31 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

The term "exoteric" can relate popularity, being the exact opposite of "esoteric" and, for the most part, this description is suited to Metalux. Their strange noise has always been a little easier to swallow with its comprehensible beats, recognizable guitars, and punches of melody. Put them with John Wiese, however, and the title of this album begins to appear ill chosen.

 

Load
 
John Wiese's approach to noise is multifaceted; he either destroys sound beyond recognition and then constructs strange microscopic fits of random size and shape or he pummels everything he comes across into pure chaos. He almost rides a middle ground between these two approaches on Exoteric, trying to fit in with Metalux's surreal and often perplexing sound. While I like these two on their own, I'm afraid that their work together pales in comparison. Metalux's music has always been disorganized, but I'm always under the impression that they must have some love for organization in some shape. Some of their music is arranged into what some might consider actual songs and even when they venture off into unknown territory, Metalux have a knack for bringing their random sounds together in coherent ways. The whole mess might be incoherent by nature, but Metalux work a miracle or two in their own way. That's why I'm surprised by all the noise on this release. I don't hear a single piano, crystalline drone, or guitar anywhere. In fact, the entire album seems to be composed of sounds taken from Wiese's hard drive. The palette this record uses tastes just like Wiese's noise always has. His passion for granular sound is evident all over Exoteric and unfortunately it takes up the most stage presence.

For the most part it sounds like Metalux took a back seat in this project. Some of their more warped and incidental sounds do appear here in there, in the form of mutant trumpets and warped vocals; what has always made them stand out, however, is conspicuous by its absence. The total lack of melody and the slow pace of the record belie the fact that Metalux sometimes make me want to dance. This is more like an effort to give me a headache in various, pulsing formats. I don't hate the album entirely, but I think these two noise makers could've done a lot more between each other. There's just too much cold and dark space on this record to draw me in and, if anything, this album is an esoteric piece of strange un-noise. It is rhythmic without maintaining a solid rhythm and it is scathing without being overly harsh. In other words, it is simply mediocre sound with few big drawing points. I love the vocals Metalux contributed, but I don't like how they were used with the exception of the very last track.

I suggest looking into Metalux's and Wiese's separate catalogues before I'd get this. Even though I liked both bands prior to hearing this, Exoteric didn't do it for me. It doesn't sound like what I had imagined a cross between these two would sound like.

samples:

• Untitled 2
• Untitled 5
• Untitled 7

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31 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

Japan’s LSD March are best known for their thunderously loud and trippy music. Empty Rubious Red shows a softer and more melodic side as the group is stripped back to Shinsuke Michishita alone. The white hot power is still there but only rarely bubbles to the surface. Instead the focus is on building the same power and tension through quieter and less overdriven playing.

 

Archive

Empty Rubious Red was originally self-released by Michishita last year in a tiny edition of about 200 copies. This reissue gives the album a much nicer sleeve and a bonus alternative take of the title track. “Empty Rubious Red (Take 3)” is tacked on to the start of the album where it sits comfortably. It is loose in structure, mainly random guitar and percussion with echo. It sounds nice but doesn’t go anywhere. “As Many as Stars in the Sky” follows it and is quite a departure in style. Michishita sings softly over a clean electric guitar; it’s bare and beautiful. The album continues in this vein.

However despite the soft side, there are still some extreme sounds on it. On “I Have Been Saving My Love for You” there is a bass playing in the right speaker that packs a mighty punch, listening on headphones was like getting my ear syringed. Empty Rubious Red sounds like it was recorded quite rough and ready but the music is clear and the dynamics are incredible. The different instruments and Michishita’s voice feel like they are all around me in the room giving an intimate and warm feeling.

