25 July 2009

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Albums and Singles

Sedimental

The nature of Dunn's work invites all kinds of cinematic ideas and fantastic daydreams. As the stringed instruments he employs stretch out and breathe their harmonic sighs, an irresistible urge to impose lonely environments and isolated people upon the record arises. Ordinary and familiar events acquire a special dimension in the light of music such as this and, if experience is any indicator, that's simply a natural consequence of well-written, well-produced chamber-drone. Kyle employs this potential well, shying away from overt drama, goofy samples, and imposing or unnecessary narratives while developing a natural and sensuous cycle of hushed pseudo-sonatas. His manner of constructing songs depends largely upon a natural and convincing tapestry of sounds: violins, cellos, pianos, and processed sound drift together throughout the majority of the record; expanding and contracting naturally as though Dunn's influence was not at all involved and the music spontaneously seeped into existence. This sometimes generates a wash of pure sound and sometimes results in an intricate and subtle dance of classical instrumentation. Kyle fluctuates between emphasizing either drones or delicate and mesmerizing patterns, with one instrument or another sometimes assuming solo duties. He manages to extract a fair amount of variety from this formula but never injects the music with surprising dynamics nor do stark contrasts ever develop. The album floats along at a pleasant enough pace but it doesn't travel as far as I would like and it never deviates from the tone established in the first minutes of its playing.

The album's one-dimensional quality might be an artifact of its development. These pieces were recorded over a period of two years and, if the title is any indication, were not originally conceived as parts of a whole. In that light the static quality of Fragments... acquires a sensible logic: think of the album as little more than a compilation of closely related compositions from the same time period and the uniformity becomes understandable. The austere beauty of the record is ultimately its greatest virtue and its most annoying element. Nonetheless, its uniformity is not especially damning. The quality of the songwriting combined with Dunn's restraint is enough to make this a good record. A broader dynamic range and a greater instrumental variety would help it a great deal, however.

samples:

• Miranda Rights
• Furthest From It
• An Extension

25 July 2009

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Albums and Singles

Music Appreciation

Segmented like a puzzle, Dogs strives to stay above water despite its often metallic and underwhelming nature.  It is natural that Rossetto's music would be heavily visual because she is a painter, but as an audio piece her sophomore effort is lacking.  Aesthetically speaking, it is captivating with its very quiet beginning and unique noises, including the use of what sounds like babies or even monkeys (birds are the actual source).  The clattering of silverware employed gives Dogs a homemade feel and the droning background supports that aspect.  Yet, in terms of substance, the record is rather empty and doesn't feature much depth.

Comprised of a single composition, the disc isn't very engaging and the musicianship is illusive and arbitrary.  The first half of the piece is rather stagnant, with glimpses of ingenuity at the 15 minute mark, where we first hear stringed instruments.  It only becomes interesting at the 30 minute mark when reverberated chimes enter the fray. It sounds like a glorious and fading meltdown.  The intention is perhaps to disassemble the first 30 minutes of the piece while creating a considerable juxtaposition. The contrast between the first part and the second part of the album is achieved with an almost textbook feel.  The fluctuation in volume and the various instruments makes it somewhat amusing, but awkward at the same time. The recording is technically well-produced and is expressive and the music is amorphous and distant yet well-grounded.  There is a shift in force and focus towards the end of the disc that makes the whole thing seem more mysterious than it actually is.  I think this is partly because there was no mystery in the piece to begin with.

The album does have its moments: the sublimely orchestrated strings, the wishy-washy tube noises, and scattered electric pulses are appealing in their own way.  Although the effort is there, these 40 or so minutes only manages to introduce the listener to the world of electro-acoustic music. Thankfully, there are more worthwhile releases out there capable of doing just the same thing.

samples:

• excerpt 1
• excerpt 2
• excerpt 3

25 July 2009

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Albums and Singles

Equation

Aidan goes for broke and begins his latest endeavor with a side-long meditative jam. It's composed mostly of a strong, low-end rhythm, an indistinct weave of harmonies, and the kind of processed haze found on nearly every fuzzy, electronics-heavy record out there. A fraction of the way through, Baker begins to half-mumble some vague and mostly incoherent lyrics with a heavy-handed dramatic tint to them. "Bond of Blood" is a risky way to start a record and it mostly fails to capture my attention. It is mixed entirely too low and contains a repetitive structure that completely betrays Baker's typically intricate and subtle approach to writing. Anything on the I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed compilation bests this muddied work by a country mile.

