01 March 2009

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Albums and Singles

While the 2009 musical landscape is teeming with C86 and new wave revivalists, none do it quite as well as The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.  Although they have been compared to a staggering number of disparate hipster touchstones (I personally think they sound most like a ballsier Field Mice), their youthful exuberance and melodic sense gives them a freshness that often transcends and surpasses their influences.

 

Slumberland

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart formed in New York in 2007 and released two EPs before this album (many of the tracks from those are included here).  The band's sound has remained essentially unchanged from their early work (no fumbling about or struggling to perfect their aesthetic) and there is no need for it to evolve.  Despite their youth, they have nevertheless managed to combine the best elements of several different scenes and avoid their perils and self-indulgences: jangly and ringing C86 guitars, the adrenaline and hookiness of the Ramones, shoegazer fuzz and reverbed vocals (sans mopery), and the wry literacy of the better Sarah Records bands.  

One unexpected facet of The Pains is the frequent raunchiness of their lyrics.  Usually bands of this ilk tend to fixate on break-ups, unrequited love, being sad, etc.  The soft-spoken dual vocals of Kip and Peggy (not very rock and roll names, I'm afraid) certainly sound like they would be conveying sensitive, bookish content.  However, the lyric sheet is full of lines like "you don't have to dress to please, perhaps undress for me" or the far more eyebrow-raising "in a dark room we can do just what we like, you're my sister and this love is fucking right!". It is refreshing that someone has finally corrected the long-standing and frustrating dearth of overt incest references and saucy double entendres in the genre.  Thanks for nothing, Close Lobsters!

Just about all of the songs on the album are bouncy and hook-filled, but two stand out as particularly infectious.  "Young Adult Friction" combines a muscular drumbeat, organ, and cool male-female vocal harmonies to tell a tale of hot teen library sex.  This is a particularly cunning example of how the band manages to be literary (libraries are wicked literary), yet thankfully avoids being fey, overly serious, or self-important.  It even features some charmingly groan-inducing wordplay ("I never thought I would come of age, let alone on a moldy page").  Meow.

"A Teenager In Love" is an absolutely perfect pop song that kicks off with a punky drumbeat, frantically strummed acoustic guitar, and a bitchin' keyboard hook.  Then everything drops out for the verses, leaving only the wistful vocals and the relentlessly buoyant rhythm section. It is dynamically effective, catchy as hell, and adds weight to the chorus (when everything returns).  There are also some nice Marr-esque ringing arpeggios near the end.  While not as lyrically libinal as some other tracks on the album, there is still some bite ("you don't need a friend when you're a teenager in love with Christ and heroin"). I will be very surprised if I hear a better indie pop song this year.

Another thing that The Pains have borrowed from the Ramones is brevity.  The ten songs on this album barely exceed half an hour—all thriller, no filler.  This is an excellent album.  

Samples:

• Contender
• Young Adult Friction
• A Teenager In Love

 

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01 March 2009

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Albums and Singles

Industrial-damaged dirge-metalers Gnaw promise to be "as ugly as sound can get" and they inarguably deliver on that.  This Face is a visceral, bilious, crawling, throat-shredding mangled nightmare of an album.  Their singular devotion to being unpleasant deserves respect and admiration.

 

Conspiracy

While This Face is Gnaw's debut, they already have an impressive doom-metal lineage: the group features former Khanate vocalist Alan Dubin and Burning Witch drummer Jamie Sykes.  However, it is the lesser-known members of the group that give Gnaw such a distinctive sound.

The band's "music" is provided by multi-instrumentalist Carter Thornton, who largely and conspicuously eschews conventional doom-metal riffing and adds unique touches using an array of homemade instrumentation.  However, what defines Gnaw is the fact that the group contains two established film/television sound designers (one of whom is an Emmy winner).  Jun Mizomachi and Brian Beatrice take the band's source material and forge it into something much more crushing and complex by adding layers of field recordings, electronics, and bizarre sound-manipulations.  Also, the resultant production clarity and density yields an awesome heaviness and immediacy that far exceeds that of most of Gnaw's peers.

The album's opener ("Haven Vault") is a riffless, beatless tsunami of distortion, screaming, and electronic noise.  It is not boring by any means, as Dubin's vocals are quite cathartic, and the roar is augmented by drum fills and plinking eerie piano, but I found myself desperately hoping that the whole album would not be in this vein.  Nine songs of formless, agonized sociopathic sludge vomit would be too much for me.  I suspect Dubin spit up blood for several days after delivering this vocal performance.

