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The first proper Nurse With Wound full-length to come along in quite a while is an album-length exploration of the exotica, kitschy swing and cutout-bin jazz genres that have long been an audio fetish for Steven Stapleton. On paper, the idea sounds great. In practice, Huffin' Rag Blues is sometimes interesting, sometimes laborious, and for a longtime Nurse With Wound fan such as me, largely a disappointment.
The closest parallel to the music on Huffin' Rag among Stapleton's past work is 1985's The Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion, in which Stapleton along with a large ensemble of NWW satellites—David Tibet, Edward Ka-Spel, Jim Thirlwell, William Bennett, Diana Rogerson, among others—took great joy in deconstructing, reconstructing, destroying, mocking, celebrating and generally pulverizing a dizzying collage of easy listening favorites, all pervaded with an infectiously irreverant, anarchic attitude. Something similar is going on with Huffin' Rag, a large ensemble of collaborators—including Andrew Liles, Matt Waldron, R.K. Faulhaber, Colin Potter, Diana Rogerson (again), Peat Bog, and Aranos—and an agenda that includes off-kilter versions of lowbrow jazz, but something is missing. Actually, two somethings are missing: the experimental collagist feel and the sense of anarchic joy.
Part of the problem might be the proverbial "too many cooks spoil the broth" problem, but more than likely it has to do with the growing tendency for Nurse With Wound's recent output to sound less like the work of one author, and more like art-by-committee. I don't know enough about Steven Stapleton's working methods and artistic process to second guess the way in which this album was recorded, but compare it to something like Sylvie and Babs, or even Who Can I Turn to Stereo?, and it's hard not to notice a marked drop in quality. Where those earlier albums had a gloriously handcrafted feel, weird musique concrète rubbing shoulders with mangled samples and surrealistic moments of pure creep-out, Huffin' Rag can't shake its digital, clinical, overworked feel. A track such as "Groove Grease (Hot Catz)" is aiming for a dislocated, Yagga Blues-style take on bebop, but its collection of loops and prefab effects bring it much closer in effect to 1990s acid jazz and goofy swing/exotica revivalists like Tipsy or (gasp) Combustible Edison. Only isolated moments remind one of what the Nurse is usually capable, and they come few and far between.
Some of thee tracks go on for far too long. "Thrill of Romance...?" is a case in point, a real patience-tester at more than six minutes of tepid noodly jazz with the same throbbing synth element repeating through its entire length. While others may find it hypnotic, I found it annoying. The vocals provided by Lynn Jackson are capable, but unremarkable, and it makes me wonder about Stapleton and co.'s mysterious investment in such an undistinguished singer/songwriter that they used her songs and lyrics for three of the tracks on Huffin'. "Black Teeth" has Matt Waldron of irr.app.(ext.) doing some funny Tom Waits/Dr. John-style vocals, and he actually sounds pretty good, but the cutesy pastiche wears out its welcome way before it's over. Same with "Crusin' For a Bruisin'," which attempts to liven up a dull, repetitive loop with occasional traffic noises and radio chatter.
All is not lost. The album's longest track, "The Funktion of the Hairy Egg," remains dynamic and interesting for most of its 14-minute length, traveling from fragmentary jazz blurt, to drone-y krautrock repetition, to the sounds of several species of furry animals huddled together in a cave grooving with a pict, and finally to a weird country song lost in the midst of a Salt Marie Celeste-style cycle of jarring noises. "Juice Head Crazy Lady" sounds a bit like the Boredoms at their more exotic/electronic end, tracks like "Jungle Taitei" or the DJ Pica Pica Pica mix CD; amped-up exotica in a glittery acid wonderland. At its best, Huffin' Rag Blues hints at a much better album, the album that Stapleton, Liles and co. probably should have made instead of this one: a more lateral, abstract take on jazz and swing with less loop-based recording and more open-ended, improvisatory composition; more ragged, jagged juxtapositions, rather than the overly smooth, washed-out digital edits that make this album sound more pedestrian than it should.
