Features Overview
GROFFIC - Bad Luck Comparing Hands
Groffic is an Glitch/IDM Electronic music project based in Texas. Actively producing music since 2021, Groffic has emerged with a series of spacious textures that carry much depth, atmosphere, and subtle quirkiness. Bad Luck Comparing Hands, released in October 2022, portrays an artist that wants you to let go of reality, suspend time, and temporarily lose yourself into a psychedelic abyss – a place where you can just as easily feel and see sounds as you can hear them.
Having not had much experience with Glitch music in general, it was refreshing to hear something like this. It was different. I enjoyed the abrupt twists and turns throughout. I felt as if I was in a giant maze/escape room/haunted house with many futuristic, sci-fi elements, black lights, bursts of neon, and places that make you feel as if you’re on an underwater ship exploring the bottom of the ocean.
Opening with “The Endocrine Tide”, a series of synths encompassing a wide range of timbres washes over you like a wave crashing into the shore. “Mantis Enclosure” bursts in with a frenzy. Glitchy, noisy synth patches are closely melded together like a collage of sounds that will keep you on your toes and in a state of wonder. “Devolution” (Remix) has a steady, downtempo beat, yet contains a harsher sonic aesthetic that shows a nice flow between ambiance and grainy low-end pads. “Xenograft” veers off into more abstract territory, starting off with a deep drone and continuing as a more percussively turbulent beat bursts into the picture. Some spoken word appears throughout, adding some mysterious elements akin to a clincher scene in a Sci-Fi film or series. “Daiba” continues on the same path, adding some bell-like pads over a booming low-end bass motif and a menagerie of noise that quickly swirls like a turbine in a large field near a mountain. “Trapped in a Room of Birds” starts with a series of nightmarish sonic glitches that eventually give way to a spooky warm pad akin to a choir in an abandoned chapel. “Auriga”, the longest track on the album, enters with a cacophonous low-end and eventually builds up to a percussive beat. I get an Industrial vibe from the track, and I think it would be perfectly fitting for an opening to a Horror/Sci-Fi movie or video game. “Underbrush” begins with an interesting departure from the earlier part of the album; a keyboard sound which is reminiscent of a Koto is performed in a harmonious, consonant, major key manner, backed by a low-end string section. Even as the glitchy sensibilities and grainy drums enter the picture, the track still maintains its beauty as it provides a nice moment of clarity.
“Peach Guts” enters like an abrupt slap in the face to wake you up from a daydream, bringing the energetic, dissonant elements back to the forefront with its punchy percussive patterns and its abrupt sonic passages. The haunting, atmospheric high pads give a cinematic sensibility to the track as I think of an epic battle scene in a space based video game or a movie with alien like creatures. “Not Seeming But Being” starts off in to the more distinctly cinematic territory as we’re met, once again, with a haunting yet melodic choir pad, a series of pizzicato strings, and……BOOM. Suddenly the track takes a hard left turn as a punchy, percussive beat enters to counteract the more consonant nature of the cinematic backdrop. “Research Artifact BLCH” has a polymetric feel – even if the beat is maintaining a steady pulse, the synth arrangement sounds as if its purposely clashing with the percussion. As I listened throughout the frenzied yet well-crafted, adventurous movement that builds up to a glorious climax, I imagined an underwater adventure going through a series of twists and turns before approaching the surface once again. “Shell Stalker Classic” downplays the harsher arrangements and brings forth the swirly, atmospheric pads once again. The percussive mallets performed on the track give it a tropical vibe while the arrangement is further complimented by some layered, sonically manipulated vocals and a low key percussive groove. Closing track, “Cosmopolitan Headphone Repair” brings the album full-circle, as nightmarish, dissonantly executed glitchy synth noises, harshly tinged percussive patterns, and eerie vocal layers make a quick, abrupt entrance, sonically torment your senses, and exit just as quickly as they came in.
I heavily enjoyed Groffic’s release, Bad Luck Comparing Hands. I recommend this album to anyone looking for something different in the Electronic genre – something that will keep you on the edge of your seat and ready for any and all surprises that may come your way.