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When I first saw Out Hud, they were playing to a crowd of Chicago's finest at the Fireside Bowl in the midst of an old-fashioned Midwestern heat wave. Two feelings prevailed that night, as the crowd anxiously awaited the headlining Locust to come on: the first was the "my god, I could not be more sweaty in this sauna of a club appropriately named the fireside" feeling. The second was the "I don't know who this band Out Hud is or why they are playing this show, but I guess it's cool" feeling. This second sentiment was actually voiced by Out Hud bassist (and !!! vocalist) Nic Offer himself in the banter between two songs. All the perspiring punks could have cared less why Out Hud were there; what mattered was that they were in fact there, and for a 40-minute set on a night when movement was excruciating, everyone forgot about the oppressive heat and started to dance and move and shake to this strange band whose music demanded that our bodies dance and move and shake, regardless of whether we wanted to or not.
'Street Dad' aspires to do just that. Since it is both Out Hud's first full-length and their label premier for Kranky, 'Street Dad' will likely introduce a lot of folks to their music, which many critics see as the not-quite-natural result of ESG breeding with Gang of Four and the offspring being adopted by the two well-meaning parents of Soft Machine and King Tubby and allowed to see its six Factory Records cousins on holidays. The premise of the music is simple: dance beats decorated with heavy fringes of rock and electronic music. While this formula sounds like a bland concoction that every musical alchemist is trying to perfect these days, Out Hud are able to make it work. Part of the band's success is due to the reliance on actually playing instruments rather than pumping sound samples in from a mixer (though Justin Vandervolgen handily manages the mixing board for the band, it is not over-utilized).
"The Story of the Whole Thing" is a moderately-paced opening song which drones pleasantly until giving way at the end to a dawn-breaking call and response between Tyler Pope's guitar and what sounds like a rather delighted and rhythmic humpback whale (actually, it's Molly Schnict's cello). The centerpiece of the album, though, is its second song, titled "Dad, There's a Little Phrase Called Too Much Information." This song features about four distinct and lovely parts, shimmering with guitar but plodding onwards with heavy bass and drum beats which sternly coax you into movement. Between the themes there are punctuations of Out Hud's trademark two-second cacophony, a resonating blast of electronic feedback that seems to pop up in the majority of the band's songs. These little explosions remind you that despite the seeming control and mastery with which the band handles the music, there is such a thing as chaos and ataxia in Out Hud's music. This hinted-at entropy is perhaps the reason why their sound is so compelling, as the band brings you desperately close to some arrhythmic brink of destruction, only to draw you instantly back in, cuddled safely once again in the bosom of their groove. The feeling is both infantilizing and exhilarating.
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- Dad, There's a Little Phrase Called Too Much Information
- Hair Dude, You're Stepping On My Mystique
- This Bum's Paid
 
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As part of Aaron Turner's (Isis, Greymachine, and Hydra Head Records) new Sige label, this split vinyl captures both the look and feel of classic noise LPs, right down to the hand-stamped labels and lo-fi inserts. The aesthetic carries over to the sound as well, with both artists contributing tracks that share a creepy, heavy sound that joins the best of metal and harsh noise.
Oakeater’s side, "Iron Road II" begins with a melodic hum that becomes more prominent as it goes on, with added strings and guitar notes.Eventually the guitar accompanies a piano, creating a somber sound that is buried in a hazy reverb.The melancholy sound is interrupted by slow scrapes of harsh noise, cutting through like a rusty knife to leave pure malevolence.The melodic sound dies out, leaving silence alternated with monstrous, guttural voices and scraped metals that sound like they’re coming from a dark sewer, before ending on pained voices and raw noise.
Mammifer's contribution on the flip side is comparably lighter, but only relative to Oakeater's track."Fake Witch" initially mixing wobbly, chiming guitar notes and careful feedback, the song quickly builds to a dense mix.With the increasingly noisy guitar taking on a psychedelic quality, I definitely felt a bit of Skullflower's presence.Lower, bassy roars show up to balance out the higher frequency guitars, and it becomes a battle between the lighter, open ambient tones and the guitar noise gutter.The fluctuation from light to dark and back again builds to cinematic intensity before everything pulls away, leaving an odd, but beautiful coda of piano, static, and guitar feedback.
