- Drew Wright
- Albums and Singles
WillowtipIt's pretty much impossible these days to spit in any direction at aNorth American metal/hardcore festival and miss some band for whom AtThe Gates' Slaughter of the Soul forms the backbone of their sound.While a well-intentioned and, while being disturbingly over-rated,solid album, most of the unlistenable trash that has been spewed forthas melodic death metal over the past decade can be traced back to thisone blip on the musical landscape. Thankfully, the merry men in Arsishave emerged from four years of relative obscurity in Virginia spentcrafting their debut album and what could easily be considered thefirst melodic death masterpiece of the 21st century. Gone are theclich? that have plagued all but a handful of bands, for they have beenreplaced by this amazing razor sharp, ultra catchy, simply wonderfulcollection of tunes that will have even the most modest of peoplelonging to grow their hair out, throw up the horns, and have a greattime trying to keep up. Setting the pace right out of the gate with theferocious "The Face of My Innocence," it becomes immediately clear thatthis isn't your older brother's death metal, but something completelyoriginal and without equal on the modern metal landscape. There is notone single recycled riff, not one slightly uninteresting passage, notone second where you might doubt that you are hearing something thathasn't been done before with this type of precision and raw power. Theyeven manage to make the usually snore-inducing verse-chorus-verse songstructure work on "Maddening Disdain" with Malone tapping out a playfulmelody over drummer Michael VanDyne's ever-steady double bassonslaught. A true original toeing the line between vicious andmischievous with an authoritative expertise that concedes to neither,"A Celebration of Guilt" truly is the definition of essential.
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The title comes from poet and mescaline-prophet Henri Michaux; it is his vision of standing in a rainstorm, its persistent torrents, rather than enacting cleansing or comfort, are instead divisive, penetrating the body towards a thunderous disintegration. "I was, and was not, I was caught yet I was lost, I was in a state of complete ubiquity. The thousands upon thousands of rustlings were my own thousand shatterings." Three recordings make up sound artist Seth Cluett's own homage to rain, one a field recording taken during a storm, the preceding two consecutive reworkings of the resulting master tape. Cluett presents the three parts in "reverse" order: the first was created last as a reinterpretation or a remembering of the second, which was performed as a live manipulation of the original tape, a performance guided by the artist's recollections of the experience of recording the source material, presented unchanged in the third section.Sedimental
I think some of the reasoning behind this sequence traces back to Cluett's continuing interest in the factor of the human presence, however passive, within an auditory environment. In its initial representation, the rainstorm comes twice removed from its physical or natural circumstance, so that by the end of the three sections an ultra-gradual transformation has occurred as the sound moves slowly back toward a presumably "pure", or actual manifestation. The artist's emphasis is on the way his own perception (as a physical presence acting within a space), or even the memory of his perceiving, come to effect his reactions to, or processing of, particular phenomena. Cluett uses Michaux's words to bring out the powerful and disarming qualities of rainfall, its infinite variety and its Zen-like totality, how it maps every surface with a thousand all-reaching arms, while in the same instant performing a complete white-out of the landscape, a wall of coagulated sound and blurry, impressionist vision. The glancing blows and shatterings that Michaux felt in the rain Cluett has obviously shared, and his "response" pieces try to simulate the water's dual personality. The artist establishes the rain's blanketing, everywhere-at-once quality in his use of the drone, a blank constancy slow to rise and fall but one which opens onto an inner world of speeding detail. The manipulated rainfall becomes a rich, organ-esque heaviness given the illusion of speed by the layering of purer sounding tones in slowly climactic modulation. Cluett describes being inspired by the excited movement of a glacier in Pakistan: "a very fast slow". The saturating effect of the disc's first two tracks is remarkable given the artist's limited resources and deliberate monotony; when played loud the outwardly placid drones ease into streaming patterns, relentless and pummeling, though also comforting in the way they hold the body and the room in edgeless reverberation. While the first section is the more dramatic, its tones breaking several times into peaks of throbbing feedback, the second segment is longer, slower and eventually more successful in recreating the rain's effect as an immersive soundworld of both dizzying speed and suspended landscape. This makes sense given the track sequence, as the second piece should theoretically be closer to the original experience of the rainstorm. When in the third section the rain and thunder arrive as originally captured, the recording interestingly fails to do justice to the captivating power explained by the first two. The familiarity of the sounds comes almost as a comfort after such intense precedents; however I will say that after sitting through all 15 min. of this rain, by the end I did feel a lot nearer to an open window, and wincing at the thunder for sure.
