10 April 2011

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

While many (including myself) associate the Prurient moniker with Dominick Fernow's abuse of distortion and feedback, the project has been shifting more and more into some hard to define realm that has slowly engulfed more "traditional" musical elements. Here that has taken hold even more, putting less of a focus on the harshness and bringing out a different beast of equal darkness.

Hydra Head

Opening with a scream and a blast of noise that hearkens back to some of the earliest Prurient material, "Many Jewels Surround the Crown (The District)" at first is entirely familiar.However, much of the harshness pulls away in the first minute, leaving behind a rudimentary, but functional synth melody that develops and expands, offset by sheets of white noise and Fernow’s spoken word delivery.The keyboard based sound is something that’s appeared in previous Prurient works, such as And Still, Wanting and the Cocaine Death compilation, but here it’s more fully fleshed out and structured, even soaring to dramatic, grandiose passages to close the track.

The "instrumental" version is far more different than simply removing the vocals.Instead, the synth melody is recast as pure black metal guitar and surges of noise.Hollow drums and more synths fill out the piece, but it’s far closer to metal than most of the Prurient stuff I’ve heard, even if it’s a bit too off kilter to be embraced in that genre.

It almost seems like two of Fernow's multitude of side projects, namely Cold Cave and Ash Pool, inspired the altering versions of this track.Between the synth heavy "The District" version, which wouldn’t have been entirely out of place on Cold Cave's Cremations, and the instrumental side channeling the "kvlt" end of Ash Pool's metallic leanings, it definitely feels like there's some influence here.Regardless though, it still sounds more like Prurient more than anything else.Even if the lack of pure unadulterated harsh noise may alienate some fans, the drama and ambience created are its greatest strength.

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This is the first ever release for the new Editions Mego imprint curated by Emeralds' John Elliott and it is an extremely auspicious start.  Fabric is the guise of Chicago's Matthew Mullane and this is his first major release under that moniker, though he has previously surfaced on a number of limited releases as both Fabric and his own name. He describes himself primarily as a guitarist and "computerist," however A Form of Radiance is a wonderfully spacey, endlessly pulsing bedroom synth epic...that may or may not have been created using actual synthesizers.  Mullane's methods are inscrutable.

Spectrum Spools

I think it might be impossible to describe this album without using words like "futuristic" (or better yet, "retro-futurist"), as this is the sort of music that sounds like it belongs in the worlds depicted in films like Blade Runner or Terminator.  It doesn't sound like it belongs in the actual films though, nor does it resemble either existing soundtrack.  It's more like an imaginary soundtrack to an altogether artier, more melancholy, and subtly psychedelic work.  Mullane has clearly been influenced by the warm pads, thick throbs, and sequencer-heavy arpeggios of '80s synth music and Kosmische titans like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, but A Sort of Radiance has a density, complexity, and experimental streak that is very contemporary.  In fact, Fabric fits very nicely into the pantheon of newer synthesizer luminaries like Emeralds, though his work is a bit more understated and meditative.  It is also pretty brilliantly executed: while all of the pieces are essentially built upon lush swells of slowly unfolding chord progressions, there is an enormous amount of vibrant activity surrounding them.  Pieces like "High Ceilings" and "Light Float" burble, quaver, swoop, and shimmer to a transfixing degree.

The entire album is surprisingly varied and imaginative, especially given that all nine songs have very similar textures and timbres.  Also, it is pretty short, as four of the songs are under two minutes.  The briefer pieces aren't filler though, as "Controls" is actually one of my favorite pieces on the album.  Mullane displays an impressive intuitive understanding of exactly how long an idea can unfold before wearing out its welcome: if a piece like "Light Float" is hypnotic and immersive enough to unfold for 8 minutes, it does.  Conversely, if a fragile interlude like "Containers" says everything it needs to say in a minute, it ends there.  Matthew also has an impressive talent for mood and subtlety, allowing just enough melody to give the songs color and personality, but never being blunt enough to disrupt the lazily warm and hallucinatory flow of the album.

