14 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Even as far as falling back into their historical release pattern of an album paired with an EP of unique, yet contemporaneous material, the resurrection of Godflesh has done everything possible to honor their legacy. A World Lit Only By Fire does not exactly see the band picking up where the last album, 2001's Hymns left off. Instead it goes back further into their history, to the era most Godflesh fans wish they had never left.

Avalanche

My first exposure to Godflesh came almost exactly twenty years ago:first was the summer release of Merciless, then soon after the October 1994 appearance of Selfless.I still remember it rather vividly:I was 15 and a sophomore in high school.A friend at the time went to the record store the night before and picked the album up for me, right off of the new release rack.I found both a bit surprising, as I was expecting something more akin to the likes of Skinny Puppy, but I grew to love them pretty fast.From there I quickly made my way through their discography, and have been there ever since.

Why do I bring this up, other than to attempt to inject my own experience into such a significant release two decades later?Because, and recent interviews with Justin Broadrick have confirmed this:Selfless was the last truly "Godflesh" record before an identity crisis set in.Twenty years to the month of Selfless’s release, we have what feels to be in earnest the follow up to that album.

Between then and now, Broadrick and G. C. Green released three full length albums, and while each were strong in their own right, they all strayed from the formula that made the band the force that they are.Songs of Love and Hate in 1996 had the duo expanding to a trio with live drummer Bryan Mantia and a clearly hip-hop influenced sound.Three years later, Us and Them presented a distinctly electronic approach, almost certainly bleed over from Broadrick's work as Techno Animal, and the inclusion of drum 'n' bass loops that clearly date the record.The final album, 2001's Hymns, had them scaling back the electronics, but once again including live drums, and was recorded outside of Broadrick's home studios, with the overall feel hurt by the band being on foreign ground.The best work ways always when the perfect balance was struck between man and machine, and on A World…, that equilibrium has been restored.

Just as on Decline & Fall, all the drums are programmed (and if the gear has been updated from the old 16 bit drum machine, it certainly has no detrimental effect) and it was fully produced and recorded by Broadrick at his own studio.Beyond the drums, the only overt electronic sound to be heard is some tasteful sampler hidden amongst grinding guitar and distended bass lines, such as within the opening of "Shut Me Down."Every descriptor of Godflesh from 1988 to 1994 can be used for A World…, and I think that is reassuring to most fans.Never, though, does it sound like the band simply emulating their old works, but instead it is fresh material filtered through their classic approach.

It is hard to describe exactly how the sound is different, though.Perhaps it is the effect of the pent up artistic aggression that Broadrick kept mostly hidden, from the inception of Jesu up until this revival.Maybe it is a mature energy that has come with wisdom and experience, via family life and fatherhood for Broadrick and a lengthy stint in a very different career for Green.No matter what, it is an asset and not at all detriment.At times I worried Decline & Fall was almost a bit too much of the duo trying to sound like they did in decades prior; here it just comes naturally.

The music then, unsurprisingly, embraces the duo's more metallic tendencies, so expect lots of dissonant guitar and growling vocals, which are surprisingly strong considering Broadrick is now a man of a certain age.Exceptions to this blueprint occur though, such as on "Life Giver Life Taker" and "Imperator", the latter of which has a raw redlined low-end thump to it, but Broadrick singing rather than shouting throughout.On "Towers of Emptiness", the band keeps the squalling grindcore riffs and bass in place, but turn the drum machine down a bit to nod back to their sludgier moments, with the ending expanding out into a simultaneously beautiful and frightening ambient dirge.

Just as a great Godflesh album should, the two drift away from the grind/throb/scream metal formula, with these variations standing out as high water marks on an album ripe with them.The aforementioned "Life Giver Life Taker" stands at the forefront because of Broadrick's singing and a higher register guitar tone amidst the dense rapid fire rhythm section.The song as a whole sits perfectly between the earliest Killing Joke material and the duo's own "Tiny Tears" era, albeit with significantly better production values."Curse Us All" is based upon a similarly upbeat tempo, but with uglier vocals and a bass led intro that just cements how integral Green's bass playing is to the band's signature sound.