Unfortunately, what we get here is overcooked in places, and undercooked in other places. Mostly, it just seems like Stapleton didn't really push the concept far enough, and didn't exercise enough control over the proceedings, so that the final product sounds like an artistic misfire at times, but mostly like a watered-down compromise. It doesn't share the same unglued, bizarre surrealism that has made Nurse With Wound one of the most consistently outré and entertaining sound artists of the post-industrial milieu for nearly 30 years. There's still more than enough moments of cleverness on display throughout Huffin' Rag to demonstrate that Stapleton and co. can easily get back on the horse and make something great again. Until then, curious listeners are advised to comb online auction sites for reasonably priced copies of Sylvie and Babs.
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Mogwai's re-mastered debut is an intoxicating mix of repetition, slowly emerging tunes, and violent crescendos. When we add in their use of conversational voices, dark humor, and a penchant for anonymity they resemble (at the risk of sacrilege) early-mid period Pink Floyd.
Naturally, Young Team has an integrity that its companion disc (of b-sides, live versions, and a Spacemen 3 cover) simply can’t match. The sequence of tracks is a nigh on perfect listen from start to finish. “Yes, I am A Long Way From Home” sounds like friends calmly chucking a stick of lighted dynamite around between them. We don’t know exactly when, but it’s obvious that that an explosion is coming and, if anything, the participants seem to be relishing the prospect.
“Like Herod” merges the angular calm of Tortoise and the pimple-bursting intensity of Slint into something that (even at nearly 12 minutes) feels too short. Maybe it is the circularity of the rhythms, or the fact that tracks never resolve in a way that obliterates the sense of expectation, but Mogwai always leave me wanting more. As regards the Chicago influence, it's worth noting that Directions in Music came two years before Young Team and the link seems obvious.
There is a seriousness and humor in these grooves that coalesces into a raging desire to obliterate something so that something else may flourish. Art through destruction is nothing new, of course. Do I imagine the blended effects of ancient architecture, history, unemployment, rain, beer, heroin, Westminster, domestic violence, Sectarianism, and the proverbial Glasgow Kiss? No matter, it still sounds as vital today as it did in 1997.
On “Katrien” the use of conversation as ‘vocals’ works marvelously, seeming to dictate the beat rather than match it. The relative frippery of “Radar Maker” is like a piece of Shakespearean light relief before the inevitable bloodbath. Sure enough, on the second such piano interlude “With Portfolio” the group eventually lacerates any semblance of lightness with a section of stereo flashing feedback hi-jinks not heard since the distant days of Led Zeppelin II .
The pace slows for breath again during “R u still in 2 it” which has gentle, brooding, epic undertones over which is spoken a love-letter as simultaneously trite and heartfelt as an adolescent text message. When this spoken word leaps into actual singing the effect is to illustrate that passion is ordinary, hilarious, doomed and yet blissful. Then we have (for them) a happy hour knees-up called “A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters.” The contrast is essential as, without delay, we are into the epic (16 minutes) and thunderous “Mogwai Fear Satan” a track which shows an essential difference between Mogwai and other post-rock (sic) bands. Mono, Explosions In The Sky, and others took this blueprint and produced music of their own that is life-affirming because it sounds like the Myth of Sisyphus—pushing the boulder up that hill again and again. “Mogwai Fear Satan” reveals a band that carries a greater threat, since in their version that boulder is chasing you down the slope and when you blink you are back at the top again and it is right behind you. With the storm approaching it is as if we are channeling the genetic memories of the chilly-kneed centurions casting wary glances into the mist beyond the north side of Hadrian’s Wall.
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- Matthew Amundsen
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Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel has been infecting ears with his unique amalgamation of noise and drones for over ten years. Always prolific, he has spawned multitudes of massive, monstrous compositions. With an even subtler touch than usual, this time Kneale turns his gaze to the heavens.
Lighter than much of Kneale's other material though no less involved, Gunpowder yearns to achieve some sort of meditative or transcendent state that's just out of reach. Yet there's too much commotion in the background, obscured as it may be, to quite hit the blissful highs for which it aims. Rather than an obvious transition to a grander objective, this composition seems to hang in the air even as other elements roil, albeit mutedly, below the surface. A slight wavering melody hovers like a dream throughout this piece, so delicate that it almost passes unnoticed. A loud church organ, or some other instrument that achieves much the same effect, dominates this track, lending the music an air of religiosity beyond the title itself. Although it holds this piece together, I also found that it distracted from the movement of sounds and textures that unfold underneath it. By the time the piece was finished, my ears were numb to its finer nuances and my mind retained only the domineering intervals, which unfortunately is a disservice to this otherwise fine recording.
