Michael Gira founded Swans some 27 years ago. Time has brought a measure of nuance and versatility, but the raw, inhuman power of the band persists, even as many of their more lauded peers have succumbed to nostalgia or exhaustion. Pure tenacity, as much as loud guitars and violent lyrics, is what gives the new album the brute force that is characteristic of Swans at their best.
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Michael Gira founded Swans some 27 years ago. Time has brought a measure of nuance and versatility, but the raw, inhuman power of the band persists, even as many of their more lauded peers have succumbed to nostalgia or exhaustion. Pure tenacity, as much as loud guitars and violent lyrics, is what gives the new album the brute force that is characteristic of Swans at their best.
If anything, My Father… is a reassertion of principles on which Swans was founded. The anger, fear, and contempt of their earliest records still lingers, embodied in one unmistakable element: the impossibly dense wall of molten guitar noise generated by Gira and longtime Swans member Norman Westberg. The blunted, lurching style they developed remains unmistakable. "Jim," a tale of urban bitterness and revenge, demonstrates that the dynamic still has legs. The song begins rapturously, with images heavenly ascension and paradise, and then devolves into a murderous rampage as the eponymous character finally settles his scores. "Let’s strangle the mayor at the top of the stairs/Let’s piss on the city that burns down there," Gira sneers as a lead-footed waltz beat circles around him, the band’s skill at pulverizing audience resurrected intact.
Despite the heaviness, Swans still manage to insert slivers of beauty into what seems like an impenetrable storm. Mandolin and vibraphone embellishments flitter through the loudest guitar squalls. My Father… is intense both in volume and clarity. That is not to say that the record lacks moments of simple and unadorned beauty. The lyrical coda to "Inside Madeline" finds Gira waxing unabashedly cosmic. "The engine divine is inside Madeline/The star dust is yellow and red/And it’s mapping out time inside of her head," he sings, the moment resembling his more delicate work with the Angels of Light.
My Father… also makes use of another more recent development in Gira’s career, his free use of irony to poke fun at his fearsome artistic persona. "Reeling the Liars In" is at once a bloodthirsty call for honesty and parody of bitter old age. There is something almost goofy in the way that he deadpans, "The only true thing/the place to begin/is to burn up the liar pile." Of course, Gira implicates himself as well, changing the words from "the liars" to "this liar." This disarming clash between arrogance and humility make the song a standout track of the album.
Included in the deluxe version of My Father… is a second disk of outtakes, vocal fragments, and instrumental tracks sewn together in a continuous mix. Though not essential for enjoying the parent album, the disk is a rewarding listen nonetheless. The disembodied voices and phantom instruments recall the widescreen audio surrealism of albums like Soundtracks for the Blind.
When he announced that Swans were reforming, Gira justified his decision vigorously, in advance of any criticism that he was going soft or cashing in. He needn’t be so defensive. The results speak for the wisdom of that decision. Furthermore, the excitement generated some long overdue interest in a band that is often pointedly overlooked. My Father… has all the elements that make Swans a challenging and ultimately rewarding group.
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I can't tell if this is a Swans album or an Angels of Light record in disguise. Maybe it's both. Maybe it doesn't matter one bit. In the years between Swans Are Dead and My Father, Gira released several solo acoustic records, a "pop" collaboration with Dan Matz, a "split" with Akron/Family, and five diverse Angels records. That 12 year run concluded with We Are Him, an album that might have been where Swans would have ended up had the project not been terminated. After listening many times to this multifaceted return from the dead, I still can't determine what makes these songs more deserving of the Swans moniker than any of Gira's other post-avian recordings.
There are two absolutely perfect songs on My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky: "No Words/No Thoughts" and "You Fucking People Make Me Sick." Both combine Swans's most notorious qualities with something new and unexpected, which is what I wanted from this album more than anything else. Swans never stopped changing during their 16-year existence, both in terms of personnel and style, so part of me thought (and hoped) that Gira's return to the Swans name meant that something very different was forthcoming. Change and purity of vision are practically the only things that didn't change about Swans between 1982 and now.
