- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
This is Vantzou's solo debut, but she should be familiar to many from her work as the visual half of Adam Wiltzie's The Dead Texan project.  That association was not a fluke, as Christina's musical aesthetic clearly shares a lot of quiet, slow-moving, and nuanced common ground with the Stars of the Lid milieu.  Such comparisons are pretty much inevitable in any discussion of No. 1, but Christina establishes her own voice by embracing impressionist classical music and a brighter, more pastoral mood.
Vantzou began composing this album on her own back in 2007 with samples and a synthesizer, but the material that actually wound up on this release is probably quite different than it started out.  That evolution is largely due to Magik*Magik Orchestra's Minna Choi, who became involved as a long-distance collaborator.  As a result, Vantzou's 45-minute synth epic ultimately became a ten-song suite performed by a small orchestra.
The decision to break the piece into multiple parts seems like a great move to me, but I would definitely be interested in hearing what Christina's raw version sounded like.  The orchestra undeniably makes these pieces sound like polished works by a serious composer, but it seems like that may have come at the expense of some character and humanity.  That isn't a huge issue with the stronger compositions, such as the lushly melancholy "Your Changes Have Been Submitted," but the less distinct pieces are weakened still further by the homogenizing combination of professional classical instrumentation and warm, gauze-y production and mixing (provided by Wiltzie, actually).
There are a few muted rough edges that still manage to make their way in though.  I definitely found myself looking forward to them, despite their subtlety (a little bit of rumble or hiss, a buried unrecognizable sample, etc.).  The slightest hint of grit, menace, or darkness goes a long way towards making this album work and such hints appear far too sparingly, a predicament that raises a lot of issues for me: these pieces are arranged skillfully, unfold pleasantly, fit together as a thematically coherent whole, and feature some strong melodies, but it all errs on the side of being too polite and "nice."
Unfortunately, I could probably critique Ravel or Debussy for the same thing, which probably makes me a philistine or at least mildly intolerant of many classical music tropes.  Vantzou's strong drone influence also plays a large role in No. 1's pervading feeling of sameness though, as there is very little dynamic variability or silence–just endless soft-focus swelling and billowing. Again, that isn't inherently a bad thing: it certainly makes the pieces feel contemporary and immersive, but it doesn't help the album's vibrance at all (though to her credit, Christina does an excellent of using brass to cut through the fog melodically).
For a debut effort, this is quite successful in a number of respects: Vantzou seamlessly weaves together classical music and drone, offers a handful of very good pieces ("Joggers," for example), and distinguishes herself from Kranky's other drone/neo-classical composers.  On a fundamental level, it all works– I very much enjoyed hearing strong melodies and muted romanticism incorporated into a blissful fog of warm drone.  Unfortunately, the details (or lack thereof) are a killer, as music this smooth, placid, and sanded-down doesn't leave a strong impression when the album ends.  No.1 is a pleasant way to spend the better part of an hour, but doesn't go much deeper than that.
Samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
I was very curious about what The Drift's latest album was going to sound like, as so much has changed since 2008's well-regarded Memory Drawings: Danny Paul Grody fell in love with steel-string acoustic guitars, stellar double-bassist Safa Shokrai left the band, and–most significantly–founding member Jeff Jacobs succumbed to cancer.  The band opted not to replace Jacobs, which left them with the very difficult puzzle of continuing without their primary melodic instrument.  The resultant album understandably loses all traces of their jazzier, more dub-inflected recent work (Jacobs played trumpet), but returns fairly successfully to The Drift's more straightforward post-rock roots...sometimes.
