Reviews

03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Antifrost

The world of drones is necessarily deceptive. The successful drone isalways an illusion—you wind up being drawn into a special perceptualstate that I call the zone,believing that you're listening to a complex world of fractionaldetail, motion, drama and beauty while it's perfectly obvious to thecasual observer outside the zone that it's just a bunch of tones, quitepossibly rather unpleasant ones. The conjuror illusionist's skills canbe explained, understood and taught but the inner workings of theconvincing drone illusion are, to me at least, very mysterious. Thesame mystery is at the heart of minimalism—it's unbelievably easy to bea minimalist but very few have made good minimalist art and I doubtthat anyone can explain the key ingredient. This is my excuse for notbeing sure what it is that doesn't quite work about Texturizer.Everything is lovely in theory, Coti K. provides slow mellow electronictones and noises and Nikos Veliotis plays bowed harmonics and othercello sounds on top of that. But somehow it doesn't quite gel anddoesn't get me into the zone. The electronic part itself is hard tofault; it has nicely unstable resonances that sound like they mightcome from feedback loops fed with ambient sounds, perhaps street noise.The cello part is perhaps the issue. My all time favorite musicalinstrument is the cello and I love what its overtones can do but here Idon't get the sense of a cohesive effect playing. Live improvised droneplaying (I presume is what's happening here) involves a generativeprocess of discovering the perfect sonority and then working it,holding it, keeping it and moving it around. There should be a balancebetween the freedom of the autonomous discovered sound to behave underits own volition and the control of the musician. Too much control andall we hear is the performer, too little and the sound's lack ofintrinsic aesthetics will show through. Veliotis is tending to theformer. It's as though he never quite finds his perfect sonority,passing over several good opportunities and dwelling on inadequate oneson a trajectory of his own that also fails to make sense as a celloimprovisation. As wallpaper Texturizer is entirely functional—areally rather enjoyable and unimposing accompaniment to ones work. Butclose listening reveals the absence of illusion.

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Antifrost

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

ROIR

Don't be fooled: this isn't some silly pot-worshipping reggae groupcome to praise the benefits of marijuana use to the masses. This is abody-swaying group of musicians fusing "acoustic" reggae with the bestelements of dub. The sexiest horn combo this side of the universe blowsthrough "Kneel At the Feet" and slithers through a sax solo hell-benton turning these cold days into humid, fire-lit nights in a steamy bar.There's the moon shining over the mountains just outside the openwindow of the bar and the smell of salt-water splashes up through mysenses with every drum POP! and guitar stroke. The music isn't justsexy, though: 10 Ft. Ganja Plant recalls the best of classic reggaewith upbeat and playful rhythms, bass-led melodies, and, especially inthe case of "Let the Music Hit," outstanding lyrics celebrating thepower of great reggae tunes. The best part is that each track soundsdistinctly different: the production is never the same between twotracks and all the instruments have a unique voice that bursts away andstands alone as a shining beacon. If that beacon isn't shining, though,it's pulsing and moving like the waves on the ocean: it's hard not totap a foot or get caught up in the melodies. With each track being asurprise both musically and production-wise, it's an album that movesalong quickly and leaves a hunger for more. The chiming, foreign, andexotic "Midnight Landing" stands out like a lone dancer on the beach:the strange bells used that form the center of the melody couldn't bemore whimsical and yet they stand at a paradox: they're a sharpcontrast from standard reggae instrumentation but they keep in focuswith the soul of the album. I could spend hours talking about theimagery this album throws at me every time I listen to it. I don'tthink I've ever heard a reggae/dub album quite as diverse as this. Infact, even putting a name like "reggae/dub" on Midnight Landing is unfair: this isn't just reggae or dub and this isn't justsome combination of the two. Between the vocal-pieces and theinstrumentals there is an amazing variety of styles employed and it'shard not to stand back and look at it all and wonder: this is one ofthe most creative albums I've heard all year. It's diverse, fun, risky,experimental, creative, and entirely unique. This goes beyond itsstylistic marker and shatters into something entirely new and beautifulwithout forgetting where it came from.

