29 February 2012

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Albums and Singles

samples:

• Clouds
• Country & Eastern
• Outpost

27 February 2012

Albums and Singles

(in progress for 3/5/12)

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26 February 2012

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Albums and Singles

Masaki Batoh, guitarist and leader of the Japanese psych-rock collective Ghost, is a man of many pursuits: music, acupuncture, science and spirituality. His first solo recording since the mid '90s is a result of years of research into bioelectric functions of the human brain, and the national tragedy that struck his home country while working on the album in Tokyo, Japan.

Drag City

Batoh initially conceived of Brain Pulse Music by commissioning a device called the Brain Pulse Music (BPM) machine. Essentially, Batoh's aim was to translate brain waves—activity from the frontal and parietal lobes—into electronic sound. Tragically, when the Great East Earthquake hit Japan in March 2011, Batoh's goals with the BPM project took a sharp left turn, and it's impossible not to feel moved by the story: Batoh used his BPM machine (and its "music") to help reconcile and treat the spiritual needs of his acupuncture patients, while the album is intended as a prayer and requiem for his disaster-stricken country. (Oh, and a consumer-friendly version of the BPM machine—purportedly not unlike a guitar effects pedal—is forthcoming.)

As for the music itself, Brain Pulse Music is a bit of a mixed bag—sometimes more interesting to read about than to listen to. It is composed of two recordings from Batoh's BPM machine, as well as five recordings based on melodies and rhythms heard in Japanese religious rituals, played on traditional instruments. Concept aside, the BPM recordings sound straight out of a science fiction novel—amelodic, atonal, inhuman—which is just fine, except they aren't a compelling listen. Perhaps if used in an acupuncture setting they function differently; as is, they don't bring about any of the "inner peace" that Batoh might have been striving for. Honestly, I'm not sure what else to expect from a recording made by tracking human eye movements with two separate BPM machines ("Eye Tracking Test"), in which Batoh's concept and creative process are far more interesting than the end result heard on tape.

Fortunately, Batoh has augmented much of this music, based on the BPM machine's wave forms, with traditional Japanese instrumentation, which injects these inorganic, mechanical forms with natural life. At its best, the BPM machine creates a warm harmonic drone, which is sufficiently more interesting when combined with ancient folk idioms than on its own. Batoh has assembled a variety of acoustic instruments—flutes, wind pipes, gongs, wood blocks, Buddhist bells, even Shinto chanting—to bring his compositions to life. The result is worlds away from the American and European music in which many of us are immersed from birth. The easiest parallel is to Ghost's fine excursions into subdued psychedelia; unlike Ghost, Brain Pulse Music is more sounds than songs, which lessens the impact. Still, Batoh does a fine job curating the sounds of his country's folk music—chimes and bells, ceremonial percussion, wooden drum hits, bright flute melodies—into pieces that soothe, calm, and lull one's mind into a sense of peaceful tranquility.

The final track, "Aiki No Okami," is a startling diversion from the album's template, an attempt by Batoh to replicate the earthquake's effect (and to purge the anguish it has caused his country) with pure sound. He combines harsh bursts of BPM machine dissonance with distorted percussion, while the track's title—which translates to "Great Spirit of Aiki"—is chanted. Eventually, the noise rises to a piercing crescendo. Played at high volume, this is impactful and moving sound, acknowledging the natural disaster that inspired it while straining to match its impact blow for blow. While "Aiki No Okami" sounds quite unlike the preceding album, it shares the same intentions: music as therapeutic device, intended for healing.

As a worthwhile side note, Batoh is offering a well-intentioned incentive to buy, not download, the album (putting his money where his mouth is): all proceeds from Brain Pulse Music go to earthquake disaster victims through Japan Red Cross.

Samples:

• Eye Tracking Test
• Kumano Codex 3
• Aiki No Okami

26 February 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

For a band known for playing so damned slow, Earth have evolved quickly the past few years. Their visionary work takes yet another step into uncharted waters on this new release. Billed as a continuation of last year's album of the same name, Earth's music takes a turn toward sparse improvisation, with a suite of five songs openly influenced by English folk-rock and blues.

Southern Lord

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II was cut from the same sessions as its elder sibling, but doesn't share the same blueprint. Gone are fully composed, structured songs like "Old Black" and "Father Midnight," which opened the first album with plodding, desolate blues shot through with cello and low-end guitar/bass drone. Those two songs circled like vultures around their skeletal, stripped-down melodies for ten minutes at a clip, never veering beyond the guardrails imposed by the band's patient rhythm section. All told, those songs weren't a far cry from those on The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull; new instrumentation aside, Angels I sounded like a refinement of that album's luscious, drone-heavy Americana.

