24 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In contrast to the way I felt about their last collaboration, Space Finale, Big Shadow Montana is a dynamic, ever changing composition that mixes random sounds, droning electronics, and even some actual, albeit odd, passages of music into a perfect soundtrack for a '60s exploitation flick that never existed.

Helen Scarsdale Agency

A single piece split over two halves of vinyl, each actually functions on their own, but feel best played as a whole.The A side opens with gentle, pensive drones that expand with a sense of nostalgia, through faded photographs and lingering dust.Occasionally, melodies of another time seem to be carried in by icy winds, as are ghostly passages of lost radio transmissions.Looped basses and clattering wind chimes appear as a more forceful, dominating element in the slow, dream sequence like passages.

Through this, the occasional odd bit of voice appears, along with some pretty notes and odd creaking noises amid the huge walls of heavy ambience that are broken up by what sounds like expansive harmonium.As the half ends, the constantly evolving and flowing sound ends on some truly bizarre waltzing Casio keyboard sounds.

On the flip side, the music is more spacy, psychedelic, and a bit playful.Modular synths and weathered textures abound, forcefully over some subtle melodies.Overall there’s a more restrained, chilled out sound, even in the open canyons of sound, with the occasional outburst of radio transmissions and what sounds like passing UFOs.

The absurdity goes on to even greater heights, where the Casio sounds reappear in an outright bit of lounge music, which has the right level of kitsch to be fun and not obnoxious.All the while the sonic debris from this bit of pure oddness are processed and effected into completely weird, but brilliant passages of sound.

With almost mournful, icy sounds on one half and weird, absurd science fiction vibes on the other, it makes for an odd combination, but one that really flows beautifully together.Compared to the sprawling Space Finale, Big Shadow Montana is a more concise document that is both fascinatingly complex and bizarrely fun at the same time, a pairing that just sadly does not come along often enough.

samples:

• Excerpt 1
• Excerpt 2
• Excerpt 3

 

24 April 2011

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

After recently loving the Sun Splitter cassette on Land of Decay, I had high hopes going into this split and they most certainly came through. Their half here stands up proudly with that tape, which is no easy feat, and the Bridesmaid side is no slouch either.

Bastard Sloth Records

Bridesmaid, who I was notreally familiar with are definitely sailing similar waters to Sun Splitter, but still put their own unique spin on things."Vilkin' It For All It's Worth" is a fully instrumental piece that initially conjures up images of smoke and bong water, with its overdriven bass and garage band drums that are just the right amount of messy.It’s an unrelenting headbanging delight until the final 30 seconds or so, where it just goes full bore into grindcore assault, shattering the comfortable repetition that preceded it violently.

On the other side, "Plum Blossom" by Sun Splitter is cut from the same cloth as their tape.Opening with a robotic cymbal passage into their wonderfully diverse Sabbath riffs, the track is pure noisy bliss.While the song doesn’t quite transform into as many odd configurations as some of their other songs, it does carefully balance a repeated vocal mantra with big, caveman riffs and more complex guitar notes, dissolving into screams and noise in the middle segment.Subtlety is tossed out the window at the end, when the drum machine is programmed for "machine gun" and the guitar is pure death metal.

Paired together, they both highlight different aspects of the sludgy, post-doom metal scene.The contrast between Bridesmaid's ramshackle drums and Sun Splitter's digital precision is especially noticeable since both are matched with heavy, fuzzed out bass guitars, but neither is better than the other, they're just different: different, but equally badass.

18 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The three movements of Untitled #360 stand out distinctly in Francisco López’s recent body of work, largely due to their sheer sense of force and chaos. With scant information as far as source material goes, my best guess is that he plundered sound effects libraries, especially those aimed at action and horror film productions, to construct this lengthy composition. Rather than radically processing these sources, he instead focuses on layering and arranging them (with tasteful amounts of treatment) to create a tense, audio-only pseudo-narrative that is among the most aggressive and harsh that I have heard from him.

