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Building up from where his last 12" left off, mid to high BPM heavyThomas Brinkmann-esque 4/4 beats with dub and house gestures form thebasis of Michael Zorn's composition. But these are no stripped-downskeletal tracks a la Pole or Farben - he has no fear of "filling in thegaps" to create full, busy songs. This guy actually wants to take thesetracks somewhere! Repetative, lush synthesized melodies sit side byside with heavily groovy bass drum percussion without either becomingannoying or overbearing. Songs evolve satisfyingly in a matter ofminutes, not (as it seems) hours as is common in the area ofdub-influenced techno, creating an album which will find applicationson the dancefloor as well as in the living room. Fascinating, amultifaceted release which will gain prestige with age. It connectsnicely with his recent "Eckermann" 7" on highly collectable City CentreOffices label (also a proud .de imprint). Already craps on a number ofthe current crop of "laptop" producers from a great height.
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Meanwhile, in complete avoidance of that event a kid from Manchesterinvited lots of folks to have a go at Su via his website in tribute to The Lady in Big Glasses Herself.There this entire thing can be downloaded in MP3 format but if youcan't be bothered waiting he'll flog you a CD-R for the price of a pint.
The Pollard is put through a glitch grinder with ding dong bells on theopening cut from d-503 who sound like they've been immersed in TheMagic Sound of Fenn O'Berg, which is no bad thing. Next up Jim Kirbytries to get into Su's knickers with a crackled up 'Starting Together'.You know exactly what this bit of V/Vm remouldy doughness is going todo, skipping on the word 'faults' right on cue. Happily not that muchof this ends up sounding like a tribute to V/Vm, but Notphik could beJim trying it on again after Su's ditched ham forever, and is anattempt more likely to get a quick one round the back of the chalet.Jansky Noise breaks the rules a bit by noise butchering the theme to'Hi-De-Hi' which is not strictly speaking a Su Pollard opus. Amongstall the other relative unknowns Binary Being deserves a special mentionfor cobbling together a chirpy and bright happy piano pop sample feastthat La Pollard herself might actually be able to spoil with a bit ofcheap karaoke if she was slipped double bad acid at Sonar and if theBeing was daft enough to let her, which thankfully he's not. TheResurrexit track should keep all fucked up noise heads happy as askinhead on glue, whilst Cho'Pin displays a slightly more refinedapproach to noise construction, reducing Su to a decelerating hauntedgraveyard ghost flutter that can't go on. If you only download onetrack, however, go for the gloomy loop mutations that morph intohilarious manic gibberish sing-glitch pile up from Bess Keloid, someonewho's happy to wear a Nurse with Wound influence on his sleeve andprobably in other less visible places too...
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Since signing to Mike Patton's label Ipecac, The Melvins have gone high concept, releasing a trilogy of albums with a unifying concept. With 'Gluey Porch Treatments' they've gone back to their beginnings and re-released their 1986 record with the garage demos for the record appended as bonus tracks to the album proper. This brings playing time for the album from 38 minutes to a little over an hour, but it doesn't come out as gratuitous, rather as a nice gesture for those interested in how the songs originally started out and how they changed into the final album versions.Some changes are drastic, full blown songs reduced to just a couple of riffs to segue between songs, or used as intros to other songs, other songs expanded into longer tracks, some of the demo intro riffs made into their own songs. The sound quality of the demo material is at times poor, especially in the drum sounds and the sometimes tinny mix, but it's not unlistenable. At times the guitar riffing recalls a more punkish Black Sabbath while Buzz's vocals are often shouted out murkily from under the weight of the music's punk attitude, this is proto-grunge from before grunge was a recognized 'genre' of rock music. The album's liner notes are an essay by Buzz which comes off as a kind of Tom-Waits-story-with-no-point about the scene and how the band has gotten to where they have, and leaves you feeling like you've just heard an old road story about way back when they were starting out.
 