On Angels II, however, the closest reference point is the fully improvised title track of Angels I, on which Lori Goldston and Dylan Carlson's tonal and melodic interplay meandered for 20 minutes, the rhythm section keeping (very slow) time at arm's length. In contrast to its neatly composed neighbors on Angels I, the title track seemed at odds with the rest of the album; now, it makes perfect sense alongside Angels II, which brings the band's improvisational skills into the limelight. Everything on Angels II was reportedly improvised in the studio, bringing an incredibly loose, relaxed, and laid-back feel to the album. It is also very clearly a team effort, with no single player stealing the spotlight or outshining the rest; these are balanced, full-band compositions through and through.

What surprises and pleases me most about Angels II—and has kept the album on repeat in my home for over a month now—is the spaciousness of the music. For a band that cut its teeth pioneering the feedback-laden world of doom metal, there is nary a trace of that genre's density of sound. Instead, the album's first track, "Sigil of Brass," kicks off with a subtle drone and Carlson's clean guitar playing a bare-bones melody, its notes borderline assertive enough to pierce the surrounding air. "His Teeth Did Brightly Shine" is all slow-motion guitar and bass interplay, with Adrienne Davies adding a feather's touch on cymbals to remind of her existence. Toward the end, a hint of dissonance enters as Carlson gently bends his guitar strings out of tune—a subtle touch that breathes new interest into the song.

Goldston finally makes her presence known on "Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)," her cello screeching and sawing away while the band ambles onward in 3/4 time—a waltz as imagined by drone connoisseurs. Midway through the track, the cello gets more aggressive, increasing in volume and tonal intensity, if not tempo, building the album's tension to a peak, then letting off again. It's a patiently composed piece that proves the old adage about the journey being more important than the destination. "The Corascene Dog" spotlights Carlson's guitar more so than anything else on the album, cycling through minimal chord progressions with ever so subtle changes in tone and phrasing, his playing clean and confident.

More than ever, Earth sound eager to push forward into new territory, content to let the growing legions of drone and doom metal acolytes—Sunn O))), Nadja, Barn Owl, Corrupted, Grails—carry Carlson's ancient torch. This bold mindset is best exemplified by the closing track on Angels II, "The Rakehell," its bluesy grandeur a sharp distillation of Earth's talents. The rhythm section has a newfound, gentle sway in its playing; instead of just hulking along patiently for 12 minutes, it actually swings—like a jazz band on slow-motion playback. Over this foundation, Carlson's guitar and Goldston's cello wind through a lovely, blues-based melody that seems all too familiar and nostalgic. This is gorgeous stuff, relaxed and spacious, full of life.

Samples:

• His Teeth Did Brightly Shine
• Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)
• The Rakehell

20 February 2012

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Albums and Singles

With two brilliant albums recently released (Remain and A Static Place), and time spent playing live with Robert Hampson in the reactivated version of Main, Stephan Mathieu has been leaving quite an impact on me this past year, and this live collaboration with Argentina’s Caro Mikalef continues that streak of genius.

Line

Originally commissioned as an audio-visual piece, Radioland works perfectly well on its own as a purely sonic document.Using only a phonoharp, radios, ebows and processing, the result is a slow, developing piece that never seems to stop developing over its 40-plus minute duration.

Between the use of organic sound sources and the live recording (the performance was recorded through Fender amps via microphones), the natural warmth that Mathieu specializes in shines through on here, which is something too many works such as this often lack.
The performance opens with distant rumblings that eventually swell up and then linger, reverberating off in the darkness.Different layers of sound swell up, mostly just sparse tones early on but they echo beautifully, then recede before they have a chance to overstay their welcome.

Throughout the piece, there is a sense of slow movement.It feels less like a single piece and more like a series, intertwined together perfectly, seamlessly flowing from one to the next.The performance alternates between shimmering, tonal passages that extend forever and more dissonant, textural layers of delicate static.Sometimes there are seemingly infinite strings expanding into space, and other times it sounds like a long-lost garbled radio transmission sneaking in.