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- there is the fact of its bursting
- there is the fact of its plunging headlong
- there is the fact of its being torrential
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Now comes Audika's deluxe, remastered, expanded reissue of World of Echo, which in my opinion, stands as Arthur Russell's most fully realized masterpiece. Originally released in 1986 to very little fanfare, World of Echo is an inscrutably brilliant album of minimalist pop, Russell showcasing his unique method of singing and playing the cello simultaneously, a skill that he developed over years of private rehearsal. The album consists of 14 tracks of Russell playing and singing in his remarkably unique style, every track coated with gorgeous layers of feedback and reverb, with subtle undercurrents of electronic ambience forming an eerie, dislocated cushion of air, upon which the melodies float.
Rather than using drum machines or live percussion as he had done in the past, Russell opted for a nearly rhythm-less environment, the time signatures instead provided by a subtle implication in the pulls of his bow and the vacillations of his voice. The rhythm is never missed, though, because it's still there, living in the margins of Russell's distinct phrasing, his uncanny ability to suggest layers of complexity and harmony in deceptively simple melodies. The artist's unique use of echo reached its absolute zenith on this album, with the subtle play of delay joining each successive vocal phrase or plucked note to the next, creating an amorphous current of sound that answers each call like a quickly decaying chorus. Though most of the lyrics on World of Echo can be discerned, it seems clear that Russell was more interested in the shapes and sounds of words than creating a meaningful lyric, an intention that is made clear is Russell's brief liner notes. The artist connects with his dance music past with the inclusion of several songs which revisit his best disco sides—"Wax the Van," "Treehouse," and "Let's Go Swimming"—transforming them into painfully intimate echoes of his personal history. There are ripples and eddies and snaking jet streams on World of Echo, there are moments of an intensely confessional sexual nature, moments of sadness and of joy.
In addition to the remastered CD, which includes four bonus tracks from the same sessions as the original album, Audika has also included a bonus DVD containing two films by Phill Niblock - "Terrace of Unintelligibility" and "Some Imaginary Far Away Type Things." These films both showcase Arthur Russell performing material from the album in a series of tight close-ups, the camera traveling freely up and down the length of the cello, or across Russell's face, or onto the colored light-boxes that form the studio backdrop. It's a very appropriate visual accompaniment to Russell's music, giving glimpses at intriguing fragments, but never revealing the whole. Audika also deserves credit for a great packaging job, with both discs housed in a glossy foldout DVD case containing a beautiful color photo booklet. Taken together, album and film, the effect of World of Echo is narcotic, a hypnotic work of breathtakingly unique music that only grows in its otherworldly appeal as I gradually learn to negotiate its strange new lexicon of mysteriously unintelligible syllables and trancelike, resonant echoes.
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HymenThis album is a fine addition to the Hymen catalog. As the labeldoesn't issue new albums all the time, it is obvious that they areselective with regards to what they release. Having a high level ofstandards has paid off with Scatterheart,Benny Boysen's second release as Hecq. His sense of dynamics is a keyelement to his music's success. During "Doraccle" the shifts betweenloud and quiet are extreme, and help to sustain a level of tensionwithin the music. At 61 minutes the album is long, but the variety ofsounds and textures keeps the set interesting. The way Egyptianpercussion and pizzicato strings are used on "Flood Me" make it ahighlight of the album. His use of these unusual textures shows thathis influences are more varied than those of many electronic producers.Although Boysen is technically proficient at programming intricatebeats, he doesn't let the process become the focus of the music.Instead the set retains an emotional feel, although it often soundscold and mechanical. There is always an underlying drone or atmospherictexture that keeps the tracks grounded in human emotion. The openingtrack "FDK" begins with over a minute of droning, whirling tones beforethe beat kicks in. From this point on, the percussive patterns arejuxtaposed with the atmospheric elements. By focusing on one element orthe other, there is the possibility to listen with a different focuseach time. The inclusion of several short interludes consisting ofsampled dialogue also helps the set to retain a human quality. Thisseems to be a direct reference to the "skits" often featured betweenthe songs on hip hop albums. While many electronic acts talk of theinfluence hip hop has had on their work, Boysen has addressed thissubtly within the configuration of the album itself. The fact that thedialogue is from films also emphasizes Scatterheart's cinematicquality. Although there is a great amount of variance of sounds betweenthese tracks, they work well together as a whole and flow well into oneanother. Although there are many short tracks among the 23 featured,each seems to last long enough to effectively present an idea, withoutsounding unfinished. The running order is well organized, with "TBE,"the loudest, most chaotic track, placed at the halfway point. Thisshort track's noisy barrage of percussion balances the set perfectly.It's refreshing to find that although there are so many peopleproducing instrumental electronic music today, there is still thepossibility to create an album as fresh sounding as Scatterheart.