I did not expect to like this nearly as much as I do, as I generally find albums this unapologetically synthesizer-heavy to be very limited and often quite masturbatory.  A Sort of Radiance is, quite happily, neither of those things.  This is a thoroughly impressive and mesmerizing debut.

Samples:

• Controls
• High Ceilings
• Leaving the House

 

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This extremely minimalist album of high-concept drone was composed as the soundtrack for a Michael Azar play about the life of one of the most iconic tortured artists in history: poet Arthur Rimbaud.  The actual music seems to have been secondary to the cleverness, veracity, and thematic consistency of the process, which I find both problematic and intriguing. That particular aesthetic often makes for an underwhelming and difficult listening experience, but Harar can sometimes be perversely mesmerizing in its simplicity too.

Touch

This album takes its title from the fact that Hausswolff spent ten days in the Ethiopian city of Harar gathering the source material, a place where Rimbaud spent the final years of his life as gun-runner and coffee trader.  Notably, the sounds that Hausswolff decided to capture and incorporate to his music are fairly abstract and a little perplexing.  For example, the backbone of the album's centerpiece, the three-part epic "Day and Night" is comprised of drones made on a krar that he bought after several days of searching.  However, he very quickly realized that he could not effectively play his new stringed instrument, so he opted to use a bow to get a good droning single tone and then heavily processed it with his computer.

He also made some field recordings, some of crickets, gentle breezes, and distant children's voices taken from a hillside (which appear on "Day") and some less ambitious ones of his hotel faucet dripping (which appear on "Night").  That is essentially it.  Musically, that translates into the first 14 minutes of the album being devoted to a single subtly wavering note or chord with some quiet natural ambient sounds around it.  Such extreme stasis is difficult to get very enthusiastic about, but waiting for something to happen for so long is deliciously tense and makes the transition into the lengthy third section ("Alas!") extremely powerful simply because the damn note changed.  Thankfully, things also get a bit dark, unsettling, and complexly multi-layered at that point (though they are still largely centered around a one-chord drone).  After several listens, I've ultimately decided that I like the entire piece quite a bit, but it demands an enormous amount of patience and attention to nuance to appreciate it enough to make it to the pay-off.

Unfortunately, the album's closing piece, the 13-minute "The Sleeper in the Valley," is not nearly as successful.  Hausswolff abandons his krar and opts instead for several oscillators droning away in uncomfortably dissonant harmony.  The twist is that there is a low-frequency oscillator in the mix that is transmitting the words to Rimbaud's "Le Dormeur Du Val" in Morse code, which is entirely too cerebral/"high art" for me (in fact, I think I simultaneously cringed and grimaced when I learned that).  Such a move wouldn't be nearly as irksome if the piece held up musically, but it is basically just a somewhat annoying buzz with an erratic pulse thrown in.  I definitely wish the album had ended after "Night and Day."

On one hand, it seems unfair to disparage something intended as a soundtrack for not being particularly compelling on its own.  On the other hand, however, this has been released as a stand-alone album and it needs to be judged as such. Additionally, it drives me crazy when great art or a fascinating life are co-opted into something that is neither particularly great nor fascinating.  Rimbaud was a very singular, brilliant, and passionate guy: 800,000 Seconds in Harar is at best a better-than-average drone album (and at its worst, an exasperating exercise in bloodless over-intellectualism).

Samples:

• Day
• Alas!
• The Sleeper in the Valley

 

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This Norwegian duo made a big splash in certain circles with their 2005 debut Pale Ravine, but their haunted, shadowy chamber drone held somewhat limited appeal for me.  While accomplished and unique, it was simply too cinematic and oppressively dark: whenever it was on, I felt like I was either trapped in a very slow-moving and somberly brooding art film or attending a witch-burning (both feelings that I generally do not actively seek out).  On this, their long-awaited follow-up, Deaf Center’s sound has become a bit more substantial musically and a bit less narrow mood-wise.  Also, they toned down the bombast and recorded in an actual studio.  All of that tweaking has cumulatively resulted in a significantly more gratifying album.