The nearly eight minute finale "Forgive Our Fathers" reflects the penchant of Broadrick and Green to place a longer, more experimental composition at the end of the album.While it might not be as massive or sprawling as "Pure II" or "Go Spread Your Wings," it does feature an appropriately expansive guitar noise and deliberate, methodological.The vocals are infrequent and alternate between hate-filled growl and resigned sadness, and the guitar and bass reflect this perfectly.

The album name and some of the song titles clearly hint at this back to a primitive mindset, in this case the band’s earliest roots, but ironically the result is a sound that is more timeless than anything.Much of Streetcleaner or Pure could have been recorded yesterday, but the sound of Songs and Love and Hate is easily identified as being a mid/late 1990s production.Nothing about this album sounds specifically rooted in 2014 or any of the current production clichés.Other than the crisper production, A World... could have been recorded 1988 and it would have fit in with what they were doing then, and that is a major compliment.

Much like one of Godflesh's major influences Swans, Broadrick and Green have managed to reactivate a project that was criminally underrecognized when they were the most prolific, and yet returned with more dignity and respect than most can muster in their entire careers.Even though all signs seem to be pointing to yes, I am hoping this revival will have the same longevity as Michael Gira's has, and hopefully the same well deserved amount of recognition and accolades. A World Lit Only By Fire is less symbolic of a band's reinvention than it is a resurrection, and that is exactly what it should be.

samples:

• Life Giver Life Taker
• Carrion
• Forgive Our Fathers

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Frederik Sevendal has been a fixture in Oslo's experimental music scene for years, establishing himself as both an excellent guitarist and an imaginative purveyor of twisted Lynch-ian ambiance. His latest release, a mixture of old and new recordings, captures him seamlessly blending brooding Badalamenti-esque dread, drugged folk jangling, and strangled guitar noise into a very unique and disquieting (yet unexpectedly melodic) whole.

Miasmah

This album is Sevendal's first widely available solo work, following a slew of very limited releases, collaborations with folks like Acid Mothers Temple's Makoto Kawabata, and appearances in an eclectic array of Norwegian bands.For the most part, this release is composed of material from a CDR released on Clearsnare in 2005.However, this newest incarnation boasts some much cooler artwork and a presumably improved sound, as Deathprod’s Helge Sten took on remastering duties.More importantly, it is augmented by quite an excellent and epic new piece.

Sevendal fits quite comfortably into Miasmah's tradition of murky, low-key surrealism, but also proves himself to be one of the most varied and compelling artists on their impressive roster.While the bulk of the album is compromised simply of guitars and contains a significant amount of improvisation, it is nevertheless a meticulously textured, structured, arranged, and well thought-out affair.The album's opening piece, "Silence to Say Hello," is one of the strongest showcases for those organizational talents, as its relatively straightforward progression of strummed minor chords spends its entire ten-minute running time subtly shifting and twisting while still relentlessly increasing in ominousness and power.Throughout it all, Frederik uses the foreground to unfold a blurred melody with heavily delayed guitars and a xylophone, but gradually draws attention away from it by sneakily increasing the violence and heft of the low-end strumming and adding fleeting high-end snatches of backwards guitar and some supremely heavy wah-wah snarling in the periphery.

To his credit, Sevendal doesn't repeat himself at all as the rest of the album unfolds, though things get a bit simpler at times.The second piece,"Sappélur," is a space rock-damaged foray into drone with howling abused guitars, while the third song is a virtuosic acoustic guitar workout with an eerie nimbus of feedback and spectral warbling by guest vocalist Inga-Lill Farstad (from the colorfully named Children and Corpse Playing in the Street).Then the next three songs are quite different from those, aside from the fact that they are quite good and maintain a similarly dark, narcotic, and dreamlike haze.Sevendal even takes the microphone for "Dreams," but only to deliver some warped backwards vocals (the dwarf from Twin Peaks perhaps being a key influence).

The album admittedly has some minor flaws, as a few songs go on too long and I wish the ratio of "gnarled, howling catharsis" to "languid melancholy" leaned a bit more heavily towards the former, but this is still a very satisfying and likable release—especially "I Think She’s Asleep."I hope this makes enough of a splash to get some other FNS albums released outside of Norway, particularly since the sole new piece, 2009's "Flaggermusvingers Vift I Dimmet," completely steals the show, sounding like Sonic Youth dropped by the studio to join Soundtracks For The Blind-era Swans for a monster jam.It's a little more conventionally "rock" than the preceding pieces, but betrays that a significant leap forward in both focus and immediacy took place between the original Clearsnare release and Sevendal's current work.