Thankfully, the album changes gears immediately with the second song ("Vacant").  Dubin delivers an uncharacteristically melodic vocal performance (he sort of sounds like Edward Ka-Spel after a lifetime of chain-smoking and whiskey-drinking) and the band locks into a rare groove.  One of the many traits that make Gnaw so perversely delightful is that even though this song has an actual guitar riff, it is buried fairly low in the mix and rumbling noise and feedback are given center stage.  It is endearingly contrarian to give listeners something to latch onto, then subvert that by burying it with an avalanche of electronic chaos.  Also, "Vacant" features some of Dubin's most amusing lyricisms ("you can hear them laughing, everybody's fucking but you.").

The rest of the album, for the most part, continues the theme of being somewhat song-like and even maintains a surprisingly propulsive pseudo-tribal industrial groove for couple of songs ("Talking Mirrors" and "Backyard Frontier").  While all of the tracks sound quite similar (although the degree of dirge-iness varies a bit), they are often distinguished by interludes of stylistic departure that delve into power electronics or tribal ambiance.

Obviously, this much hate and dissonance is difficult to listen to in an album-sized dose, but that only indicates how impressively Gnaw have succeeded.  I cannot begin to imagine where the band will go for their second album—it seems like they've pretty much said it all here.  This Face is an overwhelming monolith of uncompromising and malevolent nastiness.

Samples:
• Vacant
• Talking Mirrors
• Backyard Frontier

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

If I didn't know better, I would swear that Mono hail from Viking territory. Their latest full length conjures up scenes of great Norse ships sailing through the fog past coastal villages that have been set ablaze.

 

Temporary Residence

As the opening track "Ashes in the Snow" creeps up to a roar, I can picture the aftermath of a great, bloody battle between frost giants and viking hordes spilled out across whitecapped mountains.  Mono provide the perfect soundtrack for trudging through the battlefield to reclaim the bodies of the fallen.  "Burial at Sea" laments the loss of a hardened old leader as his funeral pyre drifts out into the icy North Sea.  As an orchestra accompanies Mono's swelling, grinding guitars, I can map out all of the scenes in an epic viking film, replete with slow motion crane shots of blacksmiths forging swords and women seeing their men off to battle.  

"Pure as Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm)" starts off slowly and quietly like so many Mono songs do, but it eventually betrays its title by venturing into near psychadelic screeching and roaring noise that suggests a storm that is anything but pure.  Mono put their orchestral accompaniment to great use on songs like "Everlasting Light," which closes the album out with a grand and triumphant noise.  The record has an arc that begins with loss and turmoil and ends with cathartic renewal.

It's too easy to fall into the trap of simply calling Mono's music "cinematic," so while enjoying it on repeated listens, I decided to figure out exactly which movie it is that their music evokes.  Though it may give away my own cultural bias, I couldn't get the idea of viking kings and wintery beasts out of my head.  So with those visions, I played the record over and found that it remarkably took on a distinct life in Mono's repertoire.  It's easy also to listen to any Mono record casually and to enjoy it even, without necessarily placing it.  The band has been mining the same basic formula and the same set of song dynamics for years, and a quick skim through Hymn to the Immportal Wind doesn't reveal anything that particularly strays from that.  Most of the songs build from quiet to loud to louder to LOUDER still, and I find that comforting—Mono with an 808 drum machine or jazzy backbeat wouldn't be as riveting.  However, Hymn to the Immortal Wind may be Mono's most singluarly narrative album.

I think it's hard for people who don't follow music like this with some devotion to tell the difference from one album to the next, or in some cases, from one band to the next.  With that in mind, think of this one as "The Viking Album."  May it inspire someone to direct an epic film worthy of this record as its soundtrack.

samples:

• Ashes in the Snow
• Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn
• Everlasting Light
  

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

Few sounds are as exhausting and as exhilarating as the voice of Carey Mercer. Whether with Frog Eyes, with myriad other projects, or solo, he conveys joy and bitterness, anger and bliss, with an allure and conviction few can equal.