For this record I half-imagined a continuation of Soundtracks for the Blind, with disparate tangents, more obtuse song structures, and probably lots more noise composing most of the record. Both the aforementioned songs deliver something along those lines, but in surprising ways. Instead of featuring tape loops, synthesizer noise, and spoken word samples, Gira highlights acoustic noise, abrupt stylistic changes, and heavily layered instrumental passages that are miles away from what is heard on Soundtracks, or even Swans Are Dead. That said, Gira has populated his most recent record with more familiar sounds than alien ones. Were the entire record like the bonus disc packaged with some versions of My Father, I think my reaction would be more glowing, but I'll say more about that in a second. So far as the primary music is concerned, there's much on it that reminds me of Gira's past. That's not necessarily so surprising, though. Phil Puelo, Christoph Hahn, and Thor Harris were all members of Angels of Light at one time or another, so hearing bits and pieces of the Angels' sound on this record seems perfectly natural. And the same can be said about the songs that sound more unquestionably like Swans. Norman Westberg, Hahn, and Puelo were all Swans members, too, and all of them had a significant influence on the way the band sounded (Westberg probably more than any other).
With all that in mind, my expectations about how Swans should sound begin to look a little silly. The group weaves in and out of heavier, more obviously physical music and lighter, more ornate songs throughout the record, generally favoring the big sounds most commonly associated with Swans. Several places feature a very strong Angels of Light influence, however. Specifically, songs more focused on melody, like "Reeling the Liars In" and "Little Mouth," are reminiscent of Angels without being imitations. They are quieter, of course, but the difference between Angels and Swans can't easily be reduced to qualities like volume or intensity. Remember that Angels of Light had several intense songs of their own, one of which led directly to the creation of this record (and "All Souls' Rising" is just as powerful as anything in the Swans discography, if you ask me). Other songs, like "Jim," "You Fucking People Make Me Sick," and "Inside Madeline" are split between percussion-heavy, driving passages and hushed, frequently pacifying melodies, thereby avoiding a simple loud/soft or Swans/Angels classification. Gira has said in interviews that this is "unmistakably" a Swans record, but I have to disagree. It is unmistakably a record by Michael Gira, it just happens to have the Swans name affixed to it.
Gira has also suggested that he isn't completely happy with this record. In one interview he called himself "cowardly" because he didn't go far enough with "No Words/No Thoughts," whatever that might mean. That's far too strong a critique, because no matter how much this makes me think of Angels of Light or even Michael's solo work, what he and his band have created is a concise and unlikely record of eight excellent songs. Whether Swans or "Michael Gira and the Young God Collective" is responsible for the music, there's a ton of energy and power on this record that I'm excited to hear generated in a live setting. There's also a few unexpected expressions and tangents to be found on the record, so this isn't just a war between Michael's many musical personalities. Swans has an almost sacred reputation thanks to the quality of their many records and the integrity of Gira's approach to art and music, and much of what he's done since then has fallen in the shadow of that renown. My Father manages to call attention to the many similarities between Swans and Angels of Light, and it highlights the quality of everything Michael has done since Swans Are Dead, whether his band consisted of Akron/Family or a more diverse cast. The distance between all of Gira's work has been collapsed beneath the diversity and quality of this release, and the band names affiliated with each record are now, in most cases, just a matter of history and convenience. This is all the work of Michael Gira.
Michael may think he didn't go far enough with My Father (and I may agree), but he definitely traveled into abstract and more satisfying realms with "Look At Me Go," a 46-minute bonus disc included with certain copies of the new album. It is one long pastiche consisting of rhythms, melodies, and sounds from My Father, with the addition of non-album elements like moaning voices, looped pianos, feedback, synthesizer noise, and extra vocal performances from Gira's daughter. Part of me feels like this is where Michael ultimately wants to go with Swans. It sounds more like the natural sibling to Soundtracks for the Blind and it puts into practice what Gira has said about his lyrics and hearing himself sing (apparently he's sick of hearing himself, so he vocalizes only briefly before being overwhelmed by the noise featured on "You Fucking People Make Me Sick"). It is, in some ways, many times more brutal than anything on My Father and far more adventurous, too. Yet, Gira has decided it has only secondary or "bonus" importance, which means I'm left waiting for a proper Swans record that goes completely off the deep end and explores the more abstract ideas highlighted on "Look At Me Go." My Father may not be what I expected or even wanted, but more than any heavy riffing or overpowering rhythm, that's precisely why I can accept that this is a Swans record. If I see an Angels of Light/Swans split project in the future, though, my head might just explode.
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It has been twenty years since Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane formed Stereolab. Sadier's voice remains a classic hypnotic sound and on her first solo record The Trip she meditates on change and loss in a personal response to her life's journey and in particular the death of her younger sister, Noelle.
