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Working the World Serpent website for the last few years, I've become more exposed to a more darker side of the spectrum than just Current 93, Coil and NWW. It's not often that I find something that I'm terribly crazy about other than those few plus the various related entities that are intertwined, but for the last couple releases from Ozymandias, I have been captivated.
Ramses
Christophe Terrettaz is simply a pianist, who admits to watching Christina Ricci films, titles his songs in French and has pictures of naked female statues on his album covers. If you distance yourself from those facts, everything in record store blurbs, the painful pictures of the tortured soul on the website, and reviewers who use the word "melancholy" way too often, you're left with something simple, direct and amazingly pleasant. I find it's on in the background when I'm trying to wind down in the evening or do a little cleaning around the house late at night.
To me, there's nothing sinister, macabre, nor profound in these simple, tinkling piano melodies. Furthermore, while great piano composers like Liszt and Chopin have mountains of exponentially more complex works, I'm happy to hear something light and relatively uninvolved every now and again.
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Picking up from where we last heard from him, Jack Dangers has continued his analogue audio explorations through his latest release, a 10" released in cooperation with the Science and Education division of Tino Corp. For four tracks on the 10", Dangers avoids the usage of samplers, resorting to analogue tape manipulations, resulting in a very 50s horror film soundtrack/early Stockhausen-esque musique concrète type of sound.This record will be a surprise for those expecting punchy sampled and live drum breaks and hefty basslines, as it more closely resembles the experiments on the original 'Sounds of the 20th Century' flexi-disc that came with 'Eccentric Objects'. While it's essentially neat to hear Dangers try his hand at pre-digital ambience, classic sci-fi and horror sound effects, a record like this probably won't be getting much rotation in my player. Fans of the campy experimentation with old radio broadcasts and instructional records would be happy to hear that the first 1000 copies of 'Tape Music' comes with a bonus 7" flexidisc: number two of 'Sounds of the 20th Century'. Side one experiments with various types of analogue sound manipulations, with introductions lifted off of old audiofile records while side two is a collection of layered experiments on the human voice coupled with old instructional recordings which sound like military
 
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The album ends with Efrim singing, "We will find our way," on 'TheTriumph of Our Tired Eyes' a hopeful ode to beauty rarely felt that hasan atmosphere of aftermath and new beginning.
As their friend Mischa recites on the poetic interlude that opens'Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!)' as strings swirl up beneath, itstime to speak, "Good words, strong words, words that could've movedmountains, words that were never said."
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One thing I think I've learned over the past couple years is to always trust something which shares members of the Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, and Console collectives. Couple that with the fact that Morr Music has become an industry leader for superb electronic pop challengers.
Elsewhere in the world, I'm also coming to the realization that I've been so sour to the last two Radiohead albums is not because of the genre they're experimenting with, but the fact that at the cost of their transformation, they have completely sacrificed the art of songcraft - and have been subsequently praised for what is essentially sloppy, whiny messes. Lali Puna's debut preceeded 'Kid A' by almost two years, but this, their second album follows both that and 'Amnesiac' and blows them each out of the water. At the core of this group is a quartet which features Portuguese singer Valerie Trebljahr, electronic wizard Marcus Acher (Notwist/Tied and Tickled Trio) plus a live bass guitarist and drummer. The album comfortably eases into pace with the opener, "Nin-Com-Pop" which builds at a cold-calculated pace, adding in each instrument gradually into a fine mix of pure prototypical pop. The sonic mastery continues over the rest of the first side as the collection is colored by a Portuguese speech and football match tune, "Contratempo", another worthy pop classic, "Bi-Pet" and the side's closer, the itimate title track. Side two opens with the instrumental "18 Faces of" and continues on with a very pumping Japanese pop-esque decadance of "Lowdown" (not a Wire cover). The rest of the side takes a more free-form attitude as the group can be described as pushing improvisation while remaining in the confines of rigid beats and pretty melodies. Not a bad thing at all. This album is multifunctional - it works well on long car trips, exhilirating bikerides or at home at very loud levels on the hi-fi. I also can't argue with the fact that people are always phoning the station when I or my friend Brian Cleary plays a track from them. Lali Puna are proof that electronic music can indeed be both well-crafted and super-enjoyable.
 
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- Colin Newman - Tsunami
- Beat Kitten - Bored
- Toucaen - Lecci on the Grande Jatte
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A relatively low key track from Brume opens the unholy proceedings withthe kind of bleak soundscape that reminds me that it is written that noman should look upon his uncle naked! This is followed by relativelylow key tracks from polite beat merchants the Remote Viewer andSirconical. The first track to actually sound like it was made frombook noises is the page shuffling 'Papyrus' from Super Massive.
The big noise erupts eventually on the seventh track when PrincessDragonmom says let there be digital cement mixers. And lo! There weredigital cement mixers! Merzbow ups the stakes with some real tweaterfucking nastiness that would have jolly ol' Jehovah reaching for theear plugs if he heard it on the eighth day. Damn, cursed the one truegod, forgot to create ear plugs! Now if only evolution actuallyhappened the likes of Flutter and V/Vm might actually have us allmutating closable earflaps or eardrum off switches, but as it is we'lljust have to settle for the somewhat asinine observation that these areall the kind of satanic gobblers that would disobey the commandments ofthe mad old god of retribution himself and feast upon the flesh ofbirds such as the bat and the pelican.
Some folk just can't get enough of the good book and Super Massive,Wheaton Research and Disco Operating System all drop multiplemetaphorical turds in the font. Wheaton Research, aka Brent Gutzeit,whose drone collaboration on Kranky with James Plotkin was quite good,throws up a suite of ear fucking minimal high glitch-pop crackles thatmake the likes of Hood and Volcano the Bear, who actually attempt towork Aube's bible bashing into weird songs, sound like clean cut kidsthat went to Sunday school and trembled at the mere mention of buringbushes. The Volcano the Bear song works better, as it displays morehumour in the way the Aube noise is deployed. Disco Operating Systemoffers three tracks entitled 'Jimmy', 'Page' and 'Hamilton', presumablyin some kind of punning tribute to Led Zeppelin and Helmet; after allAnton LaVey did call heavy metal 'the last burp of Christianity'. Andthe 'Jimmy' track is quite a burping quick loop cut affair, whilst'Page' does a bass throb and 'Hamilton' combines the two approachespresumably using different samples.
Some references are made to the themes of the book, and Phosphene getsa mention for using the word 'Nebuchadnezzar', a king we don't hearenough of with a name like that. However, I was saddened that no onementioned or attempted to emulate the parting of the red sea or theplague of frogs. And it must be said V/Vm missed a golden opportunityin not trying to simulate the cacophanous menagerie of Noah's ark. Thenagain, they'd probably only have let the pigs on board!
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- Aube - And More
- Disco Operating System - Page
- Volcano the Bear - The Woman Who Weighs Out The Wool
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