28 May 2012

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Albums and Singles

Even with his recent return to the guitar and reactivation of Main, Robert Hampson has still made time to record new material under his own name, with another album to follow this Fall. Repercussions is not quite an album but more a compilation of recent works, using different source materials and compositional strategies, but all bear that unmistakable stamp of quality Hampson is known for.

Editions Mego

Répercussions is three distinct pieces compiled into one album:the title track, commissioned by the GRM for the Akousma Festival in 2011; "De la Terre à la Lune," from a 2009 planetarium performance in France, and finally "Antarctica Ends Here," which was previously released on a split 10" with Cindytalk.

The name of the title piece is a completely descriptive one, constructed from a variety of percussive sources, from drums to piano to metal grates and found objects.The distant, resonating thump that opens up the track is perhaps the clearest use of drums in the entire work: everything else is transformed and processed beyond recognition.The traditional and non-traditional instrumentation is reconstructed and mutated into crackling textures, electronic beacons, resonating bells and shimmering waves of sound.The second half is a bit more dissonant, with darker undercurrents swelling and falling over heavily treated clinks and clatters.It takes a turn for the quiet later on, with the occasional crash or bang from some unidentifiable source shaking things up.

"De la Terre à la Lune" is conceptually based around early NASA space missions, and acts as a follow-up to the Vectors track "Ahead-Only The Stars," channeling that same mix of sci-fi imagery with careful electro-acoustic composition.Quiet ocean-like waves of sound are paired with a mechanical hum before a rhythmic electronic pulse comes in, sounding somewhere between a broken sequencer and a distant radio transmission.Recurring static, again resembling far away communications appear throughout, with the odd hums and tones of unclear origin coming across like the ambient sound of technology from some alternate future.

The most striking aspect of these two pieces is that there is a constant, evolving dynamic to them.While both clock in at over 20 minutes, they evolve so much that there is no time to become stagnant.Like Hampson's recent Main performances, a constant flow of sound is the theme, all the while intricate layers and tactile noises appear and dissolve at a rapid pace.

The slight exception to this is the closing "Antarctica Ends Here," which adheres to a more steady course in comparison, though not in a boring sense at all.Recordings of wind coursing through bamboo fields are paired with processed and plaintive piano work.The slow, traditional sounding notes are combined with stretched and processed recordings that are stretched into melodic infinity.Compared to the other two, these overall sounds and themes stay pretty static, but slowly build in density and complexity toward the end.Not in a repetitious sense, but it remains more "on course" than the other two.

Robert Hampson seems to be active in occasional spurts of activity, and every time he has released music, it has been brilliant.From Vectors a few years back to this album, and of course including his expansive discographies as Main and with Loop, I have yet to hear anything other than genius from him.It should be noted that Répercussions includes the same material on a multi-track DVD Audio disc, but I did not have access to that for this review.Given that the first two pieces were originally multi-channel installations, I am certain it only adds to its greatness.

samples:

• R√©percussions
• De la Terre √† la Lune
• Antarctica Ends Here

 

27 May 2012

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Albums and Singles

This has got to be one of the most improbable, altruistic, and quixotic box sets ever produced, as it compiles 12 albums worth of almost entirely unreleased material from Oliveros' fertile early years.  That, of course, means: 1.) none of her early masterpieces like "Bye Bye Butterfly" are here, and 2.) nothing at all is included from the wildly different (and superior) work that she has done over the last four decades.  Those caveats, coupled with the inarguable fact that no artist on earth has a dozen killer albums worth of vault material lying around, makes this a pretty undesirable prospect for the merely curious or for anyone looking for a definitive retrospective.  For serious fans of early electronic music, however, this is an absolute goldmine.

Important

The length and breadth of Pauline Oliveros' career is pretty astonishing by any standard, as she has essentially lived two equally visionary, yet totally disparate, creative lives.  Superficially, the pieces collected here have zero relation to my previous conception of Pauline as an artist.  In fact, it is difficult to imagine her even listening to music like this, let alone creating it (and so much of it besides).  The reason for that is the sheer artificiality inherent in creating sounds solely from oscillators, wave generators, and modular synthesizers.  Oliveros' work over the last several decades seems aggressively antithetical to anything resembling inhuman buzzes and bleeps, instead employing an almost entirely organic palette centered around her iconic accordion and an array of collaborators.  On a deeper level, however, it all makes sense: she just found a different way to explore her lifelong fascination with acoustics, the fluidity of time, and the way masses of frequencies interact with each other.  Her means have a consistent thread as well, as her technological creativity is now employed to find ways to make very human and "real" sounds seem hyper-real.

