Drag City
Will Oldham's third full-length release as Bonnie 'Prince' Billycontinues to develop the intimate, personal songwriting he's known for.The sparse, haunting tone of 'I See a Darkness' has given way to a muchwarmer, lush feel that began to emerge on 'Ease on Down the Road.'Billy's acoustic guitar is the center of the sound, and it comes acrosssoft, clear and resonant against his reedy voice. The album's opener"The Way" shows that in spite of the more comfortable musical feel ofthe album, Billy is still not content, with its opening line "Wintercomes and snow / I can't marry you, you know" and its string-backedchorus, "Love me the way I love you." The broken romance dominates thealbum. Bonnie Billy can be imagined sitting by a fire in a tiny woodencottage in some Southern backwater, rehashing the heartache and penningbitter lyrics like "Constancy and love is a joke / I'm not afraid ofmeeting you / I'm fickle and I brag about it / neither will I cry foryou." Perhaps the most stunning song is "Wolf Among Wolves" where Billymost closely approaches his past 'Darkness' ghostliness. In betweenoccasional ambient gusts, Billy intones, "Why can't I be loved as whatI am? / A wolf among wolves and not as a man / among men." At times,the album can drag, particularly with the repetitive chorus of "Joy andJubilee," but for the most part, Oldham's words and arraignments areenough to keep you interested. "Master and Everyone" fleshes outOldham's melancholy songwriting with the addition of female backupvocals and instrumentation like strings, winds, and accordion. Mostimportantly, they are not used needlessly or overbearingly, butsparingly and sound like a perfect fit for the quiet, folky atmosphere.Oldham has a knack for crafting soulful, emotional songs and 'Masterand Everyone' demonstrates that he's only getting stronger. -
Will Oldham's third full-length release as Bonnie 'Prince' Billycontinues to develop the intimate, personal songwriting he's known for.The sparse, haunting tone of 'I See a Darkness' has given way to a muchwarmer, lush feel that began to emerge on 'Ease on Down the Road.'Billy's acoustic guitar is the center of the sound, and it comes acrosssoft, clear and resonant against his reedy voice. The album's opener"The Way" shows that in spite of the more comfortable musical feel ofthe album, Billy is still not content, with its opening line "Wintercomes and snow / I can't marry you, you know" and its string-backedchorus, "Love me the way I love you." The broken romance dominates thealbum. Bonnie Billy can be imagined sitting by a fire in a tiny woodencottage in some Southern backwater, rehashing the heartache and penningbitter lyrics like "Constancy and love is a joke / I'm not afraid ofmeeting you / I'm fickle and I brag about it / neither will I cry foryou." Perhaps the most stunning song is "Wolf Among Wolves" where Billymost closely approaches his past 'Darkness' ghostliness. In betweenoccasional ambient gusts, Billy intones, "Why can't I be loved as whatI am? / A wolf among wolves and not as a man / among men." At times,the album can drag, particularly with the repetitive chorus of "Joy andJubilee," but for the most part, Oldham's words and arraignments areenough to keep you interested. "Master and Everyone" fleshes outOldham's melancholy songwriting with the addition of female backupvocals and instrumentation like strings, winds, and accordion. Mostimportantly, they are not used needlessly or overbearingly, butsparingly and sound like a perfect fit for the quiet, folky atmosphere.Oldham has a knack for crafting soulful, emotional songs and 'Masterand Everyone' demonstrates that he's only getting stronger. -
I'm now in my third year of hosting a regular "rock" show on a collegeradio station (I've been hosting various other experimental andnon-thematic shows since 1986 mind you), and I have been finding myselfincreasingly disgruntled with the current trends of "rock" music. Itseems that the best songwriters in bands who employ theguitar/bass/drums format play both very slowly and timidly, while theupbeat, more energetic stuff is mostly sloppy, painfully derivative,poorly written, or too damned wimpy. While an increasing amount ofnoisy, more experimental rock is feverishly exciting, none of it reallyfits in to the first radio show of the morning—the "morningdrive"—where I can provide a viable alternative to mall-rock and talkradio on the rest of the dial without getting too abrasive, weird ordepressing. Bearing that in mind, it is no wonder that I find Kinski'sthird album (their Sub Pop debut) a long overdue, much needed,refreshing break from the mundane. Nearly all of the songs areinstrumental, most stretch close to or over the ten minute mark, andall are fully developed with multiple movements and incorporateinfluences from a number of styles. It starts with the hum of a tone,and then another and another, patiently layering on top of each otheruntil the first guitar comes in, and just when the song appears to havereached its identity, BANG!, the -real- meat kicks in. Get used tobeing surprised. While this Seattle quartet has been seen spending timewith hippies and dronesters, thanks to performances at Terrastock andconcerts with other strange attractors, their sound is neitherintrospective nor headphonic, climaxing with enough noise to please theinner child and a rhythm strong and solid enough to get the wallsshaking to the beat. At times, there's a distorted wall of blurryguitar sound but nobody's gazing at their shoes. After the first twoinstrumental songs, bassist Lucy Atkinson takes to the microphone, withthe fast-paced, aggressive "Rhode Island Freakout," which could easilymake any Pixies fan cream their jeans. Add that to the echo-ladenopening/white noise distortion ending of the following "Schedule forUsing Pillows & Beanbags," the blissful drum-less gem, "I Think IBlew It," and the sitar-esque guitar sounds on "Your Lights Are (OutOr) Burning Badly," and Kinksi are clearly far from being a one-trickpony or easily classifiable. This album is gratifying enough with onlyeight songs that total nearly an hour. Remember their name: no doubt itwill be dropped much more in the coming years.
