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26 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

The Rogers Sisters are from New York and sound like they were born 25 years too late. If all the members of Blondie and Talking Heads were dead they would be rolling in their graves. I’ve no problem with taking influence from an era but trying to recreate it in such an awful way is obscene.

Too Pure

Emotion Control is formulaic post punk boredom. Both tracks are dull and unremarkable. I can only assume that The Rogers Sisters have learned everything from an arcane textbook called How to Sound like a Dozen New Wave Bands at Once, the guitars have chorus and phaser effects on them at the expected places, the vocals are cool non-singing chants with a quirky accent and there’s even a fucking saxophone on “The Conversation,” and I say bollocks to all that. The Rogers Sisters are another nu wave band jumping on the bandwagon (and the axels are about to give on that baby). If I wanted something from the past to return in a distasteful manner I’ll stick with the inevitable indigestion from my forthcoming Christmas dinner.

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26 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Paul Dickow's Community Library label, formed in the Spring of 2005, subscribes to a mantra of sorts: music without borders or community without geography. It's a costly mantra in the case of Sawako's first recording on the label. "Sawako +" is Sawako assembling various sound samples given to her by friends and musicians from all over the globe. If it weren't for its brevity, Omnibus would be a very unsatisfying grab bag of strange, random sound.

Community Library

I like it when musicians have a purpose and go headlong into a project in order to see it realized. It's ballsy and requires a good deal of effort. Glitchy electronic music could use some effort, too. Entire albums sound like they could've been assembled in a day, maybe less, and that does nothing but make the music, the entire package, seem cheap. So with effort and concept in hand, I was willing to give Sawako the benefit of the doubt. At just over nineteen minutes long there isn't much to complain about in the first place. The longer tracks (the longest reaching five minutes) have the most going for them. Several pieces end in two minutes and others in less than a minute. So when a song is given some time to flesh itself out, it's almost a relief. Jumping between meandering sound samples, though each of them are appealing to some extent, is about as much fun as listening to the television while flipping through it at light speed. There's not enough material to catch on to and so none of it ever really sounds all that interesting. It just exists in that brief space and then goes away. In absence of "Aykmin" or "Datam," the EP is almost entirely forgettable. And if it isn't forgettable, then it's damn irritating. "Practice" features some lovely guitar playing right before it drops of the face of the planet. I'd do anything to extend that track another twenty or so seconds just so I could hear where that melody was going.

On the upside, the aforementioned tracks are almost worth getting the EP for. Along with "End Roll" and "Lapon," there's enough music here to pique my interest in Sawako's other work. However, it'd be nice if Community Library just made these tracks available as part of another release from Sawako or maybe as part of a singles collection. All I know is that more than half of these tracks don't need to be on the EP. I would've been far more satisfied with a four-track, twelve-minute release. The concept behind the project would sound far more intriguing than it does now and would give me hope for further short, but excellent tunes.

As it stands I'm weary of hearing another release like this one. I've actually just ripped the songs that I like to my computer and made them part of another playlist so that I can enjoy those songs without the other, less enjoyable aspects of Omnibus. Sawako does make a neat offer, however: if anyone thinks that they can craft a fine remix of this album, she encourages you to do so and send her the results. Like I said, I appreciate the concept and I appreciate that she stuck to the random qualities that such a concept would demand, but in the end it did more damage than anything else. Random is good, but sometimes I need a red thread to get me through an album. Sawako cuts the thread in half before I can even find it.

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24 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

This is another reissue that is perfect for existing fans, as it's beena sought after item, fetching high prices at online auctions. Honestly,and the band is well aware of this, while there are some great songscontained, it's simply not as strong a caliber as is the writing andproduction that the band have found their international acclaim with.

Temporary Residence

I'm probably one of the only people who actually own the originalCD-R release of this. I can say that safely because I think I was theonly person in the audience their first time through Boston who wasn'tin one of the bands on stage that night. My review of the night waseven posted here on Brainwashed, which featured Tigersaw, 27, Sonna,and Chris Brokaw up in the now closed Artspace in Gloucester, Mass.Like Kinski, (whose reissue is also reviewed today), this band blew meaway from the first second. However, like them, the young group made dowith the resources they had to create their first album.

Explosions haven't really changed their sound from album to album,however, so don't expect to find a completely different band containedon How Strange, Innoncence. The arrangement is still handled byone drummer and three guitar players (one who uses bass sometimes). Themeandering melodies have more bright than dark sides to them, as songtitles like "Look Into the Air," "Magic Hours," and "Snow and Lights"are undeniably optimistic sounding. The band isn't nearly as cynical ason their most recent full-length album, The Earth Is Not a Cold, Dead Place(whose title, contrary to what some high profile critics haveerroneousely assumed, represents the writings of a person who iswriting the title over and over and over again to try and convincehimself it to be true).