The twelve discs of Reverberations are arranged in chronological order with the location of their origin included as well, which makes following Pauline's trajectory both enticing and easy.  The earliest piece is 1961's "Time Perspectives," a tape-based work that was recorded in Oliveros' home utilizing the acoustic properties of her bathtub.  It is a bit of an anomaly, as it is the set's sole musique concrète piece, mostly derived from water noises and other non-musical sounds.

The next two discs cover 1964-1966, the period in which Pauline, Terry Riley, and others, armed with WWII surplus equipment, founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center.  This period is notable for several reasons.  For one, Pauline recorded one of her greatest pieces during this time, the aforementioned "Bye Bye Butterfly" (not included, sadly).  Secondly, it coincided with her plunge into the world of electronically generated beeps, buzzes, whines, and hums (the "Mnemonics" series), an artistic path that she followed for the duration of this compilation's scope.  Finally, it should be noted that Oliveros had an unusual approach to tape music, eschewing cutting-and-splicing of her peers for an obsession with tape-based delay and an insistence upon pieces that could be replicated live and in real-time.

Later in 1966, Pauline headed to the University of Toronto's Electronic Music Studio, which was much better equipped.Even though she was there less than a year, this was a hugely productive period for her and comprises five entire discs of the set.  This is where things start to get interesting, both from a musical perspective and a theoretical one.  Musically, the various electronic hums and whines that characterized her Tape Center work are used for far more ambitious, vibrant, and complexly textured compositions–this is where Pauline's work becomes truly distinctive.  The actual sounds being generated are not noticeably different than those generated in the far more modest San Francisco studio, but the complexity and effectiveness of their interactions is on an entirely different level.

Correspondingly, a few of her more famous works ("Big Mother is Watching You" and "I of IV") originated from this period.  While neither is included, many variations and concurrent works are here, so their absence is not terribly glaring.  Also, some of the less famous pieces are quite visceral and weirdly contemporary-sounding: she could probably still tear the roof off of a noise show with a piece like "The Day I Disconnected the Erase Head and Forgot to Reconnect It."

I was most fascinated, however, by the theory behind Pauline's work at this time, a theory which caused UTEMS' director to accuse her of dabbling in the black arts:  Oliveros set all of the studio's twelve square-wave generators to frequencies outside the range of human hearing, relying on the clashing frequencies to create their own audible sounds (this is called "the heterodyne technique").  She also discovered that the pressure waves caused by unheard high frequency sounds can still be felt and that some frequencies created distortion by interacting with the bias frequency of her tape machines, all of which I found fascinating.

Near the end of 1966, Pauline became the director of the relocated Tape Center at Mills College.  This period takes up 2½ discs and yielded her classic "Alien Bog."  Again, that is not included here, but several other "Bog" variations are and they are pretty weird and divergent compared to what came before them.  In a perverse way, they are the first harbinger of Oliveros' imminent and dramatic change in direction–while they certainly sound as artificial and electronic as ever, they were a conscious attempt to replicate the omnipresent insectoid hum that emerged from the Texas wetlands of her youth.  Her Texan childhood manifests itself in another (more unexpected) way as well, as the liner notes divulge that her love of tape delay is rooted in the echo and delay used in Western Swing and jukebox hits like Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High the Moon."

Pauline's "Bog-period" bout with mutant naturalism was short-lived, however, as the final two discs plunge into remarkably caustic noise.  This is especially surprising given that they coincide with her acceptance of a teaching position in the music department of UC San Diego.  While the obligations of teaching certainly slowed her creative output (and brought this phase of her career to an end), Pauline's time at UCSD ultimately turned out to be very significant and fruitful philosophically: she befriended physicist Lester Ingber and became extremely interested in how the mind focuses on sound, shaping decades of her work to come.  Also, in a more general way, she simply became increasingly disinterested in the isolated, hermetic world of her studio and more concerned with exploring the potential of both other people and the natural world.