 

Soft Abuse

Skin of Evil is Mercer's second full length release as Blackout Beach (his solo name). In ten songs over 30 minutes, he offers different perceptions about and around the figure and persona of "Donna." Her lovers relate their sparkling, fractured, obstuse tales, laden with bile and self-loathing, and the picture emerges of Donna as a siren-like destroyer of hearts and minds. If this seems a recipe for an unpleasant wallow in self-absorbed pity, the result sounds quite the opposite. The record is partly about obsession and, fittingly, Mercer knows how to gradually build a weird—almost sexual—tension and release it without deflating the entire atmosphere. The songs crackle with violent delirium; with longing, lust, and regret.

It's not an easy listen but there are sections of undoubted prettiness. Opener "Cloud of Evil" has lovely pulsing dubbish undertones and a stuttering vocal rhythm to match.  "Nineteen, One God, One Dull Star" is infused with a hazy, swaying version of the kind of languid glamor managed a long time ago by Bowie on his live version of "Sweet Thing." Eventually, wider themes emerge than the Donna syndrome and it becomes clear that, as with most intimate human events, sole blame can't be heaped upon anyone: it takes (at least) two to tango. Amidst these complex crooned rants we also hear Donna's brief right-of-reply, the layered ecstatic chant that is "Woe To The Minds Of Soft Men."

One of my gripes with so much singing done by independent rock musicians is what I call the glorification of the mumble. This is often either an unsuccessful attempt to disguise the absence of feeling and meaning by hinting at incoherence or to obscure a thin and narrow range by distractions such as muddy production. This can even be presented as a virtue wherein "the voice democratically shares the mix with other instruments" or some such guff.  By contrast, Mercer's cathartic singing hides behind nothing. Idiosyncratic it may be, but at least it is gloriously over the top. His claustraphobic, theatrical utterances (and the terrific accompanyments of Carolyn Mark, Megan Boddy, and Melanie Campbell) make the naturalistic versions of sincerity from the mouths of the grey legions of indieland seem like flaccid, pale, apologies.  

This may be Mercer's most uncluttered recording, but it doesn't lack any intensity. The wider themes on Skin of Evil seem to go in and out of focus: self-reliance, failure, politics, salvation: and the lack of all of these. And from within the chiming guitar, thudding percussion, and layers of feverish, howling and cooing, some classic lines float by: "she burned the orphanage but saved the payroll",  "we break our paddles in woe". At one point Carey Mercer sings "The automatic and justified response to a cruel and graceless age is to run away". But it doesn't sound like he's retreating from concocting the audio equivalent of molten lava any time soon.

samples:

• Cloud of Evil
• Nineteen, One God, One Dull Star
• William, the Crowd, it's William

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

Splitting off briefly from usual drummer Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh and experimental jazz elder statesman Paul Flaherty embarked on a brief Northeast jaunt in the closing months of summer, 2007. Taking full advantage of the abandoned rhythm section, the violin and saxophone duo lose none of their power or chaotic potential while skillfully wielding the precise interactions allowed for in such an intimate musical setting. A logical addition is found in trumpeter Greg Kelley's inclusion on two of the pieces, as his breathy playing fits neatly in with the obtuse sonics explored throughout.

 

Important

Given that these pieces are primarily violin and saxophone duets, and that both members have a penchant for jazz inspired work—Yeh in groups such as the New Monuments, a trio featuring percussionist Ben Hall and Borbetomagus sax demolitionist Don Dietrich; Flaherty in groups including Orange and Cold Bleak Heat—it may be a surprise to find that, while these improvisations surely call upon the free jazz tradition, they are not overtly such.

Both Yeh and Flaherty are among a burgeoning few who traverse the grounds between free jazz and the underground experimental and noise camps, and it is this diversity which allows for such fertile material to be chiseled throughout the proceedings. Yeh's violin is nimble, but rarely does a clean tone or traditional bowing tactic reveal itself. Rather, his instrument is sonically ground down to its very elements, just wood and string, from which he creates any number of scrapes, whispers and shrieks. Flaherty too is well versed in a "sound as sound" approach, having played with members of No-Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand of the Man among many, and his saxophone dives from Ornette Coleman-like runs to deep crevices of saxophone bellow and airy fluttering.

Yeh also displays a penchant for vocals, as on the second track from a show at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. With elastic verbalizings, Yeh belches and guffaws sounds that fit right into his violin approach, even mixing in harmonica at one point. This experimental versatility is impressive, but more impressive is the fact that he gets away with it. Flaherty's lack of playing allows Yeh enough space to turn his voice into its own odd sonic landscape, a necessity in its avoidance of seeming mere self-indulgence, and in lesser hands it might. But Yeh's control and energy mean that it is as effective as any other instrument on display. That Flaherty joins in to end the piece in a torrential duet only makes the approach all the more effective.