Glorious, soaring highs alternate with deep, pensive lows that make this an overall darker work than much of Mathieu’s previous recordings, but it still is undeniably his work.Rich tones and hollow metallic reverberations are eventually met with sheets of white noise towards the final third of the piece, changing the direction somewhat and eventually ending things on an even more dissonant, murky note.

Radioland does have a distinctly different feel than Mathieu's other output, which is likely the result of collaborating with Mikalef, as well as the live setting, but it is by no means weaker.Instead it is a different, slightly darker and rawer sounding performance that stands on its own.The way the different tones and textures segue into one another so well, a natural and dynamic feeling has been established throughout that keeps it fascinating from beginning to end.

samples:

• Excerpt 1
• Excerpt 2
• Excerpt 3

 

19 February 2012

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Albums and Singles

It has been looking less and less likely that Dirty Three would record any new material. Warren Ellis and Jim White left Mick Turner to his own devices in Australia in order to follow their own paths (Ellis’ ending in Paris and White’s journey is on-going through numerous collaborations with other artists). Even though they were touring over the last few years, no new music made its way into their sets. However, the fates have smiled upon us mere mortals as the group finally entered the studio and have returned with another monster of an album.

 

Drag City

On the trio’s last album, they broke with tradition to record plenty of shorter pieces instead of their sprawling epics of before. They pick up this mode of working once again, focusing on more succinct arrangements but this time extend their range of moods with Toward the Low Sun. "Furnace Skies" at first sounds like the wrong music has been released under Dirty Three’s name as it has a rougher, more aggressive edge; a grinding loop and ecstatic drumming greets the ears before giving way into the group’s distinctive flavor. A frenetic pace runs the players through the piece like a jockey’s whip during the last furlongs of a race. Ellis’ violin cuts through like the weeping of a gorgeous woman as White’s drums rain down like a storm. A sustained organ melody arises out of the tempest to bring the piece to a calmer, if not peaceful, conclusion.

Elsewhere, a more content vibe runs through "Moon on the Land." This particular piece could fit well in the context of one of Ellis’ soundtracks with Nick Cave, albeit for a far happier plot than they are used to. This cheery demeanor is carried further on "Rising Below," which takes all the nautical beauty of Dirty Three’s classic Ocean Songs album but casts all the sorrow and the sadness overboard. I get the feeling from Towards the Low Sun that Ellis, White and Turner are in a comfortable spot in their respective lives. All the pain and difficulty that they put into their work has dissolved into a hopeful, colorful collection of music.

Considering part of Dirty Three’s immense appeal for me was their melancholic but cathartic energy, this cheering up could be seen as a problem. However, in the transition from She Has No Strings Apollo to Cinder to the current album, they have redefined their music without destroying the core elements of what makes Dirty Three special: three superb musicians on their own wavelength. Pieces like "That Was Was" take all the ingredients at the heart of their music and presents them in a way that seems utterly familiar but new, like an old friend who has gotten married, had children and fought with cancer in the years since you last saw them.

It is hard to believe that Toward the Low Sun has taken so long to appear and that such an extended break in writing and recording has not had a deleterious effect on Dirty Three’s music. In fact, it has reinvigorated it to the point where they sound as vital as ever.

samples:

• Furnace Skies
• Rising Below
• You Greet Her Ghost

 

19 February 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Talvihorros is Ben Chatwin, a London-based guitarist that has been quietly releasing some fairly good albums in the abstract soundscape/drone vein over the last few years.  Then he released a truly great one (this one) and it went woefully under-appreciated and overlooked.  If the world were a fair place, Descent Into Delta would have been all over "Best of 2011" lists.

Hibernate

Descent derives its title from the brain waves associated with deep sleep, which is a curious but apt theme for this album to have.  It's "curious" because all of these pieces originated as solo guitar improvisations, which are not commonly associated with ambitious conceptual underpinnings.  However, Chatwin spend an enormous amount of time honing that raw material into something larger and deeper and it shows: the completed album feels like a coherent, composed song suite that follows a clear narrative arc from gamma (anxiety) all the way to delta (slumber).  This is actually the first time that Chatwin has assembled an album in this fashion, as his previous studio efforts have had little in common with his live improvisations.

The "apt" part is that this is very heady, dreamlike music.  It shares a lot of common ground with Erik Carlson's recent work as Area C, but the dream state evoked by Chatwin is a considerably darker and more frightening place.  It is also a much denser one, as Ben's original motifs have been painstakingly augmented and layered into something heavier and more haunting than anyone could create with just a guitar and a looping pedal.  This is apparent almost instantly, as the initial shimmer of "Gamma" rapidly escalates into a gnarled howl.

