22 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Moribund
 
All the ridiculous associations that mar the face of black metal are absent on Dagonite; faux-Satanism, church burning, sexual brutality, and macho-posturing are all thankfully absent from Brown Jekins' music. Any preoccupation with these topics is either implied by genre association or veiled in the personality of the musicians responsible for these five songs. There is no lyric book, no evangelical declaration of purpose, and few discernible lyrics to get in the way of this record's one and only focus: the guitar.

"Blessed" begins the album with a wash of fuzzed out guitars layered into a cacophonous haze of smoke and electricity. Once the echoey growls make their appearance the rhythm section kicks in and the propulsive power of this project announces itself. It is when these songs develop a sure sense of direction and motion that they become most enjoyable and imaginative. Brown Jenkins produces a tangible tension simply by pulling songs through distinct tempo changes and rhythmic themes. Constant shifts between slow, spacious melodies and fast, highly energetic rhythms cultivate a sense of unpredictability at first, but this shifting shows itself over and over again on each song and eventually transforms into a predictable technique. Nevertheless it is by virtue of this technique that each song progresses smoothly and without any recourse to an instrument other than the guitar. If Brown Jenkins makes any esthetic claims through their music, it's about the purity of the guitar and what it alone is capable of producing.

While the slower moments help to generate anticipation for the next punk or kraut-like section, they tend to be less threatening or severe and more ethereal. At some point during "Dagonite" a medium-tempo guitar solo makes its way through the mix just before a vocal eruption is let loose. The aftermath is another "walking" or choppy rhythm that gives rise to a sense of quick and desperate motion, as though the album has a narrator whose quick and breathless speech can only be approximated by the guitar's stuttered expressions. I'm left wondering why Brown Jenkins even bothered with solos or extended doom-like passages. The group is clearly most at home when they're going someplace, not simply delaying the next movement with a sludgy repose.

The group's naked austerity is undoubtedly their greatest asset. This album may be nothing more than five songs of guitar worship shaped into atmospheric plague, but those five songs accomplish a directness and sense of dread that most other bands fail to achieve with twice as many instruments in their arsenal. Potent black metal doesn't need to be carried to theoretical or theatrical extremes to be effective. Brown Jenkins took little more than a few guitars, some very simple percussion, restraint, and a love for horror fiction and turned it into one of the better black metal records I've heard since first hearing the patriarchs associated with the genre.

samples:

• Blessed
• She Went to the Sea
• Starless

22 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Important

Coil first announced their intention to record an album for Nothing Records back in the mid-1990s, using the working title of Backwards which soon became International Dark Skies, later changed to God Please Fuck My Mind For Good and then The World Ended A Long Time Ago. Had it been released shortly after being announced, the album would have been the proper follow-up to Love's Secret Domain. Although Coil apparently recorded some material at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans around this time, nothing surfaced for years other than a low-quality bootleg cassette of tentative instrumental sketches recorded for Torso in the early 1990s, which have since become an essential part of Coil's discography, despite their unofficial nature. Over the years, the NIN/Coil connection bore fruit in the form of some uncredited production and remix work, but eventually the relationship seemed to fizzle out. Even though Reznor clearly maintained his Coil fanboy status throughout the '90s and '00s, Coil were uninterested in dealing with Universal and Interscope lawyers, and never delivered the album. Coil's Songs of the Week offered some tantalizing glimpses of what might have been, and tracks such as "A Cold Cell" and "AYOR" popped up on various compilation albums, always with the understanding that these tracks were originally destined for inclusion on Backwards.

As Coil moved in ever more esoteric directions, with copious side projects and pseudonyms, eventually creating the late-period sound that characterized the Musick to Play in the Dark diptych—spectral, haunted atmospheres and cryptic, semi-improvised, open-ended songs—the hope that they would return to the Backwards sessions became more and more remote. Coil rarely looked backwards, and seemed bent on pursuing their future evolution, rather than forensically exhuming their past. The obsessive persistance of fans on message boards and e-mail lists fetishized Coil's never-finished album to point that it had become the post-industrial answer to SMiLE. Coil's sole concession in their final days was a live version of the (supposed) title track "Backwards" performed at live shows in 2002, which merely seemed to rekindle the possibility that the album would eventually see the light of release. Following John Balance's untimely passing, the release of The Ape of Naples seemed to at least partially address these hopes, containing a version of "Cold Cell," "AYOR" and a track called "Heaven's Blade" (which, it must be said, bears little resemblance to the Backwards demo version, which sounds like Sun Ra trying to cover "20 Jazz Funk Greats"). Still, Ape was not quite what everyone had been waiting for.