Type

Aside from its pronounced predisposition towards murkiness and misery, the main thing that differentiated Deaf Center's Pale Ravine from rest of the drone world was its somewhat unusual instrumentation: Otto Totland is a pianist and Erik Skodvin is a cellist.  Unfortunately, they did not capitalize on that asset nearly as much as they could have, opting to frequently employ synthesizers and losing a lot of texture and tone due to underproduction (though they certainly gained some mystery and ominousness in return).  Thankfully, Deaf Center have largely ditched the synths and made everything much clearer, more spacious, and organic-sounding.  In fact, the album even features a handful of rather naked solo pieces.  The best of the lot is Totland's brief and fragile "Time Spent," which could almost pass for a lost Erik Satie piece if it were not for the dark undercurrent and intentionally clashing notes.  Skodvin, for his part, definitely has more of a talent for evocative song titles: "Animal Sacrifice" captures him sawing away at his cello to produce a host of moaning and squealing harmonics.  Unfortunately, it lacks any sort of melodic framework to hold it all together, so it is not much more than a passing curiosity.

As much as I liked "Time Spent," there is no denying that Deaf Center are at their best when they are in full collaboration.  The best example of this, and the best thing they've ever actually recorded, is the slow-burning epic "The Day I Would Never Have," which deceptively begins with a gently melancholy piano motif.  Gradually, Skodvin's cello fades in with a glacially intensifying three-note progression and a quivering nimbus of feedback.  It is so simple, yet so perfect: the three notes keep relentlessly repeating while everything in the periphery grows steadily more dense, distorted, and snarling for nearly 9 minutes before it all abruptly drops out to make way for the piano's quiet return.  My other favorite piece is the opener, "Divided," which takes the tortured-sounding bow-squeals of "Animal Sacrifice" and puts them to much better use over a slow-moving wall of dense swells.

While it certainly has flashes of tenderness and fragility, Owl Splinters is still very much a dark album.  That darkness seems much more honest, earthy, and meaningful now, however, arising from primal cello ferocity rather than field recordings of crackling fires and murky minor key synth chords–I want to hear those strings scrape, strain, and stretch.  This album is undeniably a big step forward, but Otto and Erik still have some work to do in getting everything together in the right place and at the right time.  If these guys can find a way to more seamlessly blend Totland's impressive melodic talents to their newfound knack for roiling density and power, they might unleash an absolute monster of an album.  As it stands, Owl Splinters is merely an intermittently very good one.

(Note: The vinyl version of this album comes with a bonus disc of reinterpretations by Skodvin's Svarte Greiner project.  That seems fairly promising, but I have not heard it yet.)

Samples:

• Divided
• Time Spent
• The Day I Would Never Have

 

 

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Since parting from Kranky after 2002's Trust, Low have been at a crossroads. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, the band's guiding lights, have experimented with Low's blueprint, slipping into costume as a proper rock band on The Great Destroyer, then deconstructing that sound on Drums and Guns. Both are littered with great songs, but sound restless and unfocused in contrast with Low's previous work—the distinctive, low-key beauty that had drawn me into their world was often missing, at odds with their forays into dissonance and distortion. For their third Sub Pop album, Low have discovered a wonderful middle ground, merging the simplicity of their early recordings with the scaled-up production of their last two albums.

Sub Pop

C'mon leaves behind the tense political overtones of Drums and Guns and the overblown, fuzzy distortion of The Great Destroyer, taking lessons learned from those production techniques and applying them to ten cohesive, elegiac songs that, at many points, recall Low's earliest work. C'mon was recorded at Sacred Heart Studio, a converted Catholic church where the band recorded 2002's Trust, but the production is warmer, more inviting, and the songs have less empty space. The songs are supplemented with pipe organ, bells, slide guitar and ornate embellishments, coupled with lyrics about love, family, security and spirituality. Truly, this is Low's most mature and introspective work to date. Its closest antecedent might be "In Metal," the phenomenal ode that Parker sung to her first child a decade ago: "Wish I could keep your little body / in metal."