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Autotehtaat Levyt

The future of indie rock mixed with electrorock funk is definitely indoubt. Black Audio are a Finnish pop outfit with a mission to be thebest club band ever, or so it seems listening to their slickproductions on this release. The sad thing is that their beats arederivative, and every track is ruined by the mispronunciation of aword, or a strange effect that throws everything out of balance. Thereis a lot of creativity in their music, no question there, but it hasvery little substance that can be called originality. This single,composed of one undisturbed track off their debut album and two remixedversions of album tracks, is enough to give a taste of the band andtheir flavor, but there is precious little here that would give me anycause to want to listen to their full-length at all. "Louisiana" iskeyboard funk with scratch guitar and a steady programmed beat, butit's crippled by the flatulent keyboard bassline, and the repeatedphrasing of "Yamaha" as "Ya-MAH-ha." "Rock 'N' Roll Egos" starts offfairly strong, with a labored rhythm and guitar bend, but it's thelyrics that ultimately do this one in, as well: "Yeah I hate therednecks, dislike hipsters even more/Getting along with mean morons forthe sake of business makes me a whore." It just shows that subjectmatter only gets you halfway there; next you have to carry the conceptto the masses on your words and feelings. Maybe something is lost inthe translation here, and that's part of the problem. "Mockba 1980" isa tribute to Finnish Olympic medal winners of the past, but the remixhere just plods at first, then annoys at the end with its blandkeyboard sounds and rapid-fire for no reason beat. It's a good attempt,and maybe there would be more on the full-length for me to enjoy. Withthis as an appetizer, though, I have very little stomach for the maincourse.

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Rune Grammofon

Rune Grammofon is known for releasing consistently excellent recordswhile at the same time convincing listeners that all their music comesfrom Norway. One would think, given the output of this label alone,Norway should have long ago become the new Iceland…or something. Rune'sreputation for continually thwarting audience expectations will not betarnished by Fevergreens,the second release from outsider-composer Jono El Grande. Next to ArneNordheim's abstract electronics, Supersilent's dead-city jazz, andSpunk's inimitable improv, Fevergreens occupies a territory ofits own; problem is, the territory isn't so thrillingly exclusive thistime around. While El Grande's playful blend of easy listening,exotica, and soundtrack styling may stand out in Norway, there is a"tried" quality to this music that makes the disc less than impressive.Fevergreens is enjoyable; the exuberance of these tracks iscertainly palpable, the pathos-ridden moments gripping even. ElGrande's forays into easy listening and a kind of quasi-exotica arewritten well, never drifting into (more-than-appropriate) parody. Thedisc fails, somewhat admirably, in its ambitious nature. The musicoperates under a classically informed, theatrical guise, bookendingprologue/epilogue sections and all, with the soundtrack-influenced vibefueling the listener's vivid journey through the crests and denouementsof an elaborate, though abstract tale. Such a framework clashes with ElGrande's interest in jazz and the progressive rock sound bearing themark of people like the Mothers of Invention and Henry Cow. The avantpresence is subtle, isolated to bursts of rock drumming, spasticsynthesized melodies, and a more pronounced jazz edge, but relevantenough to pull the stoicism out from under what would otherwise be arather refined musical achievement. The short lengths of the songs,each packed with enough mood changes to make one's head spin, likewisedetract from the latent seductive quality of this music. I find myselfwishing the avant-rockist bits were allowed to flail and degeneratefreely, or the moments of a more classical resolve given more room tobreathe. The former would provide Jono El Grande a welcome (and stillunique) spot on Rune Grammafon's intimidating roster, while the latterwould still make him the best Norwegian making such interesting music(which, to be honest, could mean the best worldwide).

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Like the 23Five label's recent success, Variable Resistance: Ten Hours of Sound from Australia, this new two-disc compilation from Preservation seeks to document a burgeoning sound art/experimental electronic scene among Australian musicians. "Scene," however, may be inappropriate given the variety available here. Motion: Movement in Australian Sound does distinguish itself by veering (slightly) away from headier sound art pieces into a more repeated-listener-friendly zone.Preservation