Taken as a solely musical endeavor, Reverberations is a pretty exhausting set with many similar-sounding and very long pieces, but there are certainly some great ones among them (and they are practically all appearing for the first time).  More importantly, however, this set was clearly a labor of love on Important's part and it shows in every way.  I was especially impressed by the liner notes, which were genuinely colorful, understandable, and informative.  Bluntly speaking, there is not a lot of overt personality or variation in how oscillators, wave generators, and early synthesizers sound (regardless of who is playing them), so learning about why and how a piece came into existence enhances the listening experience immeasurably and adds several new layers to appreciate.  Also, I learned some neat Oliveros trivia that made me even more predisposed to enjoy her work, like the fact that she used to play shows with oscillators mischievously and deliberately set to the resonant frequency of the venue, often resulting in a mass exodus. As a result, Reverbations feels far more like an engaging history of a restless and groundbreaking artist than a mere compilation.  I still very much prefer Pauline's later work, but having a deeper understanding of the convoluted path she took to get there makes me appreciate it even more.

Samples:

• The Day I Disconnected the Erase Head and Forgot to Reconnect It
• Mnemonics 3
• Boone Bog

 

 

27 May 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Pauline Oliveros' best-known and influential work is 1989's Deep Listening, recorded in a massive, reverberant cistern.  In the years since that landmark effort, Pauline has founded The Deep Listening Institute, the Deep Listening Band, and performed many mesmerizing concerts in her unending crusade to explore the untapped potential of space, place, and (of course) reverberation.  These two previously unreleased albums capture some of the final recordings her band made with (the late) long-term collaborator/pianist/electronics wizard David Gamper. Although both performances occurred over the course of a January 2011 Seattle residency, they almost sound like two completely different bands: Octagonal Polyphony luxuriates in sublime, slow-motion drones while Great Howl becomes pretty nerve-jangling.

Important

Releasing actual albums has always been something of a tricky and flawed situation for the Deep Listening Band, as the way that sound is experienced is a very large part of their art and that can be quite site-specific.  Some aspects of their vision translate well, such as the 45-second reverb of Deep Listening's cistern or the way that overlapping layers blur together and interact.  However, approximating the omnidirectional immersion of an actual concert seems pretty damn impossible due to the unusual number and location of the speakers involved.  And then, of course, there is the added impact of the band's self-designed Expanded Instrument System (EIS), which I do not understand at all, but seems to mess with both time and space and allow players to "perform in the past, present, and future simultaneously."  The gist is that it sounds like the band is a hell of a lot larger than it actually is (a trio).  Trombonist Stuart Dempster actually states in the liner notes that countless hours of listening, re-listening, mixing, and remixing managed to capture a hint of the experience and that seems like a plausible estimate to me.  This music doesn't strike me from all directions at once, but it undeniably has a unique presence and power.  It doesn't hurt that the music itself is pretty amazing too.

"Bell Dance," the first of two pieces on Octagonal Polyphony, is appropriately based upon a rippling lattice of twinkling, chiming bells.  It is not especially dance-able though, as it is filled out by lengthy sustained tones from woodwinds and Dempster's trombone.  Gradually, however, it becomes more and more disorienting, as occasional dissonances start to creep in and something that sounds like a plucked violin begins playing an insistent motif that makes it all sound like a badly derailed Steve Reich piece.  While it undeniably achieves an appealing degree of complexity and unpredictability, it gets a bit too bombastic and trombone-heavy for my liking at about the halfway point.  It regains some momentum briefly though, as a snarled surge of didgeridoo heralds quite a cacophonous interlude.  The last five minutes or so end up being pretty weird, jumbled, and dissonant, leaving me a bit conflicted about the piece.  I think the actual content is ultimately a bit lacking, but it is so dense, multilayered, and dynamic that it almost overcomes that...almost.  I definitely give them credit for making didgeridoos sound scary and heavy though.

"Dreamport" is built upon a low, undulating throb and some shimmering, uncomfortably dense accordion harmonies.  Given the involvement of the EIS, it is pretty impossible to figure out who is playing what and when, but the piece quickly becomes incredibly dense and vibrant with overlapping textures and overtones.  Though I can pick out Dempster's trombone and some very ominous didgeridoos, it achieves such a quavering, skittering immensity within minutes that individual instruments become irrelevant.  More importantly, it is an absolutely wonderful piece of music–I could not be happier that it unfolds for 22-minutes and found myself gradually turning it up louder and louder.  While "Dreamport" ostensibly adheres to the structure of drone music, it is so massive, dynamic, and uneasy that it bears almost no resemblance to most other work in the genre.  To a certain degree, it captures the Deep Listening Band at their sustained best, but even that pales a bit when compared to the more disturbed and visceral companion effort discussed below.

