- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/crookedfingerssnakes.jpg)
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![](/../../../../brain/images/rapooncoldwar.jpg)
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../mbm/images/covers/hellofriends.jpg)
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- Loop Finder General - Shave My Head
- Bo Square - Numbers
- DHS - House of God (Jack Dangers Remix)
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- Diane Lewis
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/panopolyacademyconcentus.jpg)
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/kozelekmoon.jpg)
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/rapooncoldwar.jpg)
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
Oh yes, the digipack is a lovely shade of peach.
JAN JALINEK "LOOP-FINDING-JAZZ-RECORDS"
German Jan Jelinek has recorded since 1998, also as Farben and Gramm, and this is his debut album for Stefan Betke's (aka Pole) ~scape label. According to the press release Jelinek feeds '60s and '70s jazz records into his sampler to glean single seconds for source material. These micro loops are then cut and pasted into a sonic collage with aid of the sampler's modulation wheel. The result is not so much jazz but something similar to Chain Reaction styled wash techno and, not surprisingly, the minimized glitch dub of Pole. In fact, if it weren't for the press release, I would not have known that jazz was involved in this at all. Jelinek's ear for melody and depth is verily apparent in that he shapes the appropriated warm and fuzzy digital bits into eight pleasant 5 to 8 minute head nodders. "Moiré (Piano & Organ)" and "Moiré (Strings) create the shimmering pattern for which they're named through, apparently, piano, organ and string notes. "Rock in the Video Age" and "Tendency" are the most dance oriented tracks. That's about all I can say. Nice stuff. Oh yes, the digipack is a lovely shade of peach.
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/janjalinekloop.jpg)
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
COH, "IRON"
"Iron" is the third full length from COH, aka Ivan Pavlov, follow-up proper to 1998's "Enter Tinnitus" and the second release from his own Wavetrap Records. It comes in a thin foldup with cover art created by hot iron pressed to media, the 'wavetrap' logo inside beneath the disc curiously misspelled 'wavecrap'. Past COH albums have been presented as 'pop' and 'disco' while this one is literally dedicated to 'heavy metal fans all over the world'. How serious are we to take this? Some track titles are obvious tongue in cheek takes on various 'classic' metal tunes: "Love Mites" ("Love Bites" by Judas Priest), "For Whom the Dell Falls" ("For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Metallica) and "Rubbing Free" ("Running Free" by Iron Maiden). Others seem to reference other things: "Annum Per Annum [Pärt 2]" pays homage, at least in title, to the organ work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt while "Now! [4'19" into 2000]" serves as sequel/reaction to the raster-noton "20' to 2000" series which COH took part in. Obviously Pavlov's wry sense of humor and irony (pun intended) are, as always, at play here too. Regardless, I do think that much of this is indeed influenced by metal music. The 8 tracks are within the 4 to 7 minute range and are undoubtedly songs with refined structures. Layers of computer derived clean/distorted tones, drones, static, squiggles, pops and plunks replace guitars and double bass drums with buzz saw vibrations and rhythmic pulsations. It certainly sounds and feels more like COH than Slayer ... quiet and playful in some places and quite ominous and 'heavy' in others. The joke may be on me, but either way I love it. Pavlov is currently expanding "Netmörk" from the "emre [dark matter]" compilation into a full length album to be released by souRce research recordings later this year .
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/cohiron.jpg)
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- Jessica Tibbits
- Albums and Singles
LADYTRON, "604"
While browsing the website of a local record store, I happened to come across a soundfile clip of Ladytron's song "Discotraxx." This 90 second fragment was so impressive that I didn't hesitate to run out and pick up the Liverpool quartet's debut full-length, '604'. Slick, sexy, and well-produced tracks chock-full of synths and drum machines dominate the album, replete with absurdly contagious hooks. '604' opens with the erotic dissonance of sleazy instrumental "Mu-tron" and subsequently provides club anthems for the ebony-haired, black-clad sombre youths straight out of the Saturday Night Live skit "Sprockets." The vocals lend a dark side to the unadulterated electronic bliss: the icy, detatched lyrics, Ladytron's tongue-in-cheek salute to 80s materialism, are sung by the two female members of the group; one with a sugary-sweet voice which serves as an excellent contrast to the lyrics, and the other with a heavy Bulgarian accent contributing to the album's pervasive mock-Eurotrash aesthetic. '604' runs the gamut from Morodor-esque disco in tracks such as the brilliant "Playgirl" to the stripped-down pop sensibilities of Kraftwerk (Ladytron's "He Took Her To a Movie" bears a suspicious resemblance to "The Model"), yet manages add more unusual elements like bongos and a squeaky violin sporadically on various tracks. Despite all its marvelous melodies and decadent basslines, the one small disappointment of '604' is its anti-climactic finish: the two weakest and least interesting tracks on the album are the ones to close it out. Nevertheless, after it's all said and done, Ladytron does not fail to deliver a quite delicious release that hasn't left my CD player since I bought it.
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/ladytron604.jpg)
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/stickmeninsatiable.jpg)
Cuneiform
The Stick Men kicked out the jams like James Brown on PCP. "Insatiable" collects the band's entire recorded output, 2 LPs from 1982-83, plus some live tracks and 22 minutes worth of live Quicktime video. Of the 22 songs, most are firecrackers less than 2 minutes apiece, though "Funky Hayride" and "Do Get Down" approach the 5 minute mark. The opening track "Legend of the Stick Men" probably best declares their mission: "we had a vision of dots and spots and synthesizer people modulating in knots, so here we am trying to do what we can, express yourself, we're Stick Men!" With 2 guys and a gal on vocals plus guitar, bass, drums, organ/synth and trumpet, the rhythm is solid and tight but thoroughly convulsive with many well timed riffs and breaks. The live tracks and video make it even more evident the amount of energy being exorcised by this silly lot. It all looks and sounds like a lot of fun. This is music for when you really, really need to be very, very awake .
 
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
TERRY RILEY "YOU'RE NOGOOD"
Terry Riley is one of the founding fathers of '60s 'minimalism' and this is the fifth release in an archive series from the Cortical Foundation. The 2 disc set presents for the first time live improvisations by Riley as 'Poppy Nogood' from an all night long concert at a Philadelphia art school in November of 1967. Disc 2 documents over an hour as Riley plays soprano saxophone through his self-made 'time-lag accumulator'. The short phrases are delayed and fedback, allowed to mingle, layer, drone, build and fade. The result is often beautiful and always relaxing. I wouldn't mind listening to this from 9 pm to dawn, as the audience did, possibly as background aura for much of that time. One of the attendees of the show was an owner of a Philadelphia disco who commissioned Riley to create a 'theme' for the club. Disc 1 is that theme, Riley using the obscure R&B song "You're No Good" as source material. The 20+ minute track begins with a few minutes of Moog synthesizer climax and then one relatively untouched run through of the original tune, which in itself is a funky and catchy dis on an ex-lover with female and male vocals. Riley then applies his tape loop manipulation techniques, first looping the title/final line and then feeding other parts of the song through delays. By the 14th minute Riley introduces some delicious line signal noise and then continues to thoroughly deconstruct the song for much of the remainder of the track, speeding it up beyond recognition by the end. The Cortical Foundation have once again done an excellent job of sound production and packaging (though I'm not quite sure how the atomic bomb explosion photos relate) to archive another worthy piece of Terry Riley's influential work.
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/terryrileynogood.jpg)
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