Thankfully, the reverse side of the record picks up some of the slack with "Gathering Blue" and a cover of Joy Division's "24 Hours." Nevertheless, a strangely under-produced sound hovers over these songs. When compared to the second LP, all three opening tunes sound like unfinished demos tossed together without a thought given to production. Sometimes the rawness of poorly recorded albums can be appealing, but in Baker's case nothing is gained and a lot is lost. In any case, "Gathering Blue" is another mostly quiet amalgam of processed guitar and quiet melody, but it brings a little more structure and diversity to the table than side A did. The Joy Division cover is both amusing and disappointing. For the duration of the song Baker simply plucks its familiar melody and sings the lyrics in the same half-mumbled way employed on "Bond of Blood." The result is a dreary and dark remake of an already dark and weighty song, but without the driving rhythm or bitter anger of the original. It works to an extent, but I've come to expect more from Baker. Vocally, he doesn't seem capable of expressing anything beyond doubt, remorse, or self-loathing, none of which compliment the music on this record.

The second LP illustrates just why Baker became so popular in the first place. It collects the Cicatrice and The Taste of Summer on Your Skin EPs from 2003 and 2004 as well as a couple of remixes included on the Arcolepsy remix EP from 2005. The Cicatrice EP and a remix by Building Castles Out of Matchsticks take up the entirety of Gathering Blue's third side. Each of the five songs are soulful and carefully layered productions that move along at a slow and sensuous pace. The contrast between their shimmering high end and substantial low end produces an almost dub-like and hallucinogenic effect, which reverberates and throbs like a inhuman organ and lends a substantial amount of movement to the whole production. Colorful echoes and subtle nuances decorate Cicatrice from top to bottom, but Baker doesn't rely on them to be effective. An indistinct, but persistent sense of melody and intensity carries these pieces, which are seamlessly meshed together by crisp production and clever sequencing. It's a shame that an already limited and hard-to-find EP such as this one had to be re-released on a limited vinyl collection.

The fourth and final side of Gathering Blue is something of a mixed bag, but Cicatrice is a hard act to follow. The Taste of Summer on Your Skin is an upbeat and mostly busy production with drum 'n' bass rhythms populating a portion of its length. Dark, atonal pulses and cosmic noise constitute the rest of the it, which is entertaining but not altogether enthralling. I've heard lots of spacey sounds like these and though the effects and arrangements employed are attractive, they're also a little predictable. The dark colors and menacing passages work for me, but are familiar and well-trodden, too. The Troum remix, which ends the record, is a lovely mass of sound built from metallic trembling and futuristic horn sections. It ends the record on a high note, but doesn't exactly strike me as an appropriate closer.

On a record this uneven, a killer Baker original could have saved the day and left me musing over his many talents, but instead I'm left thinking of another band and their consistently excellent output. Gathering Blue is a sloppy and strangely fractured collection, but still worth seeking out just for the Cicatrice reissue and gorgeous packaging. Everything else will likely intrigue Baker fans, but fail to win anyone else over.

[samples unavailable]

25 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

23five

When I say barren though, I certainly mean barren. The work is so slow to evolve in fact that many moments are only decipherable as different upon clicking through the piece's timetable. With this kind of cautious construction, layering the equivalent of vacuum cleaner air drawing upon airplane cabin engine noise, the work evolves slowly enough so as to take its virtually its entire length to entangling itself of each distinct moment. When distant scratches come through amidst the hiss around minute 13 it is nearly revelatory, being the most distinguishable sound yet presented. A soft hum around the 17 minute mark grounds it somewhat, imbuing it with a distinct direction for the first time, though that direction is surely a circuitous one not so much bent on arriving anywhere so much as one settling in to the old mental garden.

Yet the changes do happen, and the patience with which they do so rewards a concerted listening effort. Metal-on-metal clatter subsides in the mix almost half of the way through the work's length, sounding like a mini Gamelan orchestra playing from inside a wind turbine. Volumes are delicately adjusted, allowing details to come to the fore that, whether always present back there or not, feel to be coming from the same organism, drawing itself out through the most minute adjustments in color.

There is a sense of urgency in the latter half of the work, if only in contrast to the first half. It becomes less static and busier, with sounds rebounding around the space and jumping out from the singular static that started the work. Still, the consistency of sounds being as they are, the result is not so much busily seeking anything as it is teeming beneath its own weight, its super-heated molecules bouncing together without losing the general forms they inhabit.

It isn't until about half an hour into the piece that snippets of a discreet melody appear, though these too are so fractured as to become part of the general landscape, tickling the outer reaches of the hum with brief splashes of color. These flurries of notes not only tie the piece inward, setting the outer boundaries of the hiss buildup, but they also signal the piece's movement toward a more mechanistic and gestural sound for a time, one that has momentary flashes of a daily movement removed from the ethereal space of the work as a whole.