The old school sensibilities that abound on this release gave me more than a twinge of nostalgia, bringing up high school memories of unpacking noise LPs ordered from Relapse Records, sometime with absolutely no knowledge of what they’d sound like other than recognizing the name or seeing cool cover art.Thankfully the sound on the vinyl emulates those occasional brilliant purchases that I still spin to this day, well over a decade later.
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Functioning quite well as a current statement of what the 12k label is focusing on artistically, this disc features five artists associated with the label performing live from a recent Japanese tour, and the results showcase the variety and nuance of this niche of electronic music.
The two performances that bookend this disc seem to have a sense of conceptual unity, following similar paths but really sounding nothing like each other.Minamo open not with minimalism, but a wide sonic palette, merging untreated acoustic guitar with subtle electronic loops that command attention, but not aggressively so.The piece unfolds slowly, merging expansive electronic tones with guitar strums and rhythmic loops, all of which becomes overshadowed by crashing metallic sounds, noisy static and feedback, ending the piece far more abrasive than it began.
The closing piece by label head Taylor Deupree feels similar in approach to Minamo’s performance, but rather than guitar or loops, there are layers of decaying textures and delicate, soft melodies that propel the piece, constantly putting layers of weathered sound above pure, light melodies, and the occasional, very subtle, rhythmic clicking.
Australian duo Solo Andata take an opposite mood in their performance, focusing on darker, heavy textures that reverberate over massive, looming aquatic swells of sound.It’s not like dark ambient or anything meant to instill fear, but has a murkier quality to the performance, especially compared to the bright and delicate music around them.
The joint performance of Sawako and Hofli exemplifies this fragile beauty:Sawako’s delicate singing and use of field recordings are mixed with acoustic guitar and restrained, shimmering sonic textures.The duo implement a variety of subtle electronics that keep the performance dynamic, ending with Sawako’s signature field recordings.
Moskitoo provide the most diverging offering here, initially mixing glitchy loops and 8 bit noise textures, occasionally throwing in what sounds like a yard sale procured cheap Casio keyboard.This mostly chaotic mix suddenly gains form, coming together in a rhythmic track that, with its voice fragments and unconventional tones, sounds like a pop song from another universe, following traditional conventions but turning them completely around.
The thematic unity of these performances can be heard easily:restrained use of electronics and the juxtaposition of delicate textures and acoustic instrumentation to develop an electronic based sound that eschews genre conventions for something unique, and brilliant.
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I never quite understood the popularity of Pocahaunted and I was pretty underwhelmed by the LA Vampires/Zola Jesus collaboration last year, so I figured it was pretty safe to conclude that Amanda Brown's artistry just wasn't for me.  However, a helpful acquaintance recently sent me a link to this very amusing and heavily stylized video and I now realize that I was far too premature in my dismissal. So Unreal twists pop music into something truly weird, wonderful, and unique during its strongest moments despite being somewhat inconsistent and a bit narrow.
Brown and her ingenious co-conspirator Sam Meringue (Matrix Metals) seem to have an intuitive understanding of some very important truths that many underground/experimental musicians tend to overlook.  For example, bleeps, bloops, burbles, squiggles, tape manipulations, and general mindfuckery are a hell of a lot more appealing when they are couched within a song that also offers a strong hook or a cool groove.  Also, innovative music can still be kitschy, fun, and sexy. So Unreal offers all of those things, which makes it (mostly) an instantly gratifying and memorable effort despite the fact that much of it sounds so aggressively wrong.  Everything sounds warped, submerged, slowed down, deliberately plodding, too muddy, or too trebly:  the overall aesthetic seems to be "sun-warped '80s pop record (probably the 12" remix version) misremembered through a fog of barbiturates." Dub is also a strong reference point though, particularly in the bass lines, faux-horns, and the duo's fondness for panning and other studio enhancements.
