AceMo - Black Populous

Pitchfork 73

As a student at SUNY Purchase, Adrian “Ace” Mojica had the chance to work with Phil Moffa, a producer of gritty techno who holds office hours and teaches classes on mastering techniques. Even though AceMo has been making music for a while (as a member of the New York club-music collective Swim Team, and with a duo of cassettes for Brooklyn’s Bootleg Tapes), Moffa’s hands-on, hardware-centric approach catalyzed an evolution in AceMo’s live techno to a dusty, wheezing beast, now realized more than ever on the visceral, dystopian Black Populous.

Before the first note of Black Populous hits, there’s a brief sound of hissing tape. This fuzzy electrical undercurrent runs through the album out of practical necessity. Armed with decades-old drum machines, synths, samplers, and a four-track cassette deck, AceMo forgoes the sharp-edged, chrome-plated possibilities of manipulating and arranging sounds on a computer for a more kinetic and expressive approach to making beats: sessions captured straight to tape, without edits or overdubs. This approach continues in the recent tradition of the New York underground: punk-techno from outlets like L.I.E.S., the dusty, muffled house of Terek ke, or the low-slung moods of J. Albert. Call it “lo-fi,” but it’s the grimy byproduct of the city’s incessant throb—the take-no-prisoner beats reflect the necessity of hustling to make ends meet in a place as unforgiving as New York. Make noise with the tools you’ve got.

Mojica’s relentless energy bares its teeth on the grinding, eight-minute “Hip Hop Hoax,” and mid-album cut “X Train.” Both tracks are experiments in noise-wrangling, as feedback stretches and squeals into slimey motifs that sound freshly scraped from sewage pipes. The raw energy in “Hip Hop Hoax” is a guttural scream, anchored by a booming 808-style bass drum, trying to break out of its box. The punishing beat pumps through the overloaded mix, and the track sounds at its best with the volume cranked all the way up, as loud as Ace had it running in his studio when he cut the track. “X Train” zips along at almost 140 bpm, effectively simulating an elevated Brooklyn subway car running an express route, the cabin shakes side-to-side while wheels screech and passengers barrel forward.

Opening track “Acid Pact” features Detroit producer 2Lanes alongside Mojica as they dig into an electrical field of sputtering breaks and distant synths. “Acid Pact” feels more situated in the context of a whirlwind LSD trip than the 303/909 acid techno its name implies. Across seven minutes, fluttering synths and a commanding kick drum shift in and out of focus in a kaleidoscopic arrangement. It’s one of the deeper, less abrasive moments on the album, where softer edges feel like momentary comforts compared to the harsh environments these tracks reflect.

The final two cuts, “Black Populous” and “Time 2 Change (Regular Ass Chord)” dive even further into comforting corners. The title track’s gently bobbing melody recalls Huerco S. or Person of Interest, while rapid-fire, iambic kick drums feel like a heartbeat on the verge of attack. At nine minutes, album closer “Time To Change” offers little variation, while a gorgeous chord anchors the slowly building beat in a blunted haze—a gentle coda to a particularly biting, near-80-minute album.

Black Populous’ energy is only hampered by its length, with most tracks stretching upwards of six minutes. But the idea of a “black populous” has universal implications for AceMo, and the album doesn’t need to be digested all at once. Accompanying the release, Mojica writes: “Black is the color of endearment. Black is of pain, black is of freedom, black is cold, black is warm, black populous is whatever you, want it to be.” Even further, Black Populous is the thrum of New York, and in it, AceMo thrives.