Samples:

• Silence to Say Hello
• Sapp√©lur
• I Think She‚Äôs Asleep

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

It is hard to believe that Tim Hecker is still managing to pull fresh rabbits out of his hat seven solo albums into his career, but Virgins is an expectation-defying monster of an album.  While it certainly still sounds like a Tim Hecker album in a broad, general sense, several of these pieces feel far more like dissonantly avant-garde classical music than anything resembling laptop soundscapes or crackly ambient music.  I mean that in the best possible way, of course, as this is easily the heaviest, most complex, and most disturbing thing that Tim has ever done.  It is also the best.

Kranky

As much as I love Tim Hecker, I have always thought of him as something of a meditative, meticulous, and predictable sort, destined to continually impress me with his depth and craftsmanship, but unlikely to ever knock me sideways with any surprises.  Consequently, I was completely blindsided by the gnarled harmonies and roiling immensity of the Virgins' opening "Prisms," which resembles nothing less than an all-enveloping sonic nightmare.  It is not a particularly long piece, but it definitely sets a very disquieting mood for the rest of the album: I guess Tim Hecker was finally ready to bare his teeth and get a bit scary.

Fortunately for the album's listenability, however, Hecker also tackles quite a few other moods over the course of Virgins' duration, making for a wonderfully varied and dynamic arc.  To his credit, Tim rarely returns to familiar territory without adding some kind of twist.  The most prominent innovations are probably the aforementioned digressions into neo-classical territory, which manifest themselves in somewhat muted form in the clean, rippling minor key piano reverie of "Black Refraction" and warm, flute-like harmonium of the aptly titled "Amps, Drugs, Harmonium."  However, even reprises of some older directions include unexpected improvements like buried beats, a melancholy woodwind melody, or a shivering insectoid hiss.

Hecker takes his classical aspirations into rather extreme territory, however, with the two-part "Virginal," the second part of which easily steals the album.  Even the first part is a bit overwhelming though, sounding like classical minimalism layered into oblivion and processed until it becomes a buzzing, groaning, and crunching nightmare.  It feels a lot like being trapped in a room with a dozen deafeningly amplified music boxes playing out-of-sync, clashing notes until I start to go mad. The second half then somehow reprises the same motif, but makes the dissonance even more jarring and unhinged-sounding until it evokes nothing less then absolute, grinding horror.  That is a stunning accomplishment in its own right, but Tim outdoes himself by burying small oases of musicality within even the most clangorous hellscape and also manages to segue into and out of teeth-rattling dissonance so seamlessly that it all feels perfectly natural.

Virgins is the rare album where almost every song stands out in some way.  For sheer jaw-dropping power and vision, "Virginal" cannot be topped, but Hecker also offers up quite a few moments of sublime warmth and beauty ("Radiance" and "Live Room Out," for example), as well as a pair of very different pulse-based closers ("Stigmata II" and "Stab Variation") that I loved as well.  That said, all of the individual songs bleed together to create a fluid, complex, and absolutely devastating whole, which is how Virgins demands to be heard.

I honestly cannot praise this album enough, as Hecker has now reached a plateau for sound art that I would not have imagined prior to hearing this album.  While some of these pieces certainly forge new territory, the most striking aspect of all is how so many pieces of the puzzle come together at once.  Virgins succeeds brilliantly on literally every level: the songs are great, the sequencing is perfect, the transitions from fragility to crushing density feel natural, the production is absolutely immense-sounding (Ben Frost was back)–even the textures are inspired, as Hecker skillfully balances his more processed-sounding laptoppery with warm woodwinds, sharply percussive piano, and a healthy amount of metallic grinding.

In short, Virgins is absolutely essential.  It is also probably a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, as no sane person would ever attempt something this ambitious, complex, and multilayered twice.  If I were Tim Hecker, I would have concluded these sessions by dropping my laptop in the garbage, high-fiving the engineer, then vanishing to a houseboat in the Caribbean forever.

Samples can be found here.

