Music

Saying It In 38 Tracks

an expansive LP by URF explores tons of different types of electronic music

Eric Christenson |

BEAT LABORATORY. Keith Anderson in his home work space working on songs for his URF project. His newest effort is a 38 – yeah, count ’em, 38 – tracks of electronic tunes, live takes, beats, soundscapes, and more.
BEAT LABORATORY. Keith Anderson in his home work space working on songs for his URF project. His newest effort is a 38 – yeah, count ’em, 38 – tracks of electronic tunes, live takes, beats, soundscapes, and more.

Most albums nowadays have 10 songs if you’re lucky, 12 or 13 if you want to splurge on a deluxe edition. For local electronic musician Keith Anderson, though, funneling his ideas down into a handful of songs is impossible. His head is bursting with beats and experimental electronic textures for his project URF, so when it came down to putting an album together, he couldn’t do it in less than 38 tracks.

Some are only a couple of dozen seconds long, some are seven or eight minutes long, and all of them present new ideas in crushing, interesting ways. That’s what makes The Snake Eye LP something special.

“Almost every sound on the album was something I created myself with a keyboard, with a bass, percussion. Sometimes I’d create sounds by beating on different things and loading that into a sequencer,” Anderson said. “Often I painstakingly sit for hours and hours cutting and creating loops. It really depends on each track.”

Anderson is influenced by end-of-the-spectrum experimental electronic music like Aphex Twin and Nine Inch Nails, ingesting as much of it as he can between work shifts in Chippewa Falls, adopting greyhounds with his wife, and living day to day. Then at home, Anderson continues to explore the electronic genre, creating what he calls “listening electronica.”

“It’s kind of a cross between ambient at times, breakcore at times, but it’s something you can sit and relax and listen to,” he said. “It’s more something you can think over and contemplate.”

The track titles occasionally reveal the type of music Anderson’s trying to nail. They’re sometimes straightforward (like “Banger” or “Hip Hop Waves” or “1”), some are a little more obscure (like “Microbe 16h” or “394323”) and some are deliciously quirky (like “Reggae Explosion” or “Taco Truck”). Either way, this is a collection bringing a ton of different ideas to the table.

For now, Anderson doesn’t quite have a live show set up, but he’s thinking of ways to pull it off. He doesn’t want it to be merely a reproduction of the album’s content, but more something that will make audiences appreciate it in a new way.

So be on the lookout for more from URF in the future. If the expansive Snake Eyes LP is any indication, there’s a lot more where that came from.

You can find and follow URF on Bandcamp or pick up a copy of The Snake Eyes LP at The Local Store.