The original version of “Empty Rubious Red” is far superior to the bonus version. There is a strong bass drone underlying the song. The guitar sounds more confident and Takahashi (one of two appearances) on drums provide more punch, especially during the last two minutes when the song turns into the aural representation of a cosmic orgasm. This fades out into “I only Have Hands for Hold You,” a plodding song that finishes off the album and leaves a relaxed feeling hanging in the air. Empty Rubious Red is as much of a gem as the title suggests. I hope that Archive will consider reissuing more of LSD March’s mainly out of print back catalogue as this and the recent live album have whetted my appetite for more.

samples:

• As Many as Stars in the Sky
• Nude and Bizarre
• Empty Rubious Red

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30 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

Orac Records' co-founder Randy Jones and Paul Dickow (Strategy) both take stabs at remixing the electro-popping, hard-edged dance number "The Love That I Crave" with solid results. The original is twisted and manipulated into stretches of dub-laced pop and sweet, delicate minimalism that is about dance as much as it is about lush beauty.

 

Audraglint/Holocene

I had almost forgotten about the remix. A few people know how to work them well, others don't, and for the most part I'm happy enough with the source material. I have no need for a restyled song that will probably sound a lot like the original. Of course, Aphex Twin, Kid 606, Autechre, Plaid, and plenty of others revolutionized the remix for some people. Rarely did a remix from any of the above sound even remotely like the original and, in some cases, it was questionable whether or not the song was a remix instead of a completely new composition. In their cases, however, the music being rearranged and destroyed was instrumental or abstract enough that it practically begged for fresh hands to mess with it. The Blow's "The Love That I Crave" is a pop tune by all standards. It is only two and a half minutes long, it has a lovely, silky chorus held up by some very sexy vocals and a throbbing beat that'd make most any dance-floor denizen happy. The Blow throw their percussion front and center in the mix and play with it just as Jack Dangers does, but their draw is how happily the singer melds with the sound of the rubbery bass and ecstasy-fuelled synthesizers. The beat is loose enough to have sex to, but it throbs more sensually than most club tunes can. Dickow and Randy Jones' approaches to this song are both different, but both hold on to that sensuality for dear life.

Caro provides two remixes and both tend to emphasize the lighter elements of the song. His percussion comes front and center, just as in the originals, but Caro also likes to speed things up a bit. It sounds as though he's spent plenty of times spinning in clubs and, as a result, his first remix, "The Puddles of Love" remix sounds custom-made for DJs. There are all kinds of dub effects sprinkled throughout the first four or so minutes of this version. Voices echo and become soaked in reverb and bass, slowly becoming out of sync with the music and less intelligible. Sci-fi keyboards belch and squirt all over the pounding bass drum that sits on the song from beginning to end, but they never quite carry the groove that the original song contained. If anything, this version sounds a bit flat, as though Caro were trying to formulate an extended jam that never actually gets to the jam part. There are sparks of minimalistic fervor here and there that make it tolerable, but when situated right in the middle of two, more excellent tracks, it's hard to say much more about this. Caro's "The Sea of Love" remix is shorter and more in tune with the original's sexy and sleek presentation. Caro retains a heavy, deep bass sound for this song and adds sweeping string synthetics and choirs in the background. It's a chill-out version of the song. It works well enough because it's both catchy and different enough from the original to maintain my interest. When Caro adds the Japanese sounding guitar into the song, which mimics the vocalist's melodies, the result is pure bliss, a ticket straight to heaven. As that guitar floats through the rest of the song, it's hard not to fall in love with the bouncing rhythms that play out between it, the drums, and the lyrics. This rips his other, more standard remix in half.