Argue as much as you may about how much better a remastering job canmake an album sound, but if the songs are fairly average to begin with,it's not going to do all that much in the grand scheme of things. Fansof Explosions in the Sky who only have exposure to their two big albumsare pretty spoiled. We are used to getting a consise album of 5-6focused songs, all of which are well-crafted, original sounding, andover the top in terms of power, passion, and production. Here, I canonly say a couple of these tracks come close to that level. "Look Intothe Air" is perhaps my favorite yet it strays from what they're knownfor: it has a very memorable riff and keeps to a moderate pace whichdoesn't actually scream bloody murder somewhere in the middle. Whileit's a great song, it doesn't do much to distinguish Explosions fromother instrumental post-rock bands of the late 1990s. "Remember Me as aTime of Day" closes the album with a very acoustic sounding guitarinterplay whose beauty and charm hints at the better moments of whatwas to come from the band, but the band doesn't go too far with themelodies contained. I appreciate the arrangement on somethinglike the predominantly drum-free "Time Stops," with a bowed instrumentof some sort at the beginning and a picked up pace towards the middlewith some faster guitar finger-picking. Their playing was always greatand their ear for balance of the instruments hasn't ever been at fault,but the songwriting of the group hadn't quite blossomed yet, as themelodies simply aren't as powerful as they are now.

This is not a bad album, despite the band apologizing for it profusely in theliner notes printed on the CD iteself. They are correct in admitting that itshows a certain brightness that they probably won't pursue again. It does sound better than a lot ofthe instrumental bands who are trying their hand at the loud/softpretty/abrasive juxtapositioning, but it should be well understood thatthe quality control the Austin-based quartet has enforced over theirrecent work is simply not present. The important thing is now anybodycan get the full fidelity experience and decide for themselves ratherthan pay way too much or resort to filesharing compressed and glitchy,quality-compromised MP3s.

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24 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Kinski blew my mind the first time I saw them. They tore the roof offTerrastock 5 in Boston, unleashing a loud, blistering, and healthy mixof psych-rock and pop with a sound clean enough to hear the great songsrather than be buried in a barrage of overwhelming distortion. The bandworked together and didn't step on each others toes in some sloppy messthat other modern day psych rockers are far too guilty of.

Strange Attractors

By the time I had seen them at Terrastock, Kinski was already donewith their third album, their first for Sub Pop, scheduled to bereleased in the following year. Old releases available at the merchtable and I quickly snagged up anything I could get my hands on. What Iheard from SpaceLaunch for Frenchie was a band who knew wherethey were going: marrying the loud volumes with an affinity for moresubdued melodies and vocals, but they still had some way to go to maketheir music more remarkable.

The passion that drives their fantastic albums Airs Above Your Station and this year's top ten contender Alpine Staticare all present, however the writing isn't all that impressive. Theband is very much in tune with each other, with carefully orchestratedswells and decays, but the riffs aren't memorable, they don't resonateand remain long after the songs are done. It's not boring, but thesongs are simply less distinguishable from the thousands of othermediocre rock bands who are playing at the local rock club, opening forthe national acts. It's not bad by a long shot, and I enjoy the vocaltracks on songs like "Floundering & Fluctuating," as they're veryreminiscent of Jesus and Mary Chain and early Spiritualized (beforeJason Pearce got the notion he was in some stadium-rock band). It's nota bad thing to sound like in my book.

The reissue of SpaceLaunch on Strange Attractors is a dream fornewer fans who may have missed out on the availability of the originalhomemade release. The original release is here in its entirety alongwith four songs from Kinski's four-track demo and one outtake from thealbum recording session. I actually love the outtake, "She Always MadeUs Work Like Dogs" a lot more than some of the tracks on the originalalbum so I'm confused why it didn't make it. The demo tracks, however,show a band who's even slightly sloppier than the band on the finalrecordings. The recording of Chris Martin's vocals and David Weeks'drums could use a lot of work but hey, who's band is experienced enoughto get -good- mic sounds on their first demos? More importantly thanany criticism of mine is that the songs are fun to listen to and Kinskiare a fantastic band and I'm glad to finally have a CD of this whosebooklet isn't wearing and fading quickly.

