From this debut’s title, the simple typeface and ‘take me as Iam’ earthy tones of the artwork a pretty good picture can be drawn ofwhat Richard Dawson is all about; simplicity. Dawson manages to mergethe territories of traditional English music, Nick Drake miserablismsand a tipsy Daniel Johnston into an Autumn Folk collection of songsabout everyday life.  |
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From this debut’s title, the simple typeface and ‘take me as Iam’ earthy tones of the artwork a pretty good picture can be drawn ofwhat Richard Dawson is all about; simplicity. Dawson manages to mergethe territories of traditional English music, Nick Drake miserablismsand a tipsy Daniel Johnston into an Autumn Folk collection of songsabout everyday life.
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Nowadays, most people would associate the term "electronic music" withbedroom musicians and beardos tweaking samplers and laptops; runningsoftware packed with a ridiculous amount of synth pads and beats in avirtual studio environment. It's easy to overlook the fact that one ofthe more common elements in music from the latter half of the twentiethcentury, the electric guitar, was one of the earliest "electronic"instruments.
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While Sleeping People are a talented group, with a secret weapon in theacrobatic drumming of Brandon Reif, the mathematical riffage and roughand tumble timekeeping strikes me as ho-hum and fairly bland. Theintricate fingerprints of Don Caballero, King Crimson, and any numberof duel guitar bands that recorded for Dischord throughout the 1990s areon clear display here.
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I’ve never really understood the glam-rock tag that Bobby Conn gotsidled with in his solo work. Sure, the dude and his band, the GlassGypsies, dress in sequins and gold lame stage outfits, all but invitingcomparison to the coke addled heyday of Ziggy Stardust.
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Et Sans latest release (and first) on Canadian label Alien 8 is analbum that finds the band pushing themselves in familiar yetchallenging directions. The four tracks here burst at the seams withideas and inventiveness, all while managing to remain uniquelyaccessible to those unfamiliar with their influences.
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Did you ever wonder where Grace Jones and Miss Kittin learned all their moves? Look no further than Gina X Performance's 1979 electro new-wave classic Nice Mover. This, along with their follow-up, X-Traordinaire, have been reissued by LTM and given the special LTM treatment with restored artwork and bonus tracks.
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When I was in high school, my friends and I used to have thisdiscussion all the time about how Jack Dangers had such a signaturesound that he could take anyone else's song and remix it into somethingthat was unmistakably Meat Beat Manifesto. It shouldn't come as anysurprise then that some fifteen years later when Dangers has taken onthe task of producing a jazz record for Thirsty Ear, that the result still sounds like quintessential Meat Beat.
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For this, the final issue of The Brain, I thought I'd sendthings off by examining the prolific work of Mat Sweet, the owner andoperator of Blue Baby Recordings, and the main musician, visual artistand creative force behind the label's releases.
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Infraction has been a label to watch for some time. With each newrelease the label showcases a list of consistently excellent artistswhom are always trying to bend sound towards new pleasures.
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Few records have the severity of depth that this one carries with it:developing and fluid in its every contour, ever-present, but alwayshiding behind the shape of a shadow. There is no resting point, nosound or simple feeling that these four pieces lean on in order tocarry out their miles-deep melancholy.
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While the cover of this album is headache-inducing (a dizzying designusing the usual black, white and red motif), the musical contentmassages the brain's pleasure centers. The deviant pleasure centers.
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Massimo and Pierce are best known around these parts as the Ghost Boyswho formed part of Coil's live shows. They set up Black Sun Productionsas a multimedia enterprise and Operett Amorale is their latest audio venture.
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It's been an exhausting voyage for the emotionally disconnectedastronaut of Odawas' debut release The Aether Eater. Just a glance atthe lyrics, with references to constellations, outer rings, Dante, andVirgil, proves that the Indiana trio has self-revelatory traveling ontheir minds.
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This Argentinean trio breaks very little ground on their latest outingon Darla, and for the most part, this is fine by me. Lacking thecoke-fueled swagger of groups like Fischerspooner, Entre Rios come ofas kids who bought the textbook and read very closely.
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"Great," I thought as I opened this CD, "a movie soundtrack about a guywho runs around tagging in abandoned train yards and warehouses andstuff. HAS to be hip-hop, lots of down and dirty backpacker hip hop.Hopefully it'll be as relevant but less whiny than Sage Francis, aselemental but not as blunted as Madlib...wait, what the fuck? It's byKid Loco, Paris discothèque DJ, who spins trip hop and house to hordesof sweaty lycra and polyester wearing Eurotrash."
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There's a certain magic quality to window gazing from a moving train.The din and rattle of the train as it thrusts towards its destination,coupled with the quiet serenity seen through the window, can make for acalming and restorative experience.
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Style and substance are constantly being removed from each other asmore and more releases like this one find their way to CD players. Asense of urgency can do a lot for a record or song, especially when thelyrics suggest something urgent; it's hard to believe Wolf Parade aredoing anything other than acting, however.
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When Blackpool, England post-punks Tunnelvision broke up in late
1981,they left behind a legacy of one single with renowned Factory Records,17 live shows, and the embarrassment of being labeled "spineless heavymetal" by the New Musical Express. Apparently, this was good enough toconvince LTM to release Tunnelvision's complete works to an indifferentpublic.
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Nothing could possibly convince me that these songs were all conceived to be part of one record. Joke Lanz and Annie Stubbs (of Lustmord and SPK) are either comediansor seriously devout industrial fans gone simultaneously slapstick andblood hungry.
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And Everything Else rises beyond being bland audio scenery, butnot enough to be great. After a string of respectable and, by thestandards of the industry, reasonably successful records, Nobody (knownto his mom as Elvin Estela) has kept mum regarding the reasons for hisswitch from beat-heavy hip-hoppin' Ubiquity to the less funky, moreelectronic Plug Research.
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