Reviews
As Julia Holter's second full-length in less than 8 months, Ekstasis has a good deal of anticipation on its shoulders. Last year's Tragedy was her big splash into the experimental music pond, packed with high-brow conceptualism that made perfect sense given her academic background in electronic composition. On Ekstasis, Holter steps into the spotlight with an entirely different take on her sound.
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This is the first of two collaborative albums between Jim O'Rourke and Christoph Heemann and represents some stunning spaced-out collage work by both artists. While it lacks the variance of Vol. 2, this particular work is a master class in using a very limited palette of sounds to create a massive emotional impact. The duo are almost painterly in their craft, shading and blending the different tones into each other rather than allowing any discrete patterns to emerge.
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Kang continues to show his range and vision as a composer and ensemble leader. Visible Breath is a startling album which takes many of the strands of 20th century composition and weaves them into new musical fabrics, far from imitation and full of innovation. His music hangs like a specter in the room, the notes either merging into each other like a ghost passing through a wall.
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As the title suggests, this live album was recorded in London's current hot spot for weirdo music and finds the trio taking their work further into the inner recesses of free improvisation. As expected, given their track record as a group and as solo performers in their own rights, Café Oto/London swerves between danger and calm; safety and turmoil. Every adjective ever thrown at free jazz is applicable but, more often than not, inadequate.
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Great rock 'n' roll bands can be deceptively hard to find. There's too often an empty gap between the dime-a-dozen bands playing to alt-rock radio, punk/hardcore traditionalism, and the toothless, blog-hyped indie scene. Thankfully, The Men exist outside all of those spheres as one of the finest rock bands around.
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