Thankfully, one good thing emerged from the loss of half the damn band: original bassist Trevor Montgomery is back.  That means that 2/3 of The Drift have been members of Tarentel.  There are some definite similarities between the two bands (particularly with Tarentel's earlier work), but The Drift are clearly working towards very different ends.  In fact, they are working towards completely different ends than even The Drift circa 2008.  While Blue Hour lacks any of Tarentel's brooding experimentalism or Memory Drawing's sinuous grooves or hazy trumpet solos, it does boast a killer rhythm section in its own right.  Montgomery and drummer Rich Douthit shine brightest in the relentlessly propulsive "Dark Passage" and the lurchingly off-beat "Continuum," but they provide Grody with a very tight, muscular, and punchy foundation for most of the album.  As much as I love Grody, they pretty much steal the album, as the success or failure of each piece is heavily dependent on the strength of its groove.
That is not to say that Grody's playing is not excellent, but he has the unenviable task of carrying almost all of the album's melodic weight himself and his strengths tend to be of a more minimal/ textural/ atmospheric nature (on the electric guitar, anyway).  Also, his guitars are too processed to have the presence and bite necessary to hold the melodic foreground over the thick bass and rumbling toms.  He certainly delivers some inspired moments, such as the shimmering, delay-heavy shoegaze-inspired crescendo on "Luminous Friend," but that is not quite the same as delivering a satisfying composition.
Many songs just plod and meander along without a strong hook to carry them, which is hugely exasperating because everything else is so strong.  Something new needs to fill the void that Jacobs' vanished trumpet left.  I think the band must have realized that themselves at some point, as they reinterpret Grody's own "Hello From Everywhere" with a melodica as the lead instrument (I think).  It lacks the beauty and intimacy of the original (which is a great song), but the jangly looseness coupled with a strong melodic motif is a definite step in the right direction.  Grody's "Fountain" also makes an appearance, but unfortunately gets stretched into a somewhat interminable 12-minute jam.
Despite all my grumblings, I wouldn't classify this album as a failure or a misfire so much as a valiant transitional effort...and perhaps a bit premature (Blue Hour would be very brief if the Grody solo covers, the drone interludes, and the obviously improvised pieces were omitted).  I am happy to have The Drift back and there are a few very good songs here, but a  bass/drum/guitar trio with no vocals or strong lead instrument is unlikely to hold my attention for very long, no matter how talented the players involved.  I like the new line-up, but until the compositional and melodic holes are filled, the whole is doomed to be less than the sum of its parts.
Samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
The second outing on compact disc for the anonymous minimalist Eleh compiles three out of print, vinyl-only releases. The eight pieces that make up the Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis have been tarted up for a digital release and they sound unbelievably good. While there is no new material included, these discs make for essential listening either for Eleh die hards or for those without turntables who have been wondering what all the fuss was about.
 
While part of Eleh’s mystique has been their almost complete adherence to an analogue body of work (only the album Location Momentum on Touch Records broke the mold by appearing on CD), this has lead to an ever-inflating auction market for their limited edition releases. As each of these albums have been going for excessive prices on the second hand market so it is great to finally be able to listen to the entire Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis trilogy without destroying my wallet. Eleh has remastered the three albums for the digital format, insisting that this is an alternative and not a replacement for the original vinyl releases.
As I only have one of these LPs (the third one), I have not been able to do a full comparison between the vinyl and CDs. However, based on the third disc alone, I would say that the CDs are an improvement on the originals. Granted, the CD misses out on the patterns on the grooves formed by the regular sound waves but sonically I feel this is a superior format for this sort of music. With no surface noise, the tones push through the speakers unimpeded; the clarity required by such precise and detailed sound cannot be achieved with vinyl. For the record, I have never been fully convinced by the argument that vinyl is in any way superior to CD as either format can be sublime or awful. I certainly feel for music like this, CD is as sonically rich as vinyl but delivers a cleaner sound.
Focusing on the music at hand, there is a lot to be excited about here no matter what format it is stored on. The first disc begins with "In the Ear of the Gods" which is busy enough for Eleh, with less emphasis on pure tones and more on the textures and ranges of the various instruments being used. It is the rest of disc one where Eleh’s distinctive sound comes into full fruition. The two pieces "Tone Phase 1" and "Tone Phase 2" both use oscillators and guitar as the source material with Eleh pulling exacting and controlled drones from them. The result can be assimilated in multiple ways; at low volumes or on headphones, it is possible to experience the sounds as warm, ambient soundscapes. However, turning up the volume dial on the stereo allows the interactions between the different frequencies to become noticeable. The beating between the frequencies forms an irresistible beat which breaks apart the idea of this being only drone music as Eleh uses the mathematical underpinnings of the sounds as sound sources in themselves.
