New levels of ironica are reached on this extended play single when retrofitted 1980s heavy metal and analogue techno rock collide. Thinking back a couple decades, I recall that fans of both camps would despise each other. Take a look at Heavy Metal Parking Lot for clues. Today, however, the music is being warmly embraced by indie rock hipsters. Two groups of three members: the Fucking Champs (who I swear are the pawns in a diabolacal plot from Yngwie Malmsteen to stage a crossover attack into the sweater-clad Buddy Holly glasses-wearing indie crowd) versus Trans Am (who confuse me to this day whether they're paying tribute to or parodizing ZZ Top and Kraftwerk).

Low fans beware, the full-length release of Alan Sparhawk (asChicken-Bone George) in his psychobilly outfit is now available. It'sgot a thumpin rockabilly beat, distorted voice, squealing guitars andharmonica. Of the ten tracks here, two are new takes on older things."Lordy" was first recorded with the Dirty Three for the 'Fishtank' EPand performed frequently by Low alone on the most recent tour and"Honey" was made popular by Moby only a couple years back. Here, bothget a deep south blues overhaul, a'la New Orleans-stylie, matching thestyle of the rest of the disc. Although it sounds like many of thesesongs were spontaneously tossed together, they're executed with anamazingly authentic sounding precision, subject matter aside. "8 InchKnife" is from the perspecive of a wandering man coming face-to-facewith his wife's kitchen knife, "Mannish Boy" needs no explaination and"Cheerios on the Floor" is dedicated to Hollerin' Hollis Mae (a.k.a.Alan and Mimi's young daughter). The Black Eyed Snakes is nothing shortof fun, and sounds like it was as much making it as it is listening in.The debut is ideal for playing while barbecuing ribs and fixin' somecollard greens along with hush puppies. You can catch the group on theroad with Man or Astro-Man across the USA right now.

 

samples:

• Chicken-Bone George
• Honey
• My New House

The new EP from Mira Calix comes with 2 tracks. One by Mira Calixherself, and one Andrea Parker remix from her first album. The MiraCalix track is divided into four parts, and starts out with roughmachinery sounds and a dark static flowing from side to side. A sawwave and beautiful voice then coats these sounds, accompanied by a slowclassical piano melody. The machinery and static morph into a complexrhythm at the very top of the sound range, with a low bass beat in thecenter. The soft voices make sounds that compliment the saw-wave synthmelody very nicely. They warmed my heart. After the beat ends, a flutemelody and a dirty resonance (much like a storm or crickets) arrives.This is coupled by sounds of flapping water, like a seal clapping.Weird stuff. This track is very, very, very peaceful, and could bringme up when I'm at my lowest low. Parker's remix is darker and more beatoriented, and while it's ok, it doesn't evolve over the course of thetrack and gets old.

 

Vote Robot are Canadian duo Scott August and Kevin Rivard and "In MeormNA" is their second album, first on CD, for Scratch Recordings.Thirteen mostly 1 to 3 minute tracks, all with seemingly non-sensicaltitles, provide about 33 minutes total of sparse glitch-flow. A littlesticker on the jewel case proudly declares "NO laptops, sequencers,samplers, drumboxes, etc." so I'm assuming these are improvised pieces.What's more pretentious - declaring what you do use or what you don'tuse to make music? Judging from the disc's cute and cuddly animalthemed artwork, I don't think Vote Robot take themselves all thatseriously, unlike, say, the Rastermusic posse. The sound palette isvaried but maintains an anonymity. It sounds like line noises, foreverechoing input/output pops, dismembered tones/drones/notes, morse codeblips, the gentle shuffling of small objects, etc. It's very warm andeasygoing and Oval-like at times, only more 'musical' and, ultimately,listenable. A few tracks are a tad noisier than the rest but certainlynot enough to disrupt the pleasantness of it all.

 

samples:

• Ab Wuicen
• Krkc Be H
• Nnpl Wry

Korean born artist Nam June Paik is widely credited as the founder ofvideo art and for over 40 years his work and performances have crossedpaths with the Fluxus group and such experimental luminaries as JohnCage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Joseph Beuys. "Works" is the first CDrelease of Paik's music and it contains 5 tracks spanning 21 years andranging from 20 seconds to nearly 29 minutes. The first, "PreparedPiano for Merce Cunningham" from 1977, is the lengthiest and is muchmore atmospheric than melodic. Paik (rhymes with 'cake') improvises onand moves about a de-tuned piano, the majority of the piece composed ofdampened lower register notes with an eerie timbre that resembles thatof gently struck steel drums. From the 1958-61 period, "Hommage A JohnCage", "Simple" and "Etude for Pianoforte" are all short hand splicedtape collages. 'Samples' of varying length - prepared piano, sped-upsongs, crying babies, Paik screaming - seem to be randomly, yetskillfully, juxtaposed. "Duett Paik/Takis" is just that, about 26minutes worth of Paik improvising on piano while Greek kinetic artistTakis performs on his sculptures. By 'perform' I mean sporadicallyslamming pieces of metal while Paik softly, non verbally hums/sings andquietly plays a pretty but sad song, never breaking concentrationdespite the very jarring interruptions. It makes for a very strangeeffect in that an austere beauty is forced to cohabit a space withindustrial noise, neither apparently mindful of the other. Oddlyenough, for the final 6 minutes Takis audibly bows out and Paikswitches to what I'm guessing is a harpsichord for a much brighterconclusion. While the 3 shorter pieces are yet another reminder thatsomeone else has already done most everything that's being done todaymany years ago, the 2 longer pieces are truly, curiously compellingworks of music/art that bear repeated listening.