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On this double CD, their third release, Jesse Poe's Tanakh have abandoned songwriting and shifted their attention to creating dark atmospheric soundscapes. Seven musicians contribute to the project, including Pat Best, who must have felt right at home here, as the shifting drones sometimes recall his work with Pelt. The music sounds very much a product of the cavernous temple in which it was recorded.Alien8 Recordings
While listening I felt as if I had entered that space. The booklet's photographs of instruments and other constructions scattered about the dimly lit space enhance the perception of the recording. Although split onto two CDs, one 59 minute track and one 28 minute track, the music is best perceived as one piece. There is enough textural variety to make Tanakh a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience for the 90 minute duration. While it is not easy to deduce the exact instrumentation used, piano, hand percussion, guitar, distant moaning voices, and various low-end drones can be heard rising and subsiding during the piece. It seems that rather than focusing on individual instruments, the group was concerned with conveying a bigger picture that gives a sense of the space of the building itself. The resonances created by these instruments in various combinations, and at various volumes, recall both Organum and the Deep Listening projects of Pauline Oliveros. There are many levels of activity, making this a recording that will reveal different layers of sound with repeated listens. There is a haphazard, yet unified quality to the way the musicians interact with one another. A noisy, low-end rumbling sound is offset by the sound of piano strings being slowly plucked. Light percussion suggests a rhythmic element but does not set a tempo. The music feels both chaotic and calming at the same time. This sense of dynamics is what saves the album from becoming simply "ambient". It is difficult to record one piece that remains engaging for 90 minutes straight, but Poe has chosen musicians who fit the purpose well. The album benefits from having not been recorded in a studio, the immediacy of the sound being crucial to its' success. The abrupt stop at the end of CD2 implies that the tape ran out during what was possibly a much longer session. It also lends a timeless quality to the recording. There is a sense that Poe wanted the recording to be a document of what happened when a group of people gathered in a particular place at a particular time. This is a bold statement to make for someone who possesses talent as a traditional songwriter.
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Someone in this band has been to hell and back; the vocalist emulates enough emotions to make a manic depressive feel good about the way life is going. Depravity, arson, prostitution, obsession, betrayal, manipulation, and alcoholism are just a few of the topics the lyricist conjures up in the first half of the album. The music is a fitting combination of manipulated beats, chamber music, sickly lounge deliveries, and darkly lit soundscapes fluctuating between old phonograph recordings from the 1920's and blazingly confrontational arrangements that could've only been born out of the heart of a psychopath.Ipecac
If the drama of the album is to be believed, the entire recording is for the father of the female vocalist. More than a few songs mention a father figure directly and one track is titled "Daddy." Whether houses are being mysteriously burnt down or someone is getting wrapped up in a love affair that is decidedly one-sided, there's little to be happy about on any of these songs. But the music is so damned intriguing and varied that even "Whiskey Bound," a song about a father leaving (the vocalist's?), feels absolutely spell-binding. After a slight lull right at the beginning of the album (parts of "Daddy" and "$2.18" sound forced), the album stays thoroughly consistent. At times there are violins and horns moaning away underneath the gaps, whispers, shouts, and moans of the singer and at other times heavily distorted guitars and slimy drums scatter about randomly. The first part of the album resolves itself into a twangy piece of melancholy that aborts itself and comes away sounding as like a soul, gospel, and funk song all wrapped into one. On the other hand, "Will" is a piece that recalls vocal jazz arrangements and all the glory of hip-hop beats pieced together to form the perfect, underlying groove. The music is sometimes desperate and forlorn and at other times it is absolutely cocky and incensing. There's no denying that some songs are outright sexy, but at the same time there are points on this record where everything sounds sleazy. That's part of the appeal; these musicians aren't afraid to get things a little dirty. Vincent & Mr. Green also happen to be provocative and smart enough to keep things varied. A lot of these songs are really pop tunes in disguise, but their arrangements and use of texture keep the album seductive, mysterious, and addicting from beginning to end. The end, in particular, is a superb one. "When We Were We" and "Dance (Part II)" both stand out as two of the best songs on the album. 
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