Admittedly, I do buy my share of soft, white, fluffy stuff. It's calledtoilet paper. While the duo of Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin haveproven themselves to be fantastic producers, none of the songs on theirfirst proper album seem to go anywhere. At times, the instrumentationcan be impressive and well-balanced, but other times it can be klutzyand oversaturated. In all examples, however, the melodies simply don'tchange for the nearly eight minutes of each track. What works is whencrystalline acoustic guitar riffs, piano melodies, and string soundsare finley matched with subtle breaks. This trend is established fromthe first few seconds of the album and thankfully continues for most ofthe first part of the disc. However, quite often the songs becomeburied in too many layers, consisting of the painfully British sound ofmuted brass instruments, tacky scratches and irritating vocal samples.For example: while the flute and bass guitar on "Ramblin' Man" arebecoming blissfully intoxicating, the obnoxious British twit listingoff cities forces me to hit the "next" button on the CD player. Matchthat with the obvious American influenced sounds of pedal steel guitarand harmonica and it's almost as if Lemon Jelly are suffering from anidentity crisis. Ironically, and this is in their favor, each song doeshave a clear identity and I never get the feeling that I've listened tothe same song eight times. I admit the guilt of having, "All the Ducksare Swimming in the Water" running in my head over and over again, andthe black-and-white horror film score feel of "Experiement No. 6" isfun too, but oversaturating a song with instruments and not changingthe melody doesn't change make for a listen worthy of repeating. 
It seems like every week a new tribute album comes out where artistsfrom another genre show homage to bands that they've enjoyed or beeninfluenced by. This is not one of those albums. The Lounge Brigade, forno apparent reason other than the pure comedic value, have taken someof Eminem's more popular numbers and made them lounge. And although itseemed incredibly unlikely to me, the results are not all bad. To behonest, I'm not a big fan of Eminem, though I will admit he has animpressive delivery. The Lounge Brigade doesn't even try to keep up,and it's one of the only entertaining things about this release. On"Without Me," Tony Calzone, the band leader, tries to welcome us to theshow, and he's butted out of the way by another vocalist delivering araspy dismissal in true Marshall Mathers style. Then he flubs half ofthe lyrics or outright changes them as he clears his throat repeatedly.This is not a big band, as just four members handle keyboards, guitars,percussion, bass, and the occasional trumpet. The Brigade tries to makeup for their roster shortcomings, though, with unique arrangements."Stan," the track based on a horrible Dido song called "Thank You," isamped up into a Salsa number where the vocalists take a rest. The Didopart is replaced with horns, and piano picks up Em's lines, saving usfrom more lackluster performance by the vocalists, but that's the onlyplus. The one song where the delivery is close to the original, andtherefore something of a standout, is "My Name Is," where the vocalistcomes across like Steve Lawrence, even providing a corny "verse two"introduction. There's even an original composition called "Loungin'With Stan," but even that can't save this release from what doomed itall along. Why remake Eminem as lounge? Even if it is just for thecomedy of it, it's not that funny, and it's a one-note joke. 
Another theme/concept record from Bip-Hop is Tonne's 'Soundtoy,' whichis effectively a product demo for a sound sequencing device that Tonnecreated as an alternative to the big budget, feature-laden audiopackages that drive modern electronic music production. The Soundtoyapplication is included on this disc for listeners to try out, and itallows the user to drag and drop colored squares that represent a bankof sixteen sounds onto a grid of twelve moving lines. Like the boardgame Othello, Soundtoy takes a minute to learn but a lifetime tomaster. The interface is intuitive and even fun to play with, but asthere is no quantization feature and no way to record your drags anddrops for playback at a later time, getting something you really wantout of it is another story. But creating whole tracks, like the eightsongs also included on this disc, does not apper to be the real aim ofSoundtoy. Instead, the artists involved primarily used the applicationto come up with new rhythmic combinations that a rigid sequencingprogram might not have helped to produce. Scanner, Si-cut.db, HakanLidbo, and Tonne himself each contribute two tracks a piece of noodlyelectronic tones drenched in reverb and delay, and after listening tothe album straight through three times in a row it was very difficultto pinpoint any one artist's signature sound or contribution. Expect alot of click n cut style percussion stabs, warm sampled bits fromanalog keyboards, and structures that flirt with the idea of beats butdon't usually manage much more than fractured, off-time rhythms. Theincluded sound files from the artists involved should keep bedroomlaptoppers busy hacking and remixing for a while, and the musicincluded, while not a necessary advancement in the world of computermusic, is fresh enough to earn a spot in the rotation at your favoritechill out spot.