The fingerprints of Sparhawk and Parker's two children are all over C'mon, and its themes frequently center on family and parenthood—but Low aren't about to pen lullabies without any tension. Opener "Try to Sleep" sounds like a sweetly sung prayer for a newborn with its gentle, music-box melody, but holds an ominous twist: "You try to sleep / but then you never wake up." Recent live staple "$20," which the band has played on tour recently, sounds like a laundry list of a caretaker's protective wishes for a child: "A heart that won't burst / and lips that don't thirst / I thought of you first / my love is for free, my love / my love is for free." The lovely "Nightingale" is more conventional, finding Sparhawk and Parker soothing a young child ("Oh nightingale, don't you cry") to a gorgeous, impeccably restrained arrangement. Their kids even appear on the final song, "Something's Turning Over," echoing Alan's "La la la la la" refrain that closes the acoustic guitar-based song after he warns them both: "Get out while you're young / just because you never hear their voices / don't mean they won't kill you in your sleep."

Like Low's prior Sub Pop albums, C'mon houses several of the best songs the band has recorded in recent memory. One is "Witches," which embellishes evocative guitar chords with a banjo that appears mid-song before Sparhawk begins quoting Kool Keith in the song's coda: "All you guys out there trying to act like Al Green / you're all weak." Alongside Alan's father teaching him to fight off witches with a baseball bat—again, a reference to parental protectiveness—it is a brazen and bizarre combination that works beautifully. "Especially Me" is a Parker-sung stunner that pairs a seemingly backwards-looped guitar line with one of her greatest chorus melodies. Several songs recall the minimalistic arrangements of the band's Vernon Yard and Kranky years: the stark vocal melody of "Done," for example, is a dead-ringer for "Will the Night," from 1999's Secret Name. The difference between the two is guitar virtuoso Nels Cline, who guests on slide guitar. (An avowed fan, he invited Low to open for Wilco a few years back, sitting in on lap steel occasionally.) Here, Cline's appearance sells the song: his contribution is restrained and mixed subtly, but effective in imbuing "Done" with its own lifeblood.

Later, Cline also guests on the album's penultimate track, "Nothing but Heart"—one of Low's best songs to date. Sparhawk sets the stage with a few seconds of fiery guitar playing, which cuts out to reveal a single verse: "I would be your king / but you wanna be free / confusion and art / I'm nothing but heart." He then repeats the final words ad infinitum while the song builds for eight minutes: Parker joins Sparhawk on vocals; Cline adds an evocative slide guitar line at first, then starts to let loose, reminiscent of Neil Young's more unhinged moments; volume and tension increase all around, Cline and Sparhawk feeding off each other's energy. As the singing becomes increasingly urgent, Parker steps back from the repeated mantra ("I'm nothing but heart") for her own verse that's hard to make out—it's buried deep in the mix—except for a few words: "Remember that all we are is what we love." Then, slowly, it all fades to black. "Nothing but Heart" is Low at the height of their powers, transcendence via epic build and repetition—a song so finely composed and executed that I haven't listened without slightly welling up with tears each time I hear it.

Admittedly, Low are my favorite band going—have been for a decade. I cited Drums and Guns as my favorite album of 2007 when it was released, but C'mon couldn't be more different in its approach. That said, I have played this new album into the ground and cannot find fault with it. Nearly two decades into their career, Sparhawk and Parker have come far from the soft-spoken newcomers who released I Could Live in Hope back in 1994. Much as I love their early recordings—and truly, each of their albums—C'mon is a step forward, exactly what I would ask from Low in 2011: magnificent arrangements, carefully embellished production, inviting warmth infusing each song. Like a fine Bordeaux, Low continue to improve with age. Moreover, C'mon is genuinely moving, accomplished, and brimming over with love and feeling—nothing but heart, indeed.