The final ten minutes find the work slipping back to its origins, decomposing until it is only the crackle of burning wax and a gentle airy breath of tone. Dense though it may be, the work is quite well situated and wisely done, uncompromising in its enactment without lacking beauty or finesse. There is likely no knowing just how this recording relates to its subject matter—certainly it is not in any linear manner representative of it—but there can be no doubt that this is a highly personal and well phrased statement from a musician with his ears on a singular form of sound composition.

samples:

• Vanishing Point

25 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Bureau B

To be fair—as with much of the material from this era and locale—much of the sound on the record does read as a bit dated in the electronically advanced age we currently reside in. Analog sweeps and crude drum machines abound, but the constructions are still wholly tangible, imbuing the disc with a certain gratifying sense of nostalgia removed from the purely silly sound of a record whose time has come and gone. Despite the epic grandeur of a track like "Silberland," whose regal tempo is occupied by video-game worthy melodies, the careful choice of sounds, crystalline and hollow all, keeps the piece moving into truly spacious territory.

The opening title track is perhaps the most redundant offering on the disc in fact, its phased beat looping along a simple melody and dour vocal. The track could just as easily be a Kraftwerk circa Autobahn, but Riechmann's solo approach means that there is never any more present than is necessary, and no line contributes worthlessly. Even Riechmann's relatively unconvincing vocals are so of their era that they add a sort of baroque human element into the fold.

That said, most of the material here is instrumental, and in this realm Riechmann is truly adept. "Weltweit" shimmers with barely two sounds present, gliding on glacial tracts that grow as another line joins in and they are allowed to mingle and internally shift. This is clearly someone who requires very little to do quite a lot, exhibiting the same pointed melodic strength as Roedelius if devoid of some of the classical jovialism of the latter's solo output. Elsewhere, "Himmelblau" billows with ethereal tones that careen about before tightening their focus and growing into one of the most overtly forward-looking tracks on the album, revealing New Wave and even early House disciples through its child-like melodic line.

The all too brief closer, "Traumzeit" seems to point towards more from this young artist. Yet even in this debut, one genuinely feels like they can hear what might of been—his predeliction for long, drawn out pseudo-dance constructions could well have taken him into the '80s with more than was necessary. Perhaps no great revelation, the album is still a fantastic example of its sound, and does display more than a hint of distance from the usual crowd. There's almost a David Byrne-like melancholy buried beneath these chilly atmospheres, though maybe that's just the cover talking.

samples:

• Weltweit
• Silberland
• Himmelblau

19 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

VHF

Except that the group covers a couple of tunes from Kensington Blues and Dr. Ragtime and His Pals, it's tempting to think that The Black Twig Pickers are the stars of this record more than Rose is. When "Little Sadie" kicks the record off, the first thing I hear isn't Jack's guitar. Instead, a flurry of fiddle, tin can percussion, and harmonica blow out of the speakers with either Nathan Bowles or Mike Gangloff blurting out lyrics like a drunken member of the audience. "Little Sadie" has seen many incarnations, but most people probably know it as "Cocaine Blues" and are likely to be familiar with the Folsom Prison version by Johnny Cash more than any other. The need-no-one attitude and rebellious quality of that song sets the pace for the rest of the record, which teeters between bluegrass, country music, and the sobriety of Rose's well-crafted instrumental jams. 

Many of the album's highlights are the songs with vocals. It's fun to hear "Kensington Blues" played by a talented bluegrass group, but Jack Rose's typically contemplative mannerisms don't exactly match the band's upbeat tempo and tendency to play a ramshackle style. Nonetheless, Rose's performance falls in line perfectly with the rest of the band and his rhythm playing holds together its myriad impulses. On the surface there seems to be a lot in common between this album and Dr. Ragtime and His Pals, but where the former often wound itself up into hypnotic patterns, this one lets loose and aims for a grittier, more physical satisfaction. To that end the band keeps their songs strong and simple. They forgo showy instrumentation in favor of solid melodies and galloping, dancey beats and in the process give their music a tough, almost punk-like exterior. That's not to say they've cramped their country style any, they've just amplified it with the kind of swagger that was once synonymous with it.

samples:

• Little Sadie
• Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
• Some Happy Day

19 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Jackpot

To call Jandek's sophomore effort a major step forward from Ready for the House—whose repeated guitar line carries throughout every song—would be a mistake. Indeed, the nine songs presented here all feature similar guitar ruminations as well, but with three years of work the album is slightly more dexterous in its interplay, even if the result is equally catatonic and harrowing.