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Colossus of Destiny, on the other hand, is The Melvins newest release, an hour-long track of a live performance in 1998. The sound quality is excellent, and the album is, even by Melvins standards, wierd. The Melvins have been known to try to mess with conceptions of how things should be, even in live sets, by playing the same song twice in a row, or by playing the same note for 15 minutes (in response to a critic who complained that their live show was like that.) Happily, this live track is nothing like that, although it is just as challenging. The record starts off with feedback and oscillating buzzing sounds bouncing from nowhere, with snatches of people saying unintelligble phrases just off the edge of hearing, like a TV at low volume in the next room. At times, the wierd beeps and blips and distorted clangs meld into one another to make a strange combination of noise not unlike Nurse With Wounds' noise-soundscapes -- think 'Homotopy for Marie' with a TV on.
At times claustrophobically noisy and sometimes sparsely ambient, the length of the recording is ultimately it's greatest asset, bludgeoning the listener with it's intentional confusion, a relentless miasma of pulsing ambient noise, ending with a punishing mix of guitars and feedback.
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In 2000, the Reykjavik-based Kitchen Motors began a series of monthly events, featuring collaborations with various musicians and artists who would most often not be collaborating together outside of the live venues. The goals were to be somewhat improvisational, yet somewhat tied into each artist's discipline, while most importantly having fun. The curators documented these events and have compiled various moments onto two CDs now available through a combined release effort through Bad Taste.
 
 
While it's not nearly like being there, these discs provide a good window into what is going on in Reykjavik. Abridged to anywhere from 9 minute to 27 minute excerpts, 'Motorlab #1' features four collaborations. The first up is a piece with music by Stilluppsteypa combined with text of Magnús Pálsson, pulled from a 2½ hour meditation on drugs, religion, folklore and banking to name a few things. Over the course of this track, the music varies from low-volume drones to broken electronics while the spoken voices are all in Icelandic. Next is a collaboration between the CAPUT Ensemble, Hilmar Jensson and Jóhan Jóhansson where a ten-piece wind and string ensemble was matched with electronics and processed guitar. The end result is a wonderful sound which could never be recreated by electronic laptop dronesters alone. The third track, "Junkyard Alchemy", from the Hispurlsausi Sextet was created through a somewhat orchestrated improvisation of sounds created from various items found in a junkyard. While the ideas sound interesting on paper, the recording isn't quite clear. Thankfully cut to under 9-minutes, you hear enough to get the picture that you really just "had to be there." Closing the disc is "Telefonia," a piece which was performed (or broadcast, rather) once every month at a Kitchen Motors event. Here, members in the audience were given a phone number to dial with their mobile phones and leave a message on a voice mail system, which would in turn send the audio through a computer, get processed and sent through the speakers. The loop effects created were interesting but as with the rest of the material on the disc here, the live experience was most certainly more entertaining than a ten minute excerpt. The audio was orchestrated by Curver and the software was written by Andrew Mckenzie of Hafler Trio fame.
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On 'Motorlab #2', the first collaboration takes shape of a miniature opera, based in "lullaby electronics" as described in the booklet. "Kasa" (translated as "Kitty") is scored and performed by Múm, with text written by Sjón and featuring a mezzo soprano and an actress who perform the roles of the outer and inner personna of a housewife in her thirties. The twenty minutes shared between them on the disc are undoubtedly the prettiest music on both discs, where the signature electronic tones Múm are known for combine blissfully with strings, sounds effects, the operatic vocals and spoken monologue. Next up is 26 minutes with music by the Apparat Organ Quartet combined with the shortwaves, morse code, radio buzz and other noise by TF3IRA. Each entity uses outdated technology, whether it's the music creators with old organs or the noise creators with the obsolete communication devices. The collaboration is well-organized and the elements of the live band crossed with low-fi electronicians can be somewhat remeniscent of various post-rock bands and instrumental Throbbing Gristle tracks. The last 15½ minutes come from Big Band Brútal, whose tracks were improvised live to Hugleikur Dagsson's "splatter cartoons" which were being projected for the band and audience to see. The first track is a rough one with screamy Yamasaka Eye like vocals while the other two are rather calm and sedated. Like the last outfit, the music is created of more conventional rock instruments, and would most likely appeal more to the instrumental and experimental post-rockers. Look out for a Pan Sonic/Barry Adamson collaboration for Kitchen Motors, scheduled for this month.
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Childhood, adolescence, adulthood. As humans, some of the most noticeable maturation into adulthood comes in the late teenage years into the early twenties. It's not so different when you observe the works of an artist - whether it be a musician, writer, painter, etc,... Most musicians aren't good enough to be picked up and noticed from a young age, but a person both as talented and fortunate as Baltimore's Rjyan Kidwell has achieved quite a bit of notoriety for somebody his age.
With only four new songs on side A, this 12" single is already showing an incredible amount of development as there's more focus on varied instrumentation, melodic structure, song development and sound processing. Samples are intertwined with well-defined beats without being comical nor cliche, guitars are used to drive the tunes without being fucked beyond recognition or oppressive. Landing in one of the four locked grooves on side a, the beats are bottom-heavy and the length is perfectly timed to not miss a beat. The B-side is a bit of a look back, with remixes from the last year's 'Role Model' by Electric Company and Team Doyobi. In addition, there's an edited excerpt of a concert at the Knitting Factory in NY last year, tossed in to maintain the fun characteristics of Cex music. Once again, four locked grooves grace this side, this time with less beats and more noises. Cex is becoming a charming young man.
 
