- Jonathan Dean
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/aural_rage-a_nature_of_nonsense.gif)
Aural Rage
Even amongsome of Coil's most zealous advocates, works like "Windowpane" and "TheSnow" are considered somewhat aberrant, their adherence to then-currenttechno norms seemed a deliberate step into the mainstream, not astrategy for which Coil are generally known. Much of this fixation onthe reconfiguration of dance music was brought to the group by DannyHyde, so it should come as no surprise that his debut solo album A Nature of Nonsensesounds a lot like that phase when Coil seemed to be spending a lot oftime tripping at London discos. Those dark, synthetic strings,programmed rhythms, shuddering MDMA-filtered beats, acid gurgles andinsect buzzes are all over the album. Unfortunately, this means thatthe album sounds a bit uniform and dated in the same way as "The Snow"does now. Also, like many talented engineers who create their ownmusic, Danny Hyde seems overly dependent upon the gear and software heuses, producing many tracks that sound more like in-store demos forelectronic music gizmos than they do like fully-realized songs. Hyde'smaximalist approach, with a dense beatscape overpopulated with layersof samples and sonic detail, recalls The Orb and Meat Beat Manifesto,only not as polished or interesting. This is something of adisappointment coming from someone who worked on such stunning Coiltracks as "First Dark Ride" and "Nasa Arab." Aural Rage turns in itsown interpolation of the latter track with "Nasahara Arab," a pointlessrefabrication of the original that adds layers of unnecessary busy-nessto the track. Another reinterpreted Coil track fares slightly better,the noisy forward momentum of "Unhealthy Red," based on the Coil piece"Unearthly Red" from Live Four. Two tracks featuring vocals bythe late Jhonn Balance are strong points for the album, thoughBalance's voice sounds incongruous placed amid hyperactive compositionsfilled to bursting with extraneous sound effects. On "FJ Nettlefold,"Balance performs a remarkably possessed vocal, but Hyde miscalculatesby overprocessing and adding Dead Can Dance female backing vocals thatsound ludicrous in this context. Still, it's wonderful to hear Balanceagain, in whatever form. Hyde seems to enjoy a good bit of humor,whether it's Stephen Hawking's computer voice proclaiming "Physics isall very good, but me, I'd rather get wood," or a cut-up of everyone'sfavorite tyrant George W. Bush on "Dubya Does One." Problem is, thesegags visit well-worn territory, and in the case of "A Nutter at Radio3," the jokes are just plain stolen, uncredited, from Trunk Records' Dirty Fan Male.I don't want to be overly cruel to an album that is plainly a verysincere DIY enterprise, but from the rather ho-hum name of the projectdown to the hack-job sleeve artwork, A Nature of Nonsense suffers from a dearth of actual ideas, not an uncommon problem for music made by engineers rather than artists.
samples:
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Alien Transistor (DE) / Anticon (US)
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/13+goD.jpg)
samples:
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Thrill Jockey
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/adult-dume.gif)
samples:
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- Jonathan Dean
- Albums and Singles
Threshold House
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/coil-and_the_ambulance_died_in_his_arms.jpg)
samples:
- A Slip in the Marylebone Road
- Triple Sons and the One You Bury
- The Dreamer Is Still Asleep - A Somnambulist in an Ambulance
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/thighpaulsandra-double_vulgar_ii.jpg)
Released as a CD and a triple-LP on Beta-Lactam Ring, the music on Thighpaulsandra's Double Vulgar II is very much in the same vein as its predecessor: long, freeform post-prog soundscapes populated by a basement full of vintage analogue synthesizers, long passages of masturbatory noodling, occasionally erupting into grandiose psychedelic glam-rock centerpieces before giving way to the twittering machines again. The album opens with Thighps and his opera-singing mum Dorothy Lewis trading surreal quips. "I'm not above using these tongs, you know," says Mme. Lewis, to which her son replies: "You afro-intercom bitch!" This weirdness continues for a while, against a backdrop of vaguely Star Trek-ian electronic chirps and the mutated saxophone bleats. The track continues through very surreal territory, sounding not entirely unlike something Nurse With Wound would produce after listening to the entire discography of ESP-Disk under the influence of magic mushrooms. I kept thinking that the song was on the verge of coalescing into something more concrete and musical, but I was wrong—dead wrong—which is good. It's nice to have your hopes and expectations dashed occasionally. "Telly For Rex" is something else entirely, sounding like the group improvisations captured on last year's Rape Scene album.
The trio (or quartet?) of players orbit loosely around Thighpaulsandra's noisy squalls of brain-frying electronics, trying to glue it all together with shambolic percussion and swathes of electric guitar. It's a gloriously incomprehensible mess, all the way up until about the 13-minute mark, at which point the song unceremoniously explodes into a ferocious Hawkwind-style space-rock bacchanalia, complete with incongruous female back-up vocals. Things don't get any clearer with "Imperial," which begins quiet and clattery before gradually turning into an inexplicably groovy jazzy Krautrock with xylophones and all manner of unexplainable audio phenomenon bouncing around the room. Then it gets quiet and creepy again, concluding with a distorted group incantation. "Vomitting Child" begins with the sounds of closely-mic'd droids quietly masturbating, before turning into a vaguely tribal excursion, eventually somehow ending up as a melancholic, spaced-out alt-country number complete with slide guitar and mellow vocals by Thighpaulsandra himself. Ending this kitchen-sink mess is the hilariously over-the-top "Bost Sanvay Unst Bit Sumonver," a truly unhinged sidelong track that begins with a sorta coherent song-type-thing with perverse lyrics ("I wipe my penis on his curtains") and gradually falls apart into its component pieces, wandering lysergically through several deeply fucked-up minutes before reassembling for a final rhythmic leap into space. Double Vulgar II is the sort of album that plays like an uncensored, unedited stream-of-consciousness from a group of talented players being led by a mad genius. It makes no apologies for its excesses (including the erect male member lovingly pictured on the back sleeve), and doesn't stay in one place long enough for anyone to get bored.
samples:
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- Lucas Schleicher
- Albums and Singles
Carpark
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/whitman_davis-yearlong.jpg)
samples:
- Knitting Factory - New York USA - June 22nd, 2002 (Track 03)
- WFMU Radion Session - Jersey City USA - June 23rd, 2002 (Track 08)
- Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco USA - April 4th, 2002
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Morr Music
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/fs_blumm-zweite_meer.jpg)
samples:
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- Jim Siegel
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/tibetan_buddhist_rites.jpg)
samples:
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- Chris Roberts
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/daedalus-exquisite_corpse.jpg)
samples:
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- Lucas Schleicher
- Albums and Singles
Kranky
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/common/images/covers/krank080.gif)
samples:
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- Jim Siegel
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/nodern.jpg)
samples:
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