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15 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

John Wiese's name is becoming as recognizable as Merzbow's. His output, though not as insane as Masami Akita's, is constant and nearly impossible to keep up with. He has worked with a number of musicians and noise-makers including Sunn 0))), Wolf Eyes, The Haters, Panicsville, and Daniel Menche. Teenage Hallucination: 1992-1999 is an attempt to consolidate much of Wiese's earliest output (some of it recorded at the age of 14) on to one disc and catch everyone up with this prolific destroyer of sound.

Troniks

First things first: unless I am mistaken, much of what appears on this disc is entirely out of print or otherwise very difficult to get a hold of. Even if neither of those is the case, there is a lot material compiled on this release from Troniks and other prolific noise musicians and their labels would do well to follow suit. So often noise records are released in severely limited editions and become impossible to find very, very quickly. Not only do compilations like this one make it easier to get the material, they also make it easier for more people to appreciate an artist's work. It's always very difficult to decide whether or not I'd want to buy a special edition, expensive vinyl from an artist I barely know, especially if the tracks included are less than ten seconds long. Having tracks like that compiled onto one disc is a great thing and no other genre of music could possibly benefit from compilations like this one more than noise.

In the smooth and perhaps best looking booklet from Troniks that I've seen, Toshiji Mikawa of Hijokaidan and Incapacitants remarks that even at the age of 14, John Wiese seemed to know what he wanted to do with noise. As evidence for this statement, Mikawa remarks that the final two tracks on the album, both recorded in 1992, foreshadow much of the material Wiese would record throughout his now long career. It's an interesting statement because harsh noise is a fairly homogenous approach to sound, many albums sounding too similar for some. In addition, a 14 year old making noise isn't all that unusual, why should Wiese's consistency and, later, his innovation be considered remarkable at all? Mikawa's answer has something to do with noise as spirituality, but my answer sits in the heart of what Wiese does best: change.

Consistency is one thing, but to move from that concept to bland repetition is a mistake. Yes, Wiese has remained almost unfalteringly harsh throughout his career, especially during his formative years as a noise-maker and a performer, but many of his pieces exhibit a depth of sounds and influences. I'll admit that I don't know quite how to take the four-second-a-piece "Lock" series or the multitude of sub-twenty-second tracks, but one thing is for sure: Wiese never really sounds the same at all. His attacks are always modified, buffered, sharpened, or mutated by different approaches to constant static and total feedback. The "Catwoman" tracks could be tagged as nightmare soundscapes. They are two completely different tracks belonging to one release, presumably: one of them is a mash up of video game sound assaults, pure noise, cut up voices, and other unpleasant sources and the other is a rolling, bubbling drone with no sudden surprises or igneous outbursts. Then there is the "Selectric" series. Four tracks, each over two minutes in length, play out as recordings of pure, unhinged anger as heard from inside a wind tunnel. There are other tracks on the compilation like them, but their unity and high-pitched fury are unmatched.

As the noise continues, Wiese becomes younger and younger. "Untitled (Sissy Spacek) CS" provides a glimpse of Wiese employing his mad and spastic editing techniques to great effect: the garbled, possibly vocal, sounds jumping around on this track are almost rhythmic, but subtle enough to keep the noise assault pure. "Static Whale" is a gorgeous bit of droning noise and another example of Wiese experimenting with his sound early in his recording career. On and on, as the songs move backwards through time, more and more intriguing tracks pop up. They make clear the progress Wiese has made and almost write out in detail some of the ways Wiese has modified and tinkered with his sound.

I'm not sure if that means Wiese has always had a consistent, but ever-changing vision, though. Noise might just lend itself to consistency, creating an illusion of vision. I also don't think that whether or not he's ever had a vision matters at all. I don't care if Wiese is a genius, a king, or any of the other things he's been described as because his noise is often entertaining. Sometimes it is outright captivating. I do wish he'd explore that "Static Whale" sound a bit more, but then he'd just be revisiting old ground and that wouldn't be any fun at all.