 
samples:
- First for Wounds
- It's All About Guilt
- Theme Song to Cex (Electric Company remix)
 
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samples:
- Nuno
- Life/Death (with Mikah 9)
- Last Light (with Sam Prekop)
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Gosh, it only seems like last year the 19 yr old kid from San Diego was peddling his compilation with his friends. Hey, it was the beginning of last year! _Almost_ two years later, Tigerbeat6 offices have moved to San Francisco, racked up about 20 releases (and a good amount of press) through various old friends and vicious young upstarts. Taking form of a double CD release, 'Tigerbea6 Inc.' celebrates the incorporation of his booming young enterprise with 44 fresh new hits from a couple old cronies like Lesser, Pisstank, Pimmon, Electric Company, Goodiepal, Twerk, Steward, DAT Politics and Blectum from Bledom along with some fresh new faces like Stars as Eyes, Geoff White, Joseph Nothing, Com.A, Gold Chains, and many others.
While Kid's music has taken a recent turn for the serious, with the last couple releases on the chin-scratchy Mille Plateaux, he's not lost his feverent energy for fun stuff. This collection never drops the ball and jumps quickly from the cordial opener from London's Gamers in Exile to entertaining bits like Cex's staged award show antics, Joseph Nothing's blatent disregard for copyright, the rockin proto-pop mastery of Sonic Dragolgo, the too-cute Japanese singer Noriko Tujiko, the funky retro of Gold Chains, hypnotic pulses and loops of Languis, answering machine message by Max Tundra, or Frankie-sampline Steward,... And that's just the beginning! Skip out on tennis camp today and go demand this at yr local record store. Get one for your younger sister who likes terrible music too.
 
samples:
- Aelters - Poc Size
- Dwayne Sodahberk - I Understand You
- Gold Chains feat. Nina Oppenheim - Burn Babylon
- Steward - The Man with the Tiny Hands
 
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This is the final installment of the Hushush 'Threesome Series' involving Ambre (members of Snog and Imminent Starvation among others), Mark Spybey (Dead Voices on Air) and Mick Harris (Scorn). "Dys" pairs Ambre and Harris with Harris in the driver's seat weaving together the samples from Ambre into 5 tracks over 48 minutes. The sound is similar to the textured, ambient headphone mindfuck of Harris' Lull project and the more sinister surrealist moments of Nurse With Wound.
The moans and groans of minimal drone are peppered with stereophonic sound events and effects, often in sudden outbursts. It's all very atmospheric, if not dark and cinematic, devoid of discernible voices, beats or easily identifiable samples and often seemingly without structure. A few of the more uniquely interesting bits are in "Ome" with its brief sub bass loops and electronic leaf rustling and in the dense beginning of "Algie" with what resembles roller skates on a rain slicked sidewalk. Unfortunately, I find "Dys" emotionally ineffectual. Plenty of interesting sounds and changes, but it more or less goes in one ear and out the other. It's just not staying with me like so many other similar works have. But despite going out with a bit of a whimper, the Threesome series was overall a varied success. I just prefer Ambre/Spybey "Sfumato" and Spybey/Harris "Bad Roads, Young Drivers" over this one.
 
 
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samples:
- 13th Hour - Malice Aforethought
- Drozophyll - Deep Within the Drains
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