However, the alchemy involved in making something likable out of a stew of deliberately warped sounds, lumbering/dated drum machine beats, and cheesy factory synthesizers is quite complicated and puts a lot of pressure on Brown's languid, heavily reverbed vocals to carry the songs.  They're not always up to the task (the opener "Make Me Over" falls pretty flat, for example), but her hit-to-miss ratio is fairly high for someone who probably never expected to be pretending that she is a sultry pop diva.  I was also very impressed at how well her lyrics fit the music, as the repeated "is it the champagne talking?" in "Berlin Baby" perfectly captures the "jaded and dissolute in an imagined '80s LA" feel of the music.  "Freak me and I’ll freak you back" is another particularly endearing couplet.  I'm sure there are more that I have not discovered yet.
The entire album is a bit much to take in one dose, given the limited palette, poor sound quality, and emphasis of style over substance, yet there are some extremely cool individual songs.  I was most fond of the lazily sinuous groove of the title piece, but "How Would U Know?" is also pretty spectacular–the underlying music kind of sounds like Wham's "Everything She Wants" being played at the wrong speed (which is a compliment, of course).  This is definitely a creative breakthrough for Brown–it is a welcome surprise to hear an aesthetic perfectly captured that I hadn't even imagined existing yet (early Bret Easton Ellis meets Hypnagogic Pop?).  I am converted.
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On my first time listening through Radiant Intervals, I was concerned that whatever magic Eleh was channeling previously, the source was fading. What was once rich in detail and emotional warmth had become cold and clinical. Yet, this was a hasty and trying the music again and again, I find the tones enveloping me like a cocoon. Considering this music cold was a mistake but it is clinical in a different sense to the usual critical context of the word. It is clinical in a restorative, healing way.
"Night of Pure Energy" is busier than what I usually expect from Eleh; the overlapping low frequency waves are joined by a rumbling beat and a higher tinnitus-like ringing noise. The whole piece sounds like the impossibly endless decay of bells struck before the recording took place. Just at the point when I become lost in the shimmering haze, what at first appears to be a pressing error on the LP breaks the mood suddenly. This scratchy sound, reminiscent of surface noise, allows the piece to disintegrate and for "Death is Eternal Bliss" to begin.
Like the previous piece, this too is centered around unusual harmonics and the beatings between the different frequencies but it takes a very different direction as it progresses. The beatings take on an inviting character, coming close to very, very minimal techno. The obvious touch point in Eleh’s catalog is their side of the split with Ellen Fullman (reviewed last week) and I wonder if Eleh is moving away from the more conventional classical minimalism of previous recordings.
The second side of Radiant Intervals is given up to two more pieces, neither of which repeat the ideas of the first side. "Bright & Central as the Sun Itself" sounds like the output of a mass spectrometer looks: thin, distinct bands of color (or in this case, sound) unique to the element being tested. Mass spectrometry was used to identify one of the main components of the sun, helium (the first element to be found in space before being later found on earth). Like helium, this music is lighter than air and it almost floats through the atmosphere. Suddenly, the individual frequencies coalesce into a body of sound that begins to spin under its own gravity like the furnace at the center of a solar system.
"Measuring the Immeasurable" seems to be born out the nuclear fusion of the previous piece; an increase in complexity as the gravity at the center of Eleh’s music begins to do its work. An arpeggio comes out of nowhere, as striking as landing on Mars and being greeted by someone you already know. This develops into the warmest, gentlest drone I have ever heard and how I thought this was cold during my initial listening session is beyond me!
As Radiant Intervals comes to a close for yet another time, it strikes me at how such "simple" music can be in eliciting a powerful emotional response. Throughout the album, feelings of calm permeate my mind. It is almost like a cleansing of thoughts; Eleh is a meditation music machine (although that sounds like a new age nonsense, there is certainly more mechanical elements in Eleh’s work compared to artists who evoke similar feelings like Pauline Oliveros or La Monte Young). Indeed, this use of focused drone music to initiate a change in mental state has been central to Eleh since the beginning; even before hearing the music, we only need to read the titles to realize that. Now Eleh has become the master in the approach to using a limited palette of frequencies to create such vivid, moving music.
 
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This solo debut initially had me pretty baffled, as it is stylistically all over the map and bears little resemblance to Manley's previous work with Trans Am and The Fucking Champs.  There is a perfectly logical explanation, however, as Life Coach is intended as a homage to the work of legendary German producer Connie Plank.  Of course, the fact that Phil is essentially attempting to pay tribute to the entire krautrock canon on a single album is probably even more baffling still (as well as inherently doomed), but he has the instrumental and engineering prowess to at least make an intermittently impressive show of it.