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Collecting tracks from this Polish duo's limited CDR and tape releases, this album is also one of the first to be released on a Western label, exposing them to a wider audience. However, with the harsh nature of their sound and the (intentionally) painful mastering of the album, I don't sense much crossover success, but there really doesn't need to be.

Mind Flare Media

Maaaa are a duo that mostly keeps their noise "pure," only occasionally allowing slips of black metal sounds and imagery (i.e., their indecipherable logo).The approach though is purely old school harsh noise:no drone passages, no poetry, no drums or horns, just pure unadulterated feedback and junk metal.The feedback squall of "Karelia" that stays frozen while the junk metal pounds around it definitely sounds like a nod to the US masters Macronympha.

"Must" isn't as clearly based on banging on metal garbage, but instead sounds like windchimes from hell rattling around as broken megaphones randomly spew out random sounds in the distance before everything is reduced to simply water running and echoed feedback, providing one of the few "calm" moments on the album, and even that is a bit of a stretch."Be" cranks back up the clattering metal percussion, with warbling noises and a few sustained tones, but for the most part remains a consistently flowing river of violent racket.

"Destroyed" represents the closest this disc gets to a rhythm, but it still makes Test Dept. and SPK sound quaint in comparison.Above that, it's a jumpy mix, with feedback-drenched echoes jumpily edited together to provide a raw, dynamic experience.The metal elements of "Vivian" are almost industrial in their overt presentation, but are overshadowed by the roar of a jet engine blasting along, with only slight variations in pitch, so it sort of flirts with the Harsh Noise Walls subgenre but with the variations that occur keep it a bit more varied.There is an almost jarring cut to what must be a recording in a bathroom that segues into a torrent of black metal before going back to do the noise thing, which makes for an interesting irony…it's the more conventional sounds that are shocking within this context.

The closer "Satan Edge" actually constitutes about half of the disc, making it a substantial piece of work.Beginning with a worn vinyl rendition of a black mass, it goes quickly into sharp, waxy noise and layered feedback, with an emphasis on the high-end frequencies.Surprisingly, it's not quite AS pummeling as the other tracks, letting a bit more of the layers show through, but I'm speaking in relative terms here.There are a few oddities, such as some almost glitch-type sounds and more sampled thrash guitar, but on the whole it stays a long, heavy track of varied sounds.

Because of its strict adherence to an old school noise mentality, there's not a lot of surprise or innovation to be found, but not that there needs to be.It sounds as if it could be from the mid '90s, or, as I think of it, the Golden Age of Noise, hand-dubbed onto a cassette tape out of necessity, not because of it being "cool."My only complaint, which is probably showing my age more than I should, is that it's just a bit too loud.It reminds me of those noise releases Relapse put out, where it is intentionally mastered at a painfully high level.It ends up requiring too much fine tuning on the volume knob to find that sweet spot of loudness, but not so much that everything is obscured (or deafness begins to set in).It's a small complaint though, and the positives definitely outweigh that single negative.

samples:

• Karelia
• Must
• Satan Edge

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Earlier this year, Wolfgang Voigt resurrected his long-dormant experimental imprint Profan as a home for his more unusual projects. One such project is his foray into atonal neo-classical piano work, an endeavor that first went public with a 12" EP in 2008. That EP has now been expanded into an identically titled album with rather mixed results, as Voigt's inspired attempt to meld minimal techno and dissonant avant-garde piano music is simultaneously brought to exciting, visceral fruition and flogged exasperatingly to death.

Profan

Voigt's primary inspiration for Freiland Klaviermusik was Conlon Noncarrow, a composer best known for writing pieces too complicated to be performed by humans (a hurdle that he was able to overcome with the use of player pianos).Voigt, wisely, does not make any attempt to replicate Conlon's Byzantine, disorienting complexity, except for perhaps "Schweres Wasser."In fact, he goes in entirely the opposite direction, composing his pieces from a patchwork of rather brief and simple passages.Nevertheless, there are some distinct similarities, as both artists display a predisposition towards jarring, uneasy listening and mechanized randomness.Wolfgang has a much more minimal and repetitious approach to creating inhuman music though, as the album's 13 pieces are built from essentially two things and nothing more: loops of slow motion bass drum thumps and loops of chromatic piano motifs.There is nothing on Freiland Klaviermusik that seems especially difficult for a pianist to play—though each piece would require several of them playing together to replicate— but the whole album feels very claustrophobic and devoid of human warmth or imprecision.