Emitter Micro

The first movement is the most traditionally collage style in nature.Crashes, explosions and chaos are all about, peppered with gunshots and the occasional music cue or two.The sound never relents, with López layering sound atop sound, with a bit more in the way of playback speed and direction adjustments.Panned all around, it is a disorienting mass of noise.While other sections on the album seem to hint at a narrative structure, this is the disc’s frenzied, messy inception.

Bookended by the two shorter, less varied works, the centerpiece of Untitled #360 is the 54 minute "Movement Two."Comparably, there is much more space and breathing room here, and also a bit calmer.Opening with the sounds of water, López brings in knocking and banging sound effects, but never overwhelmingly so.Crackling indistinct sounds and hydraulic machinery noises give a literal industrial atmosphere to the piece, though later offset by recordings of heartbeats that almost approximate some semblance of rhythm and a hint of humanity.

Francisco López almost brings about a sense of melody with some droning electronic atmospheres, but those are brief and passing.Soon, he takes the piece takes in a darker direction, bringing a mass of violent, fleshy thuds and squirming, wet sounds the forefront.At this point López has apparently locked into the "tension" tagged sounds in his effects library, because he hits all the ones that could be expected:ticking clocks, heavy breathing, and monstrous growls (or something of that nature).The jarring outbursts, offset with hissing air and the occasionally random scraping noise, culminates in a dark, tense, and unsettling conclusion to the section.

It is the third and final movement where it seems as if the unspoken narrative is clearest, and also the most visceral.A dense mix of sound effects cannot obscure the explosions, crashing, and crunching sounds he stacks throughout the mix.A wide array of automatic weapon fire can be heard from all distances, punctuated with car alarms and the occasional passing helicopter.It is much akin to a protracted, dramatic film shoot out scene, a la Michael Mann's Heat, but with all music cues and dialog stripped away, rendering it even more inhuman and purely violent.Spread out over 13 minutes and with the drastic volume shifts, it is a jarring, harrowing experience with a siren here, followed by a disturbingly loud burst of submachine gun fire.The closing minutes in which everything takes on a submerged, aquatic, quality, complete with sonar pings, labored breathing, and the hissing of an oxygen tank further demonstrate how López could end up with some Hollywood sound design credits to his name.

I never know what to expect when listening to a new Francisco López work because, as prolific as he may be, he is always doing something new and it never is disappointing.I was not quite prepared for the harshness and often terrifying narrative he constructs in Untitled #360, so the first listen was a mix of baffling and frightening.However, like all of his work, it is diverse and complex and, while not necessarily the most comfortable of listening, is always a fascinating experience.

samples:

• Movement 1
• Movement 2
• Movement 3

 

18 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This limited EP collects four brand new remixes and reinterpretations of songs on 2010's album Rocket Fire. Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, Pale Sketcher) takes sources from "It's Too Late" and reinvents the melodies, GD Luxxe records a German pop version of "Someday," Monster Movie (Slowdive, Eternal) perform a very sympathetic cover of "Stars Fall," and Jessica Bailiff creates a terrifying reconstruction of "Never Make You Cry" from samples and her own playing and singing.

Only 500 copies will be sold through Brainwashed. It is available now for purchase in the Brainwashed Store. Songs are available below:

18 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This second release from the recently reawakened Dead Can Dance is quite a delightful surprise, radically departing from its uneven predecessor and displaying a striking degree of creative reinvigoration. Rather than another stab at recreating classic DCD fare like Aion, Dionysus is a conceptually rich and structurally inventive plunge deep into the folklore and spirit of Dionysian rituals and festivals. An intriguing concept does not necessarily lead to an intriguing album, of course, but Dionysus finds Dead Can Dance at the peak of their instrumental powers, unfolding as feast of wonderfully vibrant rhythms, esoteric instrumentation, and inspired arrangements. It is quite a remarkable and improbable achievement, as it sounds very little like prime Dead Can Dance, yet absolutely feels like prime Dead Can Dance. If Dionysus had come out in the band’s golden age of the late '80s and early '90s, there would most certainly be a small but devoted contingent of fans that viewed it as dark horse contender for the duo's finest album.