• Bell Dance
• Dreamport (except #1)
• Dreamport (excerpt #2)

Great Howl at Town Hall deceptively begins in very similar droning fashion to Octagonal Polyphony, as "Town Haul" opens with throbbing drones, growling didgeridoo, and deep, accordion-produced breath-like noises.  However, the periphery is a bit more jagged and unhinged: amidst the massing sustained tones, there are all kinds of sharp whines and squeaks, as well as various unidentifiable strangled squawks. By the halfway point, it ceases sounding like drone at all and more closely resembles an especially hallucinatory horror film soundtrack...and then it continues to intensify.  By the end, I started to seriously wonder if I was about to be attacked by a flock or swarm of something ill-intentioned.  That dissonant, uneasy atmosphere pretty much sticks around for entire album, though the tension admittedly ebbs and flows quite a bit (it would be overwhelmingly uncomfortable otherwise).

"Great Haul" is initially a bit less disquieting, as it merely sounds deranged rather than menacing: it has an odd, lurching rhythm and the blurting music sounds drunk, chromatic, and sometimes eerily speech-like (presumably some kind of neat trombone/wah-wah pedal trick).  It is nevertheless an incredibly complicated piece and various layers of field recordings and dissonant string-like noises rapidly escalate into a crescendo that is about as apocalyptic and overwhelming as it gets.  It must have been very memorable and surreal for concert attendees to experience such face-melting intensity from a trio of senior citizens armed with accordions and trombones.  Though it eventually subsides into a shimmering coda with lingering flashes of dissonance, it is essentially 12-and-a-half minutes of unbridled awesomeness that is scarier and more innovative than 95% of the extreme music being made today.

The longer "Great Horned Howl" starts off on an unexpectedly pastoral note, as Gamper's piano ripples amiably without any significant threat of being overwhelmed by dissonance.  Notably, he manages to simultaneously call to mind both Steve Reich and Conlon Nancarrow, which is an unusual feat indeed (his Reich-ian repeating patterns start to multiply and some are sped-up and pitch-shifted to an inhuman degree).  Around the midpoint, things settle into a strange gibbering and skittering lull before getting very weird indeed.  I wish I could I say knew what was going on, but I definitely do not–all I know as that the piece begins being populated with cartoon voices and Halloween sound effects like howling wolves and cackling witches and that it is all bat-shit crazy.  I think there may also be some monkeys and birds thrown into the mix as well.  While I appreciate being totally blind-sided and wrong-footed by a piece of music, it is simply too unhinged and outré even for me (especially at nearly 20-minutes long).

The album closes with "Growl Howl" (someone in the band is clearly fond of absurdist wordplay), which revisits the skittering/gibbering chromatic aesthetic of the previous piece, sans sound effects.  Then it unexpectedly snowballs into a brief crescendo even more intense than that of "Great Haul," complete with jarring aftershocks.  It is probably one of the heaviest things that I have ever heard, given its context and suddenness.  Curiously, things become subdued, mournful, and strangely beautiful after the outburst, though an ominous rumbling quickly threatens to envelope my welcome respite of conventional beauty.  The rumbles eventually triumph, but the doomed, melancholy motif somehow becomes even more moving as it is being consumed.  The last five minutes of the piece don't quite ever recapture either the visceral impact or the emotional resonance of the preceding ten, but Oliveros' uneasily dissonant accordion settles into a steady rhythm that calls to mind slow, deep breaths, ending the album in a completely appropriate way (like recovering from a traumatic scare or other harrowing experience).