(Note: Those who purchase the C'mon CD/LP at independent record stores this week may receive the bonus C'mon Acoustic EP. Its five songs are bare-bones recordings, just guitar and vocals, and structurally identical to the album versions. Those faring best are the songs that remain stripped down on C'mon, such as "Nightingale." Inessential, yes—but a testament to the gorgeous, layered production that Low and Matt Beckley got right on the album proper.)

Samples:

• Especially Me
• Nightingale
• Nothing but Heart

10 April 2011

Albums and Singles

Scott Ferguson has a unique voice. Of course, like fingerprints, every voice is unique to a degree. But Scott has found his voice, and conformed it to his introspectral lyrics. Whether it is hiding submerged beneath the shadows of etheric guitar work, or rising triumphant into the light above the steady tambourine pulse and murmur of electronics, the experience is haunting. Listening to this succinct EP is like brushing up with a ghost in the haunted Midwest landscape. While the machines of industry may be dead or dying, something invisible still moves among their rusted skeletons, in the empty homes. And now I can hear them.

Read more …

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In one way, this 7" is a departure from C Spencer Yeh’s lovely, wild, textured, drone experiments as Burning Star Core and from his work with everyone from Comets on Fire and Tony Conrad to John Sinclair. Yet, these two engaging songs, with their satisfyingly oblique lyrics, also confirm his interest in the human voice and in the studio as a compositional tool.

De Stijl

Those familiar with some of CS Yeh’s previous music may refuse to believe that he has created this calm, light music. Yeh is very prolific and over the past few years has used a range of tools such as treated loops, computer patches and violin across a range of formats including radio, cassette, 8-track and vinyl. His Burning Star Core releases have received enormous praise from Julian Cope (a lover of sonic wildness) with Papercuts Theatre (edited by Yeh over several years from 60 live recordings) compared favorably to The Faust Tapes and Arc. Equally, Lunar Roulette by Sych (the new project with Yeh, Wally Shoup, Chris Corsano and Bill Horist) is awash in dense free-form improvisation.

So having such a renowned free-form sonic improviser put out "In The Blink Of An Eye" and "Condo Stress" is a bit like Jackson Pollock coming around to your house to build you a very nice wooden chair—and just as satisfying. I reckon, though, that roots of a more song-based venture are clear in Yeh's work; for a portion of it has explored the "most original and dangerous instrument"—the voice. Two examples: his lengthy contribution to a WFMU radio program (a fake morning radio car drive listen) leans heavily on voice, with ads, announcements and singalong hits. Also, his piece "Slow Sex in A Fast Economy" aims for hypnotic intensity from repetitions of treated voice.

This is Yeh’s first venture into something which could be classed as "songwriting" since three titles issued in 2002 and is quite an advance on the earlier songs; with a more coherent structure and a softer, brighter production. Both have accessible rhythm and melody as well as some of the undefinable magic which can transform mystical sketches into good pop music. Both are also very different and have an atmosphere similar to traces of Eno's earliest solo records. I am obsessed with these two songs. They possess quality which harks back to the last golden age of 7" vinyl singles; a lost time when A sides were played on the radio and (if any good) B sides heard often on jukeboxes and at home.

"Blink" seems layered like a sound collage and is an insistent foot-tapper vaguely suggestive of a much mellower version of spiky Gang of Fouresque funk. Yeh’s husky and falsetto vocals flipping between alluring images of fleeting happiness and warnings of regret. "Condo" is a lovely uncluttered piece which initially sounds like John Cale playing piano with one hand tied behind his back and his eyes closed. I am fascinated by the cryptic lyrics and ambiguous emotional atmosphere. The narrator appears to blur gender, lives, and scenes to such an extent that I am reminded of Julio Cortazar’s short story "The Night Face Up" which switches between a motorcycle accident in the 20th century and a victim of human sacrifice in Aztec civilization. In both cases my attempts to deduce which scenario is reality and which is a dream eventually just give way to pure enjoyment.

