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Andrew Lagowski's S.E.T.I. project has been constructing dark ambient dramas with an extra-terrestrial sensibility for over 20 years, blending unidentifiable electronic passages with moments of identifiable synthesizers or samples, and Final Trajectory is the culmination of that. Culled from 30 years of recordings, this album drifts from fascinating to terrifying, much like massive expanse of the universe that influenced it.
Consisting of a single, nearly hour long piece, the album first begins with dramatic sweeps of electronics; lush synthesizer pads clashing with chirpy, modular electronic noises that prevent the music from ever becoming too calm.Just as the backing layers begin to drift off into a soft, pensive bit of spaciousness, the erratic outbursts cut through like static on a distant radio transmission.
Between these dissonant moments, the remainder builds to a cold ambience that vacillates between peaceful and bleak, blending the quiet keyboards with fuzzy waves of electronics.As the piece goes on, the calmer moments are broken up not by abrupt electronics but by heavily processed voice samples that sound simultaneously human and alien, either heavily effected by interference or the sound of another organism entirely.
This cycle of dramatic, yet sparse electronics with sharp, dissonant outbursts is the recurring motif of Final Trajectory.Synth strings build to a quiet, yet tense level to be interrupted by heavily processed samples, electronic blips, or stuttering, digital glitches.At times, even without the interruptions, the more traditional keyboard passages take on a darker, more aggressive direction.
While it might have a clearly cyclic structure to it, there is an overarching progression to the piece that slowly builds its way into a noisier, crackling near apocalypse of sound to then lightly drift away peacefully in the darkness.The metaphor of space travel and the unknown is a recurring theme amongst many electronic artists, but only a handful manages to do it as well as Lagowski.The symbolism is overt, and at times the approach may lean into science fiction more than theoretical astrophysics, but those are the moments that keep Final Trajectory unique and compelling.
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I have noted in the past that few artists are quite as chameleonic as Barn Owl, an observation that Jon Porras seems to have taken as a challenge, as he has now gone and made a dub techno album.  While I do not think that he should necessarily quit his day job, the better moments of Light Divide make it seem like Porras has been doing this forever.  In particular, the opening, "Apeiron," is 7-minutes of warmly hissing greatness.  The rest of the album is not quite on the same level, but it is certainly a pleasant and well-executed stylistic departure nonetheless.
As divergent as dub techno initially seems from Porras' drone-heavy past, the connecting threads are evident right from the very beginning of "Apeiron," as it is built primarily upon a single sustained synth chord.  The key difference is that Jon now leaves that backbone alone to quaver gently over a deep bass thump and echoing, processed percussion rather than using it as a foundation for more layers of guitars and synthesizers.  Porras' old melodic/harmonic sensibilities still remain as well: they are just a bit buried this time around–pleasantly so, actually.  By the time "Apeiron" finally ends, there is enough subtle darkness and complexity swirling in the warm and eerie haze that it ultimately sounds a lot more like Angelo Badalamenti than, say, Pole.
Jon does not quite keep that remarkable feat going for the remaining four songs, but he is not short of good ideas nor is he a slouch at executing them.  In fact, the sole flaw with Light Divide lies mostly with Porras' odd compositional choices, as every other piece takes some kind of momentum-sapping detour around its midpoint.  "Recollection," for example, is a bit more active melodically than its predecessor, weaving together a ghostly nimbus of drifting and shimmering synths.  Unexpectedly, however, Porras undercuts that with a cavernous thump and rumble that almost veers into singularly dancefloor-unfriendly Lustmord territory before the piece ultimately dissipates into a beat-less coda of woozily rippling synths, hissing swells, and reverberating chords.
The following "Divide" initially ditches the dark ambient tendencies to take another crack at the successful formula of "Apreiron," but abruptly dissolves into gloomy rumbling and clattering after about two minutes as well.  That disappointed me, though the piece is redeemed a bit by the gradual fade-in of some gently flanging and hallucinatory synth chords.  "New Monument," on the other hand, is a warmly drifting drone piece augmented by plenty of echoes, hisses, and buried shudders.  Unfortunately, Porras again decides to completely stop the song and changes motifs halfway through.  The problem is not that the new motif is particularly weak–it is just that it feels sudden and puzzling.  A five-minute song is probably too short for multiple movements unless an artist is a master at seamless, organic-feeling transitions, which is one skill that Jon cannot currently boast.