Dickow, on the other side, has only one remix, but it's one hell of an effort. He must've heard the echoing, stereo-spanning vocals of the original and decided that he was in love. His remix turns the original into a spaced-out haze: a blur of popping drums and pixilated bass synths. When he adds the piano to the already jumping mix, the song turns into an outright explosion that is equal parts dance and hypnotic arrangement. The robotic vocals that take over in the middle of the song carry both the melody in the song and its surreal soul. It doesn't take Dickow much to turn a song around, to completely alter its face and then drill right into its heart. His minimalistic approach suits this song incredibly well, bringing out the best parts that the original had to offer and adding new elements that turn it into an entirely new piece of pop. At over six minutes, however, it's less pop music than it is some strange hybrid of dub, dance, pop, and psychedelic minimalism. It's a cheap and entertaining slab of 12" vinyl that showcases two talented composers exercising their imagination on great source material.

samples:

• The Strata Club remix by Strategy
• The Puddles of Love remix by Caro
• The Sea of Love remix by Caro

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29 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

In this year's Terrastock, Detroit's Paik was once again one of the show stealers. While the instrumental combo's formula isn't the most original sound in the world, their songs are fun, the tunes are well-defined, the live sound is intense, and their stage presence is nothing less than godlike. Monster of the Absolute is easily one of this year's better instrumental rock records, as it's the sexy side of gritty: something you don't mind getting dirty for because it feels that good.

 

Strange Attractors

Contrary to what a lot of people say, Paik aren't really a metal band nor do I find a lot of metal in their mix. They're hot and blistering, raw and tireless. It's void of posturing, wanky guitar solos, and has a solid spinal cord made out of beats. Although Monster of the Absolute opens and closes with the thick smoke of beat-less layered guitar, the foundation of each of the album's five main songs is the groove.

The rhythm section is usually the first to make themselves clearly known and on top the riff or mainline lie. On a song like "Phantoms," the lead guitars hold fairly close to a melodic structure, with only the pitch bending slightly.  "Snake Face" is met with a wall of dissonance: the pulse is driving the song like a powerful train that's chugging along and the whine is the roar of its engine. The unease of the blistering guitars isn't that far from the more dissonant sounds of Loop or the tamer side of Major Stars. Even when the song's intro is ushered in by guitars on something like "October," it's the beat which leads the way, with shakers and infrequent chime sounds. In a brief 6+ minutes this song shifts gears a couple times yet it gracefully maintains the same melody as was opened with. The 9+ minute title track is this album's magnum opus, as it's thunderous, anthemic, and relentless and gives way to the last song, "Contessa," where a bass line is king and guitars, while loud, remain remarkably peaceful for the duration.

Paik are good at making the best of time on Monster of the Absolute: they don't waste a single moment on this short album and I have no complaints about its length. Brevity is sometimes enough to want to keep going back immediately after because all too often there's the feeling of distorted time and the "did I miss that" syndrome. In a flash it seems that Monster is over and I'm aching for more rather than feeling like I've had enough and that's crucial to getting us back again for the next time.

samples:

• Snake Face
• Monster of the Absolute
• Contessa  

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29 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

The Dots have always been good at exploring the liminal borderlands between structure and abstraction, between dream and waking life, between nightmare and whimsy. The band's music always has one foot resting on each side, and they are not afraid to dance for extended periods on one side or the other. This album seems to synthesize a lot of the band's previous approaches: crepuscular nightmare monologues, extended noise jams, chugging electronics, twisted fairy tales, orchestral passages, surrealistic cut-up sequences and druggy excursions into nebulous Qlippothic realms.

ROIR

Your Children Placate You From Early Graves sounds like a classic LPD album right from the start, with the atmospheric opener "Count On Me;" the sound of a jeering mob serves as a foil for Silverman's reverberating piano prelude; and a dialogue snippet of a helpful therapist asking: "Did you suffer nightmares?Are you able to tell us what it is you have nightmares about?"This brief track segues into the first proper track on the album, "No Matter What You Do," a typically indescribable Pink Dots rock hybrid: hash-filtered dub beats, blankets of noise guitar, layers of synthesized drones and chirping electronic effects, Ka-Spel's heavily processed vocal mantra: "We are so unworthy of his endless mercy."Then it's into heavy prog territory, everything combining into a warm, atmospheric fog of dense psychedelic texture, Niels Van Hoorn's trademark saxophone crying out in the chaos, carving out lines in the thick loam that are quickly swallowed up in the maelstrom.