Normal rules for music criticism don't quite feel like they apply to these albums, as they seem somehow more vivid and multi-dimensional than other music: the content is almost secondary to the immensity and vibrancy of the sounds being created.  While neither album is an unqualified success and the trio make a number of musical decisions that I am not entirely fond of, I am nevertheless left feeling like that does not matter terribly much at all.  In fact, I feel like I indirectly experienced something rather monumental–when Dempster, Oliveros, and Gamper (along with unsung hero/engineer Michael McCrea) are at their best, they are absolutely staggering and seem more like a force of nature than a band.  The Deep Listening Band was (is?) a wholly unique phenomenon: while it is hardly a secret that bizarre and dissonant avant-garde music is infinitely more palatable when coupled with presence, immediacy, and gut-level power, no one else has perfected that difficult balance quite as beautifully as this.

Samples:

• Great Haul
• Great Horned Howl
• Growl Howl

 

 

21 May 2012

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Albums and Singles

Named after the groundbreaking 1926 film by Kenji Mizoguchi, this collaboration opens with a very familiar sound found in the first two Vikki Jackman albums: Vikki on piano. Once again it is a slow, delicate, and serene melody, but it is brief and a quite deceptive introduction to the album, conceptually. There is very little of the bright piano as the record unfolds.

private release via Faraway Press

While I am versed on Andrew Chalk, I don't have any frame of reference for Jean-Noel Rebilly. Chalk is certainly versatile enough to manipulate moods and feelings with what sounds like the slightest changes in textures and timbre. A Paper Doll's Whisper of Spring shares the very direct characteristic of Vikki's most recent solo album, Whispering Pages: the songs vary in length but are all grounded in a relatively short time, unlike the sidelong pieces on her first album, Of Beauty Reminiscing, where the whole feel was far more dreamlike. Paper Doll's Whisper... is not as bright as Whispering Pages, however, and is somewhat odd to listen to this time of year as the summer is beginning.

Great Britain isn't exactly known for its pleasant weather and this spring has been an exceptionally grey and rainy one, so it's probably no surprise that this album is a product of the winter and cold spring. There's a sense of sadness and longing, which is quite a change from what I considered was an uplifting album. Following the under a minute opening "Mist," the trio present two pieces absent of a recognizable piano. "Nami" is a gorgeous interplay with almost inaudible low rumblings, matched with long, echoing sounds that seem to whisper every now and again, while what sounds like a plucked instrument of some sort is providing the only element that hints at melody. More importantly is the sort of feeling of sorrow, which is something I wasn't expecting. "Snowflake," which follows, has a sense of longing, perhaps a sleep that desires to wake up soon.

It isn't until "Magnolia" where the piano is identifiably audible again. If "Snowflake" is the longing to wake up, "Magnolia" is certainly the break of day. On this beautiful album centerpiece, it seems like the piano is only accompanied by the faint sounds of a wind instrument, possibly a clarinet, and the echoes of the piano looping back. All around is a delicate sense of stillness but the mood is far more uplifting and alive with hope.

What follows seems more like sketches, as each of the four remaining songs are extremely brief at around four minutes and under. With music this patient, a two or three minute piece doesn't have the time to fully develop, especially in "Wandering," where the echoes seem to quiet down to almost nothing in the middle and swell back up again before it fades out, almost unnaturally. "Plume" sounds like the reintroduction of the clarinet that may have been heard in "Magnolia," with a very unnerving and dissonant play between that, the piano, and possibly a very low frequency bass. This piece is under two minutes and also fades unnaturally, suggesting that it could have gone on much longer with much less than desirable results. Now I'm left with the sense of longing for something that could have become out of that session which could have been more rewarding as a much longer and more developed piece.

"Whispers" closes the album appropriately with a play between a softer, more somber piano and string-like accompaniment, and the mood is far more of a sunset than the feeling of sunrise on "Magnolia." While I do enjoy it and can appreciate its beauty I feel like we got to this point a little too fast. Even though the album is nearly 45 minutes, Paper Doll's Whisper... almost seems like it went by too quickly.

Once again the duo of Jackman and Chalk have assembled an amazingly special and personal package, this one is a fold out constructed of an embossed paper, affixed artwork, and a beautiful hand crafted inside with a vellum lining. Unfortunately this is now sold out at the source, so the only resources to locate the album at this point are stores and auctions. I hope that this trio meets again, however, to more fully develop some of what seems like sketch-work that characterizes the last bits of the album.

samples:

• Snowflake
• Magnolia
• Whispers

21 May 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

An enigmatic project out of the wilds of Madison, Wisconsin, this duo, with connections to the likes of Kinit Her, Burial Hex, and many more projects, weave together an unlikely combination of medieval folk, post-rock, and electronic sounds into two side-long pieces that channel a variety of moods, though most of them are cast with some level of darkness.