Now, finally, there is something tangible that promises to make good on all of the empty promises made for the last 15 years. However, much like Brian Wilson's 2004 version of SMiLE, The New Backwards is not really Backwards, and those expecting to hear the missing-link connecting LSD-era Coil to its later incarnation will be bitterly disappointed. Those desiring cleaned-up versions of the multiply-dubbed Backwards bootlegs will also be disappointed. What we get here cannot even properly be called a new Coil album. Instead of a necrophilic return to past iterations, or a wholly new and progressive interpretation of older material, what we get on The New Backwards  is a fascinating and complex dialogue between Coil as it was in the mid-1990s, and Coil as it stands now as a posthumous project involving ex-members Sleazy and Danny Hyde. It's a fascinating and rewarding album, and without hesitation I can say that it is the best post-Coil release yet, easily bettering the majority of The Ape of Naples and the subsequent projects of Coil alumni.

Aside from "Princess Margaret's Man in the D'Jamalfina," which is a reworking of the bootleg track often labeled "Egyptian Basses," none of this material seems to bear any sort of direct relationship to the Backwards demo tracks. We can only presume that at least half of these songs were conceived by the original line-up, as three of them contain full vocal contributions by Balance himself, but beyond that we have no real clue as to the origin of many of these tracks. Other than the barest hint of the demo track "Elves" (and also comp track "The Test"), the opener, "Careful What You Wish For," seems like an entirely new creation. It is trademark Coil through-and-through, shuddering beats band and discrete blocks of noise coalescing into a cyclical rhythmic framework, decorated by haunted bits of stray voltage and barely-reigned-in electricity. The sole vocal is a heavily-filtered chant of the familiar slogan: "God please fuck my mind for good!" This could be Balance, but it really could be anyone, including a cleverly programmed voice synthesizer. Captain Beefheart's tossed-off line of profane lyricism is turned into a brutal mantra, a hedonistic call for a radical submission to powerful forces that takes on a tragically appropriate irony following Balance's death. Of course, it's tempting to read the title of the track as Sleazy's sad retort to Balance's self-destructive incantation.

"Nature Is A Language" steals a particularly cheesy couplet from The Smiths' "Ask" ("Nature is a language/Can't you read?") Balance locating new levels of paganistic profundity in Morrissey's presumably sarcastic lyric, delivering one of his more possessed vocal takes. (In JB's defense, he apparently encountered these lyrics scrawled on a bathroom wall, out of context.) Sleazy and Hyde take pleasure in deconstructing Balance's vocals and putting them through an exhausting obstacle course of lysergic mutations. The song's shuffling rhythms and organic multitracked vocals make for a fascinating composition, but I'm not sure the song ever quite gets over its goofy vocal refrain, and at eight-plus minutes, the lyric "It's a test" unfortunately becomes literalized. However, from my perspective, this is only misstep on the LP, which is otherwise brilliant. "Algerian Basses" oddly seems to have little or nothing in common with "Egyptian Basses," but instead seems to recall past moments when Coil engaged in experiments with their own brand of neo-exotica, mismatching instruments and musical modes to produce weirdly dislocated Interzone music (think "Babylero" or moments of The Remote Viewer). This is something of a theme on TNB, with this track, "Princess Margaret," and "Careful" all containing hints of Orientalist musical fantasia. This shouldn't be a surprise given the fact that Sleazy's new projects—Threshold HouseBoys Choir and Soisong—both seem to draw liberally from the musical soundworlds of an English expatriate in Southeast Asia.