The Trip was made in two sessions with the help of Rebecca Gates, Richard Swift, and April March, as well as Julien Gasc and Emmanuel Mario, who collaborated on Sadier's project Monade. Stereolab and Monade relied heavily upon the complex qualities in Sadier's voice. She always manages to sound detached and intellectual yet with an extremely subtle sense of warmth and passion so effortless as to appear almost unconscious. This paradoxical combination draws us as easily as a magnet pulls iron filings.
Stereolab merged Brazilian and German influences with Reichian repetition and created their own instantly recognizable musical world. The voice of Sadier (and the equally important Mary Hansen) often shared the mix in an effective but democratic sound where they were only allowed to be as important as any other instrument. Maybe that is why audiences could hum along to their songs while seeming to miss the meaning of words. An obvious example is "Outer Accelerator," which cheerfully intoned "In whatever society, there invariably will seem to be just a few men keen to rule; overwhelming the majority will assent and allow them to do so." Equally, "Ping Pong" laid out a clear case against the brutality of the military industrial complex and its economic cycles: "It's alright 'cause the historical pattern has shown, how the economical cycle tends to revolve. In a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop. A slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more." All that before the song ends with accompanying "dum dum dee dums" and "duh duhs."
Sadier will never lose her hypnotic voice and she hasn't "gone" metal or country for this new release. But what she has done is move out to some extent from behind the rhythms and structures of Gane's music. In her words: "In Stereolab, the lyrics came second and were always to fit Tim’s music and not the other way around. I don’t have that creative tension with Tim anymore, and I’m finding that very liberating."
There are moments on The Trip when the music clicks and speeds into a marvelous groove that could well be Stereolab, but for the most part Sadier's voice and words are to the fore, dictating pace and rhythm and this suits the personal nature of the songs. Opening piece "One Million Year Trip" is about her sister's death and the title seems to me an update of the "short time to be here, long time gone" feeling, meaning: a million years is a way to articulate in human terms a measurement of forever without someone we love. Her cover of "Summertime" might sound unnecessary at first hearing but the two minute rendering must surely be a lament for the speed at which salad days, summer, and life, go by.
"By The Sea" is another goodbye song. It is spritely and happy/sad. Free associating, when I hear this I see Les Vacances de M. Hulot and so should you (see the film). As aformentioned, there are moments of propulsion during The Trip but overall it is somber, spare, and still. Sadier has written most of the songs but there are several covers including Les Rita Mitsouko’s "Un Soir Un Chien" which was used in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film, Soigne Ta Droite. This is good since it has something of a Chic disco feel and because Catherine Ringer deserves more attention, too.
Stereolab seems to be in hibernation yet is set to release a collection of unheard material from the sessions for the 2008 album Chemical Chords. In October, lucky European audiences can hear Laetitia Sadier on tour. I could list until the cows come home the supposed roots which may lead to Sadier and Stereolab's ouvre. Everything from Gal Costa to Neu. But an intellectual response to her new album seems foolish and truth be told, I am somewhat incapable of critiquing Sadier. That paradoxical quality in her voice has always made her seem like a person first and a singer second. The brainwashed interviews (accessible on this site) only added to that feeling: portraying as they do her lovely, natural charm as much as her creative curiosity, down to earth way of talking and her intellectual rigor. The Trip is her attempt to make sense of life's tough inevitability and, while she does it with a customary light touch, the pain is tangible. It's a brave attempt. In the words of a Stereolab song: "We communicate more and more. In more defined ways than ever before. But no one has got anything to say. It's all very poor it's all just a bore. Someone has got to make the difference. Between the seeming and the meaning."
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Swans were dead, but Michael Gira is emphatic that this is not a reunion or a re-hash of a defunct brand. The Angels of Light were a rebirth (the title New Mother emphasizes that), but they have run their course as an outlet for Gira’s music. They represented a different sentiment and a different focus and this album is very much back where Swans left off in terms of feeling. That is not to say that his time spent doing The Angels of Light has not rubbed off on Gira but this feels right as a Swans album. Not only that but it feels like one of the definitive albums of the year, there is nothing here I would remove or alter.