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15 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

I nearly gave up on this album on first listen, but after learningmore about the context, things fell into place and I quickly became fascinatedby it. Across 11 tracks and in styles that range from dancey techno tocrazed piano, Rehearsing My Choir covers the life of bandmatesand siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger's grandmother, withGrandma herself providing much of the vocals.

Rough Trade

The story of Olga Sarantos' life is fractured and initially hard tofollow because the album doesn't follow a linear timeline. Instead ofbeing a biography set to music, it's more like listening to someonereminisce, telling stories as they come to mind with music accenting,harmonizing with, and clashing against Olga's spoken words andEleanor's sung ones. They speak and sing of loves lost and found, gypsycurses, war, death, and family tensions. The music itself is difficultto describe, as it's abstract and by turns harsh and gentle.

Rehearsing My Choir is definitely a concept album and not one toload onto the iPod and hit shuffle. Take the time to listen through andpay attention to fully appreciate to beauty and loss of one woman'slife told in a beautiful and unusual way.

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12 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

Imagine there's an old abandoned farm house on the edge of town with nothing but the woods to keep it company. Imagine a bunch of high school kids held a party there one night and didn't come back. There wasn't any screaming, no bodies were found, no signs of violence; all the kids simply disappeared and never came back. Davenport braved that farm house and made some recordings there, only when they came back there were sounds on their tape that they didn't record. There were things happening in the background that they couldn't perceive. The contents of this disc are made up of those recordings.

3 Lobed

In all reality that might as well be the truth. Davenport's first release on the 3 Lobed label is scary at times, but has a gravitational pull unlike many albums of the same kind. The whole affair was recorded with a hand held tape machine. The result is that many of the sounds are muddy or warped, but that makes each of the tracks all the more intriguing. There's a sense that some unknown parts of the world were caught and manipulated on this disc. It's almost as if the record is a documentary without a narrative to guide the listener along. As such it is necessary to try and piece all of the sounds together, to try and create a thread of coherence to make sense out of lingering moments captured by the tape recorder.

While that may seem like the result of a poorly conceived record, in reality it is part of the fun of listening to music like this. The collage approach to sound might be a playground for cheap free association when it is handled by amateurs, but it can be an exciting and powerful means of exercising the imagination. Davenport temper their recordings well, allowing for exciting juxtapositions to occur, but also allowing for some randomness to take part in the making of the album. This makes the album both unpredictable and listenable. On top of that, anyone with any voyeuristic tendencies will find nearly every track captivating. One track will place me next to a lake with a small wooden boat, at other times I'm watching the trees wave in the wind from the top of a wooden fence, and at other times I'm feeling my way around inside a pitch black cellar, the sound of airplanes rushing by outside. All the time I feel as though I'm watching myself do this. The music is both transportive and cinematic. Davenport has combined many details, several different sources, and a mirage of feelings to great effect.

So while that whole free-folk thing keeps chugging along with its mostly talentless musicians and largely false mysticism, there are others who might be associated with that junk that are doing something entirely different. Davenport fits that bill very well. Just because a freaking acoustic guitar makes an appearance on a record does not mean that it belongs to the tradition of John Fahey and that certainly doesn't mean it is tied somehow to the blues or classic country music. Take this record for what it is: a well-designed, fun, and intriguing collage of places, intuitions, and memories.

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12 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

This four-way split from Die Stadt is a treat. It is a double 7” with a gorgeous sleeve featuring some wonderful experimental and minimalist pieces from four top-notch sound artists. Lucky early birds who get one of the first 300 copies also get a double CD of material from the same artists. Packaged in a lovely textured sleeve, the entire collection both looks and sounds dreamy.

