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Brainwashed | Saturday, 07 November 2009 |
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Podcast #205: November 3, 2009.
Music from Fjordne, Atlas Sound, OOIOO, Little Annie and Paul Wallfisch, Anzala, Dolor and Velo, Emily Jane White, Michael Hurley with Ida, Benoit Pioulard, Can, and This Immortal Coil.
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New things this week are due from Felix, Efterklang, Chris Brokaw, and (Jason) Molina & (Will) Johnson and old things are due from Neutral Milk Hotel, Nirvana, and Bauhaus. |
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Expect three new releases from Steven Stapleton's end of the universe between now and the end of November including a reissue of his classic album with Tony Wakeford, Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish, the long-awaited homage to truly cosmic sounds, Space Music, and Paranoia in Hi-Fi, a brand new Nurse With Wound album that is literally selling for pennies. ***UPDATE: Cargo Distribution has confirmed that Forced Exposure will be distributing Paranoia in Hi-Fi to stores across North America however there is no confirmation as to what the price will be at the stores in the US or Canada. |
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With a brief tour of Europe and England just over the horizon, Thomas Meluch took some time to answer a few questions for Brainwashed about the state of Benoît Pioulard. In addition to discussing his plans for this tour and the evolution of his live set, Thomas also talks a little about his love for Terrence Malick, his photography, and the new music he's been working on with Windy Weber and Adam Forkner. |
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 Former Slowdive drummer Simon Scott has been building up to releasing his debut solo album for quite some time and his meticulousness and deliberation were decidedly not in vain. Despite Scott's percussionist roots, Navigare is a glacial and often beatless dose of soft-focus sonic heroin that seamlessly integrates his shoegazer past with recent inspiration from ambient experimentalists like Fennesz and Tim Hecker. |
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 This large box of vinyl collects up tons of odds and ends from the Nurse With Wound archive years and it is a considerably good collection of Steven Stapleton’s earliest sonic explorations. The hours of material included here cover all the tape collections, compilation tracks and live recordings that have been out of print for years (decades in most cases). It goes without saying that this is a treasure trove for anyone like me who looks at those rare recordings for sale online, looks in their wallet and sighs with resignation that those recordings will go to someone else. With superb sound quality and a decadent presentation (well, red velour), it is an absolute goldmine of classic recordings and I simply cannot get enough of it. |
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 On the surface, it seems odd that this album would be put out by Taylor Deupree’s 12k label, one that is known for its challenging, often esoteric, output of heady clinical electronic sounds. Small Color is a band that leans far more into the realms of pop than expected from the label. However, by putting this album in the context of the label’s discography, it both shows that 12k does not want to be pigeonholed and that there is far more going on with this band than only pop sounds: there’s a world of complexity that fits right in on the roster. |
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 It is difficult to avoid being moved by the four years of hard work, love, and tireless enthusiasm that Stéphane Grégoire has poured into assembling this globe-spanning homage to the music of Coil, but I have to admit that it completely subverted my expectations in many ways. The Dark Age of Love is a deeply curious and oft-excellent album, but it is also a surprisingly tame one (given its inherently aberrant inspiration). |
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 Emily Jane White’s melancholy and dusty Americana is an unexpected surprise on a label that is better known for being home to acts like Merzbow and Acid Mothers Temple, but it was easy to see why Important Records wanted to put this out once I heard it. Dark Undercoat is an often powerful and mesmerizing debut. |
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 Pure wildness is a difficult aesthetic to grasp. In rock, attempts to evoke it often devolve into tribal kitsch. On their sixth album, OOIOO negotiates that subtle distinction with skill and integrity. Despite some lapses into tedium, the band remains impressive, both in natural musicianship and in the complete absurdity of their art. Armonico Hewa satisfies and frustrates in equal measure and ends up succeeding by blurring the difference. |
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 Fjordne’s fourth album is a warm and evocative plunge into glitchy, immersive ambiance that is (very) loosely inspired by Dazai Osamu’s novel of the same name. While certainly reminiscent of artists like Chihei Hatakeyama in tone, the density, invention, and experimentation on display here make The Setting Sun rather a unique and beguiling entity. |