Most of the songs on My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to Sky were previously released as solo acoustic versions on the album I Am Not Insane (although "My Birth" dates back to the last Swans tour in 1997) so, for better or for worse, many fans will already be familiar with the material before they press play. While lyrically I knew what to expect, it was hard for me to envisage how those acoustic versions would translate to the full sound that Swans are legendary for. I find that when Gira picks up an acoustic guitar, no matter what song he plays it could very easily end up going in any number of directions once a group gets involved. However, from the moment "No Words/No Thoughts" begins, it is impossible to deny the intention behind this release. The cynics who are dismissing this as a cash grab by Gira could not be further from the truth. Had this album been released in the late '90s, no one would have been surprised at the band’s name (though the music might have been more of a surprise).
The only song on I Am Not Insane to sound instantly like a Swans song was "Eden Prison" and I am delighted to find it present here fully developed. The distinctive rhythm could easily have evolved from earlier Swans pieces like "Feel Happiness" from Swans Are Dead or "I Am the Sun" from The Great Annihilator. It is hard to put a finger on what makes a Swans song and I feel the usual descriptions of heavy, slow and miserable to be not entirely persuasive. For me, Swans have always been about the rhythm: the songs lurch rather than follow a steady 1, 2, 3, 4 beat. Whether it is a quiet, introspective piece or one of those pummelling early works, it is all in the rhythm and that particular rhythm is all over this album. "Eden Prison" churns like a powerful engine; the pistons firing, driving the group like a runaway, overladen train doing its best to stay on the tracks.
"Inside Madeline" totters on a knife edge as a snaking bass line care of Chris Pravdica (his first tour of duty with Swans) worms in and out of the layers of guitar and Thor Harris’ fantastic drumming. I was a little disappointed that Toby Dammit (a.k.a. Larry Mullins) was not involved again but Harris’ confident and commanding drumming (amongst other duties) is well up to scratch. Swans’ sense of dynamics proves to be still intact as "Inside Madeline" drops to a whisper to allow Gira to inject his words into the music. Gira steps back from the microphone on "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" to allow his daughter Saoirse and Devendra Banhart to carry the vocals. Banhart has made a career out of capturing his childhood spirit but here his voice sounds ragged and ancient, especially so when Saoirse’s joins his. Midway through the song, the mood changes drastically as clusters of notes are dragged out of a piano like a difficult birth.
There is a deluxe version of the album which unfortunately was not made available to those who pre-ordered the album back in January. Even an option to upgrade would have been appreciated as the piece is every bit as good as the main event and it sucks to have to buy a second copy of the album to get it. Yet it is easy to overlook this as "Look At Me Go" has a gravity which allows it stand alone from My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, it is not a bonus disc in anything other than name. A collage in the style of The Body Lovers/Body Haters albums, "Look At Me Go" takes the raw recordings from the My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to Sky sessions and sends them into a vortex. Some of the sounds are obviously out-takes from the album (such as Saoirse Gira’s full vocals for "You Fucking People Make Me Sick") and it is interesting to hear some of the segments that did not make the album, the what-could-have-beens and the familiar hammered into new shapes.
I have rated all of Gira’s post-Swans work highly, usually more highly than much of the Swans catalogue (The Angels of Light were Gira’s true calling) but My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to Sky is even better than I could hope for. The music remains vital and powerful, the idea of this as a "reunion" does not sully the work put in by these musicians.
Swans are alive.
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Swans were dead, but Michael Gira is emphatic that this is not a reunion or a re-hash of a defunct brand. The Angels of Light were a rebirth (the title New Mother emphasizes that), but they have run their course as an outlet for Gira's music. They represented a different sentiment and a different focus and this album is very much back where Swans left off in terms of feeling. That is not to say that his time spent doing The Angels of Light has not rubbed off on Gira but this feels right as a Swans album. Not only that but it feels like one of the definitive albums of the year, there is nothing here I would remove or alter.
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When I first heard the rumors of a possible Swans resurrection, I wasn't quite sure what to think. I never thought for a second that they'd follow the path of other lesser bands that put out an album of re-recorded "hits" and toured state fairs, but I did think there was a chance it could result in a rebranded Angels of Light disc or a Michael Gira solo album. However, neither of those happened, and instead there is a new Swans album worthy of their legacy, and hopefully the first of many.
 
Another concern I had about this album was more of a personal one.My first actual exposure to the band was after their dissolution, so I wasn't "there" for the release of new material, it was all historical to me.Considering my first actual experience was Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money, and my second was Various Failures, I was quickly exposed to the two extremes in their sound.But, I never had to "accept" an album as a new Swans album until now.