Brave Mysteries

The A side of this vinyl, "Helix I," is where the medieval vibe comes through most.Through twisted strings, deep cello and trumpet fanfares, there is a sense of time long past emanating throughout, but devoid of any renaissance fair type clichés.Attention is eventually drawn towards passages of guitar, with the strings sinking back into a droning, bleak backing track.The individual instruments meld together into a cold wall of sonic abstraction, becoming more and more pensive as the piece concludes.

The flip side, "Helix II," picks up with unidentifiable sound sources creating a ghostly fog of sound.The occasional higher register note occasionally pierces through the mostly bass heavy drone, but only to be pulled in again.With the appearance of distant, marching rhythms a dramatic flair definitely can be heard, reaching a restrained peak of bombast before pulling back.

Mostly naked, strummed guitar chords fill up this space, with field recordings of thunderstorms and distant trumpets keeping everything rather bleak.Surprisingly, what sounds like an electric guitar kicks in, giving a distinctly modern feel to the song, especially when compared to the other side.The addition of a repeating, percussive pulse is where things start to feel more conventional, but in a good way.

With one half feeling like a bizarre take on medieval folk sounds, and the other bringing up bits of new wave rhythm and synth, Yesodic Helices could be a directionless mess, but the end product is anything but.Drastically different sounds and moods abound, but they all come together in a beautiful, if dark and murky, pair of ghostly long-form pieces that transcend genre labels.

samples:

• Helix I
• Helix II (Excerpt 1)
• Helix II (Excerpt 2)

 

21 May 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The subharcord is an early electronic instrument designed in East Germany during the 1960s. Essentially a subharmonic sound generator, its main function was to be a sound effects generator for TV and film. Only three of the original eight machines are thought to exist, and Bretschneider used one of them in June of 2007 (later remixed and edited in 2011) to create the material that makes up this single piece, a multifaceted composition that stays compelling throughout its entire 37-minute duration.

Line

A single piece broken into eight logical segments, Kippschwingungen works as a long-form composition as well as in smaller, track-sized bites, something that is rare in this world of sound art.It does not require to be heard in full, nor does it sink off into the background if attention is not focused solely on it.

The short opening passage, a monochromatic outburst of wet motor noise panning from side to side, sets the stage for what comes.The following part adds sweeping layers of nasal electronic sound, slowly building into what sounds more like the work of a traditional synthesizer.Slowly but surely a layer of dry clicks and pops arise, balanced precariously between glitches and true rhythmic structures.

These clicks become a dominant motif through the next few movements, an almost jarring outburst that sounds like an over-amplified needle piercing cloth.What sounds like began life as static eventually becomes a full-fledged rhythm, locking into an identifiable structure as a quiet layer of ambient electronics surrounds it.These proto-beats get deeper and rawer, becoming an approximation of a 909 kick drum thump that is panned from side to side.

The textures shift from identifiable rhythms to a jackhammer-like outburst of noise. While it is a thin, brittle sound, the subharcord shows that it was capable of serving its original, sound effect generating purpose.Eventually the repeated pulses slow down, breaking apart like an overworked engine.

The final three segments wander in a more abrasive direction, with the rhythmic throb resembling a helicopter being subjected to an array of processing and effects, staying static but evolving at the same time.Finally the piece comes to its conclusion first as a rapid fire, disorienting blast of sound and then finally a roaring, raw sine wave.

Kippschwingungen is definitely a concept album, but one that manages to cross-over from the often stoic, academic world of sound art and into an abstract, yet memorable piece of electronic music.With the admittedly odd uses of rhythms and textures, there becomes a certain sense of, for lack of a better term, catchiness that comes out.It is this that makes Bretschneider's album stand out amidst a crowd of similar, but less compelling practitioners.

samples:

• Part Two
• Part Four
• Part Seven

 

20 May 2012

Albums and Singles

Originally released to raise money for recording the next Swans studio album, this live album has been repackaged and trimmed down for mass consumption. Capturing the group at one of its many peaks, it provides a thrilling document for those who paid witness or for those poor unfortunates who found themselves unable to attend any of the shows. A wide range of older classics, recent songs and new semi-improvised works make up the set list. If anyone still doubted the sincerity or legitimacy of the reformed Swans, this will silence all arguments.