When Kelley steps in on the fourth and fifth tracks, both recorded at the Nom D'Artiste in Boston, his breathy play weaves effortlessly into the duo's folds. With plenty of experience playing with both representatives here, Kelley is more than comfortable in this environment. Like Bill Dixon filtered down to mere wind and brass, his broad trumpet tones stretch across the tumultuous landscape above, providing a subtle touch without being rendered useless or lost in the anarchic mix.

That these duets are so successful is testament not only to the abilities of those performing, but also to the health of experimental music in general. Yeh and Flaherty are astute improvisers whose interest in music spans gaps that, in this climate of interconnectivity and availability, need to at last be spanned, i.e. noise and free jazz, lower case improv and drone, and a whole slew of other subforms whose similarities number far greater than their differences. These recordings are a display of three key representatives in a burgeoning subculture that is quietly doing just that, albeit through some pretty noisy means.

samples:

• #2
• #3
• #5

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

The already mysterious musical world of Loren Connors is made even more so by these recordings, finally unearthed after being lost for nearly 30 years. Of course the loss would not be nearly so poignant if it weren't for the fact that the recording shows Connors serenading the grave of Midnight Mary, the ghost of whom will apparently kill anyone who remains in the graveyard after midnight. While Connors clearly came out the other side alive, it does give these delta-drenched chants a certain weight as once more a bluesman—albeit a fairly loose interpretation of one—once more play games with the devil in search of musical ends. Keeping consistent with the folklore, it works yet again.

 

Family Vineyard

More importantly though, the album provides an early glimpse into the formative years of this modern guitar hero. Presented are nine tracks, all recorded to cassette on the same day in 1981, that see Connors mixing acoustic, delta-inspired guitar abstractions in duet with moaning vocal accompaniment. With only these two sound sources to work with, this is an intimate and haunting display of Connors' creativity within the blues medium, stretching Charley Patton's gospel vocals and Skip James' country blues style into his own collagist breakdown of the form.

As strange as his version of the blues may be though, Connors' play is steeped in tradition, as can be seen by numerous blues covers and allusions throughout. Twice, on "Chant 3" and "Chant 6," he stretches out on the themes of "Amazing Grace," infusing it with the deep gospel soul of its past while giving it an angular, exploratory quality too often lacking in covers of such well-known material. Rarely does the avant-garde so neatly coalesce with tradition without losing any of its soul.

Elsewhere on the disc, Connors calls upon any variety of influences, always handling them with aplomb and imbuing them with his own highly developed improvisational signature. Though often associated with a more folk-based (and seemingly classicist) tradition, Connors is an improviser at heart; barely able to read music, he has to be. With the same vigor that he would later bring to duo recordings with Jandek then, he croons and moans his way around these dark tunes with a loose and dissonant grace. The notes are important, sure, but what is ultimately more interesting is the proximity that Connors has to the guitar as an object; the sliding of his fingers, the banging of the wood, all add to the richness of these pieces.

Vocally too, Connors presents a highly elastic and deeply felt style that, while wordless, is never secondary to the guitar work here. Instead it moves around the thick chords and twanging runs, humming and vibrating in conjunction before breaking off to present some variant on the melody beneath the guitar's own distractions. While it may not be the kind of singing most often associated with the blues, there is a cathartic and spiritual quality here that is wholly Connors'. And ultimately, isn't that what good blues is all about anyway?

Special note too should be made that Connors presents a cryptic message on the back of the album, suggesting that no one listen to it due to the circumstances surrounding its recording and subsequent loss. Well I'm still here, and having survived the night, can safely say that music with this much life should never be missed for fear of some mysterious undoing.

Hope that doesn't jinx it for me...

samples:

• Chant 3
• Chant 5
• Chant 9

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

Calder refracts the Northern Lights of the Icelandic countryside—where Lower was recorded—into music as beautiful and arresting as the Aurora Borealis itself. Fusing acoustic instrumentation with electronic instruments is not a new concept. To say that it has been done well, in an era of ubiquitous self released CD-Rs and instant digital downloads, is not usually warranted. The music available far outweighs the music that is listenable. Larus Sigursson and Olafur Josephsson take the simple elements of guitar, piano, and glockenspiel, along with a handful of other instruments and transform them in a process that is best described as alchemical.