Die Stadt

On the first 7”, the track from z’ev looks to the early stages of his career. “Elementonal” is a combination of two live performances from the early '80s, the rhythm being from the Atonal Festival in 1983 and metal percussion (I suppose you’d call it lead percussion) from a 1981 San Francisco show. Combined, the two recordings make a powerful junkyard piece, more chaotic and tempestuous than his contemporary performances. John Duncan’s contribution, however, is far harsher than the rest of the material. “OFFFFFFFF” is pure noise, sounding like roadworks being broadcasted over longwave radio. It is like being hit by the lightning that z’ev was brewing up on the flipside.

My favorite from the entire collection is the excerpt from Aidan Baker’s “Drone Four” on the second 7" single. There is a gentle warmth in the waves of sound. The drones come together to make an oceanic atmosphere. It feels that at any moment a lumbering undersea behemoth will float silently past as you are pushed away in its wake. The final piece from the vinyl is an excerpt from “The Beautiful Decline” by Fear Falls Burning. It’s superficially similar to the Baker piece but doesn’t have the same depth. It’s hard to get lost in the drones. The sleeve notes make a big deal about it being performed in real time with no overdubs but anyone with a guitar and a couple of delay pedals could do something like this.

The CDs are based on a simple concept: let the four artists remix each other (or modify or recycle, I can never remember the proper mot du jour). z’ev processes a two minute recording of Duncan’s into a 20 minute glitchy ambience: it doesn’t work as well as the other remixes. Duncan’s remix of Z’ev’s material sounds a lot like his own piece on the vinyl but slower. It is interesting enough but this disc is dull compared to the other CD and the vinyl. The second CD is better. Fear Falls Burning don’t add anything significant to Baker’s “Drone Four,” but it is a much more satisfying 37 minutes and there are nice little bumps and noises in the background that change the mood of the piece ever so slightly into something more unsettling. Baker fleshes out “The Beautiful Decline” into two more substantial works, making the sound richer and more vibrant. Ironically it sounds less like a pale imitation of Baker’s own original work once he fiddles with it.

These various discs add up to a rewarding and fulfilling experience. The different approaches each artist takes to sculpturing sounds into different shapes and characters are reinforced by each other’s contributions. Barring a couple of stumbles there is a lot of material here that is worth sitting down and analyzing bit by bit.

samples:

John Duncan - bkg
Fear Falls Burning - Drone Four
Aidan Baker - The Beautiful Declined (Declined Mix)

12 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

Community Library is now one year old. Founded in part by Paul Dickow, the label released three 12" singles in 2005 and a CD EP from Sawako. With more on the way, this is a look at the Nudge and Strategy singles released last year. High quality, clear, beautiful vinyl releases were the focus for the label throughout 2005 and it shows. These are dub-touched, rock-scored dance masterpieces of a quality that makes waiting for more a frustrating experience.

Community Library

There is little doubt that these are records of high quality. Looking at the vinyl's color and the depth of the grooves is enough to make that a sure thing, but one sample of the music in those grooves and it'll become obvious that Community Library knows how to handle the format. Both the Strategy and the Nudge records sound clear and fluid, the full range of sounds used on both records are easy to hear with little to no interference and all the warmth of analog playback. The Strategy record benefits the most from this; the thick bass and dance-oriented nature of the record is front and center, perfect for high volumes and getting your groove on. The Nudge record, on the other hand, sounds full and energetic. "Stack" is full of fluttering drum patterns, heavy bass, distorted electronics, a lead harmonica, and all manner of twisting melodies and effects. There is a multitude of minute detail packed onto these records and whether these are played through a nice stereo system or on headphones, they sound great. Not only can they be danced to, but they have replay value because of the depth of the production on all the tracks.

I'm especially taken by the B-sides on both records. Both "Div" on the Nudge record and "I Have to Do This Thing" are excellent songs, each different from their A-side. "I Have to Do This Thing" is almost pure club-oriented electronica the way I remember falling in love with: full of melody, constant movements, and clear sounds. "Div" is a hallucinogenic mix of ringing bells, whirling synthesizers, and a barrage of percussion all rotating around fluctuating bass tones and persistent washes of sound. They both round out the records very well, making them full and satisfying recordings.