I've gone on record as being none too fond of Danny Hyde's solo work as Aural Rage, but aside from the perhaps overdone vocal mutations on "Nature Is A Language," there is very little indication here of the hyperactiveness and overproduced quality that marred his solo work. His skills as a producer and composer are kept on task throughout the album, and his contributions are subordinated to the collaboration. This brings us to "Copacabbala (The Most Accomplished Surgeon)," which will be many people's favorite track on the album, as it contains a brilliantly twisted lyric by Balance, and sounds like the second track in the EBM record that Coil never made (the first being "Heaven's Blade"). A deliciously resonant, infectious beat construction (partly recycled from "Wir-Click-Wir" on the Backwards tapes) sets the tone for Balance's bent intonations: "I am the most accomplished surgeon of moral deformities/I am professor of energy, Napoleonic electrifier of souls/Your glorious palaces are hospitals set amid cemetaries." Sure, it reads like Coil Mad Libs, but there is something magickal about the way it all comes together. Tracks like this prove that despite how bizarre and esoteric they could be at times, Coil didn't have to be as obscure as they were, and perhaps "Copacabbala" is a wormhole into an alternate universe in which they pursued a career in more mainstream, palatable dark pop music.

"Paint Me As a Dead Soul" is the LP's most experimental track, a Nurse With Wound-like concoction of wandering piano and harpsichord melodies, creaks, sputters, hiccups, and Balance reading a dream monlogue suggested by Aleister Crowley's anecdote in his Confessions. It's a haunting and effective track, and a nice respite from the rest of the album, all of which heavily utilizes loops, rhythms and low-end sounds. It doesn't seem to take anything recognizable from the Backwards sessions, but "Princess Margaret's Man in the D'Jamalfina" is a near exact recreation of "Egyptian Basses," with perhaps a little hint of the strings in "Crumb Time" thrown in for good measure. As such, it is simulateously one of the most familiar and uncanny tracks on the album. Familiar because it follows the structure of those earlier sketches closely, and uncanny because it sounds so much more vibrant and new than the old demos, whose muddy, muted sounds I had gotten quite accustomed to. Either way, it's a brilliant track, occupying that weird liminal region that Coil mapped out so well: cryptic jazz, haunted melodies, idiosyncratic sampling and weird, druggy textures. At one point two-thirds of the way through the song, we hear a distorted voice saying "Okay, yeah." Who or what this is, we may never know, but it's little details like this that push The New Backwards over the top for me.

If you haven't dropped the $80.00 US to get the vinyl box set on which this is included, do not despair. It is a forgone conclusion that this will be released on CD, probably sooner than later, and a little bird tells me that when it is released digitally it will contain three more tracks in the same vein. The New Backwards is essential for Coil fans new and old, but more than that, it is a fascinating study in how to look backwards without becoming stagnant, how to move forward without forgetting the past. If there were a musical way to prove the existentialist assertion that the past and future are woven into every present moment, this would be it.

samples:

• Careful What You Wish For
• Copacabbala (The Most Accomplished Surgeon)
• Princess Margaret's Man in the D'Jamalfina

22 March 2008

Matthew Spencer

Albums and Singles

Corleone

Steve Albini's shadow looms large over the proceedings, especially in the vocalist's pinched nose shouting and the metal on metal grind of the guitar. Warbling sax and the occasional melodic passage add some much needed touches of color. The chorus to "ex best friend" soars drunkenly until the song stutters into a halting thud. Late in the CD, the band stretches their compositions out, giving the end a basement improv feel.

22 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

NER

For more years than I'd like to count, I was in the unenviable position of having to defend Death in June. First, I had to defend DIJ against accusations that singer/songwriter Douglas Pearce was a card-carrying Nazi sympathizer, and that all of his music is a barely concealed celebration of fascist politics and aesthetics. Then, I had to defend DIJ against accusations that the music itself was awful and derivative: gloomy posturing, miserablist lyrics full of trite symbolism familiar from high school goth poetry, utterly amateur guitar strumming and a massive abuse of reverb to cover over the shortcomings of the music. I knew that all of these criticisms had a germ of truth in them, but I defended DIJ because, very simply, I adored the music.