 

Make Mine Music

Restraint is a word known to few musicians. Here it is shown in the extreme delicacy of every glistening note. As Jon Kealy pointed out in his Astral Social Club review, some artists feel the need to release everything they have ever bothered to make. Calder, for their second more widely available release, chose to take their sweet time. Their efforts are evident in the care that is shown on these ten tracks; the result of a three-year distillation process.

It is hard to pick out a single track for analysis. When I listen, I get caught up in the slow modulated drones, the handsomely plucked melodies, and perfectly syncopated but never overbearing beats. Before I know it all the songs have blurred together into a seamless whole. I have to play the disc over again, something I’ve done quite often since the first time I popped it into my player.

“Calc” is one of the many gems on this album. A plaintive guitar riff is laid out over the top of a fuzz of icy ambience. Snare hits add a bit of punch to the static hum. The slide effect on “Vast” gives the song a melancholic tinge, as backward flutters ripple and glide underneath. A piano’s notes are sustained over a low volume feedback effect, paired with precise glockenspiel accentuations, on “Tone.”

If I had to pick a favorite out of the many exemplary pieces, it would be “Semi.” All of the aspects that make this record great are here in fine form. A twittering hand rattles the strings of a mandolin while haunting measures are coaxed out of the piano. The bells and strings are there as accompaniment, floating around each other in complete sonorous harmony before fading into the next song on the heels of a long drone.

The accomplishment of many great albums, the beauty present on “Lower” continues to resonate in my mind for long after it has been played. As I’m happy with the result of their patience in making a second album, I hope my own patience will hold long enough for them to make a third.

samples:

• Calc
• Vast
• Semi

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

After coming first coming together for one absolute monster of a collaboration, guitarist Michio Kurihara (best known for his exquisite playing in Ghost) again joins Boris for what is essentially a disappointing album. The two long pieces featured here form two ends of the same spectrum; one highlights how powerful a simple, noisy drone can be and the other shows just how bad self-indulgent guitar freakouts can be.

 

Pedal

Kurihara’s previous encounter with Boris produced the excellent Rainbow; its idealised '60s/'70s psych vibes made for one the best of all Boris various collaborations. Although Cloud Chamber appears to have been recorded at the same time as Rainbow (it has a 2006 copyright notice), the two albums could not be more different. The melodies, rhythms, solos and vocals are all gone and instead there is a murky soup of feedback and atonal guitar. Cloud Chamber is not out of place next to other Boris dirgefests like Absolutego but considering they have been there, done that so many times (and so well) before, this seems like a step back for them. In addition, why they needed Kurihara (who is one of the best living guitarists for sure) is a mystery.

These would not be issues if the album was good but out of the two pieces, only “Cloud Chamber Part 1” has any of the power that I would associate with Boris and their ilk. Cavernous, black and huge, it is how I always imagined Boris sounded in the days before I could get my hands on their releases. The thick drone fluctuates in intensity from deafening to ear-splitting to face melting, at all times it fills the room like a fog. Had the group stopped at the end of this and released it as an EP, I would be hailing this as a titanic return to form for Boris after a string of disappointing titles (Smile, Walrus/Groon and Rock Dream all sucked).

However, “Cloud Chamber Part 2” is a limp, ham-fisted attempt at free rock. It starts off with a cracking buzz saw guitar which is killed before it gets going. From then on, most of the music sounds like a band trying very hard to be Fushitsusha but failing miserably. Even Kurihara sounds like he is just going through the motions. There is a brief respite at the end when the frenetic instrument bashing ceases and a very low, almost seismic wave of guitar takes over. Had all the piece sounded like the intro and/or the outro, this would be a monster. Yet the sheer laziness of the middle section serves to back up my initial thoughts about this being recorded three years ago; this could be the sound of the rot setting in. This should have stayed on the cutting room floor but Boris being Boris, they have not only released it but probably have half a dozen variations on it ready for release any day now.