These ideas are expanded further on the two other discs in the set with each disc taking different elements of this heavy minimalism and exploring them in greater depth. Here the interplay between the constituents of the sounds is like a kaleidoscope for the ears; Eleh’s dedications to La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Pauline Oliveros on the original vinyl versions of Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis are not empty gestures. Eleh takes the same theoretical or ideological approaches as each of these cornerstones of minimalism and creates something new. "Black Mountain 1933" begins with a fat synth drone which very slowly becomes denser and denser to the point where it feels like there is nothing but the sound. Later, on the two parts of "Pulsing Study of 7 Sine Waves" Eleh imparts a steady rhythm on the music which is completely at odds with the constant hum of the previous piece. However, both pieces highlight the possibilities hidden within a finite number of tones.
The final disc finishes off the set with two beautiful pieces that condense all the experiments of the previous discs into a pair of powerful works. "Phase One: Sleeps Golden Drones Again" takes the same general structure of the "Pulsing Studies" and turns them into a crawling, treacly mass of sound. "Bass Pulse in Open Air" has a similarly weighty feel to it; at the right volume it causes the room to shudder and sing with the music. I listened to it in the car and my rear-view mirrors vibrated to the point where it looked like the cars behind me were made of liquid. The physical manifestation of these sounds is incredible.
On the note of physical manifestations of Eleh’s sound, the one thing missing from these stunning discs is the patterns formed in the grooves of the vinyl by the precision tones employed by Eleh. However, opening up the pieces in audio editing software reveals the visual beauty of these waveforms and to make up for the lack of these patterns on the discs, Eleh has used very attractive black card packaging and those futuristic-looking Mini-Max CDs (where the playable area is surrounded by a ring of clear plastic) to complete the Eleh aesthetic. Altogether, Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis more than lives up to the mythic status that Eleh has so quickly ascended to. This is easily the equal of any of the landmarks of drone music from La Monte Young’s sine wave pieces to Coil’s Time Machines. This is perfect music.
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
As a collaboration between two artists who are almost impossible to pin down by genre conventions, A Throne Without A King is at times a difficult album, often not resembling anything from either artist, but a different beast entirely. It may be difficult, but its worth the effort to fully absorb what’s there to be heard.
While the bulk of this album is the four part title track, each of the two artists contribute their own solo pieces (on the 7" if it's the vinyl version).Pyramids' "Phaedra's Love" is full of jarring transitions, often paring lush, gorgeous melodic textures with caustic industrial pounding and erratic, rapid-fire drum machine beats.The balance of beauty and ugly is carefully struck, and it makes for an unsettling song.
Jenks Miller's Horseback provides "Thee Cult of Henry Flynt" which, other than the occasional guttural vocal outburst, isn't as metal as I've come to expect: in some ways the melodic work feels like a throwback to Impale Golden Horn.While that album was more about mood, here the rather pleasant guitar playing is layered and pushed along by a rapid beat.However, the second half sounds like the first being pulled apart, with fragments of voices and disembodied guitar melodies drifting through space.
The four part "A Throne Without A King" strips away the more musical elements of both artists to create a textural 45+ minute composition that focuses less on melody and more on odd, unrecognizable sounds.The first piece is mostly backward chimes and glitchy outbursts, with a bit of concession to gentle melody in its latter moments, but broken up by weirdly processed voices.
Into the second piece there are a lot of static-laden layers of sound that become thicker and denser as it goes on.It never becomes full on noise or overly harsh, but it definitely makes its presence known.The dissonance retreats to allow in oddly treated vocals, but then launches into full on Merzbow mode to close the track.