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 Borrowing their name from the famously disturbed German surrealist/girlfriend and inspiration to Hans Bellmer, Stephen Thrower's first collaboration with experimental guitarist Daniel Knight (Arkkon/Shock Headed Peters) is a challenging and hallucinatory plunge into claustrophobic dread that shares stylistic territory with Thrower's own Cyclobe and (to a lesser extent) his former Coil band mates' late-period ambient work. |
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 Flingco's tombstone shaped speaker might be the perfect gadget for scaring children during Halloween celebrations this year. Actually, among its nine loops I've found a couple capable of unnerving unsuspecting adults. Put it in the right environment and chances are someone will find one of its various outputs less than comfortable. Part toy, part loop machine, and part gimmick, the Black Box is an entertaining gizmo with contributions from Cristal, Haptic, Wrnlrd, and Annie Feldmeier Adams. |
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 The idea of a journalist throwing a hat into the music creation and distribution business makes peers and fans alike cringe concerning the possibilities. Often the results are disastrous and quickly forgotten, yet here we stand face-to-face with Steve Lowenthal’s attempt at curating a series of acoustic guitar-based albums. Cleveland’s own Mark McGuire, renowned the synth world over for his work in Emeralds, is given a new and unique platform through VDSQ to show a different side of his creativity, and Solo Guitar Volume Two accomplishes just that. |
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 Some nine years into this millennium, this former Wire member has released his first album's worth of new material (Ordier was technically an archival release from 1996) just as the decade winds down and another begins anew. Here the sound harkens back more towards his earlier work for dance and installations rather than the full force electronic noise of In Esse or the more electronica based sounds of Ab Ovo. |
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 As the fourth in their long standing domestic activity collaboration series, Marhaug’s harsh noise penchant meets Ratkje’s nuanced and bizarre collaborative techniques to create an album of random cutup sounds, occasional harsh noise blasts, and everything plus the kitchen sink instrumentation that rivals the absurdity of the Schimpfluch Gruppe crew in the best possible way. |
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 Supergroups rarely turn out to be all that super but when The Hidden Hand/Saint Vitus’ Wino, Om’s Al Cisneros, Neurosis’ Scott Kelly and Dale Crover of the Melvins announce that they are making an album together, it is hard not to be expectant of an earth-shattering collection of songs. While they are not earth-shattering, the pieces on this album certainly shake the patch of ground around my stereo. Shrinebuilder’s debut is by no means the best thing any of them have put their names to but the promise of something bigger lurks behind each of the songs featured here. |
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 The irascible and idiosyncratic Michael Hurley has left an alternately memorable and inconsistent wake of releases behind him in his 40+ years of toiling in folk music's lunatic fringe, but he seems to be in the midst of a creative renaissance as of late. This eclectic, lived-in batch of songs is nothing revelatory, but oozes with shambling, offbeat charisma nonetheless. |
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 Steven R. Smith is one of the most fascinating guitarists and writers this country has. Along with talents like Glenn Jones, Jack Rose, and Ben Chasny, he has composed a remarkable and singular body of work grounded in the history and spirit of America (guts and all). After nearly 15 years and well over 30 albums Smith has composed one of his best records yet, one that approaches the greatness of Tableland. Economical and sharply focused, Cities plays out like the soundtrack to humanity's slow and sad funeral. |
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 Adam Forkner’s second album for Kranky sees him further developing his already exquisite sound. Each of the four pieces on this album float in a way that lives up to the album’s title: thick cumulous clouds threatening to rain. The dreamy compositions are low key but utterly bewitching; the sinuous synth rhythms and ephemeral, indistinct vocals create a womb-like feeling of comfort. As such, New Clouds has been good these last few weeks for helping me forget a lot of tension. |
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Erik Satie, "42 Vexations (1893)"
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Kristin Hersh, "Speedbath"
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Join the Party!
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Help Give Some Orphaned CDs a Home
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The Eye vol. 17!
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Killer Pimp announces first batch of 2009 releases
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Brainwashed Sponsorship Now Available
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