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artist: Valet
title: Blood is Clean
catalog #: krank105
formats available: CD
CD UPC Code: 7 96441 81052 9
Release Date: April 16, 2007
Content: Blood is Clean is the debut release by Honey Owens under the name Valet. The songs were formed out of a natural and spontaneous process as separate incidents of recording over a 5 month period from January to May of 2006. They were recorded by and large in single, live takes with minor additional tracking added here and there. The results are at once spare and expansive; exploratory, yet deceptively simple.
Honey wanted to make music that was not neccessarily of her, but rather “to be a medium channeling sounds from an unknown place, opening up and spilling out onto the computer-tape.” The cryptic, mesmerizing sound pallete was inspired by “lucid dreams and physical artifacts that appeared to me daily that hinted at a sound-world of Haitian Voodoo drumming, various shamanic dreamtime musics, the Velvet Underground, and the ‘Fourth-World’ concepts of Jon Hassell”.
We will just say that these are some of the most inspiring alien-psychedelic-blues-jams that we have heard in ages. And check out the absolutely fried guitar work from the outer edge of the galaxy on the title cut.
Context: Honey Owens has been an important figure in the Portland experimental music scene for more than 10 years, collaborating with an array of both oscure and well-known music projects including: World, Nudge, Dark Yoga and JOMF. Honey Owens lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Track Listing: 01. April 6 02. Blood is Clean 03. Burmajuana 04. Tame All the Lions
05. Mystic Flood 06. My Volcano 07. Sade 4 Bri 08. North
Quote: "Does Honey Owens aka Valet really sing 'My blood is clean/But the devil's in me' right before that percussion kicks in? Holy moley; that's too perfect. That guitar solo is the best we might have heard in years. It's a time-stopping guitar solo. Everyone else should stop doing that, right now; put down your guitars! Thank you." MikeMcGonigal-Yeti Magazine #4
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artist: Deerhunter
title: Fluorescent Grey EP
catalog #: krank107
formats available: CD (enhanced)
upc code: 7 96441 81072 7
release date: April 9, 2007
content: Four new songs recorded while mixing Cryptograms. A snapshot of what direction the band might explore next? Probably not.
context: This EP arrives on the heels of a well received sophomore LP, 'Cryptograms'. While exploring themes not especially dissimilar, the EP functions in many ways as an epilogue to both the LP and the accompanying well-reported anxiety surrounding it's creation. The band now has a clean slate to explore something entirely new in the future.
track listing: 1. Fluorescent Grey 2. Dr. Glass 3. Like New 4. Wash Off
bonus: Video for Strange Lights from Cryptograms directed by James Sumner
quotes for the Cryptograms album:
'Deerhunter has really churned out a remarkable release, pulling together the best elements of pop, punk, experimental and psychedelic rock without being derivative.' other music
'..sounds at once radiant and terrified. ' pitchfork, best new music 8.9
'..realize deerhunter's true strength: a knack for shaping choice bits of sophisticated pop revelry while alternately dipping into liquid sojourns of ambient bliss.' the stranger
'Cryptograms is a thoroughly amazing listen, an early best for 2007, and a beautifully woven collection of stunning melodicism and sonic manipulation.' treble
'Cryptograms will either elicit a re-appreciation of pop in numerous bitter misanthropes, or completely acid-fry the unsuspecting songwriters who were already predisposed to these strange sounds that they’d been unknowingly waiting to hear.' tinymixtapes
"Cryptograms is the kind of record that should be played in every teenage bedroom in america." dusted
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artist: THE MAJOR STARS
title: Portable Freak Factory b/w Can You See Me?
catalog #: IMPREC124
format: 7"
Limited edition of 500 w/ the first 100 on color vinyl.
Two brand new burners (including a Hendrix cover on the b-side) recorded during the same sessions for The Major Stars next full length album for Important.