Light Divide concludes with the strong "Pleiades," which reprises the album's themes of echoing clatters, buried throbs, and quavering synths, but does it a bit better than some of the previous pieces.  I especially enjoy how overloaded the sub bass sounds.  Naturally, that theme does not last, but the pulsing drone that replaces it is perhaps even better.  Ultimately, that all adds up to a characteristically likable, but somewhat minor and exasperating effort from Porras.  I definitely wish the rest of Light Divide had lived up to the great promise of "Apeiron" or at least given its various grooves and themes more time to properly unfold, yet I suspect the drone-damaged, "fits-and-starts" nature of these pieces was an intentional move in order to do something distinctive rather than lapsing into mere dub techno pastiche.  I bet Light Divide could have been quite a great pastiche though.
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Based in Montreal, Kyle Bobby Dunn has been producing elegant and refined works of ambient minimalism for the better part of a decade. His two lengthy and critically lauded collections for the Low Point label, A Young Person’s Guide… and Bring Me the Head of…, established him as a force to be reckoned with in the current epoch of drone/ambient music. Indeed, he is a rare artist whose compositions offer listeners wonder, sadness and pathos in equal measure, and are executed with a precision and effortlessness that eludes most musicians working in the genre.
With Kyle Bobby Dunn and the Infinite Sadness, he has produced what is undoubtedly his most focused and emotionally charged work thus far, a rich, expansive collection of slowly unfurling beauty that stretches out over the course of more than two hours. Dunn's trademark guitar swells and slow-moving loops are present here, but feel clearer and with a renewed sense of purpose and poise. He recorded source material for the album in various Canadian towns, including Belleville and Dorset, and processed and arranged the recordings at L'auberge de Dunn Studios in Montreal while, in his own words, "reflecting heavily on the gorgeous feet of a certain French woman and binging on strong beers and cheese."
From the opening salvo, "Ouverture de Peter Hodge Transport," Dunn establishes a haunting, lovelorn trajectory that is developed through pieces such as the strikingly beautiful "Boring Foothills of Foot Fetishville" and the poignant closer "And the Day is Dunn and I Can Only Think of You," titles which exhibit well his trademark sense of (black) humor. A powerful statement and what is at once the artist's most complex, complete and accessible album to date, we’re pleased and honored to present "Kyle Bobby Dunn and the Infinite Sadness."
More informational is available here.
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Young God Records is delighted to announce the release of a new album, To Be Kind, out on May 13, 2014. The album will be released on Young God Records (North America) and Mute in the rest of the world.
A NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA:
Hello There,
We (Swans) have recently completed our new album. It is called To Be Kind. The release date is set for May 13, 2014. It will be available as a triple vinyl album, a double CD, and a 2XCD Deluxe Edition that will include a live DVD. It will also be available digitally.
The album was produced by me, and it was recorded by the venerable John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso Texas, and further recordings and mixing were accomplished at John's studio in Dallas, Texas. We commenced rehearsals as Sonic Ranch in early October 2013, began recording soon thereafter, then completed the process of mixing with John in Dallas by mid December 2013.
A good portion of the material for this album was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13. Much of the music was otherwise conjured in the studio environment.
The recordings and entire process of this album were generously and perhaps vaingloriously funded by Swans supporters through our auspices at younggodrecords.com via the release of a special, handmade 2xCD live album entitled Not Here / Not Now.
The Swans are: Michael Gira, Norman Westberg, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo, Thor Harris, Christopher Pravdica.
Special Guests for this record include: Little Annie (Annie sang a duet with me on the song "Some Things We Do," the strings for which were ecstatically arranged and played by Julia Kent); St. Vincent (Annie Clark sang numerous, multi-tracked vocals throughout the record); Cold Specks (Al contributed numerous multi-tracked vocals to the song "Bring the Sun"); Bill Rieflin (honorary Swan Bill played instruments ranging from additional drums, to synthesizers, to piano, to electric guitar and so on. He has been a frequent contributor to Swans and Angels of Light and is currently playing with King Crimson).
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Mute is delighted to announce the release of Ben Frost’s next record A U R O R A, out on May 26, 2014. This is Frost's highly anticipated fifth solo release, his first since the widely acclaimed BY THE THROAT from 2009.
These lean, athletic visions seem to stand testament to a kind of survival – a proof of life. Muscular shapes maintained only to a level of functioning physical survival, of necessity, and no further; filthy, uncivilized, caked in sweat, and battery acid.
Starved of all the adornments of its predecessor; wholly absent of guitar, of piano, of string instruments and natural wooden intimacy, A U R O R A offers a defiant new world of fiercely synthetic shapes and galactic interference, pummeling skins and pure metals.