This is understandable given the label's undistinguished focus, with previous releases including Sun's dazzling, though unabashedly pop debut. The same understated beauty Oren Ambarchi and Chris Townend achieved on that record is present throughout Motion, suggesting there is truly something in Australian water that is sorely missed across the sea. The tensest, busiest tracks here exude a calm that uniquely connects them, digital majority included, to the pastoral. Not the nostalgic, fairytale pastoral championed frequently by European musicians?his sounds of the rural, the sprawling, the Australian pastoral. Inventive and satisfying combinations of organic/primitive sounds with austere glitch landscaping help to create the unique and emotive music so prevalent here. Guitars dominate several tracks, predictably unrecognizable in Oren Ambarchi's weightless contribution, while chiming a struggling joy across Chris Smith's fragile "Plates Shift." A nice surprise on the first disc is Ray Diode's cleverly-titled "Even Diodes Get the Blues," a subtle composition of humming drones, layered hiss, and muffled piano, faded in on a bed of field recordings and clicking static as if wafting in on a phantom frequency. Motion'ssecond disc is the real prize, beginning with Alan Lamb's comatose "Fragment of the Outback," which leads into a beautiful new track from Mush recording artist Clue to Kalo. His "Clock Taps its Face" is simple, skeletal pop, half-spoken vocals over looped piano that succeeds in the kind of haphazard, back porch brilliance that so often falls flat. Laptop/turntable noisemakers GCTTCATT also contribute what sounds like moment of chance-melodicism, a nicely digestible piece composed primarily of one swooning piece of feedback. Scott Horscroft's "Eleven Guitars" is one of the treasures of this second disc, also one of the only tracks to deal, in more explicit fashion, with the comp's vague theme, that each track must explore ideas of motion through sound. "Eleven Guitars" follows minimal, rapid-fire guitar loops as they evolve glacially over the song's six minutes. The tension between the swift, skating motion of the loops themselves, and the miniature progression of the whole, is as peaceful as it is stimulating. The disc's final triumph is an extended closer from Sigma Editions/Tonschacht artist Minit, a patchwork of synth-laced drones and machine hum, understated through a minimalism of means, but immense in its effected catharsis. New listeners should find many agreeable discoveries in Motion, most importantly that of Australian sound itself, a movement that is only getting stronger.

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Quatermass

This is a mysterious piece of music. At times rising above nothing morethan a series of simplistic drum patterns and a possessed guitar, theeffect is radiates is eerie and strange. It's as if the wholearchitecture that the sound rested upon was made up of a liquid masssubject to change at anytime. Symphonic washes of melody that soundadrift on the sea are meshed with the sound of metal or wood beingground into a pulp and then recycled into a series of hypnotic rhythmsthat move each track along in a soft but drunken manner. On a tracklike "Random Hiver" the spectacular residue of this combination isnothing short of enchanting, but the hollow and vaccuous halls of soundsometimes become too plain and uninvolving. This is especially true forthe middle third of the album. Vocals samples are used early on in goodtaste to provide a sense of voyeurism within the music, but in themiddle portion of RI.Tit just serves to stretch out tracks that weren't meant to be stretchedout. "Aritec" and "We Watch Over You" are both far too alike to beenjoyable back to back. If it weren't for "Random Hiver," I might havebecome sick with the album too soon and missed the promisingconclusion. A series of sucking sounds (think snot) lead "We Watch OverYou" into "Cheyenne," a tune that creates an empty and strange embracebetween keyboards and drums. The drums never quite sync up witheachother nor with the self-destructing melodies fading and buzzing outof the sound spectrum. The end of the song is a mess of alien sound andinstellar noise that dissipates into thin air before the escapist"Enron State" topples into being and blows itself out on its own gustof wind. Yes, the song has a bit of a political tint to it, butnevermind such a distraction: the music is lovely. The end leaves mefeeling lonely and somehow depressed: the entire album just feels likea byzantine cathedral that echoes to the point discomfort. It'sgorgeous, without a doubt, but there's something about that void thatis unsettling; it's a space that's hard to look into without beingabsorbed by it.

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Transacoustic Research

Vienna's Vegetable Orchestra is one of only two vegetable musicprojects worldwide. They make music using only instruments crafted outof vegetables and various kitchen appliances. No sampling or looping isinvolved, and all songs are composed for live performance, the soundsgathered by what must be some of the best contact microphones in theworld. The group protests that this is no "just-for-fun project," andsuch a claim is easy to believe after listening to this, their secondfull-length release. Trying to decide just how this record, soundinglike a nice enough mix of spacious glitch-tronica and the windblown,percussive sound of early Kraftwerk, was rended from curiously alteredradishes, carrots, and eggplant, is at least a unique experience. Theorchestra's stated goal is "the interpretation and reconstruction ofelectronic music with organic means," the first part of which is anastounding achievement. With the aid of microphones alone, anincredible range of drone, crackle, and even straight noise travels theshort distance from vegetable to ear. They do house; they do dub; hell,they even cover Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" with an amazing amount ofclarity. The large number of sounds and reference points within Automatekeep the novelty cooking for far longer than one would expect. Thealbum falters, however, in accomplishing the "reconstruction" proposedin its concept. True, the element of surprise enters first as therealization sets in that these are all vegetable sounds, then againwhen it's clear that none of the sounds have been run through computersor looped. But the music, taken alone, is nothing shocking. Somestrange, noticeably unique sounds emerge every now and then throughout Automate,but no archly organic vibe is launched. In a time when computers canreconstruct and often augment any sound under the sun, vegetables thatmerely replicate computer noise, and do so somewhat derivatively, failto make a lasting impression. That said, the Vegetable Orchestra'sfirst album may not be directed at a reinterpretation of electronicmusic, and therefore may not find the same shortcomings as itssuccessor. Also, the orchestra's bimonthly performances are surelyspectacles to be reckoned with; at the end of the show, the group's ownchef cooks the instruments into a soup that is shared with theaudience!