[pias]

If I am being completely honest, I truly did not expect Dead Can Dance to ever record another great album, as the feeling I got from the reunion tour and Anastasis was that Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard are now far more like two loosely entwined solo artists who periodically collaborate than they are a united creative force these days.For the most part, Dionysus does little to dispel that sense, but it definitely seems like the duo have found a way to flourish within those conditions.Based on all that I have read about this album, it is quite clear that Perry was the album's driving force and that it was a labor of love birthed from a deep fascination with how pagan/Dionysian beliefs have spread, transformed, lingered, and evolved in the wake of the Roman Empire.Perry was originally drawn to the theme by European spring and harvest festivals, but the reach of the album seamlessly dissolves boundaries in culture, time, and space like only Dead Can Dance can do.For example, Perry's field recordings alone touch upon South America, New Zealand, and Switzerland and his musical inspirations are even more widespread, delving into traditional instrumentation that spans just about the entire globe.While there some wonderfully exotic and otherworldly sounds occasionally appear, such as the eerily flute-like see-sawing tones and jungle-like chirps in the closing "Psychopomp," that unusual instrumentation is less of a focus than it is a set of specialized tools that Perry used to get exactly the feel he wanted.In fact, Dionysus is largely a very percussion-driven affair, an approach that is especially effective on the muscular and propulsively off-kilter opener "Sea Borne," which abstractly evokes Dionysus's mythical arrival from The East.

While the album's bookends are both quite strong and easy to identify, the delineation between individual pieces on Dionysus is quite a purposely blurry one, as the album is structured as a two-part oratorio with different movements that tie to different aspects of Dionysian myth and folklore.For example, "Dance of the Bacchantes" is inspired by a rite in which women "abandoned their domestic duties for trance-like processions and dances," while "Liberator of Minds" celebrates hallucinogens and "The Forest" is a "call to abandon worldly and material pursuits and return to a primeval enlightened state of being."Happily, Perry opted to keep the narrative arc an abstract and impressionistic one, so this concept album deftly eludes the perils of dubious lyrical content or exposition.Curiously, it does sound like Perry is singing actual words in some language in the two closing movements, but the language is a fictional one, as Perry wanted to "convey emotion beyond the boundaries of language itself."In lesser hands, such a conceit would likely end in disaster.In this case, however, it not only flows seamlessly but seems like a crucial part of establishing the timeless and ritualistic headspace that the album inhabits.Recognizable words would have killed the spell.The music is not quite as liberated from the constraints of existing culture, however, as Perry is quite fond of Middle Eastern scales and melodies.The overall feeling is not entirely Middle Eastern though, as some medieval-sounding touches certainly bleed in, as do some sounds that seem plucked from real or imaginary tribes hidden deep in the heart of a tropical rainforest.At Dionysus's best, all of those threads combine into something that resembles an alternately raucous, sensuous, and ritualistic village dance that pulses with visceral rhythms, call-and-response chants, and primal eruptions of ululating yelps.

Admittedly, tt feels a bit weird to love a Dead Can Dance album in which Lisa Gerrard plays a noticeably reduced role, as she only takes over lead vocals on "The Invocation" (I think). However, her voice continually surfaces throughout the album as an added choral layer or to echo or harmonize with Perry's own vocals.That might not sound like much, yet her essence pervades the proceedings in a deeper way, as Dionysus bears little resemblance to Perry's solo work.This simply is not a vocal-centric album in the traditional Dead Can Dance sense, nor does the mood quite suit Gerrard's hammered dulcimer talents and the duo have the good sense not to awkwardly shoehorn in touches that do not belong.In fact, Perry and Gerrard show an almost supernatural instinct for avoiding false notes or missteps, favorably calling to mind a time in the distant past (The Serpent's Egg) when they seemed like an absolutely infallible force of nature and each new album felt like a communion with something deeper and more meaningful than anything the present era offered.There is not a weak moment to be found here, as my sole caveat is that the album feels all too brief at a mere 35 minutes.None of that time is squandered at all though, so it is hard to grumble: if the perfect arc is just over half an hour, then that is the proper length for the album to be.I had hoped that Perry and Gerrard might have some more classic songs or a return to form lurking in their shared future, but Dionysus has easily transcended those modest expectations by feeling like the beginning of an extremely promising second act to their long and illustrious career.Nostalgia and welcome familiarity are great, but reclaiming relevance and forging into compelling and unique new territory is far better.