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Spekk
Small Melodies is like a gentle mental massage. The basic premise behind this compilation was for each artist to come up with a piece of music that would fit with the phrase “Small Melodies” and some other qualitative words like “warm” or “calm.” Despite the artists hailing from all over the world, they all had very similar interpretations of these words: minimalist glitches and soft ringing tones. With the vast majority of the music here all sounding like it has been cut from the same cloth, it is unexpected that the album is not boring. There are some delightful pieces by Sogar, Taylor Deupree and Oren Ambarchi; each of their contributions are beautiful, soft works that are a pleasure to listen to.
This is one thing I like about Small Melodies; it fits well for most moods. It may be best presented as a way of winding down after a hard day but it is very listenable in general. It is the sort of album I would reach for when I cannot make my mind up what to listen to. I may not be able to listen to all of it every time but as a handy collection of pleasant music it is wonderful. It reminds me of the Buddha Machine, music that is not designed for listening to like one would with a normal album but music to fill in the sonic gaps in your surroundings. The music may not be the most exciting in terms of action or originality but that is not the point here, the point is to relax and bask in the warm glow.
I have enjoyed this compilation a lot. While it may not be particularly remarkable it is joyous to listen to. I can see how it may be a bit repetitive for some people but I found the many variations on the same theme to be one of the best things about Small Melodies. More remarkable to me is that I know even if I put this on shuffle I am not going to get one loud track ruining my sleepy buzz.
samples:
- Taylor Deupree - For Nicholas
- Aen - Film
- Stephen Mathieu - Small Melody (Fur Richard)
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Presumably because that's what people do, Spaceape includes a list of cultural influences on his MySpace page. It's faintly comforting to sense his appreciation of Solaris, Maya Deren, La Jetée and William Burroughs, though creating enduring work is approximately 23 times trickier than recycling notions of implanted memories, time travel, tribal hypnotism, cultural conquest and viral prophesy. Good starting points though, and there are enough twists and turns away from mechanical sleekness and unsentimental bombast on Memories of the Future that even a future Hyperdub release titled Plague Meshes from the Red Pier of Yesterday under the name Dr A Messenger would get my attention. Someone not on Spaceape's list (or Kode9's) is Keith Hudson; though nevertheless the bones of his skeletal shadow hang over both this record and much of the music that we could call Genre:Noir; since making tangential tributes to French actors is fun, but also because there's a point beyond which language incestuously consumes itself, and hopping, tripping and stepping with or without a drum through a bass jungle of dub grime to find a genre-appropriate label for recorded sound, can seem meaningless. Recognized or not, Hudson's unique, lithe, tough sound remains as influential as that of any dub artist or producer.
The other, acknowledged, influence on this record is the great Linton Kwesi Johnson, often described as a "dub poet." Maybe I just love the smell of pedantry in the morning, but in the original conception of dub, a b-side of a song was made with partially erased vocals, added reverb, echo and other effects for a stripped down, stretched, and sometimes, I would argue, psychedelic version. While that practice hasn't gone away completely, the construction of a dub edifice without the process of erasing (case in point: Echo Base Soundsystem) is commonplace, and indeed while LKJ's music is composed as if sculpted from subtractions, his words aren't generally erased, and their meaning is never sacrificed. LKJ is a bona fide poet treating words with relish, rolling sound around on his tongue, marinating intellect in hard-edged emotion, and sometimes spitting out utter perfection. To his credit, Spaceape has a fair crack at it and his voice fits this sonic landscape perfectly. Kode9's music illustrates a strand of mutant dub that doesn't always swing, has a sheen and core that seem more clinical than organic, and yet definitely retains the necessary alien allure of the exotic.