Boris have never been consistent but at the very least they would release some great records at the same time as abysmal ones. Unfortunately I think the well of inspiration has run dry as they have offered little of interest in too long. I will most likely continue to chart their progress but I think the chances of another classic are approaching zero.

samples:

• Cloud Chamber Part 1
• Cloud Chamber Part 2

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28 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

This album combines two pieces from either end of Ferrari’s catalogue. A piece from his classic late 1960s period is paired with a more modern composition from 2000. Both pieces show how there is no distinct sound to be associated with the composer and how he did his best to innovate consistently during his career. The album has been lovingly put together and is one of the better posthumous releases that have seen the light of day.

 

Robot Records

“Archives Génétiquement Modifiées (Exploitation des Concepts No. 3)” is a work from Ferrari’s later period where he began re-evaluating his sound recordings by re-using them as source material for new works. For two DJs (one using CDs and the other vinyl), this piece is an amorphous mix of unidentifiable sounds, dialogue, snippets of music and atmospheres. Hearing Ferrari being influenced by his earlier self sounds remarkably like other artists who were influenced by the same early Ferrari works. The style of turntablism and the types of sounds being used find parallels in Autechre’s most recent work and with a large chunk of the Nurse With Wound back catalogue.

The second of the compositions is a much older piece, “Société II (Et si le piano était un corps de femme)” is a piece from 1967 which originally appeared on side B of the Presque Rien LP (not to be confused with the documentary of the same name also reviewed this week). I find it a bit strange that this is included and “Presque Rien No. 1” is not, especially as the piece does not fit with “Archives Génétiquement Modifiées” particularly well. Reissuing the LP as it was and releasing the newer material separately would have made more sense.

However, this does not diminish the power of the music. “Société II” was composed for an ensemble and piece traverses multiple genres, taking in jazz and most flavours of classical and modern composition. The soloists take the form of suitors vying for the attention of the woman (the piano), each trying to out-do the other and be as flamboyant as possible. This makes for a thunderous, frenetic and ultimately violent piece, its brazen machismo completely at odds with the previous piece on this disc.

In addition to great music, there are comprehensive sleeve notes containing commentaries by Jim O'Rourke and Jay Sanders (actually an instant messenger conversation between the two as they listen to the CD), short notes from Ferrari himself and a scan of the original score for “Société II.” Altogether, this attention to detail in terms of background information and the overall quality of the music makes for a particularly satisfying album, despite my qualms with the choice of material for inclusion.

samples:

• Archives Génétiquement Modifiées (Part 2)
• Archives Génétiquement Modifiées (Part 4)
• Société II (Part 1)

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22 February 2009

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Albums and Singles

Neil Campbell forms part of a trend of contemporary musicians who feel that they need to release every single thing they do. Acid Mothers Temple, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and Nadja are other big names that come to mind and while these all release decidedly sub-par material, the good releases tend to make this practice forgivable. Unfortunately, Campbell has been more miss than hit for me and this has put me off his work as the risk of being burned is too great. Needless to say, I was surprised when I actually liked Plug Music Ramoon which, although patchy, is one of the more interesting items in his post-Vibracathedral Orchestra back catalogue.

 

Dancing Wayang

The first side of this LP starts off wobbly with “Flamingo Moon” where the group (consisting of Stewart Keith and John Clyde-Evans in addition to Campbell) sounds like they are warming up rather than in full flow. The kraut stomp of “Punk Rocker/Mug Cracker” that follows blows the opening piece out of the water, the pulsing beat and dynamic electronics making for one of the spikiest and most exciting Astral Social Club tracks. The music eventually folds in on itself; all sense of rhythm lost and all that is left is a joyous celebration of pure sound.

The second side of Plug Music Ramoon does not fare quite so well as the lengthy “Don’t Step on the Silverfish” goes on too long for my tastes; its demented mardis gras rhythm is a bit grating. It does change over its 13 minutes yet it never seems to come together properly. “Ramoon Ramoon” explores similar territory to far better effect. The tribal percussion combined with dentist drill electronics is more pleasant than it sounds and I wish it took up more of Side B than the previous track. It is here that freer side of the music really opens up and the musicians start to examine the implications of the group’s name (as any albums I have heard previously have never been very astral or social).

The fact I dislike most Astral Social Club releases but dig this one might not bode well for those who do like Astral Social Club in general. However, I do think this is a genuinely good record no matter what name is on the sleeve. Granted it has its less desirable moments but these are most likely due to the recording process (all recorded in one day) and perhaps with more time this line up of Astral Social Club could have pulled something greater out of the hat.

Unfortunately, as this is a vinyl only release, there are no samples. Apologies!

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