18 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Long-time Coil collaborator Danny Hyde is excited to offer the world the next instalment in
his ongoing series of projects, the "Svay Pak", from his solo endeavour, Aural Rage.

This release is a departure from many of his better known appearances on Coil tracks such
as Stolen and Contaminated, Loves Secret Domain, and Backlight District, and contains a
suite of 5 songs, each quirky in its own way yet with a focus on melody and more
conventional song structure.

The tracks were inspired by interesting experiences I have had in the last few years and
sometimes features appearances by the street people and random wanderers I have met in
those journeys.

The vocalists on this release range from random street beggars, to up and coming popular
musicians who may someday be at the top of the charts.

Where these varied vocalists destinies lie is for those who purchase one of these cds,
limited to 150 numbered copies to decide.

Hyde, always the "odd man out" when it comes to music releases, will be adorning the face
of each cd with its own, unique art, ranging from the tasteful to the utterly tasteless, from
paintings by members of Hydes family to photoshopped pornography or the pictures of the
deranged scrawling of teenage internet vandals with only pictures of the southern united
state and Microsoft paint to vent their absurd fury.

Each purchaser of this limited release will get to choose which art best suits his or her own
temperament, so hurry and get yours today before someone of similar mindset does. The cd
is available for pre-order now, and some of the artwork can be seen at http://www.auralrage.com/svaypakpics.htm

and....some of the artwork has yet to be decided on, and each purchaser will offered to tell
Danny's what their favourite 3 pieces are, so the remaining artworks may become stranger
and more deranged than those already made. One of those pieces could be yours if you
order now. Some of the art already made reflects the tastes and aesthetic proclivities of
previous purchasers, so what direction the remaining cds art take is anyone’s guess, but if
you see one you like, or your feeling brave and want to hear some compellingly quirky
tunes, make your order now"

17 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Considering this new album has arrived so soon after David Tibet had finished his Aleph trilogy, it is not a shock to find that it essentially continues from where Baalstorm, Sing Omega left off. However, where Baalstorm, Sing Omega was vibrant and colorful like a decadent religious feast bathed in sunlight, Honeysuckle Æons is a night album; the yawn of a night sky speckled with stars and celestial bodies. The rock excess has dissipated and in its place Tibet returns to the introspective poet last encountered on Soft Black Stars and Sleep Has His House.

Coptic Cat

This introspection is not restricted to Tibet, the sprawling cast that was Current 93 of recent years has been reduced to a handful of players. Baby Dee returns to the piano stool, her playing poised somewhere between her usual music hall style and Maja Elliott’s raven-like playing on Soft Black Stars. As well as piano, Dee also plays some terrific organ on "Jasmine" and, on "Honeysuckle," she picks up on the carnival organ theme explored briefly on the last album (although with far less violence this time). Dee’s piano is paired with a mournful theremin, Armen Ra operating the ghostly synth with a control that is so often absent from the instrument. The theremin adds to the nocturnal atmosphere, there is something pitch black about its tone; it sounds like a gap between the stars.

Baalstorm’s African and Middle Eastern flavors are also reprised as Eliot Bates makes a return appearance, playing both melodies on the oud and percussion on the bendir and erbane. His gorgeous contributions are enhanced by the inclusion of the kalimba (played by Lisa Pizzighella). There is a split running through the songs on Honeysuckle Æons, roughly half of the songs based on the piano or organ and the rest centered on the oud. At first, it made Honeysuckle Æons feel fractured, like two different albums half made and half finished. Yet, as I listen to it again and again (and especially after dark), I realize it all works together perfectly. The organ and the traditional instruments link together like the different aspects of the faith explored by Tibet in his lyrics; the more modern rituals of Christianity linked back to the original ideas seeded in the Coptic texts that Tibet has taken such inspiration from. This linkage is helped by Andrew Liles' treatments of the music and words (subtle but there) and his job mixing the album; as disparate as the piano- and oud-based songs could be, he makes them feel like different sides of the same instrument.