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

V/VM Test

If brevity is the soul of wit, then the 99 remixes of Cock ESP on Hurts So Goodmust be the wittiest music ever produced. Close to none of these songsexceed the two-minute mark, most of them averaging about 30-45 seconds.It's an album tailor made for noise lovers with ADD. Cock ESP isanother one of those aggro-noise outfits with a wicked sense of humorand a predilection for transgressive fun. V/VM Test records iscertainly an appropriate label for this stuff, as much of their humorderives from brutal parodies of pop music and pun-filled song titles,poking fun at pop culture clichés and other easy targets. Thisadolescent satire has the potential to wear out its welcome quickly,but when it comes in such tiny little disposable half-minute packages,it's hard to resist. Just reading down the list of the 88 band namesand 99 song titles that make up the album is a fucking riot. A samplingof some of the more ridiculous band names: The Edible Scab Package, DJEnormous Genitals, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Obscuration/Albee Featuringthe Mellow Oaks First Grade Choir, Uncle Fatso, Kid666 and DJSmallcock. The song titles: "Don't Stop Bleedin'," "The Pursuit ofCrappiness," "Enjoy the Violence," and "Hologram of Balls." The musicruns the gamut — mutated voices, perversions of pop music, sampledmedia cut-ups, harsh blasts of industrial noise, aggressive drill n'bass techno, clarinet solos, a children's choir, field recordings anddrugged-up fucking about — some of it hilarious, all of it annoying,but certainly that was the intention. As an unexpected side effect,listening to this disc on random repeat mode all afternoon has given methe strange ability to read the minds of people's genitals. In fact,your dick just told me that it wants this CD. -

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Madame Chao - Hologram of Balls (Horrorglam of Bars Mix)
DJ Enormous Genitals - Don't Stop Bleedin' (Enormous Cock Mix)
Arctic Universe - Too Good To Be Experimental (Ten Below Mix)

03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Sweet Farewell

Tribute albums can often be enlightening. They can also beexcruciating. It can be illuminating to hear differing interpretationsof a songwriter's back catalog. A cover version can give you a freshperspective on a familiar song, or place it in a new musical contextthat may lend itself brilliantly to the original material. In the past,I've heard wonderful collections of artists interpreting the songs ofsinger-songwriters Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Lee Hazlewood. The Bells Shall Sound Forevercollects 15 tracks from 15 artists, paying tribute to the songs ofCurrent 93. From the beginning this project is doomed. David Tibet'swork as Current 93 is so irredeemably idiosyncratic, and is performedand produced in such a specific way, that any reinterpretationnecessarily runs the risk of diluting the meaning and power of theoriginal material. Current 93 albums do not contain songs; they containstanzas. Each album is a poetic cycle, weaving together Tibet's musingson Christ, cats and apocalypse with sparse and evocative soundsettings. The very idea of isolating a track and reinterpreting itseems, on the surface, to be a ridiculous venture. Tibet's dramaticspoken-word vocals, Michael Cashmore's haunting instrumental backdropsand Steven Stapleton's mindbending soundscapes and production acumen:all of these elements are vital to the sound of Current 93. David Tibetcan't play any instruments, he can't read or write musical notation andhe can't write a song. Therefore, the idea of covering a Current 93song seems just as pointless as covering a Wesley Willis song. TheEuropean and American artists on Bells are largely obscure,often amateur, with a clear emphasis on bedroom industrial and neo-folkmusicians — people who have had their brains twisted by constantexposure to Sol Invictus records. Sonne Hagal's limp take on "Death ofthe Corn" is made comical by the thick German accent of the singer.Dorien Campbell turns in a capable but unremarkable rendition of "ASadness Song." Vequinox manage to make the already boring "Earth CoversEarth" even more lackluster, sounding like a middle-aged, pot-smokingWiccan couple recording on a four-track in a dusty tool shed in theirbackyard. German industrial band Engelsstaub attempt to transform"Happy Birthday Pigface Christus" into one of those faceless EBM clubtracks. What an outrageously bad idea! Hungary's Cawatana contribute ahilariously corny version of "A Song for Douglas After He's Dead",complete with silly pan flutes and broken English. "Crowleymass" is anembarrassing mess — it's hard to tell what Storm of Capricorn werethinking with this annoying cacophony of multi-tracked vocals and dullCasio keyboards. If you've ever wanted to hear a heartbreakinglybeautiful song turned into utter shit, listen to Der Feuerkreiner'sself-consciously "gothic" reading of "Soft Black Stars." PancreaticAardvarks turn in a seven-minute dark techno track clearly influencedby Coil, but it appears to have nothing in common with the Current 93song that it purports to be a cover of. The tracklisting containsseveral glaring errors, mixing up the order of the tracks 12 through14, which is fine with me because I'm sure I won't be searching forthese songs in the future. I actually liked O Paradis' psychedelicflamenco version of "Calling For Vanished Faces I," if only for theamusement of hearing the lyrics sung in Spanish. Apparently, DavidTibet donated a Louis Wain painting from his personal collection forthe sleeve image. If this means that he is giving his stamp of approvalto this project, I would question his judgment. All I felt afterlistening to The Bells Shall Sound Forever was an overwhelmingdesire to dig out my old Current 93 records and listen to these songsin the proper context. Perhaps that was David Tibet's plan all along.