The layout of the album is apparent from the opening, "Feathered Drums," which sees Jandek's detuned guitar abstracting the blues into a lonesome and highly individual interpretation. With his hollow vocals finding crevices in the guitar lines through which to sing his empty and cold poetry, Jandek's power is at once distinguishable, walking the cliched line between genius and insanity effortlessly and, better yet, genuinely. This is after all, like all of Jandek's albums, about as claustrophobically personal a music as anyone is likely to hear.

"I Knew You Would Leave" is the longest song on the album as well as its centerpiece, presenting over ten minutes of some of Jandek's most chilling and isolated dirges put to tape. Drawing out every line while his guitar punctuates certain statements with high-end twangs, the piece is utterly singular while still drawing on the emotional weight of so many other musical styles, like some twisted and dark Gospel sermon.

"Wild Strawberries" distorts the guitar line even more, proving a fine demonstration not only of how tight Jandek constrains himself in his forms, but also how much he manages to pull out of such similar material. With an almost raga-like quality, the piece glides and shifts instrumentally for an extended period before "Forgive Me" slows it down in favor of a solemn ballad. "You're the Best One" pulls as much from Gagaku and gamelan as it does folk.

Surely not an album that will win over any detractors, Six and Six is an impressive demonstration of Jandek's controlled vision. Utterly alone both in song and sound, the album is rich with depth that deserves deep and committed listening.

samples:

• Feathered Drums
• I Knew You Would Leave
• Wild Strawberries

19 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Between Silences

The story of this release (outlined in the accompanying booklet) is that Tomkins bought an old and ragged autoharp from a yard sale one day and began experimenting with it, without tuning or restringing the instrument.  At the eve of a Sutcliffe Jugend show, his musical partner Paul Taylor had to pull out and, in an attempt to flesh out a live show alone, Tomkins discovered that layering loops of autoharp made for a good backing track.  The early experiments of this appear in this set, along with a great deal of newer material.

Limited to 20 copies in the first edition, the 17 discs that make up this set are all individually sleeved and titled to roughly give an indication of what is contained within.  Both Some Have Patterns and Slow Patterns, for example, are largely rhythmic loop-based recordings that build upon Spartan loops that become more and more complex as the tracks progress.  Bow is more of a concrete title, consisting of all pieces in which Tomkins plays the autoharp with a violin bow, giving more of a sustained strings characteristic to the sound, hinging on slow drawn out notes and subtle building in layers and duration.

Other discs are not labeled as much for their structure as it is for the feeling and emotions that went in to creating them.  Manic, for example, is some 66 minutes of frantic string plucks, crazed notes, and schizophrenic attempts at playing the instrument.  While the sound remains relatively calm, the playing style is the equivalent of the manic fury most have come to expect from the artist, though here in a more stripped down context. 

It would be remiss if Tomkins didn’t cater at least somewhat to the fans from the earlier Sutcliffe Jugend days, and though he has done quite a bit to show there is a lot more to his work than just brutality, he’s just like the rest of us and still likes to crank the noise once in awhile.  Into Noise are slower developing tracks of low end drone that build and swell across each of the three tracks into sustained roars recalling Hermann Nitsch’s aktion based symphonies, and Noise begins by pegging the overdrive to the max, the volume up so loud to almost obscure the autoharp’s characteristic tones under thick roars.  Rather than just staying with this approach, there are tracks of percussive and looped passages that give the rhythmic thump of classic death industrial, and other scraping and slicing tones that could be from the best of the slasher films. 

For most of this set, the post-performance processing and multitracking was kept to a minimum, most of the material was recorded live using only effects and loop pedals.  The final two discs of the set are the exception to this rule, as they are constructed from pieces and samples of the previous material.  Rewoven (Light Weave) is the lighter of the two discs, cutting up fragments of notes into near traditional rhythms, resembling so-called "electronica" to some extent before ending with vast ambient space.  The counterpoint Rewoven (Dark Weave) is the processed sounds from before built into dark ambient space:  the opening pieces are slow funeral drone and quiet, dark and reflective tones.  The closing segment is really a culmination of the near 16 hours that preceded it:  a 40 minute piece of violent roar, restrained noise, and thick ambience.