Albums such as Nada, But What Ends When the Symbols Shatter, and Rose Clouds of Holocaust meant a lot to me during a very formative period of my consciousness. Although all of the elements of the DIJ puzzle might seem risible in isolation, the whole was greater than its parts, and the music had a powerful, haunting effect. DIJ lyrics hinted at archetypal myths, terrifying moments in human history, universal aspects of the human condition, and perhaps most importantly to a young, sexually-confused person, to a kind of masculinity in which homosexuality was not destructive, but an essential part. DIJ's literary references—to Nietzsche, Mirbeau, Bataille, Genet, Mishima—read like a litany of my favorite authors and ideas. His evocation of a mythical idealized Europe in decline, his wintry atmospherics, hints of Norse myth and runic magic were tantalizing. His troubling fetishization of Nazi/fascist aesthetics did not seem to me problematic, as I had experienced similar troubling fantasies myself, and was relieved to find myself not alone. Also, DIJ was associated with a grouping of underground artists that I was utterly obsessed with at the time. However, even at a time when I was listening to Current 93, Coil, Nurse With Wound, Sol Invictus and others, DIJ spoke to me in a way both more profound and more simple than his colleagues. There is a reason that Death in June continues to be one of the most successful cult artists within his underground milieu, and it isn't because all of his fans are Nazi zealots or clueless goths.

However, as the years have progressed, and DIJ have become less relevant—the "apocalyptic folk" sound he helped create along with David Tibet and others has become de rigeur in underground goth scenes—and has gotten stuck in some very alienating tangents (tepid collaborations with Boyd Rice, Albin Julius and others), I have found myself moving closer and closer to the position that I used to defend against. Looking back, the cynics were right to point out that Douglas P. only knows a few chords on the guitar, which he uses repeatedly to mind-numbing effect. They were right to point out that his lyrical symbolism is endlessly recycled. They were correct when they noted that the use of reverb and other studio effects disguised the weaknesses of the compositions themselves. Even though I still say that none of these facts preclude something from having artistic merit, the criticisms have begun to wear me down. It's especially difficult to defend DIJ in the absence of good new music, and the last few non-reissue releases—All Pigs Must Die, the Wolf Pact album, Alarm Agents—have all been mediocre-to-awful. Say what you want about the outrageous Nazi loops of albums like Take Care and Control and Operation Hummingbird (which were heavily criticized at the time of their release), at least they can still be listened to and enjoyed.

This whole overlong preamble is just a way of setting the stage for the long-awaited new DIJ full-length album, The Rule of Thirds. On this album, Douglas P. returns to the sound of the early-to-mid 1990s period, characterized by acoustic guitar strumming, heavy reverb, sparse percussion, dialogue samples and psychedelic production touches. It is a welcome return, but a bittersweet one as well, because if this album achieves any artistic success at all, it is in reminding us of earlier triumphs. Unfortunately, it creates nothing of its own, and even its lyrics seem like they were produced using a random computer algorithm remixing snatches of lyrics from across DIJ's discography. Also, the production isn't quite as strong as that on the 1990s albums, so the low-end is nonexistent, the guitar and vocals have no "presence," and the keyboards and horn fanfares that enriched classic DIJ songs are now absent, and sorely missed. Douglas P. has still not bothered to learn any new guitar chords (or how to fingerpick rather than strum), placing the shortcomings of his guitar skills into bold relief. Many of the guitar parts for these songs are utterly indistinguishable from earlier songs and from each other, and the nasty accusation of self-plagiarism begins to rear its ugly head once again.