Read more …

20 May 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Originally released to raise money for recording the next Swans studio album, this live album has been repackaged and trimmed down for mass consumption. Capturing the group at one of its many peaks, it provides a thrilling document for those who paid witness or for those poor unfortunates who found themselves unable to attend any of the shows. A wide range of older classics, recent songs and new semi-improvised works make up the set list. If anyone still doubted the sincerity or legitimacy of the reformed Swans, this will silence all arguments.

Young God

Beginning with "No Words No Thoughts" from the mighty "comeback" album My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, it is easy to hear how the already lengthy intro segment had elongated and mutated into a piece of its own. The album plays for about 15 minutes before "No Words No Thoughts" actually kicks in properly and already the mood is white hot. Swans have always been able to transport me and this is no exception as I am dropped back into that same head space as I was on the 22nd of October last year.

Slowing their pace, the group move through a stunning rendition of "Jim" (where Christoph Hahn’s slide guitar almost brings me to my knees) before unleashing a monster in the form of "Beautiful Child." The twin percussion of Phil Puleo and Thor Harris drive the song on with a ferocity that should be hard to match but the rest of the group follow them, matching them beat for beat and sweat and for sweat. Michael Gira’s voice sounds a bit rough here and throughout the album, undoubtedly due to the strain of giving it his all every night. However, while this should result in a flawed listening experience, it adds to the frantic feeling running through the performance. Other older songs get an airing but it is this and the "Sex God Sex" which stand out in terms of intensity.

This brings me to the new songs, the ones that I was most excited about hearing when these discs landed. All are embryonic jams here (Gira’s commentary on the demo recordings from the first edition suggest that much of the new material on the live album has been reworked or added to) but they show that the spark that ignited the new incarnation of Swans is far from extinguished. Two of the new pieces are tacked on to the beginning of older songs; "The Seer" explodes into "I Crawled," whereas the scorching riot of "93 Ave. B Blues" suddenly drops out into the tender "Little Mouth." Gira still knows how to confound expectations. Unfortunately, one of the new songs played on the tour, "Avatar," was left off the album (though it will be on the next studio album judging from what Gira has been saying).

The centerpiece of We Rose from Our Bed with the Sun in Our Head is "The Apostate," a stand-alone piece which is truly immense (it kept getting bigger and bigger as the tour went on and here it clocks in at just under 17 minutes). Starting like a bastard sibling of the B-side of Einstürzende Neubauten’s album Fuenf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala before nearly launching off into space, I am sorry that the Dublin gig was not at the end of the tour so I could have heard this in the flesh. As Gira ad libs the lyrics over an evolving and complex backing, it is hard not to stop what I am doing and stare dumbfounded at the stereo’s display. If the new album has even a quarter of this power, I will be ecstatic.

Since I received the first edition of this album some months ago, I have played the crap out of it. To me, it is up there with Swans Are Dead and Public Castration Is a Good Idea, forming a holy trinity of live albums (and to me, the definitive Swans sound). It is great to see this getting an airing beyond those who were lucky enough to be on the internet at the time of its original release. While the solo demo recordings for the new album have been left off this version, the meat is still here.

samples:

• Intro/No Words No Thoughts
• Beautiful Child
• 93 Ave. B Blues

 

 

 

20 May 2012

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Albums and Singles

Previously, Gregory Scharpen’s work as Thomas Carnacki has been strange in an unsettling way, finding haunted parts of the psyche and probing them relentlessly. For this latest album, the music retains its strangeness but now there is a fantastic, warm feeling running through the pieces. There remains a darkness lurking beneath the surface but Scharpen’s humor is more evident now than before.

 

Alethiometer Records

Inspired by Matmos’ album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, Scharpen created an album of pieces dedicated to friends and colleagues. The germ of this album can be found on the tribute compilation, Irreplaceable Hand, a fundraiser for Dax Pierson who was paralyzed in 2005. "Bedtime Story for the Most Fragrant Room in the Ward (for Dax)" from that album appears here and forms a poignant focal point for The Oar of Panmuphle. Bearing in mind that this is probably the oldest piece on the album, it sounds like classic Thomas Carnacki as indeterminate clicks, clacks, taps and rattles chatter over an intermittent metallic bowing.