So I started the disc with some trepidation, not knowing how exactly I was going to feel about "new" Swans material.It took less than a minute into "No Words/No Thoughts" before I knew I had nothing to worry about, thanks to founding member Norman Westerberg’s repetitive, but crushing guitar, layers of noise and drone.About half-way through, Gira's vocals appear, still carrying a certain southern drawl he began cultivating with Angels of Light, but the intensity of the song is pure Swans.
As I hoped, My Father sounds as massive and "heavy" as any prior album, but it feels like an entirely new entity.While I hear traces of older albums and songs amongst the eight tracks, never does it feel like an attempt to duplicate previous work, just influence of it arising in new material."Eden Prison" has a loping repetitive inertia to it that feels in league with the earliest work, but entirely singular and contemporary.Same with "My Birth," which pounds away like the Swans of old, but with a much stronger sense of melody and songwriting.
A few of the songs retain that southern folk influence that Gira developed with Angels of Light, such as sparse "Reeling The Liars In," replete with tales of skinning and burning bodies.The final section of "Inside Madeline" sounds like it could actually be an outtake from one of the Angels albums, but with a thrashing, aggressive instrumental opening that constitutes about two-thirds of the song.The focus on acoustic guitar and backing harmonies in "Little Mouth" results in a sort of country/blues hybrid that is all its own, however.
"You Fucking People Make Me Sick" has probably received the most attention on this album prior to its release, featuring Devendra Banhart and Gira's three year old daughter in a vocal duet.Banhart's sound and style never appealed to me much at all, but the relatively light arrangement and his perverse fairy tale vocals work well together to create a truly creepy atmosphere, which is just magnified by the two minute piano/drum outro, with some extremely dark horn drones to close everything out.
The deluxe edition of this album contains a bonus disc consisting of a single 46 minute track, "Look At Me Go," that was built from instrumental segments and pieces of the final album.In that regard it is reminiscent of the material from the latter Swans albums such as Soundtracks for the Blind, but again is its own beast.The harsh, more abrasive moments of the album are drawn out even longer, resulting in something that is part "megamix"/part sound collage/part unique composition.While the primary "album" consists of songs in the traditional sense, this extra material is a pure exploration of sound that ranks with the best of the band’s experimental moments from the past.Played loudly (as I’m sure it was intended), it is a beautifully visceral experience.
I think most people will be as thrilled with the fact that Gira has decided to revive his old band as I am. My Father had a lot of expectations to live up to, and it surpassed them easily.Considering this isn’t just a one-off project, I can only imagine how the next album will turn out, especially once the band has a new tour under its belt and begins writing new material.
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Strumming Music For Piano, Harpsichord And Strings Ensemble.
(SR 297CD) : OUT 10/12/2010
Sub Rosa presents unpublished works by minimalist composer/vocalist/performer Charlemagne Palestine. Charlemagne Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works
were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his
intensely performed piano works. These unpublished pieces from the mid-'70s are
works built on the same principles that he developed and established over the years
for the piano. This is a unique variation on composition that introduces a perpetual
rise inside a continuum of sound. "All of the Strumming Music manifestations seem to
have originated from Charlemagne's physical relationship with the colossal carillon
bells in the tower of St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York. I met
Charlemagne Palestine in 1968. The intensity of his listening impressed me as the
intensity of his playing would later, when I heard him play on the carillon and the
bells to 'his church.' I realized later, when Charlemagne had started to develop his
series of piano pieces called Strumming, that he was assaulting that concrete
ceiling and literally pushing through its three feet to release the sonic energy in
the piano, much as he had with the carillon. Charlemagne's interest and work in
electronic music increased in the late '60s, and in 1970, he decamped to southern
California where he became a graduate student working with Morton Subotnick. It was
during this year at CalArts (1970-71) that Charlemagne developed an approach to the
piano that was not only extremely repetitive and physical, but predicated on the
theory that, given the right stimulus, the instrument had a voice of its own and
could produce a whole array of high overtones that seem to jump out on their own as
if by magic. Over the next few years, he developed and polished the music that came
to be known simply as 'Strumming.' The rapid alternation between single notes and
chords and different registers became a technique that he seemed to own, and it
really only worked with this magic piano. 'Strumming' was the physical technique;
the melodies and harmonies that resulted made the music breathe and feel alive.
After a while, the ear doesn't distinguish between notes that are sounded by hammers
and those which are." --extract from the liner notes by Ingram Marshall. Housed in
an 8-page digipak including a 16-page book.
