Imagine all of Brooklyn as a giant planeterium with an otherworldly laser light show. You know, they have these things regularly in San Francisco where you could pay ten bucks to sit in a darkened hall, chill out to the bloated psychedelia of Pink Floyd and watch the stars. By and by, you start to spot the unlikely fusion of mall culture and science museum texts. Brooklyn, of course, has been a burgeoning, new rock mecca in the last three years. Bigger and shriller, less SF-mellow, Brooklyn now nurses a threat. Black Dice takes you further out, a thousand miles out.

Starting out at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997, Black Dice reaches into a very deep, very primal place. They were already art-terrorists in their early days, but later coaxed out an abrasive concoction of thrash and noise, always making sure their live appearances ended before the 15 minute mark, and pushing up the violence-and-injuries quotient. Dammit, this is NYC, and if you didn't bleed, you didn't live up to the badge of honor.

By 1998, accounts have it the group moved to NYC. Eric Copeland (vocals, percussion), Bjorn Copeland (guitars) and Hisham Bharoocha (drums, vocals) said goodbye to Sebastian Blanck (bass), and welcomed Aaren Warren (electronics). Audiences who were with them from the start began to catch a move from song structures to open-ended sonic explorations. As the word grew, the early seven-inches, singles and mini-albums became much sought-after items, changing hands for big bucks in the protective, tight-lipped underground.

The band's first fully-realized full length Beaches & Canyons (Fat Cat) has changed all that. First released last year on the DFA label, and picked up this year by the arty Fat Cat label based in Brighton, UK, Beach & Canyons will go down in rock history as a genre landmark. This fact is indubitable. Take one listen to the album's daring repudiation of stylistic constraints and compositional orthodoxies, and you'd file this record alongside Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, Swans' Greed/Holy Money, Pixies' Surfer Rosa, all the Godspeed You! Black Emperor records, and the punk end of John Zorn's catalog.

There are five songs only, each a sprawling, mind-blowing discourse that pulls together pounding hardcore rhythms, fluid tempo shifts, high-pitched squeals, muddy beats, crashing waves and bird sounds. "Seabird", which starts off the album, is a tone poem that compresses the repeated sound of wings till bone-chilling creaks remain.

You don't hear clear vocals or lyrics. You don't catch defined melodies. Shorn of choruses and verses, the songs insinuate, whisper, and refract their meanings. You may not comprehend the juxtapositions, blueprints, communications, instructions--but you feel them..

"The Dream is Going Down" is blurry and evocative, and illustrate this work approach best. On the other hand, "Endless Happiness" starts off with a wild chime of sweet guitar and recorder sounds, then swells up with heavy bass runs. The percussion kicks in halfway through the track, bursting the balloon as tape loops build to a frenetic tempo.

There are biases of course, coming to this album. Nicolas Vernhes, who recorded the record at the Rare Book Room in Willliamsburg, New York, is the man who also produced last yea's more reflective Rickets & Scurvy album by David Grubbs. Vernhes, of course, also helmed the flagship album of the electroclash movement of last year. Whatever your take is, and electroclash may indeed have burned itself out, Fischerspooner's gasp of decadent glory, #1, will still play in private bedrooms for years to come. It was produced by Vernhes.

Despite the public interest, Black Dice has maintained a shroud of relative mystery so far, granting very few press interviews. It has also toured the US four times so far, touring with The Rapture and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Sonic Youth. 

The news is that Black Dice have been recording material for a new album, and if the recent 12-inch Cone Toaster (DFA) is any indication of their new direction, they're already cutting the ropes and reaching for new shores. Cone Toaster displays signs that Black Dice may want now to be considered, first and foremost, a dance band with a noise fetish, rather than the other way around. You won't miss the beat beneath the clamorous roar and jazz bass. Boredoms' Yamatsuka Eye wields a big influence on the 12-inch, and nudges the band's sound toward, at awkward points, an almost carefree celebration of rhythm and groove.

The average guy on the street usually reacts to new experiences and new phenomena with fear and distrust. Brave artists, on the other hand, appropriate new ideas and remodel them. Often, the end-product is blather and cul-de-sacs, but sometimes we get a precious work. Black Dice are intrepid voyagers, and this album a pearl. (Fat Cat Records, www.fat-cat.co.uk) Lee Chung Horn

This piece first appeared in Beta in 2003.