The penultimate segment begins with the noise from before, but slowly reins it in, leaving the focus on buried droning tones that are ever so slightly melodic, but not in any conventional sense.It comes to a close (and leads into the final track) with abstract, clattering percussion that sets up the conclusion.The final piece is a fitting conclusion, mixing textural static with bleak, reverberating tones and bizarre percussive crashes.
For some reason I can't fully articulate, the collaboration reminded me of a further abstraction of the more "out there" jazz, along the lines of Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman (circa Free Jazz), but without any traditional instrumentation.It has that same inertia to it, a sense of disciplined propulsion that underlies the chaos, making sense of the madness, but only after careful absorption and decoding.While I probably favored each artist’s solo contributions for regular listening, the collaboration is a dense, puzzling work that takes a few spins to fully unravel its secrets.
samples:
 
Read More
- Daniel McKernan
- Albums and Singles
I first met Othon Mataragas in Austria at Donaufestival '07 (curated by David Tibet) where he was performing with Current 93. Since then, he has been on the soundtrack to the Bruce LaBruce film Otto; or Up With Dead People and then part of a live accompaniment to the Derek Jarman film The Angelic Conversation, orchestrated by Peter Christopherson. I've seen Othon contribute his pianist skills to Ron Athey's automatic writing performance in London (Gifts of the Spirits), and he is currently working on an collaboration with artist Franko B (Because of Love). His debut album, Digital Angel, focused on childhood nightmares of corporations taking over our identities and features a lovely rendition of Coil's "The Dreamer is Still Asleep," sung by David Tibet. His second album, Impermanence, is provocative, filled with torment that is presented in a profound yet light-hearted way. Othon's arrangements are gorgeous and timeless.
The opening title track starts out with an exalting, classical instrumental track by Othon alone at the piano.He is credited in the liner notes as contributing piano and celeste to the album: quite a stunning start, demanding full attention as if whispering for us to pay attention.The lyrics of "The Fall," written by poet Ernesto Sarezale, lend themselves to showcase Tomasini's four-octave vocal range and tell a morbid love story of nurturing a wounded stranger who is represented metaphorically by a fallen angel."Mystery Star Dance" is the second instrumental on the album, a striking and epic piece filled with sorrow and intensity, featuring Othon's exquisite piano paired with cello by Jacob Shirley.Othon's only vocal contribution to the album, "All Is Too Soon," is warm and touching as he recalls memories of a childhood friend lost; his Greek accent is endearing in this tragic tale."A Little Dream" has a hint of David Tibet vocal style in Tomasini's whispering apocalyptic tones.The second instance of the title track-- "Impermanence +" features the lovely sullen voice of Marc Almond.This track seems to be inviting us into another world.The lyrics are melancholy and dark, as is the delivery: "cold is the sun / black shines the moon / and birds have sharp teeth / the flies killing eyes."
The single of the album, "Last Night I Paid To Close My Eyes" is sung by Marc Almond on the album version.The single version and the music video both feature Tomasini in Marc's place.Both feature a choir of backing vocalists including Beverly Crone (The Cesarians).Ernesto's appearance in the music video is all at once striking, ostentatious, and enigmatic-- an element of whimsy to go with the theatrics of it all.
The final track of the album, also titled "Impermanence" is sung by Tomasini entirely in falsetto with a soprano register—delivered with a dramatic, cinematic effect.It is accompanied by magic organ from this track's producer, Troy Banarzi.Something wicked has become of something once sacred—an end is near, and his final words of the album resonate so strongly you'll likely be inclined to give the album another listen and momentarily deny the message they propose: "gone are the ships / lost is all hope / but I deny to believe / I deny to accept / the impermanence of it all."