The element of Plank's work that most fascinates Manley is his attention to Klangfarben, which translates directly as "tone color," but more specifically means the nuances that give a tone its individuality.  For example, the same chord played on one guitar through one amp will sound different than the same chord played through another configuration.  As such, a lot of Phil's effort went into finding the right gear and recording equipment for getting exactly the clear, vintage sounds he wanted with as little interference from amplification and processing as possible.  In fact, it seems like maybe a bit too much effort may have been spent in search of the perfect timbres and textures, as the actual songs (while pleasant) aren't always substantial enough to make much of an impact.  People who get excited about great production or analog synthesizers will find a lot to be thrilled about, but the opportunities for delight are a bit more limited for those of us who don't care whether he used a Crumar Orchestrator or not.
The album's shortcomings are especially frustrating because Phil gets so much right: Life Coach is lively, melodic, and well arranged and he nails all of the key krautrock tropes without fail.  Unfortunately, not everything from that period has aged particularly well and Manley has a tendency towards brevity and simplicity that prevents many of his songs from effectively taking hold.  Also, there is one song ("Gay Bathers") that is just genuinely dreadful–while mercifully brief, it bears a very unfortunate resemblance to the "uplifting" closing credit music on Intervention.
Nevertheless, there are some notable successes too.  The album's definite highlight (and longest piece) is "Night Visions," a slowly unfolding and looping guitar piece that shares a lot of common ground with the excellent solo work of Emerald's Mark McGuire (no surprise, as they no doubt share many of the same influences).  There are some important differences though, as Manley's take on that sort of thing is much more minimal and meticulous than McGuire's and relies much less on escalating density. Some of the other highlights are the languid synth bliss of "Forest Opening Theme" and the odd "Commercial Potential,"which somehow seems to make '60s-style instrumental rock sound brooding and cinematic.  Many of the other pieces have their appealing traits as well, but suffer from over-brevity, underdevelopment, or simply lack of strong character.  Also, the opening "FT2 Theme" shows that the line separating "anthemic Neu! pastiche" from "music that could be from a mid-'80s aerobics video" is a very blurry and subjective one.
Life Coach has some moments of inspiration and a few good songs, but I would have liked it a lot more if Manley had been less conspicuously chameleonic. Acknowledging influences is certainly laudable and this album arguably works fairly well as a tribute/experiment (and a rather ambitious one at that), yet I am ultimately left with the feeling that I still have no idea what Phil Manley trying to sound like Phil Manley might sound like.
 
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One of the main stumbling blocks that people have with Severed Heads' discography is that Tom Ellard's long, slow evolution from harsh tape loop experimentalism to hooky electronic pop has resulted in a lot of albums that are either too outré for people looking for "pop" or too straightforward and comparatively toothless for fans that loved his early works like Since the Accident.  The precise point at which those two sides of Ellard's vision struck the perfect balance is highly debatable, but I have always believed 1991's Cuisine to be the Sevs' definitive synthesis of edginess, unpredictability, and tight songcraft.
Volition/Nettwerk/Sevcom
As with most Severed Heads releases, Cuisine has cycled through a few different record labels and track lists, but most of the important things have remained relatively constant.  However, the appended Piscatorial EP was regrettably absent from the original cassette version.  That is unfortunate, as its inclusion is essential to the album's overall charm, concluding the skewed, beat-driven songs of the main album with a plunge into a rabbit hole of deep weirdness.