Looking more closely at the lyrics, Tibet has taken the same ideas that ran through the Aleph trilogy but condenses them into an even more apocryphal and apocalyptic tale. Yet where there was drama and excitement in the Aleph trilogy, here he brings it back down to a personal and spiritual oblivion ("Stripped back to the real me"). His singing reflects the music’s gentle but insistent push; the screaming and the shouting have given way to realization and acceptance. That is not to say that the eschatological leaning of Tibet’s words is gone, the album is peppered with these references (everything from the "Bloodface" of Black Ships Ate the Sky to allusions to Milton’s Paradise Lost). Now these references seem to be almost psychological, not the actual Armageddon of this world but of Tibet’s world.

This more sedate and solemn version of Current 93 makes sense in the context of the year that was for Tibet. Change in the form of death, both Sebastian Horsley and Peter Christopherson’s passing left their mark on Tibet, and in the form of a new beginning as he embarks on a new phase of his academic career in Coptic studies. Events like these make you take account of your life in their own way and Tibet has put these feelings into Honeysuckle Æons rather than a diary. Like Sleep Has His House was a requiem for his father, Honeysuckle Æons is a goodbye to lost friends and a hello to the future.

samples:

• Persimmon
• Lily
• Honeysuckle

 

17 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

While the term electroclash came in and out of style almost instantaneously, only a small number of the groups lumped together under that umbrella had the ability to continue on past one or two albums. Ladytron have since proven their ability to create brilliant hooks and infectious songs (as evidenced on this collection) long after many of their contemporaries of 1999 and 2000 dissolved.

Nettwerk

The album plays like a concert, songs are not in any chronological order but sound like a set list, with a strong opener, some valleys, peaks, and a strong closing. Additionally, the curator managed to squeeze as many songs as possible into the space allowed on the conventional compact disc. Best of 00-10 is available in both a single and double CD set as well as for digital download, which is beneficial for those of us who don't want to throw down the money to buy the same songs all over again.

The songs on disc one (or the standard release) are strategically chosen, opening with their massive "Destroy Everything You Touch" from 2005's Witching Hour and ending with two brand new recordings, a knockout shocker of a cover of Death In June's "Little Black Angel" (mad props from the Brainwashed crew!) and the new song and single "Ace of Hz." Disc two, while less essential, has plenty of other strong favorites like Velocifero opener "Black Cat," "Mu-Tron," from 604, and the adorably sweet ballad "All the Way," from Witching Hour in addition to the rare instrumental noisy Light & Magic bonus track "USA vs White Noise," which could easily be a tribute to their once contemporary (and equally nerdy) Add N to (X).

In 2000 Ladytron was all over the college radio airwaves with songs like "Playgirl," "He Took Her To a Movie," and "Discotraxx" from 604, which wasn't as much of a debut album as it was a collection of music recorded between 1997 and 2000. I'm disappointed that this collection neglects the single and fiercely popular track "He Took Her To a Movie," (probably because it sounds quite dated by now) as well as the brief but rare lead ditty on their Japanese only EP, Miss Black and Her Friends, "Miss Black." It also avoids the catchy tune "Sugar," which was a strong single and had a great music video to go along with it.

The versions of songs like "Seventeen" and the incredible "Runaway" are the original full-length LP versions, so whoever compiled the collection didn't seek the more concise "radio edit" single versions of the songs. While this is acceptable, it makes this a rather lazy "best of," as nobody made the effort to consider that fans don't want to buy the same versions they already own and new listeners can latch on easier to a version that is more direct and to-the-point. While Ladytron have mastered the riff, they do have a tendency to overplay it a few too many times and wear out their welcome, especially on "Deep Blue" and the aforementioned "Seventeen."

