
It recalls the dub-techno deconstruction of Porter Ricks, but with more rust and more swing. Tracks like "Norrin Radd Dream Sequence" and "No Use Crying Over Cold Soup" are riddled with tape hiss and detuned piano, but they groove. Barely. Just enough. Like a car that won’t start, but hums in idle.
Why TPV Cares
This is dancefloor detritus. What’s left over when the party leaves and you’re still fiddling with the machines. It’s jazz and dub and electronica smashed together with no interest in fidelity. But the soul is deep.
We like this kind of murk. You don’t play it loud. You play it crooked. Let it lean.
Filed under: outsider techno / ambient house / dubbed-out head music
Recommended use: warehouses / headphones at 3AM / walking through steam vents
TPV recommends Couldn’t See Too Clear for Edges by The Marx Trukker. Best heard when the grid breaks.