Voigt, interestingly, does not use the throbbing, dissonant loops as a springboard for anything approaching melody, improvisation, or song craft, nor does he enhance them with any electronics or atmospheric touches—he clearly took thematic purity very seriously.Instead, the pieces derive their power from increasingly dense layering, coldly insistent repetition, and the unwavering pulse of the lonely kick drum.When Wolfgang places the emphasis very strongly on rhythm, which he does quite often, the results can resemble an explosive hybrid of Pierre Boulez and Nick Cave's "From Her To Eternity," particularly on "Zimmer."Notably, only one of the five tracks from the original 12" featured drums, so some definite evolution seems to have occurred since then. When he leaves the bass drum out though, like on "Dunkler Weg," he doesn't fare nearly as well, merely covering well-worn modern classical piano territory without bringing anything new to the table.Then, unfortunately, there are times where he just misses the mark entirely, as on the rather irritating and ham-fisted "Geduld."

Combining murky low-end piano bass lines, slowly thumping pulses, and twelve-tone dissonance was inarguably a fine and gutsy idea (and certainly outside Voigt’s comfort zone), but one great idea is not enough to base an entire album on and Wolfgang definitely stretches it far too thin.After hearing the album a few times, the impact of its power and unexpectedness subsided quite a bit, yielding rapidly diminishing returns and no depth to fill the resultant void.Voigt is probably well aware of that though, given that he chose to self-release the album (and not on Kompakt). Freiland Klaviermusik is an experiment that is well-worth hearing and probably an excellent soundtrack to a Kafkaesque nightmare, but one that is too one-dimensional to be a very engrossing listening experience in a dose of this size.  

Samples:

• Kammer
• Dunkler Weg
• Geduld

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

As most know, Jazkamer has set out to release an album a month for the duration of 2010, which, as of this writing, has successfully made it to its midpoint. This album, which is actually May’s installment, doesn’t have any specific unifying theme, such as the acoustic approach of Self-Portrait or the metal stylings of We Want Epic Drama. Instead, it is a "regular" Jazkamer record that stands with any in their discography, mixing harsh noise, drone, and rock in the way that only Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre can.

Pica Disk

Assisted by Jazkamer associates Nils Are Dr√∏nen and Jean-Philippe Gross, there isn't any specific concept going on, but that is irrelevant.The album begins and ends with two massive tracks, with a slew of short little sketches in between.Opener "Sentimental Journey" sounds like anything but, with its slow, menacing synth pulse that occasionally surges in volume, pushing it into harsher territory, but never getting there.It's a slow build that never gets too harsh but evolves from dronescapes to metal into noise.

"Lament for Klaus Kinski" leads in with what sounds like a looped grinding bass guitar, which becomes the skeleton that the track builds upon.Throwing together junk metal percussion and various processed and filtered sounds, it definitely has a feel similar to Marhaug's solo noise works, but the slightly sparser mix and rhythmic backbone keep it in pure Jazkamer territory."Life as a Secret Agent is Over" also goes for the harsh stuff, putting painful high end noises and buzzing oscillators atop erratic rhythms, the whole track structurally going for a more cut-and-paste collage style.Between that and the analog textures, it totally feels like the mid '90s noise scene, which is a very good thing.

"Burp Boogie, Burp Boogie" is as absurd as it sounds:less than a minute of looped vocalisms with stringed instrument noodling that makes for a bit of levity at the album's midpoint.Follower "In The Days of the Burning Guitar" throws together percussion blasts and white noise waves in a way that resembles a drumkit being pushed down a steep hillside, with a still-functioning analog synth not far behind.The occasional rhythmic drive of "It is the Nobel Prize I want, It's worth $400,000" isn't far removed from the European school of power electronics, but with the unnecessary provocative imagery and vocals stripped away.