Performed by Ben Frost with Greg Fox (ex-Liturgy), Shahzad Ismaily and Thor Harris (SWANS) and largely written in Eastern DR Congo, A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force.
This is no pristine vision of digital music; but an offering of interrupted future time, where emergency flares illuminate ruined nightclubs and the faith of the dancefloor rests in a diesel-powered generator spewing forth its own extinction, eating rancid fuel so loudly it threatens to overrun the very music it is powering.
And so, is the ongoing evolution of Frost's music, conceived as equally the observer, as the catalyst in this music, and harbinger of the idea that so often we think of beauty when in fact we should be thinking of destruction. The result, mixed in Reykjavík with Bedroom Community head Valgeir Sigurðsson, is a machined musical surface, evolved and refined, yet irrevocably damaged.
Curiously, darkness is expelled to the muddy sedge and a confusing irradiant glow permeates A U R O R A, where everything once wounded, remains fiercely animate and luminescent with charged destruction.
More information is available here.
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Glenn Jones has emerged as a clear leader in the new wave of American Primitive music for solo acoustic guitar. Many have mentioned his friendship with the late John Fahey, the genre's progenitor and demigod, but Glenn's music is truly all his own. His pensive sentimentality and playful spirit, not to mention his innovative technique, have become just as ingrained into the style’s DNA as any hallmarks of the original Takoma school. Welcomed Wherever I Go is a collection of live numbers, one featuring fellow guitarist Cian Nugent, and one forgotten tune recorded, speculatively, during the 2007 sessions for Jack Rose's Dr. Ragtime and His Pals.
"Island III" and "Against My Ruin" were both originally recorded for Glenn's 2007 album Against Which the Sea Continually Beats, and were subsequently played live as a medley. The recording that appears on Welcomed Wherever I Go was recorded in December of 2011 at the well-loved and now shuttered Brooklyn club Zebulon. "From A Lost Session" was a recording lost to time until Glenn discovered an unmarked CD-R in his archives, presumably during that classic session with Jack Rose. It is a particularly meditative track for Glenn, in a minor key with an incessant pedal tone not unlike Rose's pieces of the same era. The entire b-side of the release is occupied by a live take of "The Orca Grande Cement Factory at Victorville," a duet with similarly innovative guitarist Cian Nugent. Glenn will only play the song live in duet settings where the second musician has little to no preparation or coaching, letting them add to his instrumental musings, ignore them, or destroy them completely. Nugent's interpretation leans more toward the former.
Welcomed Wherever I Go is being released in a limited edition, vinyl-only format for Record Store Day 2014. Glenn will be doing limited touring in 2014, mostly in support of a new biography on John Fahey by Steve Lowenthal.
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In typically cryptic fashion, no information is provided about any of them...but here they are!
Alley Catss & S Olbricht
Ford Foster & William Watts
James Place
KETEV
Austin Cesear & Stefen Jós
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Psychic 9-5 Club marks the beginning of a new chapter for HTRK. It's an album that looks back on a time of sadness and struggle, and within that struggle they find hope and humour and love. It's Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang's first album recorded entirely as a duo—former band member Sean Stewart died halfway through the recording of their last LP, 2011's Work (Work Work).
Though the record is instantly recognisable as HTRK—Standish's vocal delivery remains central to the band's sound, while the productions are typically lean and dubby—they've found ample room for exploration within this framework. Gone are the reverb-soaked guitar explorations of 2009's Marry Me Tonight and the fuzzy growls that ran through Work (Work Work). They've been replaced with something tender, velvety and polished. This is HTRK, but the flesh has been stripped from their sound, throwing the focus on naked arrangements and minimalist sound design.
The album was recorded at Blazer Sound Studios in New Mexico with Excepter's Nathan Corbin, who had previously directed the video clip for Work (Work, Work) cut "Bendin." Inviting a third party into their world was no easy decision, but in Corbin they found a kindred spirit. The LP was then refined and reworked in Australia at the turn of 2013, before the finishing touches were applied in New York during the summer.
Of all the themes that run through Psychic 9-5 Club, love is the most central. The word is laced throughout the album in lyrics and titles—love as a distraction, loving yourself, loving others. Standish's lyrics explore the complexities of sexuality and the body's reaction to personal loss, though there's room for wry humour—a constant through much of the best experimental Australian music of the past few decades.
Standish explores her vocal range fully—her husky spoken-word drawl remains, but we also hear her laugh and sing. Equally, Yang's exploratory production techniques—particularly his well-documented love of dub—are given room to shine. They dip headlong into some of the things that make humans tick—love, loss and desire—with the kind of integrity that has marked the band out from day one. Psychic 9-5 Club is truly an album for the body and for the soul.