Sure, it has to be said that at 17 discs, this is a somewhat excessive and indulgent set.  However, each disc has enough variance in sound and style to let them stand on their own and not sound unnecessary or repetitive.  Listening to them back to back or even in close succession is a bit too daunting of a task but spread out or treated individually, each disc represents a variation of the pathological study of a single instrument.  It would probably be best for most to check out the single Perfectly Flawed disc first, but if that grabs others like it did me, this set should be sought out immediately afterwards.

samples:

• Noise Track 1
• Bow Track 3
• Rewoven (Dark Weave) Track 4

19 July 2009

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Albums and Singles

Utech

The opening "Night Zoe" begins with long passages of sustained high end feedback, much higher in frequency than other artists of this ilk stick to.  The repeated high end feedback becomes slathered in tremolo to a warbling drone that, in a way, resembles the classic (at least to me) "The Red Sea" by Bodychoke, as it continues to meander on and on. Eventually it becomes accompanied by some lower register metallic riffs and while the sound remains constant throughout, the actual dynamics vary greatly.

The long centerpiece title track is a performance for KFJC and involves a drummer and keyboardist, fleshing out the sound even more. The opening loops of a distant, siren like squealing belies the rapid transition into more traditional metal territory.  Deep slow riffs, skittering cymbal rolls, and raw feedback dominate the mix early on.  However, as the guitar chugs on, a layer of slow, mournful melody rises up, contrasting the angry guitars with a more beautiful synthetic counterpoint.  In some respects this balance resembles some of Jesu’s best work, though in a more noise ridden and improvised context rather than Broadrick’s more polished works.

The closing "Gasp in a Fifty Pound Claw" puts the more metal-esque elements in the backseat and instead focuses on the noise.  The opening insect drone and high end blasts are matched with a bit of feedback and amplifier hum, which gives more of an ambient introduction to the rawer overdriven electronics and bashes of noise that emerge later on.  In the latter moments the noise erodes away and what remains is vaguely reminiscent of a black metal band practicing in a garage down the street:  the metal elements are there, but cut up and filtered to give an entirely different character.

"Mist from the Random More," the title track, is definitely the high point of the release as an album.  The stark contrast between the harsher and melodic elements are extremely memorable.  While the more drone-metal intro and noise outro don't quite stand well on their own, wrapped around the true meat of the record, they earn their keep.

samples:

• Night Zoe
• Mist From the Random More
• Gaspt in a Fifty Pound Claw

19 July 2009

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Someone Good

The Rational Academy's bio describes them as a "psychedelic avant-pop collective", which is somewhat misleading: Swans usually sounds much more like a cross between Elliot Smith and Sarah/Shinkansen Records bands like the Trembling Blue Stars than anything approximating Animal Collective.  There is certainly some psychedelia present, of course, but it very subtle and usually reserved for the instrumentals (such as the hauntingly beautiful title track).  The mood here is far more "wistful bedroom pop" than "mind-expanding."

Given the band's collective nature, it is difficult to determine each member's role, but it seems like Benjamin Thompson has become the band's creative center.  This has resulted in a significant shift in the band's sound: the buoyant synthpop, male/female harmonies, and shambling Archers of Loaf-style noisiness displayed on A Heart Against Your Own seem to have largely departed with McHugh (whom I believe finished a doctorate and became a scientist).  The one notable exception is "Hammer," which artfully melds bass-driven pop to a distressed synthesizer and an angular guitar jangle and tops it all off with spacey electronic weirdness.  Instead, the Academy have taken on a more timeless and classic sound: if it weren't for the glistening electronic shimmer, songs like "A New Berlin" and "Summer Husbands" could've been recorded by the Zombies (although a bit more introspective and maybe a little twee).

Swans is a gorgeous sounding album, which probably has a lot to do with English.  The acoustic guitars are crisp, the vocals are crystal clear, the songs feel spacious and open, and the electronics are subtle and often sublime.  English is clearly a useful guy to have around, as nothing sounds bad when it is tastefully enveloped by an amniotic electronic haze.  Aside from the aforementioned title track, I was also beguiled by the rippling spectral drone of "12 Feet in Cheltenham," which favorably calls to mind some of English's own lush soundscapes.  There many less obvious examples as well though, such as the warm, undulating glow beneath the guitar solo in " New Berlin."

Notably, this release is the second in Someone Good's "10 songs in 20 minutes" series.  While I certainly enjoy concise, well-written pop songs, that also means that there is only about ten or so minutes of truly good material included: there's some filler and an occasional misfire like the misplaced swagger of "Satan."  Consequently, I am not sure if Swans is representative of the band's current direction or if this album is merely an experiment.  It is undeniably enjoyable, but it doesn't quite hit the highs of their debut.  Hopefully their next proper album will more fully realize that promise.

Samples:

• Summer Husbands
• 12 Feet in Cheltenham
• A New Berlin