Your Children has the advantage of being relatively economical in length, and being the only album of new material being released before the tour.Past years have seen the group spreading themselves a bit thin, with two new albums being released simultaneously, often with a couple Ka-Spel solo albums thrown in for good measure.By concentrating on creating nine substantive, well-written and dynamic Dots songs, the group benefits tremendously, and there is nary a wasted moment on the album.

Ka-Spel tackles a lot of familiar lyrical themes: questions of faith, freedom, war and destiny in the postmodern age of alienation.The album's title seems to suggest a heavy political bent, and this is not a red herring.On "Please Don't Get Me Wrong," for instance, Middle Eastern troubles are extra-geographically evoked with Arabic and Indian flavored psychedelia, Ka-Spel's lyrics narrating a frightening tale of military arrest and summary execution, punctuated with the repeated phrase "You have no choice," which bounces around the stereo channels exactly like the middle section of 10CC's "I'm Not in Love."This leads directly into "Peace of Mind," which seems to be a direct continuation of the previous song, with Ka-Spel's futile hopes for a peaceful resolution once again taking the political and making it all too personal.

There are some surprising moments on the album, like the theremin solo which comes out of nowhere on the whimsical "Feathers At Dawn," or the moment when the beautiful psych-folk of "The Island of our Dreams" suddenly fades out into eerie inorganic drones.The de rigeur ambient noise and spoken-word track makes it appearance here with "A Silver Thread," which begins in Lynchian territory, hypnotic mutations and overdubs of Van Hoorn's sultry saxophone weaving through dark, ominous alleyways of Alan Splet-esque drones and low-end electronic shudders, distorted voices, rain-slicked city streets and passing sirens.Towards the end of the track, Ka-Spel chimes in with a sardonic monologue that is both sullen and hilarious: "Out of body, but I don't like what I see/Find it hard to take what I hover above/And a little voice says that I should get out more/Maybe pick up some DVDs from the library and cry with the stars discreetly in my own surroundings/Pick the scene that moves me the most and play it again and again."

Playing my most beloved LPD albums for various friends and lovers over the years, I've learned the hard way that some people will just never warm up to the Dots.There's something about the band's amiguous and amorphous musical style, or Ka-Spel's peculiar accent and vocal delivery, or the band's willful eclecticism, or the perceived associations with underground gothic rock, or those who fear anything even hinting at progressive rock, or maybe something else entirely makes it impossible for LPD to penetrate beyond their loyal and bizarrely heterogeneous cult following.I can only speculate as to the reasons why they don't strike a chord with others, because I have always loved their music, and count a few of their albums as among my favorites of all time.Listening to the penultimate track on Your Children, "The Made Man's Manifesto," I was suddenly filled with memories of countless Dots shows past, late-night lava-lamp-lit listening sessions, the thrill of cracking open new LPD and EKS albums over the years, and the strange admixture of the predictably nostalgic and the wholly new that each successive album never fails to provide.

samples:

• No Matter What You Do
• Feathers At Dawn
• The Made Man's Manifesto

 

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26 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

This is the debut release from a quartet out of Helsinki who play buoyant instrumental electronic music. Swift and without a beat, the songs are like rushing rivers of tones and simple patterns. Since there aren’t necessarily any new sounds or styles to be found here, the songs are carried more by the band’s sheer exuberance.

Fonal

It’s easy to hear their self-professed admiration for the early minimalist composers from the very first track, "Montezuma." A motif is repeated while other instruments join in the flow at mostly dramatic moments, darting in and out of, playing around with, commenting on, or sometimes even restating the theme. This is more or less the blueprint for every song, and their love for the early minimalists is unfortunately their biggest limitation.