Central to Cuisine's appeal is the simple fact that Ellard wrote a handful of brief, punchy, and sometimes quite excellent "pop" songs, but was still quite happy to derail them with anachronistic or mischievous surprises. It is a combination that works quite well. Naturally, given that this electronic music was made using the technology of 20 years ago, some of the beats and synth parts sound rather dated at times, but several of the songs are solid enough to transcend that: for example, the stripped-down and spectral "Ugly Twenties" still sounds as vital as ever today.  Weirdly, it is probably the most straightforward song on the album, making it an unexpected favorite for me.  Many of the similarly melodic and propulsive songs on the album are far more traditionally "Severed Heads," such as the cut-up, pitch-shifted voices in "Pilot in Hell," or the "out-of-control bagpipe ensemble" and "malfunctioning film projector" sounds in "Goodbye." Such distinctly Ellard-ian touches also serve to elevate the pieces where the songwriting isn't as strong, like the striking fiddle loop interlude in "Golden Height/I'm Your Antidote" or the haunting singing sample in "The Tingler."  Those touches are why I love this album–even its clunkiest and clumsiest moments might be interrupted by something totally unexpected or sublimely beautiful.
Piscatorial is the icing on the cake (for me anyway), though it probably seems like a perverse endurance test for those drawn to Severed Heads' catchier side, as it evinces an incredible zeal for endless repetition with slow and subtle variation.  Fortunately, anyone who can make it through the relentlessly insistent children's song-sampling piece "Kangaroo Skippy Roo" or the obsessively looping phase-shift experiment of "Quest for Oom Pa Pa" is treated to one of the greatest pieces that Ellard ever recorded: "Wonder of all the World."  Oddly, it sticks to the tireless repetition and heavy reliance on loops that characterized its predecessors, but keeps things extremely focused and minimal.  In fact, there are only two conspicuous parts: a melancholy string snippet appropriated from a classical piece and the sung phrase "wonder of all the world."  The magic lies in what Ellard does with those simple materials, as he warps and slows down the vocalist in supremely unsettling and ghostly fashion.
Sadly, I haven't met too many other people that share my excitement about this album, which I can understand, as it is somewhat self-indulgent, inconsistent, and very much rooted in a very specific era that has passed.  Nevertheless, it is still packed full of infectious hooks and great ideas and boasts at least two rather brilliant songs.  Equally importantly, it is entirely devoid of the clichés and posturing that were so rampant in "industrial" music around that time.  I am particularly impressed with how Ellard used loops on this album, as he never did anything obvious like lift a beat, bassline, movie dialog sample, or recognizable hook. Instead, he managed to craft some rather soulful, stuttering hooks of his own through enthusiastic mutilation and reshaping of improbable or unrecognizable source material.  Consequently, no one else sounded quite like this (then or now).  Taken in its entirely, Cuisine certainly has a number of flaws, but it is definitely original and ingenious enough to warrant a re-evaluation.
 
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There has never been an album by Nina Nastasia I didn't like. Sure, I have my favorites, and on those my favorite songs, but I've never been disappointed. I also know what to expect in terms of her songwriting, which is always exceptional. The formula and style haven't varied much from record to record, though different elements are often accentuated. What I do notice is a steady refinement and ever increasing mastery of subtle details. Her introspective lyrics continue to explore the territories of friendship, love, longing, and loss, and her strong and powerfully feminine voice continues to elucidate deep emotional responses from within me.
Part of the consistency from album to album comes from the great working relationship she has with engineer Steve Albini. All of her albums are suffused with the distinctive warmth he is able to magically extract from all the instruments, especially the strings. Drummer Jim White, of Dirty Three fame, has also contributed expert percussive rhythms to a number of her records. White doesn’t make an appearance on Outlaster but the drums are just as deftly employed by Jay Bellerose. The entire set up across these ten songs is unique, as she works with a string quartet, a wind quartet, and a trio. Paul Bryan who plays piano and electric bass in the trio was also responsible for the conducting and arrangements of the songs. Sometimes the addition of orchestral elements can make a record bombastic and overbearing. This is certainly not the case here. All the components are married together perfectly.
The disc opens with the elegiac "Cry, Cry Baby," beginning with soft strumming and gentle voice. Bluegrass infused cello bowing underscore is given a moment to shine by itself, before she sings out "you're my only true love" while the violins soar into the higher registers, the electric guitar whispering quiet lines along the edge of the song. Nina is great at writing short songs, often having several on an album that clock in at under two minutes. For all their brevity, they are often the most poignant and powerful of all. I think of them as extended haikus, rich with imagery that burns in a powerful flash. "Moves Away" is such a song, her energetic voice spinning a commanding melody.