While I enjoyed this quite a bit, I still prefer the Birchville material that has a bit more evolution to it, like the recent collaboration with Fear Falls Burning. If this one were half as long, I'd probably like it twice as much.
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Relase date: September 12th, 2008.
Though Conifer has received quite a bit of critical praise they've somehow managed to live off the grid for the past six years. With Crown Fire Conifer is finally getting the exposure they deserve. Mixing post-rock, kraut-rock, metal and pschychedlia they have created this relentlessly driving and hypnotic masterpiece. Crown Fire's only vocals are from Oxbow's Eugene Robinson fronting the albums final 13 minute epic. LP version limited to 500 copies with 200 on color vinyl.
Conifer has been writing primarily instrumental music with a lawless take on the styles from which they've taken cue. New content is found by way of augmenting brutality and suspense with time. Conifer seems to reckon with the notions of bands like Enemymine, Mogwai, or Grails while taking an approach toward their music that's entirely meditative (as opposed to premeditated). Minimal, ethereal passages are narcotically lengthened and crescendos of distortion are sustained well beyond the boundaries adhered to by many of their peers. "Heavy" by way of being beat/repetition heavy in not only a Shellac/Helmet sense but in a way that is practically reminiscent of electronic discipline. Crushing riffs amidst the most ethereal, minimal moments.
Six years in, Conifer has emerged from their mind forest into the clearing that is the future and past. Band members have come and gone and come again. Crown Fire is the latest battle that Conifer has fought in the war of obtuse movement. Welcoming dense riffage washes over the listener for the first half of the record, referencing pan Asian themes and musical manifest destiny. The bombast that is their live show comes through loud and clear, intertwined with moments of delicate reflection. Without warning it all goes wrong, the mainframe explodes, the ships crash, the tide of despair and denial rises never to recede.
Hailing from the capital of the heavy state of Maine, Conifer has an extremely close relationship with fellow travellers Ocean. These two groups have shared a lot over the years including members, tour transportation, practice spaces and members of the two groups grew up together in rural costal towns. Though different in sound they're quite kindred in spirit and obviously Conifer is essential for anyone who loved Ocean's Here Where Nothing Grows.
THE PLAYERS:
Zachary E. Howard-baritone guitar
Nate Nadeau- Drums, percussion, Hammond, electronics
Sean K. Hadley- Bass, Melodica
Leif J. Sherman Curtis- Guitar, Xylophone
THE GUESTS:
Shannon Allen- Cello, Flute
Todd Hutchisen- Pedal Steel
Eugene Robinson- Vocals
TRACKLISTING:
Surface Fire
Cruciform Empennage
A History Of Dissapoinment
Song for Krom
Breathe Hold
Into the Gauntlet
Crown Fire
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Release date: July 22nd, 2008
Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple is limited to 500 copies with the first 100 on color vinyl. This is the companion release to the ASTRO CD titled The Echo At The Purple Dawn being released at the same time on Important Records. ASTRO, of course, is the analog/space project of Hiroshi Hasegawa of the legendary Japanese group C.C.C.C. This limited vinyl only release was created using ring modulator and vocals which are rare these days in Astro recordings. Cover art designed by Important.
ASTRO is Hiroshi Hasegawa’s solo project. He is a founding member of the Japanese noise group C.C.C. Born in 1963, Hasegawa began his improvisation with his voice and drums. In 1990, he made the group C.C.C.C. around the concept of improvised mass-noise with a very loud sound. Members included Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai. Hasegawa began his solo unit ASTRO with analog synthesizers in 1993 and continued playing in C.C.C.C.
Though C.C.C.C. is no more, Hasegawa has continued with Astro and his numerous collaborations drifting between dreamy spaced out bliss and full on waterfalls of beautiful noise.