That eventually subsides, however, and "Gamma" segues into the languid and melancholy "Beta."  There's still some bite to it though, as Chatwin buffets his fragile arpeggios with thick, buzzing low-end surges, static intrusions, and distorted guitar squall.  The maelstrom ebbs into an oasis of relative calm near the end, but Ben ingeniously maintains a lingering feeling of tension and dread by sprinkling the comparatively clean and solemn come-down with wrong-sounding notes.  "Beta" is the perfect microcosm for everything that Chatwin does beautifully on Descent Into Delta, as he is able to keep a number of different plates spinning without ever losing the perfect balance: all of the various components vibrantly weave together organically and dynamically.  Also, Ben's clean guitar lines cut through the surrounding chaos and distortion very effectively.  It's like listening to a recording of an earthquake, but still hearing falling icicles with perfect clarity.

"Alpha" is essentially a continuation of "Beta," but it now feels muted and distant.  Again, this is quite deliberate, as alpha waves are synonymous with a state of relaxation.  Most of the dissonance fades away, but Chatwin doesn't allow the piece to become too placid–it just slows way down into glacial throbs mingled with clean, but somewhat blurry and indistinctly twinkling guitars.  It isn't especially relaxing at first either, as the reverie is periodically disrupted by bursts of stuttering or strangled electric guitar.

"Theta" is the dream state and it sounds impressively like a fractured and surreal warping of everything that came before it: a broken, slow-motion version of the arpeggio theme from "Alpha" fades in accompanied by reverberating piano plinks, but both are consumed by washes of heavily processed guitar strumming.  It's quite beautiful and woozy, cohering into slow pulse of sorts (like breathing, actually), but never quite enough to seem predictable.  That is an attention to detail that elevates this album into something pretty amazing–when Chatwin hits upon a great idea (which he does often), he never allows it to repeat in a straightforward way.  Instead, motifs pulse and undulate like they're alive and other sounds artfully appear to twist in and around them.

For the final piece ("Delta," of course), Chatwin is joined by violist Anais Lalange.  It's largely held together by a low drone, but Ben stays very busy unraveling a heavily-chorused slow-motion arpeggio progression.  There's also something that sounds like a buried and mangled accordion in there, but it gradually all fades away to leave only gently rippling harmonics and the muted sadness of Anais's viola.  While it is not as overtly striking as some of the earlier sections of the album, Descent into Delta's sparse denouement might be my favorite part, as the long spaces between notes finally allow me to hear the mesmerizing vapor trails of decay left in their wake.  I don't know quite what Ben did to achieve that effect, but it is quite spectral and beautiful.

I hate the word "masterpiece" and it has obviously been overused to the point of near-meaninglessness, but I think this might be one anyway.  At the very least, I can't imagine anything that Chatwin could've done to make this album better.  In the most obvious sense, this is simply great music and it is complex and multilayered enough to stay compelling after many listens.  On a deeper level though, Descent Into Delta is an absolutely fascinating album to deconstruct and get lost in: it follows a very unusual trajectory (constantly slowing and weakening) and stretches a few recurring motifs into 40-minutes of vibrant, constantly-shifting near-perfection.  Almost every single theme is fluid and unpredictable enough to reward close scrutiny.  It is truly a rare thing for music this coherent, composed, and melodic to hold so much mystery.

Samples:

• Gamma
• Alpha
• Beta

 

19 February 2012

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Albums and Singles

In theory, I should love this project, as it contains members of most of my favorite Bay Area bands (Myrmyr, Barn Owl, Tarentel, etc.).  The reality, however, is a bit complicated: distinctiveness, personality, and ego were all surrendered for the greater glory of these very pure and minimal drones.  This album has some impressive moments, but the participants and their individual talents are almost entirely irrelevant.

Important

Amusingly, Portraits' minimalist bent extends even to their song titles, as each of the three pieces here is identified in the most basic, prosaic way possible.  The 20-minute opening piece, "D," is exactly that: a prolonged one-note drone-a-thon.  It's certainly very dense and shimmers and buzzes along quite amiably, but it doesn't offer much more than that, aside from the occasional passing dissonant overtone.  I can appreciate that everyone involved is fascinated with how a bunch of instruments all playing the same note can yield a subtle haze of unexpected oscillations and harmonies, but I don't have the patience or superhuman focus to enjoy that alone as a mere listener.  It'd be a nice jumping off point into something more, yet that doesn't happen here: it is merely a gently swaying thrum that goes on for a very, very long time.