The glacial skipping and looped spoken sample on "Nine Samurai" suggests travel on a fickering, frosty, sunlit day dipping through several tunnels along the way. The track seems to interlock shimmering bleak prophesy and crackling rural superstition, erasing any discernable distance between the two. "Sine of the Dub" is a highpoint, where the opus formerly known as P.R.Nelson's finest moment, is stripped down by to muscle, blood vessel and bone, as if the suddenly ubiquitous Gunther von Hagens had harnessed his plastic preservation process to create the sound of futuristic nostalgia suitable for the headphones of the long dead. Spaceape alters some phrases where necessary. The economy is admirable and the result striking.
"Victims" is propelled by an echoing freefall quality that is superhypnotic in the sense that perhaps a driver's speed might unconsciously be influenced by the music, or they could suddenly wonder who has been driving the last few miles (a sensation beautifully articulated elsewhere by Lord Buckley on his Subconscious Mind). Perhaps less conscious than self-conscious, Memories of the Future includes four previous Hyperdub releases along with ten new tracks which achieve a depth and spaciousness that could be akin to the oddly freeing sensation of drowning or being smothered with a pillow. Whether "Correction" refers to a slight from a past love or some wider economic or racial injustice matters little compared to it's claustrophobic threat. On "Curious" an echo-soaked Ms. Haptic appears so fleetingly that the only curiosity is whether or not she actually exists. Despite her apparently being a MySpace friend of Kode9, I suspect not.
samples:
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For this album, Chris is joined by Tim Kinsella (of Joan of Arc) and Ben Vida of Bird Show and Town & Country (who also produced the record), as well as members of US Maple, Califone and other Chicago jazz and improv luminaries.
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I think it's unmistakably beautiful. For those who have never heard Kinsella's Owen, it sounds not unlike someone who woke up late on Sunday morning, rolled out of bed and into a guitar strap, and started virtuosically noodling through some condensed notes from half-written parts, spurting out prosaic thoughts which were running through his head right before he went to sleep the night before. The result is a sometimes uncomfortably privileged look into Kinsella's world and the access is twofold: you see not only his unshaded thoughts in the lyrics but also the introverted aftermath of these thoughts presented through polished pieces of music. As a listener, you can't let the bedroom presentation disguise the fact that the songs are incredibly well-wrought and orchestrated. Nothing in them suggests rudeness or laziness, despite the lazy environs.
"Bad News" is both the album's opener and highlight. It begins simply with the four-note plucked refrain which is the song's central motif but soon blossoms into eighteen different complex parts, fading in and out on Kinsella's polyinstrumental whims. Fortunately, Kinsella's musical whims are akin to most people's prudent decisions. He knows when to pull the strings and when to saturate the sparseness. He also knows how to mix simplistic indictment ("Whatever you think you are, you aren't") with lyrical complexity ("I know it's mean to say, but it's something I've been meaning to say to you/ for a while: You're a has-been, that never was"). "The Sad Waltzes Of Pietro Crespi" inquisitively picks up the meandering coda of "Bad News." The kinetic guitar part mimics the intonation of a spoken question and symmetrically mirrors the actual questions posed in the lyrics. I try not to pay too much attention to "One of These Days" because it drips with melancholy. And yet the song is dreadfully compelling, something of an elegy to Kinsella's father, from what I can tell. If that is the case, then it is a proper ode of which any father could be proud. Kinsella usually enjoys punctuating his idylls with an off-color "shit" or "fuck" every now and then, just to remind you that he might be angry amidst the delicate melodies. But there is newfound restraint on this album; Kinsella decides not to force the awkward slur into his music where it really doesn't belong.
At Home With is more robust than previous ones and though musical purists will probably gag when they notice Owen's cover of "Femme Fatale," it's not as apocalyptic as you might think. The VU cover is a wink and a nod to themes of Owen's lyrical past and a light-hearted dig at the sanctity of music never intended to be sanctified, a notion which Kinsella embraces wholeheartedly. He isn't in the business of building temples; he only decorates them.
samples:
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B-Music
The music is Turkish folk from the ground up but decorated with electric guitars and synthesisers. Some of the songs sound great with the vibrant, electric sound. "Ince Ince" and "Yaz Gazeteci Yaz" from early on in the album both accommodate the contemporary psychedelic sound very well. One song that I am glad they did not record with all the electric instruments is "Gine Haber Gelmis," a mournful and sparse piece where Selda cries out her words into the void, it is beautiful stuff. There are other songs I feel would have sounded better with this stripped down approach, some of the guitar is drenched in phaser and flanger effects which makes them sound extremely dated now.