Tracklist
01. Give it Up
02. Blue Sunshine
03. Feels like Love
04. Soul Sleep
05. Wet Dream
06. Love is Distraction
07. Chinatown Style
08. The Body You Deserve
Pre-order Psychic 9-5 Club here.
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April 8, 2014
When the Skull Defekts entered the studio in the Spring of 2013 with nothing more than a collection of loosely organized riffs, they set out to record their most extreme, challenging rock record. Much to the band’s surprise, what emerged were their most incessantly listenable, approachable songs to date. The Defekts merge the coarse vitality of punk with the ritualism of folk dances to create music that is addictive, wondrously discordant, and rooted in a belief in the overwhelming power of pure sound. Dances in Dreams of the Known Unknown is the Swedish group’s third release as a quintet, with the legendary Daniel Higgs joining Joachim Nordwall and Daniel Fagerstroem on vocal duties and acting as the group’s spiritual ringleader. The Defekts have long acted as the backbone of the Swedish experimental underground, but since their 2011 breakthrough Peer Amid, the group has emerged at the vanguard of a new wave of radical Scandinavian rock music alongside Iceage and the Posh Isolation label.
From the opening patter of “Pattern of Thoughts” to the propulsive chants of “Cyborganization,” Dances in Dreams of the Known Unknown feeds on the tension between lean and bright song production and the hefty, sometimes surreal sounds produced by Nordwall and Fagerstroem’s guitars. Daniel Higgs’ spontaneous, metaphoric poetry is as perplexing as ever, but it is delivered with a clarity not heard since his days fronting Lungfish. Album centerpiece “The Known Unknown” is centered around a driving riff, with Nordwall turning the song’s title into a mantra as intense as it is transcendent. Throughout, the group anchors their riffs with exotic sustained chords, adding a distinctly Carnatic flavor.
Nordwall’s long history in the European experimental music community serves to reinforce the group’s place as one of the most forward-thinking rock bands working in the continent today. In addition to running iDEAL Recordings since 1998, Nordwall has released collaborative recordings with Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic, Kevin Drumm, and Mats Gustafsson, whose FIRE! Orchestra he recently joined. Although the Skull Defekts have ceased to perform or record noise music, that adventurous spirit is still a dominant part of their music.
The Skull Defekts will tour Europe and the US as a quintet.
CD version comes in a 4 panel mini-LP style gatefold package with spot UV gloss printing.
LP version includes an artworked inner sleeve and free download card. High gloss UV printing on LP jacket. EXCLUSIVE LP MAILORDER EDITION AVAILALBE : 500 copies are pressed on gold vinyl and will only be sold on Thrill Jockey's website and the band's merch table.
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Without a doubt, the fact that Klara Lewis is the daughter of Graham Lewis (Wire, Dome, He Said) is going to garner a significant amount of attention for Ett. While hopefully it helps to spread awareness of its release, by no means does she need to rely on her father’s reputation to garner acclaim for this album. Her penchant for deconstructing dance music into something completely different may be genetically inherited, but this is entirely Klara's show, and a brilliant show it is.
The songs that make up Ett either emphasize fragmented, perceptible rhythmic structures or more open ended, found sound and texture collages of various noises.The two styles sit alongside each other quite well, and they share a similar sensibility of exploration rather than darkness, the latter often being a constant characteristic of similar artists.Rather than focusing on bleak moods, Lewis's sound is one of experimentation, but in an inquisitive, enjoyable manner.
I am hesitant to use the phrase beat oriented to describe these pieces, but it is the best descriptor, even if the term beat is being used in the loosest of senses."c a t t" has Lewis molding crunchy processed sounds into a rudimentary structure with deep bass hits and sampled piano.Even with its distended, abstract feel, it comes across as a unique take on house music.Low end pulses mimic kick drums throughout "Untitled" and, with its complex build and cut up voices, rivals the best work on the Raster-Noton label.
The rhythms on "Shine" are at first insinuated through looped fragments and mixed with lush, melodic passages before coming together into a more conventional structure.The long "Altered" is similar, with Lewis using its 12-plus minute duration to drift between wet, percussive textures and light ambient synth passages, scattering bits of what sounds like conventional techno in here and there to mix things up.Even amidst these changes and variations, however, it stays together nicely as a fully realized composition.
Other pieces on Ett are less rhythmic and instead utilize what sounds like found samples and field recordings, processed and treated to be completely unidentifiable.Islamic calls to prayer and chirping birds make for some of the few discernible elements on "Muezzin," but with the slightly off kilter interlocking loops, I could not help but be reminded of Cabaret Voltaire's "Eastern Mantra" in spirit.
