Brainwashed dot com http://brainwashed.com Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:13:46 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7707&Itemid=95 Podcast #216: March 16, 2010.New and old music from Beat Manifesto, Jack Rose, Godwin Omabuwa and His Casanova Dandies, Fubura Sekibo, Pan Ron, Jonas Reinhardt, Loscil, Coil, Joanna Newsom, and Yellow Swans. News - Site News Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8123&Itemid=100 It's a slim week for new releases as most labels avoid putting something out during SXSW week but due this week is the second album from Jonas Reinhardt on Kranky plus some archive material from Lou Blond, The Appleseed Cast, Dirty Three, and Lusine. Events - Release Dates Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:21:41 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8119&Itemid=96 Lopez’ music has a way of getting under my skin, in the same way the faint whine from fluorescent lights and computer screens in an office or the background hum of refrigerators and appliances at home do. While listening to Amarok it becomes part of the environment and the mind filters out its steady subliminal assault. At times I almost forgot I had an album playing, but then the pressure either built up with noise reasserting itself, or it halted abruptly at which times I felt an immediate sense of ease and relaxation. These moments don’t last though and the underlying anxiety (both frigid and animalistic) inevitably returns. Reviews - Music Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:18:52 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8121&Itemid=96 Few current artists are as conspicuously detached from their own era as San Francisco’s Jonas Reinhardt, as there is essentially nothing on Powers of Audition or 2008’s self-titled debut that betrays any inspiration gleaned from the last two decades of recorded music (or culture in general). Nevertheless, his influences are pretty eclectic within the narrow confines of analog’s golden age, as hints of space rock, early synth experimentalism, krautrock, and forgotten cult film soundtracks all find their way into his defiantly dated aesthetic. Reviews - Music Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:36:32 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8122&Itemid=96 This is purportedly the final album in Soundway’s excellent Nigeria Special series (a fact that causes me no small amount of pain), but at least it is concluding in fine form. While some of the previous albums may have hit higher highs, the breezy, laid-back songs collected here might be the most consistently strong and listenable batch yet (though without entirely forgoing eccentricity). This will likely be the soundtrack for my summer. Reviews - Music Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:48:52 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8120&Itemid=96 99% is the record that significantly expanded Meat Beat Manifesto’s audience by narrowing the band’s sound. It was somehow smaller, cleaner, and less ambitious than the records before it, but it managed to give the band a voice that a wider audience could understand. Reviews - Music Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:33:06 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8118&Itemid=96 What initially drew me to Anthony Mangicapra’s work was his reminiscence to classic Nurse With Wound and irr. app. (ext.) pieces and over the last few years his own style has become more distinct, his own artistic voice becoming a firm command to listen. On this cassette, the sound he has been developing appears to have undergone another shift and both sides of the tape reveal new facets of his approach to sound. Reviews - Sound Bytes Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:29:05 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8117&Itemid=95 Peter Christopherson has announced through the Threshold House Web site (http://thresholdhouse.com/) a 16 DVD box collecting live performances, loops used on the tour, background projections, and even bits of Coil's infamous constumes. Advance orders will be taken starting March 8th, 2010. News - Buzz Bin Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:05:48 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8114&Itemid=96 Scott Morgan is something of an anomaly in the field of ambient music for having a simple and clear purpose: releasing a consistent stream of reliably good albums. He has no clear avant-garde pretensions, nor any reliance on high-concept philosophical underpinnings or improvisation. He just turns out dense, composed, and immersive washes of sound, year after year. Anyone that has heard Loscil before probably has a pretty good idea of what Endless Falls sounds like, but there is an unexpected surprise at the end that may signal a bold new direction. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:17:33 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8109&Itemid=96 As I grow older and more culturally saturated with each passing year, my capacities for surprise and wonder have become nearly non-existent. Nevertheless, 2006’s Ys completely floored me and has been very firmly entrenched as one of my favorite albums ever since. Given the stunning beauty and imagination of that album and the enormous progression that it displayed from The Milk-Eyed Mender, my expectations for its follow-up were impossibly, crazily high. Unsurprisingly, they were not met. Have One On Me is an enjoyable and accessible album, but it is a decidedly anticlimactic one. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:23:55 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8107&Itemid=96 One of the first images I remember associating with Coil is the sticker that asked, When you listen to Coil do you think of music? After listening to Gold is the Metal many times, my answer remains a strong no. In a discography filled with bizarre and bewildering recordings, this collection of odds and ends still stands out as one of Coil's most difficult and oblique. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:08:46 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8106&Itemid=96 This has always been a hard record for me to understand. It's not a typical long-playing album but it feels like more than just a collection of four singles. The botched track listing on my CD didn't help matters. As a product of remix culture, it's a far-reaching experiment that runs the gamut from funky breaks to outright noise. Reviews - Music Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:22:18 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8116&Itemid=96 “Is that goo or tears coming from your eyes?” Is that noise or music coming from my speakers? This incredible overview of Smegma’s early work is a bounty of strange sounds, haunting atmospheres and some of the weirdest music put on tape. Across 6 LPs and a DVD, Smegma’s formative years spill out like maggots from a freshly disturbed corpse. Yet each of the maggots grows and becomes one of a plethora of magnificent, bizarre chimeras. This is gloriously wild stuff. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:46:11 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8110&Itemid=96 Towards the end of his career, Soleilmoon put in a request to the late Bryn Jones to put together some material that was conventional enough to allow some crossover into the electronic and dance scenes. This wasn’t an absurd request, because at this time his work more than flirted with dance and hip-hop beats, but often it was just as likely to slide into harsh, abrasive textures. The proposed 12 requested by the label was delivered as a 90 minute DAT, all of which is reproduced here. It is two discs of the most ass shaking, head-nodding material he ever did that conjures images of burka clad women shaking their asses, Miami bass style. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:52:25 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8108&Itemid=96 Charlemagne Palestine's monolithic 71 minute organ riff is a sensual, pleasure inducing drone. The crisply sparkling sonority creates a sense of drift, a foreword carrying motion propelled by colliding tones. Buoyed by slow changes that create illusions of movement, the experience of listening to Schlingen-Blangen is one of floating between parallel worlds of harmony and noise. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:26:33 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8113&Itemid=96 This compiles 14 rare tracks from innocent, energetic and progressive 1960s and early 1970s Cambodia; a time which Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (with plenty of help from Western friends) would attempt to obliterate. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:44:28 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8112&Itemid=96 On their debut collaboration, percussionist Steven Hess (Haptic) and Reto Mader (Sum of R) create brilliant film score-ish compositions that, on the surface, are as dark and bleak as any that can be imagined, but the structure and instrumentation used give far more depth and variation to what otherwise could be mundane and trite. The result is a diverse set of pieces that prove there are a wide gradient of shades of gray. Reviews - Music Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:59:05 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8111&Itemid=96 On this combination CDR and 7 single, Crumer continues to demonstrate why he’s so highly regarded in the noise scene. The 7” channels the best elements of the junk metal and maxed out overdrive pedal style, while the CD takes a slow, droning direction to nicely contrast the cut up harsh stuff. Reviews - Sound Bytes Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:55:20 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8104&Itemid=95 In the March 2010 Newsletter the Legendary Pink Dots (/lpd/) have officially announced the departure of members Martijn de Kleer and Niels Van Hoorn. Martijn first appeared on Shadow Weaver in 1992 and has been an on and off member of the group over the years, however Neils has not departed the group since his debut on The Crushed Velvet Apocalypse from 1990. Martijn will be replaced by Erik Drost once again on guitar (re-joining the dots) but for the first time since 1989 the group will perform as a trio with Raymond behind the mixing console. Concert dates and catalog updates available after the jump. News - Site News Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:30:12 +0100 http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8094&Itemid=96 The death of Jack Rose in December brought a premature end to a career that was just getting started. His last album covers nearly every aspect of his repertoire, from ragtime to country-blues to his signature long-form guitar ragas. While it should not be taken as a last testament, Luck in the Valley contains the stylistic and expressive breadth that defined Rose's life as an artist. Reviews - Music Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:44:18 +0100