I couldn’t help but feel that most of these songs don’t really go anywhere, and whatever message they’re trying to convey varies little from song to song. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some notable moments, because there certainly are. "Tropiikin Kuuma Huuma" contains some marvelous glissandi, while "Daniel" has some effective panned washes that phase in and out of the mix. My favorite track, "Tulevaisuus-menneisyys=1," has one particular line that sounds backwards or else somehow broken, and is a nice change of pace. Likewise, "Piste" has a strange little textural element panned hard right, sounding almost like bells, but the very note on which the song, and the album, ends is almost too cute and smug for my taste.

The group avoids the icy sound of pure digital music by playing on analog electronics, yet there still exists a distance that sometimes relegates this album to background music. Their non-academic approach to minimalism could have been liberating, but instead anchors them too closely to their idols. The band can obviously play well together, now I’d like to hear them branch out with their songwriting and find a voice truly their own.

samples:

• Montezuma
• Tulevaisuus-menneisyys=1
• Piste

 

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26 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

As a kid I loved banging on things and making loud, annoying noises. I'd hit metal pans together, click my tongue, whistle, holler, and stomp my feet, twiddle my fingers on plastic bins, jiggle door handles, and make all sorts of funny sounds with my throat. It was a blast. Apparently that sort of attitude towards random sounds has stuck with percussionist Christian Wolfarth throughout the years.

 

For 4 Ears

I was a little perplexed when I first heard this record. Wolfarth is a percussionist who has performed solo and in groups, typically in avant garde or experimental settings and typically defying what most people would consider the role of a drummer. The first track (all of them unnamed) on this eponymous record features no clear sign of percussive work. In fact, it sort of sounds like a communication tower getting struck by an electromagnetic field and then having birds rain down on it from the sky. There's all sorts of shrieks and shrill whines, but little sign that any of this is coming from a drum set. Wolfarth tends to stay way from digital manipulation according to his website, so I was even more perplexed to hear this coming from a mostly acoustic musician. Then the second track started and I began to get more out of Wolfarth than I had expected. Sounding like a child let loose in a factory full of potential snares and cymbals, Wolfarth unleashes a fury of finger tapping rolls and unusual percussive sounds backed by the wash of sand, rain, electricity, and wind. His approach to his craft is exactly the opposite of most drumming in its most popular form. Instead of bombast and intense, nearly super-human fills, time signatures, and polyrhythms, Wolfarth makes simplicity and timbre his weapons of choice. The tapping, skipping, and gushing of sound all become hypnotic after long.

As a kid, Wolfarth is obviously unafraid to try anything, mixing and matching patterns with sounds in fun ways. As a musician, Wolfarth understands that some modes of expression are juvenile, doing more to make the music uninteresting rather than vice versa. With that in mind, Wolfarth never extends his playfulness into dull regions; this is going to be a more entertaining listen than sitting down in front of a young percussionist who has never tapped out a rhythm before. My only complaint is that, in an effort that seems have more to do with record length than composition, Wolfarth tends to stretch out some songs well past their welcome point. Where he could've ended some of the longer pieces when the percussion stopped, Wolfarth instead emphasizes some very electronic aspects of his music, letting some tones carry on incessantly, without change, for many minutes too long.

The album closes the same way it opened, with a strange collage of chime-like distortion and rumbling bells. There seems to be little percussion involved, digital processing taking place of the finger-tapping, plastic sounding percussion that dominated the middle portion of the record. I like this record quite a lot, mainly because its so playful, but also because it reminds me of how much I just like to play with sounds. Wolfarth took a very simple concept and made it intriguing, giving every inner percussionist some hope that there is something worth hearing at the ends of their hands.

samples:

• 1
• 3
• 4

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24 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

Scott Morgan's greatest ally may very well be understatement. His work sits comfortably next to many of his label mates, especially Lichens and Bird Show, both of whom utilize unusual sounds and quiet drift to highlight the beauty of their melodies and rhythms.