A descending bass melody may hide amongst the static and noise puffs on "49th Hour," but as a whole the mix stays open and spacious, introducing unique treated bits of sound that move dynamically throughout the work.Similarly, there may be a loose semblance of rhythm within "Surfaced," but it is mostly obscured by collaged sounds and destroyed samples to make it all but invisible.
Ett is an astoundingly developed and mature debut record for a new artist working in any genre, but it is especially striking in this more experimental style.There are simply so many pitfalls possible when a new artist works in these abstract realms, and Lewis manages to avoid them all.With its compelling, understated rhythms and captivating mangled samples and recordings, the whole album exceeded my highest expectations.
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As synthpop begat EBM and industrial 2.0 some three decades ago, the recent minimal wave scene has given birth to its own dance music with a distortion pedal offspring, and I for one have been very happy about it. It was this sort of music that started me down the road to unconventional and experimental music as a teenager, so I have a special affinity for it. Youth Code might be getting all of the media accolades, but this debut from High-Functioning Flesh shows they are just as deserving, and I would give them the edge as far as memorable songwriting goes.
It was a record club copy of Skinny Puppy's Last Rights, which started the ball rolling for me, and it was not long before I was exploring associated bands such as Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, and the ilk.My love affair was short lived though, because within a few years, I lost interest in even what my favorite artists were doing, choosing to pass on their new releases in lieu of the albums I already had.
Looking back, there were two main reasons for this, both of which do not apply to HFF.First, the sound simply got too polished.Sampling became the norm, as did complex multitrack digital recordings and software instruments, so the jagged synthesizers and inhuman sounding drum machines fell by the wayside.Second, I realized that it was such an insular, closed off scene that I wanted nothing to do with.A Unity of Miseries keeps its layering sparse without being unnecessarily minimalist, focusing more on catchy basslines and memorable melodies but with a nice dirty edge.As far as scene cred goes, one look at the video for "Self-Management" and seeing vocalist Susan Subtract’s bolo tie and the paisley button down shirt that keyboardist Greg Vand is sporting proves how far removed they are from the PVC pants and gas mask world.
Of the seven songs that make up A Unity of Miseries, four are polished versions of ones that appeared on their online demo tape last year, but stronger and more realized."Rigid Embrace" has the duo embracing electro the most, pairing a brittle bass sequence and sharp, inhuman drums."Touch Oblivion Icon" is perhaps the most laconic song on here, shuffling along at a moderate tempo amongst sparse synths and some of Subtract's more detached vocals, here more Jean-Luc De Meyer than Douglas McCarthy.
HFF might not be secretive about their influences, but "Glowing Dripping" makes for the only moment that feels like an emulation of another artist. With Subtract's manic screams, metallic rhythms and tight bassline, I could have easily been deceived into believing it was a lost That Total Age era Nitzer Ebb song, at least until the synth pad accents come in and add a bit too much complexity to sound like that legendary duo.If they were going to ape a band’s sound, for me they picked the right one, and the right album.
The strongest assets are the songs appearing for the first time, and they demonstrate how much the band has evolved within a single year.The aforementioned "Self-Management" makes for the perfect single with its anthematic stomp.It might take a fair amount of time to fully open up, letting the synths layer together tastefully for the first two minutes, but when it does, the result is an uptempo aggro song that stands tall even amongst the best work of the classic artists.
"Flash Memory" might start with chintzy digital synth pads and bitcrushed voices, but soon launches head on into a rapid fire bass line and snappy drums.Paired with the yelled, yet focused vocals it results for a spirited, hardcore punk sensibility to it.Closer "The Deal" also just manages to hit all of the right notes for an album's conclusion.Subtract's call and response style vocals alternating between his flat Eurotrash disconnect and snarling scream as Vand builds up a strong, but slightly melancholy rhythm and melody.By no means is it a down beat song, but manages to channel just the right amount of emotion and energy to make a dramatic, memorable conclusion.
Critical objectivity aside, I simply love this fucking record.My first listen to it gave me twinges of what it was like around 20 years ago, listening to a band for the first time that I purchased blindly due to how I assumed they were going to sound, and being perfectly satisfied.A Unity of Miseries has that nostalgic edge to it, but for the most part it is entirely its own entity in 2014, bringing the best elements of a genre that is dear to me while ignoring all of its limitations.While I do not see myself shelving this album anytime soon, the jump between their demo and this makes me especially anxious to hear what their next evolutionary stage will bring.
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