As stated in an interview, Othon is often laughing inside during even his most painful performances.There is madness here, and it is meant to make us feel both terrified and giddy at the same time. Othon mentioned that the slogan of the album is "everything withers & everything dies," and it celebrates both the pain of life and the joy of dying.When we die, the chemical DMT is released into our brains as we leave our bodies, arguably the last earthly mindset we experience before moving from this existence to the next.Therefore, we should be at peace with ourselves upon death, or we may end up in a perpetual bad trip: perhaps the definition of Hell?Illustrated on the album's gorgeous cover artwork by the wonderful Hector de Gregorio, this is a motif which Othon toys with great success—that of agony meeting ecstasy and the hallucinatory, quirky shades of life that come from everything in between.
Samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
I reviewed the first four installments of this now-completed 12 volume series a few months back, and now that it has come to its conclusion, the final product is even more impressive, documenting Szczepanik's evolving and developing compositional skills. With each piece having its own voice, yet feeling somehow connected to one another, it's a perfectly encapsulated suite of recordings.
The two "Forgotten Dreams" pieces, for example, take diverging approaches to the same loose concept. The first piece is akin to the earlier works in the series, with its sparse, slow reverberating tones that resonate like a massive organ, casting a ghostly shadow over all. The second piece is a more complex variation, focusing on the same powerful tones but boosting the richness to near-symphonic levels, but also casting them under layers of whistling winds and icy swells.
While the former piece had a more disembodied, floating quality to it, this is more tactile and concrete.
My favorite works are the ones that integrate a greater sense of rawness to the otherwise somber and pure tones. It first becomes evident in "Blue," which is initially a world of church-like reverberations that are reminiscent of Organum's recent "holy" trilogy. However, as it continues there is a significant amount of variation in structure and development, and a hint of dissonance and distortion clouds the ending moments.
"Era Una Mañana Gris" also encompasses all of the pure, tonal drama of the other pieces, but it has a rough-hewn edge to it, giving just a slight hint of grime to the otherwise pristine beauty. "The Embossed Map of Your Essence" goes all out, opening with layers of what sounds like overdriven distortion, leading out more harshly than the rest. However, half-way through the noisier passages fall away, bringing the somewhat obscured melodies to the surface.
Although it's tough to choose favorites, the two pieces that struck me in this batch the most were the most different from each other. "With Dusk Detained" is more textural, layering static and buzzing electronics with bell-like tones and droning bass. Szczepanik usually works with a sense of purity and asceticism, so the multiple diverse layers and crackling electronics are somewhat out of character for him, but work so well here.
The other one I come back to most is "Only a Speck of What it Attempts to Represent (for Elizabeth Wilson)," which utilizes dense, emotionally laden tones that are slow and meditative, almost overwhelmingly moving in their dense richness. In this regard it's along the lines of Please Stop Loving Me, from earlier this year, and just as captivating. As a stand alone piece, it's brilliant, but within the variation of this series, its diverse strengths shine through even more.
In a world that is becoming more and more focused on digital distribution and intangible "cloud based" formats, the 3" CD is the utter antithesis. It is impractical, offers limited storage, and is incompatible with many players. Yet, it also seems to be the best suited for this kind of artistic endeavor. I'm always a staunch believer that packaging and presentation are a huge component of a good release, and here that comes through perfectly. Each of these discs are uniquely hand-packaged within intricately folded paper, with inclusions of poetry and photos. It all has a personal, intimate quality to it that digital distribution will never have. Szczepanik and collaborator Elim Hernandez (who designed much of the packaging) have created something that is intimate and personal, both sonically and aesthetically.
While it was seemingly a testing-ground for a variety of new ideas and approaches to composition, this series never felt like "experiments" but always well developed, nuanced compositions that displays Szcepanik's skill. While it was sad to see this series come to its conclusion, it has whet my appetite even more to hear his future endeavors, since here it’s obvious he can try nearly anything and have it come out wonderfully.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Der Blutharsch's sudden transition from militaristic industrial project to perverse psychedelic rock band was jarring and abrupt, and always a bit baffling. The albums since Time is Thee Enemy! have moved more and more into that direction, but often laden with a sense of identity confusion: the pieces never seemed to come together quite right for me. In this collaboration with Aluk Todolo, however, both embrace their hallucinogenic tendencies in unison, resulting in a brilliantly cohesive album that is equal parts krautrock, psychedelia, and dark experimentalism.