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release date: Sept 28, 2010
catalog#: IMPREC310
format: CD
"Erroneous, A Selection Of Errors” is the result of the meeting of Italian cult band Larsen
and Steven Stapleton’s ubiquitous creature Nurse With Wound.
Almost 2 years of file swapping and occasional conceptual meetings led to a multi-headed
collection of deformed sounds based on one long NWW piece and two Larsen tracks (that both bands have written specifically for this project) then deconstructed and rebuilt by each other into totally brand new opuses.
Erroneous also features Neu! and Kraftwerk original member Eberhard Kranemann on additional guitars, synth, sax and vocals as well as Larsen collaborator Daniele Pagliero, a.k.a. Lo Dev Alm, on bass.
Just like the music, the artwork of the album is also a joint effort sporting works of Stapleton’s
alter-ego Babs Santini, Larsen’s graphic designer Bellissimo and E. Kranemann.
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Location is integral to Manrico Montero’s Sisal, as it is with virtually all of the albums released on Unfathomless. Without it, there is still music, but the context and inspiration driving it is at least partially effaced. Sisal is both the common name for Agave sisalana, a species of agave cultivated for the fibers it yields, and the name of a small port town located in the Yucatán Peninsula, where said fibers play a significant role in the economy. But the album focuses on another species native to the region. With just one exception, each of its tracks are named for the mangrove trees that grow in a nearby area called La Bocana ("The Mouth"), where seawater meets the freshwater of a cenote. Montero’s recordings capture plenty of maritime activity around these trees, including the rocking of ship hulls, strong coastal winds, and a multitude of insect and animal life. They also expose sounds that are not ready-at-hand, that are a part of the place without appearing as such.
There is a temptation to connect field recordings with documentaries. It’s an impulse compelled by the sense that field recordings are uncontrived compared to conventional music, which requires instrumentation and a high degree of human intervention. But documenting and repeating the sounds of nature requires just as much mediation as does strumming a guitar or playing a keyboard. For one thing, Montero’s subjects are precise. He consciously hides as much as he reveals. For another, though he tries to mask it in different ways, his subjects are edited together and presented not as an unaltered image of a place, but as a carefully constructed simulacrum of it.
Montero’s concern is not fidelity, it’s evocation and correspondence. These are the places he wanted to represent in the way he wanted to represent them. There is an aesthetic of the hidden in his work, evidenced in the above-water and below-water soundscapes found on "Litoral Nor-Poniente" and "Cuarto Manglar," and there is also an emphasis on the pleasure of listening: to the movement of water and to the life that thrives around it. Even if the specifics are foreign, there will be something familiar about these vignettes—maybe in the rise and fall of chirping crickets or maybe in the patter of rain on glass and the crack of distant thunder. What is far away is drawn closer and that closeness registers as a kind of geographic harmony. The apparently foreign in fact shares a common root.
On "Mangle Negro," Montero pairs heavy winds and rain with something that sounds like the child of a creaky floorboard and a party balloon. Someone moves about the scene as the storm gains strength and blows through the leaves outside, but their activity ultimately merges with the aeolian din. There is no way of knowing whether it all happened in real time or whether Montero slapped two recordings together and carefully disguised the seams. Either way, a continuity beyond the documentary emerges because the flow of time and the necessity of proximity are eliminated. Listening to the echoes and percussive spikes on "Cuarto Manglar," the continuity from man to machine to nature is rendered with a kind of minimal clarity, even as the activity of the music remains mysterious.
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As far as I can tell, this is the first major Silver Apples album to appear in almost 20 years, though Simeon Coxe has kept busy with singles, remixes, collaborations, and his other band (Amphibian Lark) in the meantime.  Interestingly, the Silver Apples aesthetic of 2016 is almost identical to that of 1968: the production is a bit different and Coxe has adapted to playing without a drummer, but Clinging to a Dream sounds every bit as bizarre and unique as the band's self-titled debut.  If there is a significant difference, it is merely that Coxe has gone from sounding like an iconoclast ingeniously ahead of his time to sounding like an ingeniously retro-futurist iconoclast.  Admittedly, Coxe’s imagination, inventiveness, and instrumental prowess continue to exceed his songwriting and vocal talents, but Dream's weaknesses are generally rendered irrelevant by the singularity of his vision.