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O Paradis - Calling for Vanished Faces
Storm of Capricorn - Crowleymass
Der Feuerkreiner - Soft Black Stars

03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

Too Pure

Those familiar with Electrelane may not recognize them now. Wherebefore they were apt to formulate long, dire instrumentals with murkybass, flamboyant keyboards, and fuzz guitar, these four ladies fromBrighton have apparently decided that less can be more, provided that the energy is right. On Paradeis a sample of what's to come from the band on their debut full-lengthon Too Pure, and has an intriguing concept given their past. Threesongs weighing it at a little past eight minutes is a little shocking.The Bruce Springsteen cover ups the oddity level, though they've playedit live in the past with good notices. But the punk-injected soundtakes the taco, as the Electrelane of before has been replaced by thebastard daughter of Snowpony and Sleater-Kinney (recent tourmates =coincidence?). At any rate, it's a fairly by-the-numbers EP: new soundon track one, strangely appealing though out of character cover ontrack two, and a more traditional-sounding (read: instrumental) trackthree to prove to fans they haven't completely lost their minds. It'sfairly mediocre, but not in that it-almost-stinks kind of way. It'sjust nothing all that special. Verity Susman has that husky JohnetteNapolitano quality in her voice that always sounds like it can't domuch more than it is right now. The music is catchy and has a certainulterior groove to speak of, but at the end of the day I'm left wantingto give it all the old heave-ho on days when I want to trade in old CDsfor new at my local. The jury's not out so far that I wouldn't listento the forthcoming debut, but I'm suspect nonetheless.

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03 February 2011

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Albums and Singles

A tight hip hop record that's lost in some way.

Mush

Omid's Monolith is a platter of underground hip hop that could easily be an overground hip hop record in most respects, which begs the question: "What separates indie hip hop from its corporate older brother when commercial records are more experimental than their indie counterparts?" That's the prevailing question that Monolith raises as I listen, which is not to say that it's not a fun and engaging record. The instrumental cuts placed on the oddly numbered tracks are nicely twisted, thought-out and groovy collages that never sound too stilted in the 'cinematic downtempo' tradition. The even numbered tracks (and yes, the album's sequencing is distracting) feature a host of guest vocalists from Hymnal, Buck65, Slug and others and like most hip hop records that team up a producer with a slew of voices, some tracks work more effectively than others. "I'm Just a Bill" with Spoon's quick, dark delivery evokes a heavier, less retarded dirty south sound while Hymnal's contributions are more akin to deft spoken word spewed over laid-back beats. Love or hate Buck65's raspy Tom Waits of hip hop routine, his rhymes on "Double Header" are some of the record's funniest moments. However, the remainder of the album's vocal-centered tracks and about half of the instrumentals just don't seem to take the album as far. When producers like Timbaland are twisting tabla and Hindi vocal samples into crazy funky beats, the same kind of sounds with a more straightforward approach here on "Sound of the Sitar" are almost too obvious, although they do create a nice bounce. So, what keeps this record from being a major-label, minor-name act instead of an underground collective? What divides those who can't quite compete with Puffy and Outkast from those who aren't even trying? The answer for Omid comes on the album closer, "Club Apotheosis," an intelligent, poetic and unbelievably pleasant track that is both hip hop and everything that hip hop isn't at once. The difference is all in the attitude, which on the best tracks of Monolith shines through just fine.

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