The rhythm and pacing of the words bleeds over into the next song, the string quartet conjuring up motifs from previous songs. The joy for me on "You're a Holy Man," however, is delicate flourishes of the quick French horn which place the song in another orbit. It is hard to pick a favorite piece but when I'm not listening to the album straight through, I return to "You Can Take Your Time," which would be a good choice for a mix tape or to play as part of a radio set. It gives me the shivers, especially verses like, "do you think I judge you / tell me how it looks to love you / I am not a stranger / I know you well."
"The Familiar Way" has an enjoyable flamenco flair, recalling similar elements in the work of Matt Elliott on albums like Failing Songs and Howling Songs. In the lyrics she references her own previous masterpiece The Blackened Air, an album that has held up considerably well over the years. Things reach a midway climax on the following "What's Out There," where the string section collapses at one point into a frittering display of plucking, effectively capturing the sound of broken clocks, and jarring springs. The second to last song, "One Way Out," is another brilliant short tune: the lyrics are minimal but her voice is most gorgeous and tender at this point, demonstrating the great range she is capable of. The title track tops things off with a wondrous evocation of sailing across the sea. It starts with cymbal taps that are almost imperceptibly ring modulated. The wind section is sonorous, as if the exhaled air of the players is tinkling the caressing strings of bells. Things fade out in a peaceful lull.
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There is an obvious sense of isolation, both overt and implied, within this album. As a young composer in the culturally restricted country of Iran, the hushed textures and quiet moments feel forbidden, and therefore all the more attractive to hear. In addition, the quiet, meditative passages are occasionally broken up by sharp, loud outbursts that magnify sense of paranoia in listening to the proceedings.
Utilizing just field recordings, software, and live mixing, A Hidden Place is a dynamic album despite its sparse nature."Susanna" hides grimy, treated percussive loops below time worn hums and reverberations, burying what would otherwise be boisterous sounds in blankets of quiet.The rhythms take on a flanged, aquatic character as icy melodies rise to the surface to become the focus.
"Somebody" also uses sparse, treated field recordings that sound as if they were collected in secret, with what sounds like distant prayer chants clearly setting the mood in which this was recorded.Voices appear, somewhat overtly, towards the middle of the piece, conveying a feeling of being questioned by some draconian authority."Pedagogicheskaya Poema" demonstrates this at its most jarring, with subtle, simple sounds constructed into beautiful micromelodies, creating a hypnotic swell that is violently interrupted by a squealing blast of noise, making the implied tension overt.
Organ like bells open "Himmel Uber Tehran" above a rhythmic backdrop of reversed static bursts and clear, digital chimes that take command, once again providing a warm, inviting glow. This is snuffed in the title track as layers of oppressive, but brittle noise cover everything, with the occasional snapping or crackling outburst to be heard.Just as the noise retreats, yelled voices appear, again making the underlying tension tangible.
As the B side ends on "Zarrin," there is a sense of relief that the remaining treated and stretched melodies give.Under a layer of heavy vinyl surface noise, the melodies twist and curve into one another without any harsh outbursts. The pensive, melancholy tones sound like they’re coming off an old LP that has been passed around in secrecy for years.
I have always felt that conceptual music, or works created within a specific context, should function well in a vacuum…meaning that they should still be compelling without knowledge of where, when, or why they were created.A Hidden Place accomplishes that, as there is a lot of hushed beauty and frightening outbursts to be heard.Knowing the conditions in which Sohrab created this, it only adds to the power of this recording, making it fascinating on multiple levels.
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Wire's last album, Object 47, admittedly never fully clicked with me. It was definitely a good disc, but it didn’t ever feel truly like Wire to these ears. The heavy use of digitally treated guitar and synthesizers to create "pop" music came across feeling more like a Colin Newman solo album, and also rather close to his Githead project. Red Barked Tree, on the other hand, is more organic and also channels a bit of that brilliant genre-breaking schizophrenia that made Chairs Missing and 154 such classics.