 

samples:

• Duett Paik Takis
• Hommage a John Cage
• Piano for Merce Cunningham

When I heard talk about this, I was rather excited. It seemed to bepart of a collaborative effort — perhaps with four contributors allbasing music around selected Hebrew prayers. Arthur Baker was allegedlyat the helm of this project, with a superstar team which includedengineer Steve Albini, and a completion to be mastered at Abbey Road.But what happened in the meantime? Some plug must have been pulledsomewhere and us, the consumers are left with this $6 remnant whichmimics a dangling participle. Mogwai's one-track single here stretchesabout twenty minutes, and if you've seen them live at all in the lastyear, you've heard it already — it's the very last track they've beendoing in concert — you know, the one that gave me hearing damage in myleft ear in Boston and set the PA on fire in Baltimore. The song isinstrumental and starts off quiet and peaceful, with a repeated themeand builds and builds and builds, to a blurry, gritty climax. Strangelyenough, however, there seems to be so much compression performed onthis in the mastering process that it feels like it came in on the samevolume it goes out in. It's not -bad- per se and it sure as hell rocksout, yet on it's own, I'm rather disappointed. I feel it's sort ofmissing something. This song would be great at the end of this year's"Rock Action" LP or on a compilation with four other remotely anthemic20 minute-long pieces. I'm going to suggest this item only for the bigfans who can't live without a recording of their concert finale.

 

samples:

• My Father My King

The common misconception about punk is that no one knew how to play.Truth is, many a band were solid from the start and became all the moreaccomplished with time. A good example is the turbulent, many membered,up and down, off and on again run of The Damned (which I'm a longtimefan of). And here we are a quarter century later, five years after thelast album, with 13 new studio tunes. Finally, something new to add tothe live set lists. Alongside vocalist Dave Vanian, fellow foundingmember Captain Sensible is finally back in the fold. Vanian's richvoice sounds as good as ever as he indulges in his gothic silver screenfantasies while the good Captain indulges in his own Floyd meetsHendrix guitar stylings. Monty Oxy Moron adds plenty of keys andbassist Patricia Morrison (Vanian's wife, ex-Gun Club and Sisters ofMercy) and new and improved drummer Pinch provide a strong rhythmsection with backing vocals by all. "Grave Disorder" not only soundsfresh and new, it sounds like The Damned - that colorful mix of sillyfun, romantic horror, melodic pop and punk rock. They sound great andevery track is thumbs up. Lyrically they once again take the piss outof politicians, including barely elected Bush in "W", and religiousfanatics, as well as internet junkies, John Lennon and Michael Jackson."Democracy?" and "Would You Be So Hot (If You Weren't Dead?)" areinstant classics with irresistible melodies. "Song.com" features somemean organ soloing and "Absinthe" some theremin atmosphere by Vanian."Amen" winds down nicely with several minutes of beach side samples andsynth. Captain's "Neverland", originally from his '96 solo album "MadCows & Englishmen", is re-recorded with Vanian on vocals. "Beautyof The Beast" is a classic Vanian piano ballad circa "Phantasmagoria",a fitting conclusion. It was worth the wait! Get the gold logo embosseddigipack version with 12 page lyric insert if you can. The Damned areon tour in the States through early November then on to the UK for therest of the year.

 

samples:

• The Beauty of the Beast
• Democracy
• Would You Be So Hot if You Weren't Dead?

This EP surfaces a whole 20 years after the last full album from this Coventry, UK-based quartet. These four songs are short enough to grace a 7" and the songs are of the same caliber of what made the group so popular 25 years ago. It's a brief teaser/taster of hopefully more punchy, catchy, sugar-coated pop to come.

Cold Cave's embarrassing attempt at crossover success opens with "The Great Pan Is Dead," a dull, emotionally overwrought synth-rocker slathered in Wes Eisold's affected, fake British accent (he's from Boston) that sounds like a nu-goth approximation of the Killers. Cold Cave may be aiming to win over the synth-pop revival crowd, but the Killers are more popular than Cold Cave (and headlining sold-out arenas) for one simple reason—they write better tunes.

Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai have made some of the most intense, exciting and intriguing electronic music of the last 20 years, mostly apart but they came together as Cyclo. ten years ago with a terrific self-titled album. When the follow up landed on my doorstep recently, I was expecting something great and got something unexpectedly better than I hoped for instead. Their debut was only a warm up, a training session. id is the real deal. Combining Nicolai’s hard yet yielding rhythms with Ikeda’s lust for ear-bending sounds, the duo has created a stunning album that aims to fuse their music (and their concept of music) with the visual arts.

Jackamo was a pretty odd and uncompromising album, but some insightful person at Atco still managed to see commercial potential in it and Annie wound up with a major label record deal.  Unfortunately, that partnership did not get a chance to flourish, as Atco dissolved before her completed follow-up album could be released.  In fact, that album still hasn't been released.  Undeterred, Annie returned to On-U Sound and recorded Short and Sweet (1992), a very fun, accessible, and dance-friendly effort that ironically seems like it could have been wildly successful if it had had a major label's promotional budget behind it.

Eleventh Dream Day has got to be one of the most well-adjusted bands ever, loosely holding together for over two decades despite never quite achieving the level of success they deserved and sharing members with Freakwater and Tortoise.  More remarkable still is how well they've continued to evolve and remain vital after all this time, as 2006's Zeroes and Ones ranked among their best efforts. Riot Now! picks up right where that album left off and continues EDD's late career momentum beautifully, sounding very much like a great rock band at the top of their game.

I try to avoid using the word "challenging" in regards to music—it is typically either a dumb exaggeration, or simply untrue. In this case, however, "challenging" is not only entirely appropriate, but perhaps an understatement. Ehnahre play dissonant, cerebral music that is rooted in death metal, but also throws the rulebook out the window; their latest album is all the more appealing for its inaccessibility.

On one of Nigel Ayers’ most recent musical efforts, his dissent against the nominal powers of church, state, and corporate enterprise are channeled into a chilled out, sinsemilla infused, studio session. These are protest songs without many words. This is a soundtrack for a revolution against reality itself. While Jah is not praised anywhere on the album, the spirit of liberation which is so much a part of ska, reggae, dub, and their children is apparent everywhere. It is obvious Nigel has studied the form. The tunes have been built from a solid blueprint of sub-bass beats and propulsive riddim. The reverberations, echoes, and background sound washes are subtle and complex. By washing off the grime he occupies a niche not emitted by diurnal producers.

Since his 2006 debut full-length and 2007's Untrue, which stand as two of dubstep's crowning achievements, Burial has been relatively quiet, releasing a pair of collaborations with Four Tet and Radiohead's Thom Yorke in nondescript packaging. His new 12" on Hyperdub is a formal breaking of silence, then—his first solo work since Untrue.

Over the last few years, Sheeran has been developing her craft as a solo performer. Occasional CD-R and download releases, along with regular live performance have shown her skills as a songwriter and a performer to be constantly increasing. Therefore it comes as no surprise to me that her debut album is absolute perfection. Every time I think that it has reached a peak, I am greeted with an equally good, if not better, song immediately afterwards.

After a few well received discs, the latest work of Greek composer Thanasis Kaproulias comes courtesy of Sub Rosa’s New Series Framework project, expanding on the careful (and not so careful) use of raw noise in composition. Kaproulias is definitely on the careful end of that spectrum, restraining layers of harsh noise at times to allow calmer, more ambient moments to shine through, all the while exploring the concept of inhumanity from multiple perspectives.

Six years ago, Drag City tracked down outsider folk artist Gary Higgins and reissued his solitary lost album, 1973's Red Hash, a slow-burning work of art that was difficult to find on vinyl 30 years after its release. After that album and a new release by Higgins, 2009's overlooked Seconds, Drag City is now presenting Higgins' recordings made prior to Red Hash, a previously unreleased collection of six hushed, lovely songs that Higgins wrote and recorded in a Connecticut log cabin (eat your heart out, Bon Iver...) in 1970-71.

Belong's second album (and first for Kranky) arrives half a decade after their debut full-length on Carpark and a couple of abbreviated, vinyl-only releases. Luckily, Common Era is worth the wait. This is my favorite recording that Belong have made—a collection of nine ambient, washed-out pop songs folded into a labyrinth of hazy, disorienting production, like a beautiful snapshot purposely taken out of focus, its colors smeared and bleeding into one another, blurry and dreamlike.

This second mix of eclectic roots underpinning the late-'70s musical revolution may irk the purists who feel Blue Cheer, Edgar Broughton, Faust, Parliament, Suicide, The Misunderstood, The Godz, Woody Guthrie and others weren't "punk." Actually, many of Kris Needs' choices make sense, although the lack of Dada tone-poetry is baffling.