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Release date: July 22nd, 2008
Limited edition of 500 copies and packaged in a deluxe screen printed jacket with a clear spot gloss print. There are 5 different cover color variations each limited to 100 copies and containing a different color of vinyl. Packaged, like all Important releases, in a handy resealable Japanese poly-bag. Printed by Neil Burke at Monoroid.
Steven Wilson - guitar / laptop
Andres Solis - turntables
Rogelio Sosa - voice
Daniel Goldaracena - devices
Recorded live at laboratorio de arte alameda in Mexico City on 27th February 2008. Collaboration with the live action/improv group from Mexico City, PIG. This will only be available on vinyl and is the companion release to the Bass Communion record Moltov And Haze being issued on Important Records simultaneously.
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Release date: July 22nd, 2008
Bass Communion is a project dedicated to Steven Wilson’s recordings in an ambient, drone, and/or electronic vein. Most of the pieces are experiments in texture made from processing recordings of real instruments and field recordings. The atmosphere of the music has tended towards the dark and melancholic, but expressed with an almost zen like beauty. More recently Wilson has also started working with a guitar and laptop configuration - the first material in this style is contained on this album.
Molotov And Haze is packaged in a deluxe tip-on style heavy duty gatefold jacket with the cd slipped into a Japanese inner bag. Design by Carl Glover.
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Release date: July 22nd, 2008
The Echo From The Purple Dawn is a brand new full length from C.C.C.C. member Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project Astro. Using a battery of oscillators, ring modulators and field recordings Hasegawa has created an engaging and versitile album that masterfully drifts between spaced out analog dream drone and a more extreme form of harsher droning. As Astro Hasegawa is able to combine some of the harsher influence of C.C.C.C. into the world of analog space music to create the signature sounds of Astro. Included is a live track recorded at a festival at the Tokyo Keizai niversity organized by Tetsuo Kogawa. Cover art designed by Important.
ASTRO is Hiroshi Hasegawa’s solo project. He is a founding member of the Japanese noise group C.C.C. Born in 1963, Hasegawa began his improvisation with his voice and drums. In 1990, he made the group C.C.C.C. around the concept of improvised mass-noise with a very loud sound. Members included Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai. Hasegawa began his solo unit ASTRO with analog synthesizers in 1993 and continued playing in C.C.C.C. Though C.C.C.C. is no more, Hasegawa has continued with Astro and his numerous collaborations drifting between dreamy spaced out bliss and full on waterfalls of beautiful noise.
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Windy Weber (of Windy & Carl) tried to release her latest recording on Kranky before releasing it through Blue Flea and Kenedik, but the folks over at Kranky rejected it because it sounded like the sort of thing Nurse with Wound fans would enjoy. This is a crushing and feverish record miles away from Weber's previous work. With Warren Defever helping out, I Hate People sounds absolutely hostile and is one of the darkest things I've heard this year.
Blue Flea/Kenedik
Two long and murky songs compose all of I Hate People. True to Weber's musical approach as one half of Windy & Carl, both are composed of protracted and reverberating sounds pulled from guitars, organs, and vocal performances. This time around, however, the gleam of Weber's technique is swathed in tenebrous distress and trembling disgust. Everything pretty about the music is suffocated under shuddering strings, half-whispered vocals, and screeching feedback. According to the liner notes, I Hate People is an isolationist opus, a recording about an island devoid of all the fear, hatred, disappointment, betrayal, and suffering caused by people, but it sounds more like a destructive purging of every black emotion in the books.
At various moments, "Sirens" does sound like the documented travels of some nameless individual slowly sailing to a location not found on any map. Still waters course slowly by as a voyager scans the horizon in a storm of screeching guitars and icy half-melodies. Furious solos blaze away beneath a layer of high-pitched tones as the song slowly dissolves and loses its intensity in favor of a slightly more meditative attitude. After 24 minutes Weber sounds as though she is gradually losing whatever ghost was haunting her when the song began. Cool, twilight sounds and a lovely organ drone end the song on an up note; the sirens of the title disappear completely and for just a second I thought that the next song might be a blissful and soothing reward at the end of jarring and tense ride.