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24 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

The Wardrobe is a collaboration with Sol Invictus driving force TonyWakeford and Andrew Liles; the release more resembles Wakeford's workwith Matt Howden than Sol Invictus. Cups in Cupboard is limited to 500signed copies and is released on Wakeford's own label Tursa.
Tursa

Throughout the album images arise of time passing, empty and dustyrooms filled with the distorted tinkling of a music box, furniture leftbehind in an abandoned manor, and an atmosphere of grandeur faded andforgotten but not gone. Pianos, strings, and chimes are manipulated,layered, and paired with underlying low snarls. Almost-liturgicalchants mingle with muted brass. The music is harsh at times but alwaysstately, muted but never muddy, shrouded but not obscured.

"Arcade" begins as something like a carousel or circus tune,but distorted, dark, and muted as if echoing through thick fog, thendeteriorates into something more foreboding before sliding into softchimes. "Wind in the Willows" brings in footsteps, trickling andbubbling water, and wind sweeping past age-rippled windows. Thepenultimate track "Windows" has more of a Sol feel than the rest of thealbum with prominent acoustic guitar.

At a brief 46 minutes Cups in Cupboard still had the power todistort all my perceptions of time. The feeling that's left is ofagentle dread and a yearning for things lost.

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24 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

The world’s longest serving Bad Seed releases another album of covers. Unfortunately it's not another Serge Gainsbourg tribute, but a collection of songs that Harvey felt a strong connection to by such songwriters as Lee Hazelwood, Tim Buckley and Guy Clark. Without hearing it, I knew exactly what was going to sound like: a depressed cowboy with a drink in one hand and a battered guitar in the other.

Mute

The album retains the playfulness and light heartedness of Harvey’s Intoxicated Man and Pink Elephants (the Gainsbourg albums). The opening track “First St. Blues” is the sound of a solitary wanderer ruminating on the world. This is a common theme to the album as Harvey obviously identifies with songwriters who procrastinate and philosophise while looking down on a whiskey in a dusty bar. Songs like “Louise” and “Man without a Home” continue the lonesome cowboy vibes. Listening to the album makes me imagine Harvey working in a studio with swing doors from a saloon and a horse tied up outside. His version of Guy Clark’s “Hank Williams Said It Best” (the lyrics of which give the album its title) is as good as the original and is worth getting the album for alone.

One thing about One Man’s Treasure, which could be either avirtue or a fault depending on your views, is that it sounds like theBad Seeds. “Demon Alcohol” being the most reminiscent, sounding like aless aggressive “Loverman.” Harvey does embellish the Bad Seed templateand makes it his own: his voice is far removed from Cave’s. Whencovering Cave’s “Come into My Sleep,” Harvey keeps the song distantfrom the original. The music sounds that bit lighter and fresher andHarvey’s voice has a gentler tone to it.

One Man’s Treasure is a good record, it’s not a groundbreaking album by any means. Mick does exactly what is expected of him: a dozen covers of alt-country’s gentry made with a lot of love and respect for the originals. He doesn’t reconstruct the songs in an attempt to gain credibility with the serious musical elite, he just sticks to being a singer of songs. Much like his other CDs, I can’t see myself playing this to death but I know I’ll be digging it out from time to time when those cowboy blues set in (most likely after watching the Sergio Leone collection).

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23 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

All India Radio are not Indian and they are not to be confused with the Indian radio station. In fact they are an Australian electronic band, but its always great to hear that South Asian music and culture is inspiring music artists everywhere. Permanent Evolutions is in many ways a reflection of a new Global South Asian sound that captures an essence that is quite different from South Asian music that was being produced a few decades ago.

All India Radio

This album has the All India Radio ambient signature‚Äîit's totally chilled and with a subtle yet distinct Indian sound in most but not all tracks.The sounds are blended perfectly.¬†The album goes back and forth from lighter easy on the ear tracks to some darker sounds.Most tracks are a rising a falling mixture of tablas, sitars, bass guitar, drums working seamlessly on a base of what sounds like an electronic keyboard.

"For Angel" is the only track with vocals and lyrics, its beautiful, romantic and sad.The female vocal is a mesmerizing and captivating and plays well with the lovely and subtle sitar."Pray to the TV Funk" picks up the album towards the end.It‚Äôs a culmination of sounds that could almost be danced to, but the best thing is the (Spanish I think) guitar rhythm and violin base that keeps this track going right to the end."Delhi Dub" is like Clint Eastwood and Talvin Singh vying over who‚Äôs going to get the rickshaw driver first.At under two minutes, this track is a masterpiece starting off in the sinister Wild West but is soon joined by quick drum beats and that distinct head-bopping dub beat. I would have liked to have heard where this track might have lead to but it's cut too short.¬†¬†

Permanent Evolutions is a deep and intelligent compilation, bringing together many experimental sounds and influences that let the mind wonder beyond borders.It is total relaxation and a billion thoughts all at the same time.