To be honest, this set reeks of a record label who bought the rights to their back catalog, freshly eager to reissue each original album, as it sounds more like a sampler than a true hits or singles album. It's a decent introduction for a new listener who showed up to their concert and wanted to leave with only 1 item that best represented their concert experience, however any true fan will realize the sloppiness of the package. Even though the deluxe version comes with an 80-page booklet of photos and such I would much more prefer disc two to have been a DVD compilation of all their music videos, however, as there's no true quintessential show-stoppers on disc two.

samples:

• Little Black Angel
• Runaway [YouTube]
• Ace of Hz [YouTube]

17 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

There have been few albums that I remember waiting so impatiently for. Several years have gone by since Clodagh Simonds' first transmission under the Fovea Hex umbrella and finally a full length has appeared. Continuing on from an exceptional string of EPs and singles, Here is Where We Used to Sing finds Simonds and her ever shifting group exploring different aspects of their songwriting process. With more focused lyrics and more defined melodies, their music has solidified and began to sprout sharp, beautiful forms like crystals grown in a petri dish: equally perfect and fragile.

Janet Records

After waiting so long for a full album from Fovea Hex, I must admit I had some trepidations about Here is Where We Used to Sing. What made the three EPs that made up Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent was their blend of song craft and a loose, magical slipping of the sounds through the cracks in the melodies. The same alchemy did not seem to permeate Here is Where We Used to Sing to the same extent; the main album is very much anchored to the piano and the more experimental sequences are saved for the bonus disc, Three Beams. Initially, I was perturbed by this segregation of what I felt to be Fovea Hex's defining feature but the more I listen to the album, the more I fall in love with it. The shifts and wobbles are still there but they are subtler now, a deeper engagement with the music is needed.

It is not just the music that has a poetic depth to it, the renaissance of mysticism in Ireland in the early 20th century by the likes of W.B. Yeats and Æ finds a descendant in Simonds' words (both now and throughout her career). Simonds' lyrics at once capture the ordinary in all its vivid realism and also the layers on top of this normality that fill out a dull scene into an astonishing and beautiful epiphany. A fitting example being these lines sung by Laura Sheeran on "Falling Things (Where Does a Girl Begin?)":

"You might recall some sunny day this other day of falling things
Raising your face… And then I might fall calling your name as I'm streaming by."

The music and the words come together as a powerful concoction, soporific and hypnogogic. This is particularly true of the album’s stunning centerpiece, "A Hymn to Sulphur," which marries Simonds and Sheeran's sea-drenched vocals with a tidal rhythm of e-bowed guitar, strings, and piano. An intermittent piano pulse played on the higher notes sounds like a submarine's sonar, completing the oceanic setting. On the violin and cello respectively, Cora Venus Lunny and Julia play with a power and grace that illuminates the other elements of the song, highlighting and accentuating the vocals in particular.

The remainder of Here is Where We Used to Sing is no less sublime. Short instrumental pieces punctuate the album and Michael Begg and Colin Potter both help create these little tableaus (as well as adding to the main songs), their touch apparent but not heavy. Their contributions involve blurring the boundaries within the music; instruments seep into each other and form new, striking shapes. Other previous Fovea Hex collaborators reappear throughout the album, Brian Eno and Fabrizio Palumbo both being particularly noteworthy for their ethereal electronics and guitar respectively.

Begg, Potter, and William Basinski rework the recordings on the Three Beams disc and all three come up with startling results. Both Begg and Basinski create haunting, abstract soundworks out of the raw materials. Begg takes the strings and turns them into shooting stars, it feels like the notes are hurtling past my ears. On the other hand, Basinski's treatment of the music sounds more like glass birds in a giant, reverberating aviary. However, it is Potter's contribution that captivates me entirely. Moving on an arc through the album's rich ingredients, he is the only one of the three to use the vocals as a central point in his own composition. Potter's construction of the music gives the whole piece a bell-like character; he picks up on the music's resonances and expands the songs into vast stretches of glorious space. When Simonds and Sheeran call out through the ether, it feels like a bolt of lightning from God.