As remarkable as it is that Simeon Coxe is still making challenging electronic music and touring well into his late 70s, that feat is dwarfed by how incredibly alien and effortlessly outside the zeitgeist Clinging to a Dream manages to sound.  It is not at all surprising that Coxe is not absorbing hot new trends in experimental music these days, but it is nevertheless interesting that Simeon's own influential late '60s work did not bring the rest of the electronic music world any closer to his unique vision over the ensuing years.  I guess everyone else eventually caught up, then went off in an entirely different direction, leaving Coxe free to sound as radical as he always has.  In fact, four decades after he first appeared on the scene, Coxe still seems like a mad scientist or outsider artist that is blissfully following his muse without any concern at all for what other people are doing.  I suppose one of the reasons that no one else sounds anything like Silver Apples is that Simeon exclusively plays a primitive self-built synthesizer (The Simeon, of course), but his aesthetic is such a strange and personal one that it is hard to imagine anyone else trying to replicate it even if they could.  Clinging to a Dream is about as personality-driven as electronic music can get.
It DOES seem like Kraftwerk may have made an impression on Coxe at one point though, as "Concerto for Monkey and Oscillator" shows that Coxe has a real talent for crafting gorgeous, catchy, and pristine electro-pop.  That influence only went so far, however, as Coxe has too much of an absurd and perverse sense of humor to just record a piece of sophisticated pop music: as suggested by its colorful title, the infectious catchiness of "Concerto" is primarily just a backdrop for a host of crazy electronic animal sounds.  Occasional Teutonic flourishes aside, Coxe generally sounds like the last true hippie standing. In fact, he often seems even more so than he ever did, as Clinging to a Dream is full of poetic lyrics and spacey, lysergic moments and there is very little of the bitterness, paranoia, and menace that crept into Silver Apples' early work.  That is doubly strange, since an actual poet (Stanley Warren) helped with the words on band’s debut and Simeon has had plenty to get bitter about since: record label problems, a massive lawsuit regarding Contact’s cover art, the death of drummer Danny Taylor, a bus accident that left Coxe with partial paralysis in his hands, and–most dramatically–allegedly getting fired from his long-running job as a news reporter for "telling the truth about Santa Claus."
If the breezy, almost tropical-sounding opener "The Edge of Wonder" is any indication, Coxe has transcended all of that misfortune and come out on the other side, as he casually drops couplets about how wind is Aphrodite’s violin and proclaims that as one dream ends, another one begins.  A few songs later, Coxe sings that "nothing matters anymore, nothin’ to do but wait," but he does it over such a perky rhythm that is hard to see it as fatalism rather than Zen.  As typified by all the aforementioned pieces, Clinging to a Dream generally relies upon a formula of bouncy grooves, simple yet catchy synth hooks, and cheerily half-spoken poetic lyrics.  Nevertheless, it is a very bizarre album in both its structure and its apparent influences, often seeming like some kind of disorienting sci-fi rock opera, as Coxe rarely allows his catchier instincts to flow along unmolested: there is always a discordant interlude waiting around the corner and even the hookier moments often have thick, wobbly oscillations hovering over them like a UFO.  Also, the most memorable pieces tend to be even more wrong-footing than Coxe’s normal template.  For example, my favorite song on the entire album is "Susie," which melds somewhat stomping and sinister-sounding music with a comprehensive narrative covering all of the delicious foods that the titular Susie has in her house.  "The Mist" is yet another significant aberration, as Coxe dispenses with hooks entirely and slows down to a gently percolating crawl for a whispered spoken-word piece beset by dark, ominous chords and an eerily howling undercurrent.  It is disorienting that two such pieces can appear side-by-side on the same album, but it certainly makes for a pleasantly deranged and unpredictable ride.
Granted, Clinging to a Dream has some shortcomings, as its cheerfully poppy core coexists rather uneasily with its more perverse and experimental tendencies and Coxe’s thin, almost barbershop quartet-like vocals remain an acquired taste.  However, such quirks and unevenness are easily eclipsed by the fact that Simeon Coxe sounds like an artist who just fell from space or magically appeared with no real musical influences other than himself.  That aspect also eclipses the details of Dream’s strengths, as it does not matter all that much that Coxe has a real talent for elegantly simple hooks, punchy rhythms, and using subtle dissonances and psychedelic touches to cast shadows over an otherwise innocent-sounding pop song.  Without those elements, Clinging to a Dream would not be nearly as enjoyable, but its ultimate appeal is that Coxe is such an iconoclastic visionary that this album has more in common with alien transmissions than it does with most contemporary electronic music.
 
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