Speaking of words, as an advocate for free speech, Selda’s lyrics got her into trouble with the authorities in Turkey. As I do not speak Turkish I can only assume that the lyrics in her native tongue are better than the strangely translated English versions in the sleeve notes: "Accept this song as my pray" being one example of a line that should have been proof-read before going to press. Plus only five out of the 17 songs are listed in the lyrics section. It would have been nice if more effort had been put into this aspect of the release. There are three pages of sleeve notes telling me why she is important but then they omit most of the proof!
B-Music have committed themselves to releasing what they see as criminally unappreciated rare records. So far their releases have been hit or miss although all have been interesting. The problem with their releases is that they seem to equate rare with genius and it is obvious that this is a silly way to judge records. In this case, they have luckily hit the mark. Selda’s music may be primitive in terms of recording quality but the music is still captivating. You can hear elements of punk, post-punk and modern independent music from Eastern Europe in her music. This is how I imagine what the Eurovision song contest should sound like: songs that exemplify both what is progressive and defining of a culture.
samples:
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Extreme
Parallels can be drawn between the romanticism of the open American highway and the Australian Outback. While Chill Out was the KLF's soundtrack of a fictitious journey through the American landscape, I could see Get a Room scoring a long drive in Australia with nothing but scenery to look at. Like Chill Out, the journey here can act both as foreground and background. Songs morph into each other almost seamlessly, either alone or with the slightest bits of sublime effects. Songs aren't identified, tracks aren't titled, and often there are a few songs or sources playing simultaneously. While the styles range from vocal lounge to micro dub, classic R&B to atmospheric country-influenced steel guitar, orchestral soundtrack music and sound effects, the feel remains pretty easy going. It's always in motion, however; never does it feel like it's dragging nor has it wandered completely off course.
There could be dialogue over bits like on track 6, where a lazy accordion and string melody accompanies the sounds of the ocean, before the melodic climax of course; but in other spots are more vocal songs, which can't help but take center stage. I can't help but feel like I recognize a ton of these songs but I'm embarrassed to say how few I can properly identify. My guess is a lot of it has been taken from underground film soundtracks of the '60s and '70s even though there are clearly songs that come from the '90s and this decade.
The lapping of the ocean returns with what could be Italian or Spanish standards, streetside sounds accompany downbeat R&B before night falls and low tone bells sound over the noises of crickets and other nighttime bugs. It's the low tones and creepy bugs that make this release on Extreme almost make sense, but as things pick back up again to porn soundtrack-ish music, my mind is once again far from the music Extreme has come to be known for.
It's nice to have the Extreme label back in the game, as I have always found their releases pretty solid and always worth listening to. This disc, however, has been a complete surprise in terms of its versatility and has frequently scored dinners at home, car rides, and other things since I got it. I think I read somewhere that the two creators were promising a tracklisting of the album but at this point I honestly don't want to know it.
samples:
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Kubisch's magnetic headphones have built-in coils that respond to electrical fields within their environment. Talking a walk with these phones has spawned here a track of cross-town traffic electrics (rather than electronics) that criss-cross each other like a skyline of pylons. Like a different missive from every street corner, passing pedestrian and piece of underground cabling its possible to hear the silent hum of invisible life. At just under three minutes, and regardless of the details of its creation, this is a progressively pulsing piece of electric-grey head music. The minimal rhythm patterns are pretty simplistic; sounding in places like synth constructed clicks and cuts that threaten to blossom and subside, but never do.
samples:
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