This collaboration emphasizes the best elements of both artists, with Albin Julius and friends' use of stereotypically psych rock sounds, such as organ and distorted guitar, but as an extra piece to the dark textural soup that characterizes Aluk Todolo's sound.It makes sense for the two to collaborate, since both artists have been moving in similar directions sonically.
Across the four untitled tracks, each around ten minutes, the rock guitars, organs, and big live drums are balanced out by vintage analog sounds and unidentifiable passages. The opener starts with a classic old school drum machine loop and distorted bass before the "rock" comes in, leading it down a path that mixes the organic with the alien.It definitely leans into unabashed rock territory, but there is always an undercurrent of subtlety to be heard.
The closing piece is cut from a similar cloth, opening with stiff beats and electronic loops before the guitar/bass/drums get piled on.In comparison to the first track, there’s a greater sense of rhythmic variation, with a constant evolution in sound from beginning to end; it just never sits still.
Sandwiched in the middle are two tracks that owe more to the early 1970s krautrock scene instead of the LSD and 'shroom drenched psychedelia that dominates most of Der Blutharsch's recent output.The second song opens with echoed drums, organ and bass that's quite reminiscent of Tago Mago era Can, including the inclusion of vocals that are subtle and work well as an instrument rather than the overall focus, a la Damo Suzuki's contributions.
The subsequent song's breakbeat opening lends a decidedly Germanic sense of funk as a backbone, rapid and taut with a stainless steel precision.While it is probably the most repetitive of all here from a structural perspective, the lack of rhythmic variation is the perfect underpinning with the addition of electronic elements and organ improvisations.
While I have had mixed opinions on Der Blutharsch's more recent direction, where some of the tracks have been brilliant while others fell flat for me, here the entire album is a winner.I don't know if it's simply Julius and crew settling in to their new voice, or the helping hand of Aluk Todolo, but the result is a great combination of psych rock and dark ambiences that sound like no one else, in the best possible way.
samples:
 
Read More
- Duncan Edwards
- Albums and Singles
Long-time musical partners Anna Domino and Michael Delory take ten songs from the public domain and recreate them in their own image: the cool detachment of Domino's voice and non-traditional arrangements contrasting with narratives of treachery and murder. As they previously did in 1999 with their much-heralded album Songs from My Funeral.
 
The mid-1980s saw the significant, but still under-appreciated, Les Disques du Crepuscule label sprouting out of Brussels. The city was a magnet for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire, Tuxedomoon, Michael Nyman, Wim Mertens, Billy MacKenzie, The Durutti Column, and Paul Haig*. This Belgian landscape also included Anna Domino whose 1984 mini-album East and West contained "Land of My Dreams," a distinctive version of an Aretha Franklin song and a good starting point for describing Snakefarm. The melancholy intensity in "Land of My Dreams" comes from the dreamy, repetitive, musical backdrop in combination with Domino’s hypnotic, non-emotive, singing. Somehow these two (apparently effortless) aspects combined to create a sad remnant of passion and yearning. I believe the marvelous Virginia Astley may have contributed piano and backing vocals to the record, too.
As Les Disques du Crepuscule slowly faded away, Delory and Domino relocated to Arizona and eventually re-emerged as Snakefarm. I haven’t heard the 1999 recording but its success means that My Halo at Half-Light will be both much anticipated and also cast in a shadow of expectation. This album is more textured than the Anna Domino of the Brussels period and solo releases, yet a pervading aura of nothingness remains intact. In a sense, these new versions of old folk songs have a strong sensibility of North America, reflecting the other-worldly landscapes out in the mythical West, the feeling of vastness and absence, and the hollow familiarity of the same retail outposts studding the lonely highways. The music doesn’t all work for me, as I find the rhythms of "Darlin’ Corey," for instance, irritating (almost a pastiche of the word "tasteful") and prefer the hypnotic repetitive aspects to those where the pace is varied and the singing rather more "normal."
