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samples:
- The Bells Will Sound Forever
- A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing
- When You Hear the Singing: You Will Know It Is Time
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Drag City (North America) / Fat Cat (Europe)
Without any conventional rock affectations, his delivery is plain, personal and a little nerdy. His lyrics are unabashedly intellectual, ranging from impenetrable abstraction to philosophical investigations into everything from time-zone changes to the qualities of light. So Grubbs drew Gastr del Sol, and now his solo work, away from easy categorisation as post-rock. Yet I like to think of Grubbs as the unintended voice of the post-rock movement: someone who had the guts to put its geekiness into words.
Following on from 1998's 'The Thicket' and 2000's 'The Spectrum Between,' this record improves on both: where the former was heavy with addition musical backing, and the latter placed most emphasis on Grubbs's guitar and vocals, the production here is a nice balance. When Grubbs played recently at The Spitz in London, with acoustic guitar and occasional laptop playback, these songs seemed bare and hurried. But here they're more relaxed, improved by a small backing band which consists of some the usual stars, notably John McEntire and Noel Akchote, as well as drummer Dan Brown and some understated electronic and field-recorded assistance from Matmos and Nicolas Vernhes.
The album opens with the poppy "Transom," which starts with Matmos's electronics, turning to fast-paced electric guitar, before almost rocking out at the end. But 'Rickets' consists mostly of contemplative, occasionally upbeat songs comparable to 'The Spectrum Between,' discussing such subjects as dreams, air-travel nerves, and other things that are pretty inscrutable, to be honest.
Later on, Matmos get the floor to themselves on the short instrumentals "Precipice" and "Crevasse". Then Grubbs closes the album with "Kentucky Karaoke," a beautiful piano solo over which he slowly intones a simple lyric, while the piano slowly warps under subtle processing. It's reminiscent of the Gastr classic "Eight Corners," and is easily my favorite solo Grubbs track: an excellent ending to a more than usually solid album.
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- Travis Johnson
- Albums and Singles
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
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samples:
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samples:
- Sensorama - Where the Rabbit Sleeps
- Hey - Sans Toi
- Weschel Garland - Verbluten
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Marking the much-anticpated return of Main, this album is much more along the lines of a microsound record than that of Robert Hampson's former Beggars' Banquet days doing guitar-based soundscapes. 'Tau' is very stripped down and clean, and features a dryness and lightness that heretofore has not been prevalent in Main releases.K-RAA-K
The otherwise untitled tracks are divided into two sections: "Heuristic" (the first five) and "Mirror" (the last three). Digital bursts give way to fragile yet angular planes of noise. Low pulsing echoes and drones lay underneath twitches and scratches. 'Tau' seems more prone to interruptions and unease as opposed to his former rhythmic lull, and as evidenced in the third track, is very spatial: Hampson is able to create feelings of both vastness and minutiae simultaneously. On the eighth track, the reverberation of footsteps down a hall and nearly inaudible fragments of a voice infuse a human element, which nevertheless remains somewhat clinical. It is likely due to Hampson's background with Loop and his previous Main records that his new microsound leanings are infused with an uncommon depth.
 
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- Edward Andrews
- Albums and Singles
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- Albums and Singles
This collection of three sessions shows a group evolving from a whisper to (less a scream, than) the ghost of a mumble. Movietone’s introspective sound is naturally overlooked in a society which places more value on action, fast talking, and loudness. Their music remains elusive to define and to grasp, with a vocal style, choice of instruments, and an arm’s length embrace of folk and improvisational jazz which sets them apart, even from such contemporaries as Third Eye Foundation and Flying Saucer Attack in the post-rock branch of (what can loosely be termed) the Bristol post-rock "scene." The best of their work might be described by the verse (Peter 3:4) "let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a quiet spirit."
There is a long list of artists that made better versions of their songs for John Peel’s radio program than they did for their own albums. Whether this stems from the urge to impress the great man or the liberated feeling of getting away from their normal environs, everyone from Ivor Cutler, Echo & The Bunnymen, Billy Mackenzie, Microdisney, and The Smiths is on that list; which I am now reminded includes Movietone. Things commence here with the somnambulant terrain of "Mono Valley" and whispered vocals very low in the mix. This is voice as synthetic mood hiss rather than conveyor of words. A tension builds which is released by bits of noise: the sound of bottles being smashed, glass shards strewn, then squalling saxophone, sliced jabs of guitar, and discordant piano, all crashing in at intervals. It reminds me of the added background effects on a couple of pieces on Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures.
Movietone's progression is well documented by these sessions. "Chocolate Grinder" resembles the noise of a band of toy instruments following a slinky bass line beneath a nocturnal urban wasteland, it’s if they have upped sticks to the Parisian catacombs to fiddle around with jazz instruments while repairing a washing machine; the pace and volume are increased a bit around the midpoint of its six minute duration but it never goes into overdrive—like a car ride at night down the M5 to Bristol while closely observing the speed limit. "Summer" is a slight but delightful track, the instrumental equivalent of a pastoral-hued poem read by a girl (modest, beautiful, and ordinary) who sits in the corner of the kitchen at a party having avoided eye contact with everyone. "Stone" is a wilder screech of a song, as tension again is released "and all we ever wanted, is here." While it’s a joy to actually be able to hear the words on "Darkness Blue Glow," they do seem less important than the sound of the voice. "Heatwave Pavement" stumbles along down an ordinary street, with coughs, mumbled snippets pieces of verse "beautiful…ending..tent..street.. and, now raining again...it was like the Mediterranean...a black rock...the tide… compose my mind...the music...have to do..the image..sitting there..people’s voices, people smiling...it was nice."
"Hydra" is the major highlight here, and in the group’s entire discography. Brisk, taut, a swinging mood of a type that could almost be jazz yet clearly is not, and of course its exact meaning remains obscured beneath a loosely sketched depiction of a beach. The group were standing apart from other kinds of music, in part by choosing and sticking to their own codes of expression. Much like Disco Inferno would do a few years later. This honing of identity, of a distinctive sound where tiny deviations can then seem like a big departure, is a strength rather than a flaw. Movietone's music is a quiet rebellion, regardless of how big a splash it made, or how many influential ripples can be noted. This rebellion is similar in tone to Alvin Curran’s brilliant Songs and Views From the Magnetic Garden. I have heard said that the group methodology contains devices used in the making of cinema vérité, to depict reality with an unadorned quality, found say in the films directed by John Cassavetes, wherein (if I understand correctly) the plot is only as important as having the participants appear as if they are not actors. There is a recognizable power is that achievement which can almost be felt on another of the best of these session tracks: "Blank Like Snow" carries a poignant ache that is attached to the creativity of those who insist on retaining the status of ordinary, everyday, people. We hear their music, and it can at times be transcendent, but we can also feel them having their cups of tea, wearing their secondhand clothes from Oxfam, reading the same books and watching the same films or television series as the rest of us. And with Movietone, the sonic palate of their songs is similar to a real design classic: Ordnance Survey maps - which show every church, ditch, hillock, footpath, phone box, road, rock, ruin, stile, and weir, in an ultra-detailed depiction of a small area.
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