This disc by Scanner and Tonne is a CD version of an installation theycreated for a London-based art show at the Institute of ContemporaryArts. It expands on the original concept that used location recordingsaround London to form a sound installation by adding themed pieces fromMilan, Tokyo, Montreal, and New York City. There is so much detail inthe process that created this record, that it has raised questions forme that hinder listening to the album as a simple recording. Should Ibe interested in the process that creates the resulting sound or focuson pulling meanings solely from the experience of the recording? Wheredoes the line between spectator and creator get blurred with works thatsimply reproduce a moment in time and space for later listening? Atwhat point do we become so fascinated with aural snapshots of real-lifeevents that we spend more time listening to someone else's version of awalk through New York City than we do our own? Is this what they meanby postmodernism? I'm not sure where to go with answers on any of thosetopics, but Scanner and Tonne provide a sound collage that is true tothe title of this collection. Each track is a manipulated collection ofcommonplace sounds from familiar environments that tend to reflect, ifnot always comment on the location in question. "Tokyo" begins withfield recordings from Japanese subways and melts into a nearlytechno-ish rumble that captures the dehumanizing effects of Tokyo'smassive scale and the isolation of its millions of commuters crammedcheek to cheek into trains, but never connecting. "Montreal" findsScanner returning to his namesake with stolen cell phone conversationsand the trademark high pitched whine of radio feedback. "Milano" is amelancholic abstraction that flirts with the introduction of rhythmicfigures that are never fully realized and buries the source material ina wash of synthetic pulses. These days, an artist can take a recordingof someone ordering a pizza and turn it into a convincing 808 kick drumand bass pattern, so it's not surprising that musicians like thesechoose artificially limited sets of sound sources to see where they cantake them. But while listening to 'Sound Polaroids,' I am reminded thatthere's no substitute for experience. These recordings are distilledthrough a very specific set of personal criteria set out by the artistsand they don't sound too terribly different in tone than a lot ofScanner's other work. These recordings don't capture the life andvibrancy and complexity of the environments they are reflecting as muchas they hint at a way to compose whatever music you want with whateverset of sounds you've got. 
There's no denying the quality of individual tracks on this disc ofimprovised electro-acoustic music, but I am reluctant to recommend it.This is because I am really not sure what the disc actually is, or whatit is intended to be. Perhaps I should list its contents, in order ofappearance: two brief pieces by a duo called Alma Fury, who play moogand sampler. One lengthy quartet piece by Alma Fury joined by YasuhiroOtani (computer player whose appearance on the "Four Focuses" compturned my head pleasantly a few years ago) and turntablist OtomoYoshihide. Then two pieces by multi-instrumentalist Xavier Charles, ashort duo by Charles and Otomo, and two more short solo improvisationsby Charles. Now I ask you: is this a compilation? The reappearance ofOtomo on two tracks suggests that some larger framework is in place,though what that could be is unclear. So is it a group withinterchanging members, like the great "Four Focuses" CD? Maybe, butthen we never hear Charles with Alma Fury, and Otani only appears onone piece. It could be that this is a document of a single concert,which would explain the variousness of the disc's contents but, alas,such a possibility is never addressed in the package. That a date andlocation is only supplied for the quartet track implies that the otherrecordings were made at some other date and place, so my theory hasthat hole in it. Is it a meeting of Japanese and French musicians? Ifso, then why are we not presented with solo pieces by Otani and Otomo?I just can't tell what unites these pieces of sound into An Album, so Iam left to describe the music by itself.