While I never expected to be disappointed with Here is Where We Used to Sing, I also never expected it to confound my expectations to this degree. I feel like I still have only scratched the surface of this work; like the Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent EPs, this is an album that will keep revealing secrets with every listen.

samples:

• A Hymn to Sulphur
• Still Unseen
• Cup of Joy (Colin Potter)

 

17 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

At first glance, this seems like a risky proposition: Rhys Chatham, the visionary avant-garde composer known for arranging vast, expansive symphonies with 100+ guitars, has released a record made primarily with trumpet and voice. He hasn't recruited 100 trumpets and 100 voices, either—simply his own. Hell, I didn't even know Chatham played the trumpet until recently...

Northern-Spy

The truth, it turns out, is that Chatham has been playing the trumpet for nearly three decades. Feeling he had reached the limits of his creativity on guitar by the mid-1980s, Chatham began developing his voice on the trumpet, practicing only in private for the first decade. In 1993, he made his switch public, seeking collaborators to flesh out his ideas, and a few years later released a lone EP, Neon, with midi-programming whiz Martin Wheeler. (For those interested, Chatham details his long history with the trumpet in his fascinating 1998 essay, Why I Switched to Trumpet—a thoughtful, academic piece well worth a read.) This was all news to me, and as a huge fan of Chatham's innovative guitar work, my interest was piqued.

As can be expected, Chatham's trumpet playing is not virtuosic in the usual sense of the term; he would likely not fare well in a skills test versus, say, Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis. That is not to say that Chatham's trumpeting is without merit, especially given that he aims for something wholly different than his jazz predecessors. As with guitar, he brings a set of personal influences to the trumpet—atonality, minimalism, repetitive rhythms, and a strong emphasis on texture—that render his playing unique. Outdoor Spell is Chatham's first album-length release of mostly solo trumpet recordings, and it's a mixed bag with a couple stellar tracks and a couple throwaways.

The fantastic title track opens with a subtle, hypnotic drone that builds slowly throughout the piece. After two minutes, the first recognizable trumpet sounds appear—a single note at first, then many more—looping over one another, some of them fizzling into the background, others foregrounded. Chatham builds on this basic template for seven minutes; the drone and his trumpet playing then fade out. It is a subtle, confident piece of music that functions equally well as background ambience or, at loud volume, enveloping incantation, and the style is Chatham's own—layer upon layer of trumpet and voice, looped unto infinity, a paean to the gods of minimalist repetition that he invoked on "Guitar Trio," though by wholly different means. Moreover, the music shimmers and breathes, with subtle shifts in texture and harmonics that emerge beautifully on headphones.

The next two pieces introduce elements that may begin to yield fruit as Chatham explores his voice on trumpet, but are not presently as transcendent as "Outdoor Spell." The percussive, marching-band aesthetic that opens "Crossing the Sword Bridge of the Abyss" (and dominates most of its overlong 18 minutes) becomes irritating as the sounds start to resemble, quite honestly, flatulence. At times, the piece fares better when Chatham fades out the rhythmic elements mid-track and lets his trumpeting take center stage. "Corn Maiden's Rite" is essentially the shorter, more developed cousin to "Crossing the Sword Bridge"—atonal trumpet lines weaving in between scattered hits of percussion, a high-pitched squeal looming in the distance. Collaborator Beatriz Rojas guests on cajón.

The true outlier is "The Magician," which sounds like an improvisational studio session where Chatham throws the structural guidelines that permeate his better-known work out the window. Unlike his textural blowing on the rest of the album, Chatham's playing is more traditionally virtuosic than before, resembling a number of free-jazz luminaries he has mentioned were influential to developing his own style—not least among them Don Cherry, who served as Ornette Coleman's premier trumpeter during the late '50s and early '60s. Chatham also recruits Jean-Marc Montera on electric guitar (rather than simply play guitar himself—quite the statement!) and Kevin Shea on drums, who provide a lively, shifting foundation for Chatham's trumpeting. Altogether, "The Magician" is a fine end to Outdoor Spell—a flawed album bookended by two tracks well worth a listen for Chatham and trumpet acolytes alike.

Samples:

• Outdoor Spell
• Corn Maiden's Rite
• The Magician