It's not nearly the drastic shift in sound that occurred between 2003's Send and 2008's Object 47, however. Red Barked Tree actually retains a lot of the melodic pop elements of the latter, but in the more traditional guitar/bass/drum configuration, rather than the more electronic-tinged approach, and the results feel more like Wire to me. It doesn't hurt that there are a lot of elements from the band’s history that arise:the guitar tone on opener "Please Take" instantly reminded me of "The 15th," and the pounding drum/guitar riff opening to "Smash" channels "I Don't Understand," and so forth.These never feel forced or lazy, but just reference points that those familiar with Wire's catalogue would appreciate.
The former also pairs a bouncing melody and a classically smooth Graham Lewis vocal with lyrics that are the polar opposite ("Fuck off out of my face/You take up too much space/Move!You're blocking my view/I've seen far too much of you") that seem to reference "Mannequin" as much as "Torch It." "A Flat Tent" is another that feels like an amalgamation of Wire's discography:a punky propulsion akin to something off of Pink Flag, but a catchy melody and odd breaks and changes in the structure is something no other band could do this well."Smash" is cut from a similar cloth, with a memorable melody that could be pulled from '80s Wire, even with the noisy, ugly breakdowns that occur.Plus, it doesn't hurt that we can clearly hear the bassline to "I Am The Fly" pop up in "Clay."
Other songs are happy to wear their aggression proudly:"Moreover" has steady, methodological drumming and clockwork-like guitar riffs are definitely thorny, and combined with its stream of consciousness lyrics, the result almost makes it seem like "Raft Ants" on Ritalin."Two Minutes," which was released a few months ago as a teaser for the full album was definitely an odd choice:being written in 2001, it has that pseudo-Motorhead drive that characterized those early Read & Burn EPs.The clean guitar sound definitely separates it from the early 00s material, and the random lyrics are a Wire signature.Newman's snarling, sarcastic delivery is perfectly balanced with Lewis' narrator like cadence on his lines.
Perhaps the oddest thing to jump out at me was the overt use of acoustic guitar on a few tracks, notably "Down To This" and "Red Barked Trees." I actually have to go so far as to say "Adapt" is jangly, something I'd never thought I’d say about Wire.However, it fits perfectly, especially on "Red Barked Trees," which has a folk infused sound that ends the album on an uplifting note as opposed to the apocalyptic bleakness of "Down To This," which is quite possibly the most dour track the band has ever done.These last two tracks are the ones that feel perhaps the least "Wire" to me, but in all honesty, I'm sure fans hearing "Drill" for the first time upon its release would have said the same thing, and I've always considered that track quintessentially Wire.
The first 2000 orders direct from Pink Flag include a bonus EP, Strays, that is an attempt to capture four tracks the band always felt were never adequately presented in studio recordings.In addition, the recordings feature both previous and current touring members Margaret McGinnis and Matt Simms on guitar and backing vocals, making it a unique item in the band's discography."Boiling Boy," which I always felt was a high point of A Bell Is A Cup is stripped of its FM synthesis and MIDI heritage to be reborn as a purely organic guitar/bass/drums track, much like the band has been playing it live.I can't say that one version is "better" than another, because they are so different, but the build in intensity in the final third or so of the song is a brilliant touch.
"German Shepherds," on the other hand, loses some of the murky sadness that seemed to permeate the Peel Session take (from Coatings) that made it, quite possibly, my favorite single track from 1980s Wire.It is closer to the original b-side version from "Silk Skin Paws" than it is to the IBTABA recording and is still quite good, but just not the same for me."He Knows" is the only one here that, to my knowledge, has appeared on no other release, and resembles the Object 47 era, though stripped down to its barest essentials.Thankfully, "Underwater Experiences" more resembles the Document and Eyewitness takes than the demo from Behind the Curtain, but just feels odd having Newman and Lewis shouting the vocals in unison, rather than the haphazard yelling of the older versions.It lacks the hysterical mania of the live recordings, but is in no way a bad song.
It might not be quite the genre hopping masterpiece that 154 was to me, but Red Barked Tree feels like the band’s most diverse offering since the mid 1980s. While I really have no way as of yet to rank it among their other albums personally, given the relatively brief time I’ve had with it, I feel, at least now, that it will come out well, as there just seems to be a greater number of songs that stuck with me after first hearing them, and thus motivating me to give it another spin after "Red Barked Trees" comes to a close.
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