While Strategy's record makes me want to dance and even consider hitting up clubs hoping for the same cerebral funk, Nudge's record is further proof that they really know how to meld the digital and acoustic worlds like nobody else. Their music is digital composition and free-form jam mentality all blended into a mind-warping electronic rock that I've not heard from anyone else.

Vinyl releases like these are very, very exciting. I'm already jonesing for the Eats Tapes 12" and knowing that there is more coming is enough to make sure that my eyes stay on Community Library. Grab these records, throw them on, turn up the volume and be prepared to keep them on for a long time. If it is possible to convert these into mp3 format or on to a compact disc, that may be advisable; wearing this vinyl out might be difficult, but it seems inevitable. Every time a track ends, I just want to flip it over and start again.

samples:

Strategy - World House
Strategy - I Have to Do This Thing
Nudge - Stack
Nudge - Div

11 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

Atsome point, someone is going to have to put an end to all of this. Whenit seems every new band forming is an experimental two piece that runeverything through a phalanx of distortion pedals, I have to step backand take a deep breath. It's not that I don't care for noise-rock orhave no patience for amateurism; in fact, they're two items I greatlyenjoy. But every once in a while, a record comes along that forces meto call my predilection for the two into question. This is,unfortunately, just such a record.

Load

Itdoesn’t take a rocket scientist or any real close listen to realizethat I’ve Visited the Island of Jocks and Jazz is a noisy,incomprehensible mess. Unfortunately, this doesn’t translateinto anything that I would call “bracing” either. Drums are thwacked,guitars are run through with enough ear-splitting distortion so as torender them nearly meaningless, and vocals are hardly the point. Think early Jesus and Mary Chain with absolutely no pophooks. I’m all for noise, and count myself a big fan of Load’s releasesin the past, but The Hospitals simply renders all their noise meaningless.

Instead of being a challenging or even intimidating approach, The Hospitalssimply water down their songs with so much distortion they sound likeglobs day old mayonnaise–bland and not very good. Poorly playedsaxophones appear on “Boom Bap Biff,” not so much providing that songwith any sort of saving grace but at least giving the listenersomething else to hate. “Moving/Shaking” comes close to approaching thenihilistic tone of early No-Wave pioneers Mars and Teenage Jesus andthe Jerks, which makes the song less of an endurance test then theothers. “Jocks and Jazz” is the only song that seems to find anappropriate pulse and it thrusts and flails through its 1:30 runningtime.

The biggest complaint that can be lobbed here is that the albumis on auto pilot 95% of the time. For a genre where a lack of technicalproficiency can be easily made up by energy (see early Black Dice), NedMeiners and Adam Stonehouse both seem content to just see all thelevels in the red and leave it at that. Obviously, kids in the Americannoise rock scene will probably shit themselves over this. I won’t saythat Hospitals don’t have it in them to become something far greaterthan I’ve Visited the Island of Jocks and Jazz attempts to hint at, butuntil then, I think I’ll take a pass.

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11 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

Thirty seconds into the first track of this CD, I thought I'd beentransported back to about 1985. I'm pretty I heard a song just likethis at the Roll-R-Skate in fifth grade. That '80s feel was a lot more interesting when it was new.

Archenemy

Polystar is intentionally (and self-consciously) retro; Finishedis full of heavy '80s synths and disco. Maybe they're trying to create an homage tothe past, but to me it feels like they're just rehashing it withoutadding anything new or original. The lyrics are trite and don't addmuch interest; lines like "I know it's more than skin deep/Because Ifeelit through and through" from "You Turn Me On" made this writer cringe.Songs like "Upside Down" could holdits own at any'70s-era Ramada Inn lounge while "VampireGirl" is about as pointedly dark as you'd guess from the title. Despiteworking with Roger O'Donnell (who formerly worked with The Cure), theydon't reach the interestingly moodiness of that band.