Leading up to the album's close, "We Need a Painting, Not a Frame" utilizes more of the erratic, crashing percussion with squelchy static and feedback to create an exhausting pastiche of pummeling sound.The lengthy closer, "Yellow Mountain Fur Peak," goes a dramatically different direction than the other long piece went when it comes to composition.While the opener was all about tense, cautious restraint, this is pure maximalism at its finest: a hollow ambience enshrouds sharp, clipping static and distant cymbals as painfully high frequency oscillators and heavily effected percussion thuds away.The outbursts of static with the stop and start drum freakouts gives the 13-plus minute duration a prog-rock vibe somehow, with the complexity and inherent drama in the track.

While the "new album a month" concept isn't new (Merzbow and Aube did it, but as prolific as they are in general, it's a different story), Jazkamer is using the method to not only try out new things, but also to continue to refine their own sound that clashes noise and drone sounds with a heavy metal sensibility.Luckily, it's not a gimmick, just a good way to spread their work out more.

samples:

• Sentimental Journey
• In The Days of the Burning Guitar
• Yellow Mountain Fur Peak

 

13 June 2010

John Kealy

Albums and Singles

Dedicated to David Tibet and made in celebration of Current 93’s 25th anniversary, this single captures the spectral heart of one of Current 93’s defining pieces. Here Andrew Liles reconstructs what was originally the opening volley of Tibet’s Inmost Light trilogy. "Where the Long Shadows Fall" was one of the key moments in Current 93's career. The combination of Tibet's lyrics, some achingly gorgeous music and, most significantly, that haunting loop of the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, made for one of the finest 20 minutes of music committed to tape. Only a madman would try and outdo the original but Liles proves he is more than capable on this single.

Dirter Promotions

Liles retains the same mood on his version of the piece; what sounds like another loop of Moreschi’s unnatural singing is allowed to build hypnotically into a misty, unsettling reverie. The ghostly vocals of Daniela Cascella and Melon Liles add another dimension to the piece; their whispers and utterances cutting through like telepathic communications from the other side. What sounds like the sounds of trains are accompanied by deep bass drones before that sad, familiar loop of Moreschi’s singing peaks through like a spectre behind a curtain.

This version of "Where the Long Shadows Fall" is frustratingly short at just under 10 minutes but it is perfect in its execution, rivalling the original for its weirdly entrancing beauty. Like Liles' recent remixes of Current 93's older releases, this is a fabulous re-imagining of Tibet's vision.

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In classic Andrew Chalk fashion, this wonderful new collaboration quietly surfaced last month on an extremely small label (Scott's own Skire imprint) and very nearly slipped by me entirely.  These pieces humbly originated as a few gently rippling, understated piano motifs that Scott composed while preparing for a performance at this year's F.O.N. Fest, but later evolved into something much more when the recordings were handed off to Chalk.  The resulting album is a pleasantly dreamlike, blurry, and spectral affair, approximating a very appealing middle ground somewhere between Harold Budd's liquid-y pastoralism and Morton Feldman's queasily dissonant pointillism.

Skire

The first side of Wild Flowers (it is currently a vinyl-only release) is consumed entirely by its longest piece, the 19-minute "Speaking To The Rose."  Another major piece, "Hornbeam," composes the bulk of the B-side, but there is also room for a few short, more divergent pieces.  Both of the major pieces share an extremely similar aesthetic, so there is not much point in differentiating them, aside from stating that "Rose" feels more bittersweet and meditative, while "Hornbeam" has a bit of a disquieting edge to it.  I hate to use the word "ambient" here, as that seems woefully insufficient, but that is truly the closest available signpost: Chalk's subdued strings form a hazy, melancholy fog around Scott's simple, languorously unfolding melodies, achieving a kind of bleary and beautiful drifting stasis.

There is never any sense that either piece is progressing towards anything in particular in a conventional sense, as all the important activity occurs at a more subtle, small-scale level.  The most beautiful single aspect of both "Rose" and "Hornbeam" is the same: the way that each of Scott's notes seems to hang in the air gently quivering after being struck.  I realize that is probably a very simple trick (add reverb), but it is executed beautifully, as there is plenty of space between notes to enjoy the decays, afterimages, and shifting harmonies left in their wake.  Also, Chalk's strings are employed masterfully throughout, alternating between ghostly near-silence and well-timed swells of coloration.  The overall effect is a very mesmerizing and enigmatic reverie that both musicians skillfully avoid disrupting with any missteps or overly dramatic gestures.