All of this might be forgiven if the album weren't also such a laborious, trying listen. The lack of variety in melody and instrumentation begins to wear thin a few songs in, and no relief comes. For an album that is titled after an artistic/photographic principle having to do with aesthetic balance in composition,  it strangely lacks any sense of aesthetic balance or proportion itself. Most surprisingly, Douglas P. has consciously moved away from his perennial themes: melancholy, power dynamics, purity, the aestheticization of politics, and veiled homoeroticism. Instead, what we get is a suite of songs that are unmistakably more positive in their outlook, even if they still evoke a winter frost and a sense of desolation. Some of these songs appear to be nothing more than simple love songs addressed to a steady lover, which sound a little incongruous coming out of Douglas P.'s mouth. On "Idolatry," he sings: "You're the emptiness that was meant to be/The missing piece of the puzzle of me...You're the sun and the moon and the stars combined/You'll always be the universe to me." Is he fucking serious with this shit? I'm all for sincere singer/songwriters, but Douglas P.'s newfound, unguarded sincerity seems to come along with an awful lot of schmaltz. I guess there's nothing wrong with schmaltz, but it sounds positively absurd set amid these dark folk surroundings. I honestly don't know what to make of it.

I'm not going to provide a blow-by-blow description of the songs on this album, because none of them warrant the time it would take. Aside from "My Rhine Atrocity," which weaves in some cool dialogue samples, no other tracks stand out to me, even after three listens. On The Rule of Thirds, DIJ commits the cardinal sin of being boring, predictable and nostalgic in an unproductive way. To my mind, this is a worse sin than all the goth posturing and Nazi-adoration one could possibly muster.

samples:

• The Glass Coffin
• Idolatry
• My Rhine Atrocity

22 March 2008

Matthew Spencer

Albums and Singles

Dragon's Eye Recordings 

Both Manning and Novak have similar playing styles despite their different instruments and approaches. Novak's contributions are subtle and often restricted to simply processing Manning's voice and guitar. He does take the foreground in first two compositions, holding down resonant, metallic drones while Manning's wordless vocals float over top. Visions alien monoliths and cryogenic storage would not be inappropriate.

The rest of the album is less alien and foreboding. Manning plays more melodically while Novak throws the music slightly off kilter with oscillating delay. Both heap generous amounts of reverb on their concoctions, making the whole CD sound like it was recorded in a basketball court.

Rather than coming off as a recorded jam session, Parings sounds like the work of group experienced with each other's playing. Manning and Novak are obviously operating on each other's wavelength. 

22 March 2008

Matthew Spencer

Albums and Singles

One-off partnerships can be a dubious proposition. Often they’re just an excuse for the musicians to showboat or goof off. The personal dynamics of collaboration may be interesting to players, but are irrelevant if the music can’t be appreciated outside that context. Mark Manning and Yann Novak avoid indulgence by making spacious, echoing pieces of ambient moan and murk. Dream Theater this is not.

Dragon's Eye Recordings 

Both Manning and Novak have similar playing styles despite their different instruments and approaches. Novak’s contributions are subtle and often restricted to just processing Manning’s voice and guitar. He does take the foreground in first two compositions, holding down resonant, metallic drones while Manning’s wordless vocals float over top. Visions alien monoliths and cryogenic storage would not be inappropriate.

The rest of the album is less alien and foreboding. Manning plays more melodically, while Novak throws the music slightly off kilter with oscillating delay. Both heap generous amounts of reverb on their concoctions, making the whole CD sound like it was recorded in a basketball court.

Rather than coming off as a recorded jam session, Parings sounds like the work of group experienced with each other’s playing. Manning and Novak are obviously operating on each other’s wavelength.

22 March 2008

Matthew Spencer

Sound Bytes

One-off partnerships can be a dubious proposition. Often they’re just an excuse for the musicians to showboat or goof off. The personal dynamics of collaboration may be interesting to players, but are irrelevant if the music can’t be appreciated outside that context. Mark Manning and Yann Novak avoid indulgence by making spacious, echoing pieces of ambient moan and murk. Dream Theater this is not.

Read more …

21 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

SOOL, Ellen Allien's fourth solo album, will be released by BPitch Control on May 27th, 2008.

Produced by AGF, SOOL is subtle, mysterious and minimal. Ellen Allien will be playing select dates in the U.S. and Canada in support of this new full-length album and the release of Boogy Bytes Vol. 4 mixed by Ellen Allien, out March 31st on BPitch Control.
 