Nostalgic listeners would be better served digging through the used binat the local record shop for a $5 '80s compilation.

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11 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

This is the third album from the wonderfully eclectic Barbez. Mixing mainly eastern European traditional music with cabaret, avant garde and straight up rock Insignificance is both unique sounding yet it sounds utterly familiar. A less than standard instrumentation and an immensely talented singer make for a gem of an album.

Important

Insignificance is bathed in eastern European charm, no small amount of thanks to Russian singer Ksenia Vidyaykina whose operatic yet folky voice holds centre court whenever it appears. At first I found Vidyaykina’s voice hard to listen to, it reminded me of poor goth metal bands who employ a classically trained female singer to bring them some artistic credibility but I was allowing prejudices to get in the way of appreciating the quality of her performance. Her voice is powerful yet controlled, sometimes though it breaks through into a more passionate and less stiff phrasing, especially on the traditional songs “As for the Little Grey Rabbit” and "The Sea Spread Wide."

The rest of the band are not playing second fiddle to Vidyaykina, each of the other players are equally tight and talented. Tunick’s marimba and vibraphone add a more worldly feel to the album, expanding its borders past the obvious eastern European settings. There are two different drummers and it’s hard to tell that it wasn’t the work of one regular drummer, both play sympathetically to the other musicians and are obviously well versed in various forms of traditional music. Most tracks change timings throughout their duration, rarely is something as a 4/4 beat present yet it doesn’t ever sound like Barbez are trying to make the music more complicated for the sake of being complicated. In fact it sounds beautifully simple.

What I can’t let go unmentioned is Pamelia Kurstin’s incredible theremin playing. When I first listened to the album I thought there were violin and cello players, on consulting the sleeve notes it appears I was very much mistaken, all of the “strings” were Kurstin. The theremin is famously hard to play as a tonal instrument and I must take my hat off to her for producing such wonderful melodies from it, it’s easy to see why the late Bob Moog held her in such high regard. After hearing “Strange” and “Song of the Moldau” (originally “Das Lied von der Moldau” by Brecht and Eisler) it has completely opened my ears as to how a theremin should sound.

It is very hard to find fault with Insignificance. Nothing sounds forced or contrived. The performances from all the musicians are flawless, they all are clearly comfortable with their chosen instrument and with playing with each other. It can take a couple of listens to fully come to terms with the songs, they are carefully crafted and it needs some effort and attention from the listener to appreciate them. This small amount of effort pays off in the long run as these songs are so intricate that every time I listen to Insignificance I find something new lurking between the notes.

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11 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

I don't really give a damn about psychedelic free association or extended mind jams. Typically all any of that adds up to is a mess of strange guitar solos and warped sounds bouncing of each other, all in an attempt to sound like a German group from the 70s. Luckily the Finnish employ that nasty word in a completely different manner and, in the case of Lumottu Karkkipurkki, the music is closer to bizarre, alienating sound collages than anything produced in the '70s with a guitar and acid.

Fonal

The title translates as "The Enchanted Candy Jar (Free System)" according to the Fonal website and, though it wasn't picked up by a hip label, stands up well against the Kellari Juniversumi album also released last year. The format of the album is roughly the same as the one used on that album. Many of the songs are anywhere from two to four minutes and are free standing collages of broken or poorly tuned instruments, toys, analog sounds, and kitchen sinks (who knows exactly what the band used to put this all together). It was originally released in 2001 as a double 8" lathe cut picture disc and is most likely impossible to find in that enticing format. Luckily Fonal has decided to re-release it so that I can sit in my chair uncomfortably and twitch to the music provided.