Samples:

• In the Blink of an Eye
• Condo Stress

10 April 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Scott Ferguson has a unique voice. Of course, like fingerprints, every voice is unique to a degree. But Scott has found his voice, and conformed it to his introspectral lyrics. Whether it is hiding submerged beneath the shadows of etheric guitar work, or rising triumphant into the light above the steady tambourine pulse and murmur of electronics, the experience is haunting. Listening to this succinct EP is like brushing up with a ghost in the haunted Midwest landscape. While the machines of industry may be dead or dying, something invisible still moves among their rusted skeletons, in the empty homes. And now I can hear them.

Blackcity Records

The first song, "Slumber" has ominous portent, and is an esoteric homily to crows, doll houses, punctured lungs, and the long sleep of death. Propelled by driving guitar rhythms, courtesy of Sean Whitaker, who recorded and mixed the disc, and simple but effective drums, the piece fades out into a swirl of upper octave, hazy clarinet fritter. "Wise Wide O" begins with schizoid vocals bleeding from a telephone or cheap radio speaker. Some nice synth moments, mimicking a harps pluck, add a brighter tinge to dark lyrics, minor key finger picking, and dissonant drone, carrying over into the next song "Corpse Candles."

The centerpiece of the album, both literal and figurative, is "Archover." This is the song I find myself humming while at work, or running through my head while out on a walk. Compared to the other pieces it is stripped down, and finds the singer lingering over the words, sustaining them longer, holding the notes. The acoustic guitar is elegiac and the synth is somber. It is followed by a very brief number, consisting of distorted piano scales, and unintelligible whispers. "Stark Lots" emphasizes the drums more than any other track, as the cymbal is run through some kind of phase effect. Spacey electronic washes and bright colors give it a treatment that would work as the soundtrack for a latter day episode of the Twilight Zone.

This EP is a hopeful first utterance from Fosdyk Well. The group shows an adroit skill at songwriting and structure, adding many tenebrous elements which contribute to the tone of the seven songs as a whole. For my part, I’d like to listen to what they do on a full length album, with the hopes that they will be taking greater risks.

samples:

• Slumber
• Corpse Candles
• Archover

 

08 April 2011

Albums and Singles

Scott Ferguson has a unique voice. Of course, like fingerprints, every voice is unique to a degree. But Scott has found his voice, and conformed it to his introspectral lyrics. Whether it is hiding submerged beneath the shadows of etheric guitar work, or rising triumphant into the light above the steady tambourine pulse and murmur of electronics, the experience is haunting. Listening to this succinct EP is like brushing up with a ghost in the haunted Midwest landscape. While the machines of industry may be dead or dying, something invisible still moves among their rusted skeletons, in the empty homes. And now I can hear them.

Read more …

07 April 2011

Matthew Spencer

Albums and Singles

Gnomonsong

Hunter has a deep, throaty voice that fills the air. On "Paint a Babe," she drawls out the lyrics while a chorus moans -almost yawns- in response. Wacky title aside, the lyrics are garden variety summer imagery, recounting bike rides and lazy afternoons at the park. The delivery is what sets these songs apart. The fact that Hunter is a real, honest-to-god Texan gives credibility to her twang, but not all the songs rely only on her laid-back charm. "A Goblin, A Goblin" uses vivid personification and Hunter's skillful violin playing to sketch a tender picture of humanity's misfortune.

The remainder of the EP is rather spare, relying on Hunter's lyrics and her steady but unremarkable finger-picking. It's strange to ask more polish from a folk singer, but the added arrangements heighten the impact of the first two songs Hunter's lyrics are more vivid and well developed on the demos, but her voice is hidden by the lower recording quality. These songs might be of interest to fans seeking rawer versions than what's on There is No Home, but without that context, I would rather hear the album tracks.