It's rather ironic that a guy who refused to accept the technology ofemail (which predates Non recordings actually) has released an albummixed in 5.1 surround for compatible high fidelity DVD systems.(Unfortunately, months after owning this, I have yet to experience thehorror in full surround.) Following Non's brightest album, (theunofficial tribute to Phil Spector and girl groups, 'Receive theFlame'), Boyd Rice strays further away from Non's noise roots, yetreturns to a dark sound, roping in grand orchestral and choral samplesto the mix of fire and death. 'Children of the Black Sun' is Rice's alltoo brief aural tour of the underworld, where seven spots highlightvarious mythologies' takes on the darker side of the afterlife and whatkeeps the world cyclic. While the album is potentially rich withfascinating themes, I feel the music is rather undeveloped, far tooshort, and somewhat haphazardly tossed together. Opening with a briefvocal recording, the sound immediately morphs into a heavy drone. Harpsweeps, viola strikes and distant screams additionally color thesoundtrack of "Arka," the place where Cain was exiled to after hisexpulsion from Eden. Without pause, the tour continues on through"Black Sun," where a single note horn drones on in the foreground whilean orchestra holds painfully for resolution it never sees. The tensionworks but the development sounds far from complete. From here, the tourcontinues through five more locations, gliding from track to trackwithout stopping, each incorporating a new set of sounds. The distantmachinery-like noises of "Serpent of the Abyss" subside to fliespicking off tasty morsels on a rotting corpse on "The UndergroundStream," while the echoed choral loops carefully matched with cracklingfire and crashing waves on "The Fountain of Fortune" give way to thealbums closer, the 51-second "Son of the Sun," where a distortedbackwards speech clumsily accompanies an unexciting orchestral loop.(Spin it backwards for extra insult if you really find the need toshell out the cash for 31 minutes of average drone loops.) I could begravely mistaken on the value of this album, since I haven'texperienced the full spectrum, but musically, I'm going to make aneducated guess that the listening experience doesn't get a whole lotbetter. 
This CD is a recording from the Summer of 2000 of a Berlin performanceby Ilpo Vãisãnen and Dirk Dresselhaus (i.e. Schneider TM). Vãisãnen isplaying the typewriter, that beautiful device pictured inside thePanasonic "Kulma" CD, while Dresselhaus is playing electric guitar. Themusic is electric noise improvisation and is generally prettyenjoyable. This is nice music to play while doing the dishes, ironingor checking email. But the trouble with that is, as the music is mostlynot very attention-grabbing, it's easy for the mind to wander andsuddenly I find that the CD has come to its end and, with a measure ofguilt, I admit that I can't recall much of what happened. It is notfair to expect a 45-minute improvisation to be enthralling all the waythrough. Even if it were, how much of that can we expect to remainafter the transfer through CD into your living room, with the soundtoned down and smoothed out, with the drama and tension of the eventreplaced by the banality of everyday surroundings? So I get theheadphones on and concentrate. (This enhanced CD has a couple of videostaken from the performance that can be played on a computer and,despite the video effects, the images help me to visualize the event.)Under these conditions, this turns out to be an exciting performance.Vãisãnen is the more dominant player in duo. While rather conventionaland fairly transparent, the guitar playing is always tasteful,sometimes exciting, and very sympathetic to its surroundings, thesebeing presumably Vãisãnen's doing. The same personality known from PanSonic is immediately recognizable but is largely without the Pan Sonicsound. After years playing a unique instrument it is perhaps no wonderthat a personal style emerges. Vãisãnen introduces considerableoriginality to the unfolding process at several points throughout theshow. My only quibbles are the smart-ass track mastering and theinscription on the inside of the digipack that says "set the volume andlisten." But perhaps this is no more than the anticipation that certainin the audience will in fact set the volume and do the dishes orironing instead. 
When Stereolab burst onto the music scene, critics and fans praised thefresh sound of a band who incorporated the energy and drive of groupslike Neu! combined with the artful mentalities of 1960s French popmusic. Over the years, the group's recordings have evolved from a raw,analogue sound to a much more refined, digital one. Live, however, thegroup has consistently proved their worth, evolving with theexploration of more territories and unrelentlessly dishing out thenoise, graduating to a tight, fully realized collective. This two-disccollection captures ten years of BBC radio sessions, that livein-studio moment where a band's weaknesses can easily be exposed to theworld. (Perhaps it's through these recordings they decided it was timeto get a new drummer after the first session, and perhaps they gave thebass guitarist another chance to tune up after "Check and DoubleCheck." The revolving door of keyboardists remains a mystery, however!)It's safe to say, however, that a number of these recordings that haveheld up over time, sounding remarkably as fresh as the day they werefirst broadcast. From the early low-fi days I'm reminded of the band Ifell in love with: a group who was still sort of learning their placebut were doing a fantastic job regardless. It wasn't long after therecordings that songs like "Wow and Flutter" and "French Disko" werestuck in the heads of thousands of fans and with all-out jams like"Metronomic Underground," classics of the 1990s were born. This is thelongest-spanning collection of Stereolab music issued and it providesan excellent document on their evolution as skilled players andwriters, without the advantages of studio tricks, re-takes andoverdubs, something their most recent albums might be a little toooversaturated with these days.