"Destroyed" is just the opposite. It begins with a perverted ohm and is immediately supplemented by an uneven breathing. Whatever island Weber has found herself on, it is not one that brings any repose or relief. Over the course of 32 minutes it grows increasingly ominous and twisted. A sinister chant becomes the hub of the song as it weaves itself into a dry and chilling drone. About half way through the song a drill-like effect is pulled from Weber's guitars and the song turns into a nightmare of echoing chains. Miles away from the influence of other individuals, Weber still finds herself entangled in a host of bad memories and contempt. A low hum ends the song with only a hint of activity warbling away beneath it. If this end signifies the tranquility suggested in the liner notes, then it comes at no little price. I Hate People tears its way through the air and leaves a burnt, uneasy calm in its wake.
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- Duncan Edwards
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Amolvancy's clear vinyl album and sleeve is reminiscent of the movie poster for The Day of The Locust. The music is shrill, cathartic, erudite and primitive: sort of like beating kittens to death with a copy of a French literature anthology.
In a sense, I don’t care what this record sounds like as its packaging is so pleasingly fetishistic. The disc itself is transparent but gives up no easy answers. The absence of a track list adds to the impenetrability factor. The vaguely Freudian and iconoclastic sleeve notes have a circular logic which lends the project an infusion of provocation, mystery and fake principles. Even the grooves in the wax seem like a labyrinth with no exit.
Sheila Donovan’s frenzied gibberish is backed by Volcano the Bear’s Aaron Moore and Dave Nuss of the No-Neck Blues Band. I say gibberish, but her words actually appear to be prepared rather than spontaneous improvisation. Amolvacy’s spiky tribal spirit takes aim at the bubble of contemporary morality even as it captures a foxhole somewhere between the mud-covered spunk of The Slits and the alluring irritation of Sue Tompkins (of Life Without Buildings). Worth sticking with and returning to as the grit makes pearls; eventually Ho Ho Kus, Po Po Kus.
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It’s cliché to say, but realistically, the idea of paying taxes to a government and how said money becomes allocated is a definite part of the human condition in most societies. Nations have been built, nations have crumbled, revolutions have been sparked, all based on the people paying their government to do things that they may absolutely not support. It is no surprise then that when Aranos takes on this all too familiar topic he does so at a roots level that eschews his sonic manipulations for a set of folk protest songs.
Rather than the studio twisted and manipulated approach to music he normally employs, Tax focuses instead on simple folk/blues guitar riffs and “Regular Joe” type lyrics. On “I Pay Tax” he begins by discussing his daily routine over delta blues inspired acoustic guitar before it hits him, just exactly how everything he has done so far is affected by tax. When he says “tax” it is with an entirely appropriate anger and vitriol that expresses disgust in ways digital media rarely does. This loathing carries over as he addresses the listener in the subsequent “You Pay Tax,” with a more jazz influenced drum and piano backing track.
Inevitably the source of where these taxes goes that becomes the target of criticism is military and war, which is where most of the remaining 2/3rd of the album becomes focused. The stomping, marching percussion of “We Train” outlines just how taxes are used to train the young men and women to fight, and how the same source of funds buys the “(b)est artificial limbs, best wheelchairs, best coffins” for said soldiers. The oddly up-tempo story of “Sargeant Zero” contrasts the odd percussion and piano work with the story of a young criminal who had the choice between jail or military service, and chose the latter.
The disc essentially ends with “I Don’t Want To Pay For War” which is akin to any and all of the so called “protest songs” of the 1960s, an up-tempo sing along type track that follows along lyrically with what could be expected based on the title. The closing “Bowling Along” track probably resembles what most would expect from Aranos based on previous output, a 11 minute piece of droney, electronically manipulated instrumentation that is quiet and meditative.
Throughout the disc, Aranos is more than happy to offer his take on various forms of roots music, “With Our Killing Costume On” resembles an Alpine drinking song that everyone in the bar could be singing along to if its lyrics were just a bit different, and the homily like vocals of “Padre Speaks” explores the connection between taxes and the church over a liturgical backing of harpsichord and muted acoustic guitar.
The trite adage about the only guarantees in life being “death and taxes” is seemingly an eternal truth that isn’t going anywhere, and thus this album is one that is both timeless and national. Conceptually, I’m sure taxes, war, and the connection between the two will be issues of social concern a hundred years from now, and I’m sure this album will feel just as relevant then as it does now.
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