Curiously, Scott and his piano seem completely absent from the two shorter string-based pieces ("Mayfly" and "Illumine"), which makes me think that Chalk belatedly composed them himself to give the album a more compelling arc (and to presumably fill the remaining space on the second side of the record).  Regardless of their origins, their presence is quite welcome–particularly the roiling grandeur of "Mayfly," which serves as a very effective bridge between the much more subdued long-form pieces.  The one-minute-long "Illumine" seems to be just a brief reprise of "Mayfly," but its slow, graceful fade in and out makes for wonderfully bittersweet and Romantic coda to yet another gorgeous Andrew Chalk album.  This was definitely an inspired pairing, as Chalk and Scott's complementary styles seem to bring out the best in one another.

• Speaking To The Rose
• Mayfly
• Hornbeam

 

 

13 June 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Kevin Drumm’s incredible run of handmade CD-Rs continues this year despite the termination of his Recreational Panick blog. At the end of August, Drumm simultaneously announced the availability of his last few homemade discs and the existence of a new Bandcamp page, which he promptly filled with several digital reissues of limited cassette and CD-R editions from 2011 and 2012. Three new albums followed shortly thereafter, of which the tape-based two-disc Earrach—that’s Gaelic for "spring"—is one. Appropriately, Drumm has filled it with fleshy, muddy, physical music. It's sloppy, weird, and suggestive; and an absolutely killer recording that squirms and jumps with warped alien life.

Self-Released

The list of equipment used to record Earrach is short and simple: tapes, a Tascasm 414, a Kenwood 1080 receiver, and two handheld cassette recorders. Drumm includes just two other lines of information on the back of the album’s green paper sleeve. The second reads "cassette tape music." The first, "caisead fusillade," which marries the Gaelic word for "cassette" to a term associated with firearms and bombardments.

It’s not a bad description of the music inside. Earrach absolutely explodes with action. For nearly 90 minutes Kevin splices churning tape ruckus with slithering squeals, awkward gurgling, gooey mouth sounds, and other bizarre noises that have a rather wet, just-born quality about them. Fuzzy bits of melody, the odd vocal snippet, and stroboscopic effects take flight in the mix too. They briefly move the music from its wormy ground floor to higher ground, where it shines, screams, and sputters out. But the crackling, closely recorded passages receive the most time and attention.

Drumm comes at each one of those passages a little differently. A few segments begin simply then become more complex, some hit the pavement loud and chaotic, then slowly disintegrate; others simply pop into existence fully formed, buzz about for awhile, and then disappear. In each case the emphasis always falls squarely on the sound—structure be damned. The tiny fluctuations in the tape’s surface, the variations in rhythm and color that emerge as it’s manipulated, the quiet music that bubbles out of apparently random interactions, all of it feels sculpted and palpable; physically present, like a cassette version of David Tudor’s Rainforest IV, but with the logic behind it, if it exists, totally obscured.

What the concluding conversation about Star Trek and Captain Kirk has to do with any of that is a total mystery. The final 19 minute track sees Drumm pull his microphone out of the muck and the grime and into the open air. It focuses on an organ solo for a long time, then catches a child yelling from across the room before settling on a vacuum-like buzz. Flickering voices light up in the spaces between, but if there’s a narrative hiding somewhere in the mix, it is virtually invisible, and unnecessary anyway. The noise Kevin Drumm makes is fascinating enough on its own.

samples:

• The last copies of Kevin Drumm‚Äôs hand-packaged CD-Rs are available through ErstDist. The Recreational Panick page also mentions Tochnit Aleph, but I was unable to find copies listed on their website. Earrach and other albums can be previewed and downloaded from Drumm‚Äôs Bandcamp page as well.

 

13 June 2010

Albums and Singles

While it would be unfair to say that Monogamy is not as good as Land of Kush's previous album, Against the Day, it is fair to say that this present album is not as forgiving as the last one. Sam Shalabi's combination of Arabic traditional motifs and instruments with jazz, free improvisation and electronics has moved further out to truly stretch any notion of genre to breaking point. Add to that a sense of toilet humor and a deeper conceptual edge and this is an album that makes for an album that will no doubt surprise me every time I listen to it.

Read more …