"Created in winter 2007/2008 in Berlin, intended to be a valve, a loophole. Winters always have been a very creative time for me; in particular, after this past hot and crazy summer and autumn 2007 in Berlin. I do not have any gigs, I never stay at one place for such a long period of time. Instead, I push buttons in the studio, and sing.

Yeah! Minimal – what does minimal mean for me? Minimal is just there. Permuting that, shaping this kind of immediacy with my own hands – that was close to my heart. A whiff of positive, but nevertheless abysmal energy creates room for the ears. For yours and mine.

What is SOOL? How is SOOL? SOOL is everything, everyone and none – SOOL is a phantasm, a creation, which reflects the album's atmosphere, and also my person. I am me; but I am also what you made me for, what you do with me and what I do with you. And, SOOL is curiosity, room, and architecture. Sketches; drawing; adhering." -- Ellen Allien

In addition to the new album, Ellen Allien has designed a special "SOOL" fashion line. Images will be available shortly.

Tracklist:
01. Einsteigen
02. Caress
03. Bim
04. Sprung
05. Elphine
06. Zauber
07. Its
08. Ondu
09. Frieda
10. MM
11. Out

Tour Dates:
Thu.     May 1   Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey w/ Sascha Funke
Fri.      May 2   San Francisco, CA @ Mighty w/ Sascha Funke
Sat.     May 3   Hollywood, CA @ AValon w/ Sascha Funke
Sun.    May 4   Portland, OR @ Holocene w/ Sascha Funke
Wed.   May 7   Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club w/ Sascha Funke
Thu.    May 8   Montreal, PQ @ Club Parking w/ Sascha Funke, Mini
Fri.      May 9   Quebec, QC @ Le Cercle w/ Sascha Funke
Sat.     May 10  Brooklyn, NY @ Studio B w/ Sascha Funke

17 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Artist: Sutcliffe Jügend
Title: Pigdaddy
Catalogue No: CSR92CD
Barcode: 8 2356644812 9
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Power Electronics / Experimental
Shipping: 21 April
Download from Cold Spring: 11 April

The Sutcliffe Jügend filthy dirt-mess of an album that is Pigdaddy is now available on Cold Spring. Six stories of mind-f**king depravity. Pigdaddy contains some of the most fucked up, histrionic and downright bizarre vocals ever recorded. The music is created using the most basic sound sources. The overwhelming sense of moral decay makes this Sutcliffe Jügend's most original album yet. Pigdaddy is Beyond Perverse. Sexual transgression never sounded so dirty. Hear Pigdaddy and you will never feel clean again. Cover painting by Kevin Tomkins.

Tracks: 1. Insult | 2. Defacer | 3. Pigdaddy | 4. Filth | 5. Dirty | 6. Nonce

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | http://www.coldspring.co.uk

16 March 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Pansonic DVD
By Edward Quist
"KUVAPUTKI" (Cathode Ray Tube)
blastfirstpetite
PTYT 009
Release Date : March 31st, 2008

The first ever Pansonic DVD release by Edward Quist, American digital
visual artist.
A live performance, close filmed.
A redux digital film based around a Pansonic performance from their
New York stop of their adventerous 1999 Round The World Tour.

The film is a hyper-real abstract reflection of the duo, in the final
year of the last century. Whilst the documentary core remains, the
footage is twisted and shaped by Quist into a new form in conjunction
with Pansonic's improvised set.

Vaino & Vaisanen are immersed in the imagery of the cathode which
seems to live and infect their physicality over the course of the
three parallel films until they merge with their own sound and Quist's
mesmerising visuals.

Sonar Electronic Festival described the film as "A beautiful and
unique film capturing the very essence of a Pansonic live
performance…. which really is quite an achievement"
SxSW Music Festival calls it "An embodiment. Probably the most perfect
electronic music film yet"
ICA Film London "Suprisingly watchable. Forty minutes of unswervingly
moderne, super intense sound & visuals"
Duration  38.05 miins

Trailer Clip @
www.embryoroom.com/kuvaputki/kuvatrailer.html
 ALL REGION NTSC / AVAILABLE NOW FROM BFP MAIL ORDER
 www.blastfirstpetite.com