The title comes from a Finnish book of children's stories and details that travels of a child who has a magical candy jar. Every time he takes a different candy from the jar, his surroundings change. Aside from the drug connotations that can be read into this story, the idea is intriguing enough and works well with the aforementioned format. Each track stands separate from all of the others, united only by their amorphous construction and lack of any recognizable melody. Kemialliset Ystävät adhere to strictly textural principles in the production of their songs, allowing for static, reversed keyboards, tumbling acoustic guitars, electric chicanery, and other random sources to assault the stereo at will. I can only presume that these songs must represent, in some way, a child's adventures with the candy.

If this all sounds a bit messy, that's because it is, but that's also where Lumottu Karkkipurkki gets all its charm. All the sounds are genuinely alien, demonstrating the group's ability to create unique worlds within a small period of time and with an obviously explosive imagination. The album sounds best when a series of short, deliberately chaotic pieces follow each other immediately, such as the series from "Puttos" (track 10) to "Systeemi 4" (track 13). The sudden changes in sound sources causes immediate mood shifts, throwing me off balance and out of sorts every time I listen to it. The monotone, often bleak passages on the album are the most interesting: Thomas Ligotti, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and others come immediately to mind every time I hear them. Their black souls are hidden behind other song's more playful attitudes, but the plucked guitars and their twisted melodies can only inspire pictures of desolate landscapes and hazy figures, too frightful to imagine, wandering in the distance.

All this makes Kemialliset Ystävät far more interesting than many of their contemporaries, all of whom seem to be interested in forging a new and strange "folk" movement. I'm not sure exactly how Kemialliset Ystävät got mixed up in the category to begin with. Kemialliset Ystävät are far more modern, using technology both old and new to forge horror stories and plays out of sound instead of words or sets. The outlets that have covered Fonal and especially this band seem to want to place the band in a musical phenomenon that it has nothing to do with. If there is anything folk-like about the band, it comes from the background, in the inspiration the band draws from in making their records. Tribal, peace, love, and happiness-derived free rock this is not. Thankfully this group delivers more than most of that pretend intellectual or spiritual crap.

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11 January 2006

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Albums and Singles

At first I thought Calla's third album was good but before long I’ve come to think of them as the sort of band that owns the entire Low back catalogue but didn’t pay attention when Low's class was in session. Collisions is an ultimately bland record, not bad enough to warrant the master tapes being destroyed but certainly not interesting enough to make new listeners want to discover older albums.

Beggars Banquet

From what I can tell, Calla used to be a well respected band. Previous releases on Young God and Sub Rosa should be making me raise an eyebrow or two but Collisions has made me wary. What I can only presume is this album is the product of a band getting lazy and resting on its old credibility while watering down its music to appeal to the kind of people who think Coldplay are the most experimental band on earth.

Collisions is well executed but irredeemably unoriginal, I don’t know about the rest of the world but here in Dublin every “sensitive” rock band sounds like this. Granted most of them aren’t even half as talented as Calla but a lack of inspiration is a lack of inspiration no matter how good a musician you are. “So Far, So What” is typical of being well played but completely unmemorable. In fact listening to the record for what seems like the tenth time over the last few days I don’t actually remember hearing most of these songs before. The band seems to wake up towards the end of the album, after eight tracks of boredom there is all of a sudden a couple of tracks with backbone. “Testify” is about as good as it gets and for most of the song it is very good. The guitars are spiky, the drums are pounding and there’s some nice electric organ in the chorus. The vocals let it down, Valle sounds like he’s on a heavy dose of sedatives. “Swagger” continues the strong musical element, creating a powerful rhythm with guitars chugging and dancing all over the place. Valle still sounds doped to the eyes.

I can honestly say that apart from the couple of good tracks mentioned above, this CD will not be likely to be spun again under my roof.

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09 January 2006

Albums and Singles

For Still Valley Mirror mainstays Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemanncollaborated with Jim O'Rourke between May, 2002 and January, 2004.Much of Mirror's output has suffered from prohibitive pricing and/orfrustratingly limited runs but thankfully CD re-issues such as these can bring the music to more masses.