In those sections, as with "Land of My Dreams," the seemingly dispassionate playing and singing allows the songs to breathe and for feelings about the bloody, deceitful, tragic narratives to remain open to interpretation. The clarity of production ensures every word is audible and that some odd realizations and connections can emerge; not least that Staggerlee may be viewed as less a heroic legend and more a complete bastard capable of shooting another person despite them pleading not to widow their wife and render their children fatherless. The worthless John Lewis is also laid bare in "Omie Wise," drowning his pregnant girlfriend while her defences, and possibly her knickers, are down. "The Lady O" manages to sound airy and splendedly terse but also like an imaginary discarded sketch for early OMD and Roger McGuinn’s 12-string to collaborate on the theme tune for spoof television cooking show Posh Nosh.
A cynic might remark that the only thing America loves more than vastness and violence is the thought of assured redemption. If so, the album closer "Michael" (as in "Michael rowed the boat ashore. Alleluia") is an apt ending. At first sounding like a hilarious nod to the oft-quoted debt owed to Anna Domino by Portishead, this sparse piece is a strange, slight, yet satisfying version of an old gospel song (long ago rendered virtually unbearable and meaningless by the kumbaya crowd).
Several Les Disques du Crepuscule recordings have been reissued by LTM.
* As noted by Anat Pack for the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies.
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Roughly ten years ago, BBC's Radio 4 sent Chris Watson to Mexico to record one of the final continuous cross-country trips for Mexico's passenger rail system.  The resultant album is a narrative collage that uses those recordings to aurally recreate that unique and memorable journey.  I'd definitely say he succeeded quite impressively at that specific technical objective, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a great album.
El Tren Fantasma ("The Ghost Train") borrows its title from a 1927 Mexican silent film, but it explicitly draws its primary inspiration from Pierre Schaeffer, whose train-based 1948 piece "Étude aux Chemins de Fer" was one of the first ever musique concrète compositions (unknowingly predated by only Halim El-Dabh's "The Expression of Zaar").  A dedication to Schaeffer makes perfect sense here, as El Tren Fantasma is essentially an extension of what Pierre did in 1948, but with the benefit of modern recording and editing equipment.  Sixty years of technological advances make an enormous difference though: Schaeffer was able to create a 3-minute rhythmic collage of train sounds, but Watson has condensed the sounds of an entire month-long journey into a single evocative and vibrant hour that doesn't miss a single detail.
Obviously, the focus is very much on railroad sounds, but Watson also captures the ambiance of the various lonely stops along the way (right down to the insects and the breeze).  Those touches are often among the album's highlights, as Chris has a long history of expertly capturing the subtle sounds of the natural world.  That said, Watson's most impressive recording and editing feats are reserved for the train itself, especially the way the rumbling and clacking changes as the train goes over a bridge or plunges into a tunnel.  Even when the nothing unusual is happening, however, the normal rumble and squeal of the train can be a striking and almost physical experience–especially with headphones.
Unfortunately, one of the album's greatest assets is also perversely its greatest handicap: its vibrancy and immediacy.  Watson has always created enveloping and amazingly life-like soundworlds, but none of his albums have been as bluntly attention-grabbing as this one: they just pleasantly and exotically changed my aural surroundings.  El Tren Fantasma, on the other hand, demanded my complete focus, but once it had me, it never went as far or as deep as I wanted it to go.
That unexpected problem unexpectedly surfaced for me due to "El Divisidero," a piece in which Chris unexpectedly moves from pure vérité into music by building a rhythm from heavily-processed clacking and weaving together something that sounds like a warm bed of droning synth.  It isn't spectacular or anything, but it made me wonder why Watson was willing to take those liberties, but didn't go further and turn the trip into something increasingly strange and phantasmagoric.  That would certainly make the album's title seem more apt (though I understand that sounds disconnected from their source could also be perceived as "ghosts").