Kranky

Plume drifts casually, hinting at rhythms instead of pounding them out. Morgan slowly, intentionally constructs monuments of sound with everything from his laptop to xylophones and guitars. It was a little dry at first: a record that offered up plenty of lush instrumentation, but never took off with all the potential it accumulated. Repeat listens revealed a more subtle dynamism; Morgan micromanages everything he does, choosing to illuminate new instruments and phrases when he wants to let others go. His music does not shine in moments of explosive power, but radiates artistic beauty in its architecture and morphology. Morgan makes the most of what he has on every track and, much like Labradford did, he uses the smallest of sounds to his advantage. Static hisses become stereo dust storms and piano parts turn into sonorous waves worthy of the most lavish cathedrals. Despite the complexity that whispers through each of Loscil's nine songs on this album, there's a sense of overwhelming peace on the record. Each song defeats its complexity and reaches a point of complete unification.

There are not multiple instruments to be heard on this record, just the one continuous sound of Loscil's architecture. The structure and play of each track becomes the most dominant feature, replacing any need to concentrate on one sound or another. They all move about each other in a perfect dance. That isn't to say all of the songs simply meld into one another. There are quite a few standout tracks on Plume, the best of them being propelled by muted train wheels and sheets of supernatural hiss. Morgan uses more percussive sounds to his advantage later on the album, letting them serve as rooster calls on a record that is quiet and hypnotic enough to put me into a trance. Despite the varied approaches used by Morgan, the album does have a droned-out quality to it that reverberates more than it exclaims. The result is the need for an instrument like the xylophone: on "Charlie" this instrument explodes and wails like a guitar might. Remaining calm, the album suddenly shifts into a lesson on distortion and serenity and how the two are related.

Following in a fine tradition that other bands have laid out, Loscil soothes and absorbs. There's enough going on at any given second to warrant close listening, but if the record is allowed to slip into someone's subconscious, then it works a miraculous magic: dizziness and decreased blood pressure should be expected. Loscil should not be mistaken as a continuation of drone's reign in other fields of music, however. The melodies on here are memorable, the rhythms and swells of sound orchestral, not electric. A quiet, bright night in the city seems to suit this record best. It's bright flares of sound mimic the movement of light in high-rises and the flash of action on highways.

There are claustrophobic moments that remind me of moving through busy streets and other, more liberating moments that remind me of what it felt like to be on top of the Empire State Building—all the world seemed to be at my feet, glowing faintly. Although I was above the city that never slept, the noise from below seemed to be filtered away because the view so magnificent. That sense of freedom and isolation permeates each note of Plume, but with it comes a distinct sense of connectedness that vibrates in the air all around me.

Samples can be found here.

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24 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

"Do Not As I Do," the latest single from Hukkelberg’s 2005 album Little Things, has everything I could hope for in a pop song: a good voice, original lyrics, and a memorable chorus.

Leaf

The music is tasteful if unobtrusive, never upstaging Hukkelberg’s voice, which itself has an original set of nuances that are capable of surprise. The chorus, which is basically the same as the title, might be a somewhat trite or clichéd sentiment, but the rest of the lyrics tell a creepy story about ghosts and hauntings that belies the song’s apparently sunny surface.

As much as I liked her voice on the album cut, it’s the second song that shows her true range of expressiveness. Covering the Pixies’ "Break My Body," she turns their bittersweet rocker into a full-fledged lament, approaching the song from an unexpected emotional angle. Hukkelberg wisely infuses her interpretation with exactly what it needs to work successfully, and no more. Her combination of talent and taste makes her someone worth watching.

samples:

• Do Not As I Do
• Break My Body

 

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23 May 2006

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Albums and Singles

Brainwashed is putting out a request to get involved!  Send us reviews of music, movies, books, beer, whatever.  Tell us what you think, tell us what you want. If you want free music, start writing regularly! Show the love, spread the love! It's just that easy...
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