As usual with Scharpen’s work, there are oblique and not-so-oblique references to Surrealism and decadent literature; indeed, the title of the album alludes to one of the characters in Alfred Jarry’s Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, ‘Pataphysician. One of the best such bits comes early in the album with a dusty loop of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ "I Put a Spell on You" forming the backbone of "Death Dance of the Ant Queen (for Dawn)." The pure bad-ass rhythm and the original song’s pseudo-occult subject matter fit perfectly with Scharpen’s approach to music, especially as the sample begins to break down and recombine in unfamiliar patterns as Scharpen takes the everyday and shows us a hidden facet of it.

Elsewhere, it feels like Scharpen is doing the opposite by using commonplace references to obscure things; many of the pieces seem to use in-jokes or private references as starting points. There are a number of rather odd inclusions that do not entirely make sense to an outsider such as part of a lecture by Jon Ronson about his book The Men Who Stare at Goats on the aforementioned "Bedtime Story…" Undoubtedly the weirdest sample appears on "The Last Trip to Clown Town (for Matt)," a queasy vocal refrain by (presumably) a clown which probably raises a smile on Matt Waldron’s face but I find it perplexing and even alienating (it is definitely annoying!). Yet, as irritating as that particular sample is, the piece works terrifically well within the confines of this strange, strange album.

This personal approach to his music, or at the very least personalised approach, has opened up Scharpen’s music beyond the already vibrant forms it inhabited. Scharpen has hinted that there is at least another album of similar works in progress and I am interested to hear the results of further experiments as The Oar of Panmuphle is utterly beguiling.

samples:

• Bedtime Story for the Most Fragrant Room in the Ward (for Dax)
• The Last Trip to Clown Town (for Matt)
• Encoded for the One-Half, and Not the Many (for Kristin)

 

20 May 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This debut release from Matt Harries as Brennendes Gehirn is a veritable storm of turbulent noises, ranging from freeform sketches to the kind of almost-danceable rhythms that I would expect from classic albums from Scorn. Bleakly psychedelic sounds reverberate and bump off each other like living creatures as Harries builds a magnificent range of pieces from the sort of junk sounds that can easily be boring or clichéd in less skilled hands.

 

Ordo Pestilentia

The curtains of noise that form "Chorea Imagnativa Aestimativa" hide a number of items from us. What are those strange voices saying? What is that haunting bell-like vibration? Where are we and is it safe? Harries drops us into a fog of pure sound and the disorientation created by the piece sets the tone for the rest of Epidemics of the Modern Age. Forms emerge from the haze, insectoid and disturbing. "Over Man and Beast His Flaming Sword" continues this apocalyptic cacophony, intensifying and distilling the music into sheets of glorious and almost painful noise.

Suddenly, Harries’ almost impenetrable wall of sound shatters on "Annihilation (Awakens New Life)" to reveal a soothing but slightly unnerving loop of strummed harp and percussion. The surprise use of melody and structure after the amorphous pieces that come earlier in the album reinforces the power of both approaches. While a whole album of in-the-red volume is always welcome, Harries has made something far stronger than just another noise album. He pushes further with "Elegie für Clemens Scheitz," which sounds like someone in an empty car park playing a Tricky album slowed down to an oily, grimy funk. Shimmers of feedback cut through the sluggish, bass-heavy rhythm as queer voices seem to emerge from the air. It is a terrific track to say the least.

Harries returns to a more harsh noise aesthetic for "Chorea Sancti Viti." The longest piece of the album delves into the depths excavated many years ago by Lustmord. I cannot say it is my favorite piece on Epidemics of the Modern Age but I much prefer it to most of that dark ambient malarkey that gets released, possibly because Harries does not allow it to remain too ambient and actively gets me by the ears and forces me to listen to his work. A metallic ringing, like the resonance of a huge drill, comes out of the speakers in waves. The shimmering sound creates a claustrophobic audio net and seems to get tighter and tighter as the piece progresses. It is a hell of a way to finish off, especially given the movement of some of the earlier pieces.

samples:

• Chorea Imagnativa Aestimativa
• Annihilation (Awakens New Life)
• Chorea Sancti Viti