Once I had that realization, it became very difficult to be content with an uneventful trip from station to station, no matter how perfectly rendered it was.  Also, there is no denying the fact that a long train ride through Mexico cannot be movingly recreated without some sort of visual component.  No one takes a train through Copper Canyon because they are eager to hear how it will sound.
While it is certainly relevant and necessary, it nevertheless feels a bit unfair to critique El Tren Fantasmo for the limitations of sound or for what I think it could've been.  Chris Watson set out to do two very specific things: document the last days of one of the world's most singular train rides and pay homage to one of electronic music's greatest visionaries.  He succeeded in both objectives beautifully.  El Tren Fantasmo may not be a triumph of composition, but it is an unqualified masterpiece in the realms of both recording and sound editing.  It is difficult to imagine a sharper and more instantly gratifying collage of field recordings than this one.
Samples:
 
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Matt Waldron has obviously had little to do lately judging by the landslide of irr. app. (ext.) releases that have recently come available. Ranging from very old archival material to more recent compositions (including collaborations with Nurse With Wound and Diana Rogerson), Waldron has unleashed a Pandora’s box of sonic delights on the world. Widely available as downloads from his own site and as limited edition CD-Rs elsewhere, these releases build on an already impressive but far too limited back catalogue.
 
Not quite another Blue Sabbath Black Cheer collaboration but close enough to count, Concrete Mixes sees Waldron using Dried Up Corpse’s Musique Concrète single (an unplayable 7" made out of concrete) as source material for his own work. Taking up the challenge of this anti-record having no real musical worth, Waldron hits it, scrapes it and attempts to play it on an old record player in order to form a dense mass of hardcore heavy rock (with no actual relation to the genres of hardcore or heavy rock).
samples:
Waldron’s limited foray into being a vocalist is documented on Bracktul Thleecher. Two versions of "Black Teeth" (Waldron’s party piece at Nurse With Wound shows) highlight the humor at the heart of irr. app. (ext.). The first version was Waldron’s first performance of the piece in California in 2006 where he stomps through the song using a range of vocals and solo percussion. Not a huge amount has changed with the 2011 studio version also included here but hearing this very simple but perfectly captured take is a treat. The other song included here is "Lurcher" which was written for Nurse With Wound but not used in the end. Again there are two versions, one live and one studio, but the song does not have the same magnetism of "Black Teeth." "Lurcher" is not bad but when paired with such a strong song, it has to fight hard to get a look in.
samples:
On the subject of Nurse With Wound, 4 Orphans features the finished parts of an abandoned collaboration between Waldron and Steve Stapleton from 2001. While both since have appeared on Nurse With Wound and irr. app. (ext.) albums respectively, none of the collaborations come close to the sounds or approach of 4 Orphans. "Form in Fasciation" is a percussion-heavy work where haunting drones and ambiences emerge like spirits during a primitive religious invocation. On "Pitches of Suchness," the pair develop a piece that brings to mind Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien except instead of a sleepy fishing village waking up to a sunny morning, night has fallen and something queer is afoot. Out of all these releases, this is the one I keep coming back to. It is too bad this album was never finished because this certainly had the potential of being a masterpiece.
samples:
Another collaboration included in these recent releases is a reissue of The Famine Road, Waldron’s work with Diana Rogerson which was originally included as a bonus CD-R with her Fistfuck live LP in 2008. The original version from the bonus disc is included along with two newer versions of the piece. The 2011 edition is as engaging and askew as the 2008 version and the "Easy Listening" version removes all the sharp edges of the original to make a mournful, textured ambience which is more in line with the idea of a famine road; roads built during the Irish famine in the 1840s from nowhere to nowhere as part of the government's attempt to employ the countless starving people who had found themselves without a means of feeding themselves. This is bleak music for a bleak period of history.
samples:
- The Famine Road (2008 Version)
- The Famine Road (2011 Version)
- The Famine Road (Easy Listening Version)
 
Read More