That feat of extreme one-dimensionality is exasperatingly repeated with "Sa," which is essentially the entire ensemble chanting that syllable over a bed of droning strings.  Again, Portraits stick largely to just one note.  I don't understand quite why this piece needed to exist, as it explores exactly the same theme as "D," but does so with less depth and micro-tonal activity.  On the bright side, it is much shorter than its predecessor (under five minutes), so perhaps the band realized that they had entered an indulgent stylistic cul de sac.

Unexpectedly, however, the final piece ("Gong") is quite wonderful.  As expected, it consists solely of gongs, but they are used to supremely ominous and visceral effect: a very deep and tense rumbling is maintained for the entire duration as harsh waves of metallic shimmer ebb and flow across the top of it.  Curiously, it follows exactly the same template as Portraits' other two pieces–in fact, it might even be the simplest of the three.  Despite that, it is hugely successful simply because of the immensity and resonance of the sounds being created.  This is the only piece where I actually felt the oscillations and close harmonies being generated rather than simply hearing them.  That makes a huge difference.  Raw, wall-shaking power is a very useful tool for making cerebral, abstract music seem meaningful and exciting.

I suppose that 12-minutes of heavy, gong-based brilliance is arguably enough to justify this album's existence, but I found this to be a mostly disappointing and puzzling effort.  Much of what Portraits do here has been done to death already and they don't put much of a unique spin on it at all (if anything, they deliberately set out to avoid doing so).  Also, "D" and "Sa" both sound like they could have been bashed out in an afternoon without anyone ever having played together before.  Additionally, I found Barn Owl's involvement in the project to be somewhat bewildering, as they have already done something similar but much, much better with their Infinite Strings Ensemble collaboration–surely they must have realized that something was lacking here.  Striving for transcendental purity in your music is an admirable cause, but the end result should be a bit more compelling than this if it is going to be released.Although gong aficionados certainly have great reason to rejoice, Portraits is ultimately much more notable for who was involved than what they accomplished.

Samples:

• D
• Sa
• Gong

 

18 February 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Techno isn’t a genre that has birthed many consistent albums, and the dub techno subgenre even less so, but one indisputable classic is Porter Ricks’ debut Biokinetics. Originally issued on the legendary Basic Channel sub-label Chain Reaction in 1996 following a trio of 12”s, Biokinetics was the first of the label’s album releases, and still stands as its crowning achievement. The duo was made up of dark ambient pioneer Thomas Koner and sound engineer Andy Mellwig, and between them they re-framed the techno sound, imbuing the spacious ambience pioneered by label bosses Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald with a frosty, isolated experimental bent, and combining it with the sort of haunted minimalism of early Plastikman.

What separated Biokinetics from other albums at the time was its unwavering narrative – the exact sound has been interpreted countless times since, but the immersive qualities of this singular record have rarely been touched. Maybe it is down to the silvery underwater concept that ties each track together – the bubbling pads, sub-aquatic basses and muffled kick drums. But as with any great album, it’s hard to exactly put your finger on what makes it a classic. Simply put Biokinetics is one of the most important records in the genre, and it’s a pleasure for us to make it available to the world once more.

More information here.

18 February 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

On the aptly titled Improvisations for Strings and Electronics, Marielle Jakobsons and Agnes Szelag (Myrmyr) team up with cellist Helena Espvall (of Espers) on a series of, you guessed it, improvisations for strings and electronics. Recorded in Oakland, CA, Jakobsons and Szelag created graphic scores for the occasion.

A little while ago Agnes asked me which bands I’d compare this album to. I couldn’t think of a single one. Not even the more classically oriented works of someone like Godspeed! You Black Emperor really come close.

What did immediately leap to mind were the string quartets of contemporary composers Gloria Coates, Morton Feldman, Per Nørgård, and Henryk Górecki. As well, some of the more challenging, discordant and visceral works of Arvo Pärt bear a similarity to the sinuous, winding melodies and stunning tonal landscape created here.

Ethereal and rapturous beauty tempered with sinister, creeping danger looming ominously in the shadows.

CD. 5 tracks / 43:13 mins. Multi-layered handmade transparent outer-sleeve, lino-block printed envelope. Limited edition of 100.

More information here.