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¬†

23 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Theseare the first steps of a band with a definite goal in mind and thoughsome of those steps are awkward, Capillary Action harnesses the abilityto fuse the wide, wide world of music into something new and exciting.Just so long as they don't screw up and write more tunes like"Scattered Remnants."

Pangaea

For an album titled Fragments a whole lot of attention has been focused on how varied every song is. It's funny because I thought nothing of it the first time I listened to the record. The scope and ambition of the project is immediately evident as Jonathan Pfeffer and company move from metal to indie instrumentalism to jazz in five songs or less.

Before the third track had finished I still wasn't hip to exactly what Pfeffer was trying to do with Fragments. I had assumed that most independent musicians went through a stage where any and all styles of music were fair game; who says samba and metal shouldn't make an appearance on the same tune? As the record continued, however, clarity struck and Pfeffer's strengths and weaknesses were simultaneously exposed. Pfeffer and the musicians who contributed to the record are all talented, capable of playing a wide range of styles, switching between them flawlessly, and blending them together to form whole songs. On the other hand, they sometimes sound a little stiff, the songs coming across awkwardly as if the band only had experience with playing songs of this type, not necessarily writing them. This awkwardness wouldn't have been half as obvious if it weren't for the fact that Capillary Action sound most natural when metal is the name of the game. Want harmonized riffs, double bass drum action, and 80's flair? Capillary Action know how to play that game and they play it as well as any of the long-haired stars of the genre. Want the chugging riffs of dark, epic metal? Capillary Action can do that, too, and they add a believable and sophisticated dimension to it simultaneously.

So when "Scattered Remnants" starts and Pfeffer tries toying with pseudo-lounge arrangements there's just a hint of unease in the recordings. At times Pfeffer tries to introduce some classic instrumental tricks to cover that shakiness: drums chugging away like trains beneath repeated lines of melody, arrangements involving multiple layers of guitars all playing different rhythms in a sort of multi-instrumental loop, sudden stops in favor of radically different sections of music... all of them are employed at some point on the record and they sound out of place when played next to songs like "A Hundred Pages of Cannot Be Named" or "Architecture Would Fail." Pfeffer knows he wants to explore, but he doesn't always seem to be on sure ground when he does it.

Once "Scattered Remnants" exhausts its eight minute duration, Fragments loosens back up into a Latin dance that doesn't seem so forced. From there the album goes through shades of fun, excellent, good, and wanton exploration. Without ever settling on a signature sound, Capillary Action manage to carve out a mission statement: we're going to go where we want, even if that means doing something out of the ordinary and completely uncomfortable. It's a daring statement because the band would do well to calm down and try finding some coherent sound to work through on one album instead of writing ten different records and condensing them into one package.

Fragments has me thinking and I like that. If aband's goal is to experiment and play around with styles, then the bandshould go for broke. That's exactly what Capillary Action does. Screwall theattempts at meshing genres together, Pfeffer is going to force theminto the same space and if he doesn't succeed entirely, then he's happythat he at least gave it a shot. It's hard to fault a band that isn'tafraid to chase their vision into unusual realms. They aren't evenafraid to screw up, which they do here and there. More focus, lesswank, and a bit of experience is going to do a lot for CapillaryAction. Whether or not they'll learn to harness all their influenceswill decide whether or not they make a name for themselves.

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23 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Dropping the second release from his Rotten LP series Giffoni brings a chaotic bag of smash and grab noise with a suite of dented robotic sex music and detached damage. The odd choice of title manages to claim individualism and defiance while skirting the inherent hip-hop parody and is represented in the cross section of styles that he turns his bank of electronics to mauling with precision.

No Fun

This is a enjoyably harsh but not a wholly enjoyable listen that’s nowhere near as satisfying as his recent Welcome Home and Giffoni seems to have picked most of these chunks of bitter digital blasts purposefully as part of an attention grabbing barrage as opposed to fitting a running theme.

Moving almost too fast for the mind to catch a hold of is the burbling, twisting loop of “Period.” It makes up 90% of its structure as it sits on huffs of steel grey static which seem to boil on contact with air. The loop soon becomes a digital deluge of squelching water forced down a fibre optic drainpipe and its brevity is welcome as it appears to bubble on the spot as opposed to the movement with which he normally endows his music.

The nearest this LP gets to a perceivable structure and progress is the industrial-lite techno stomp of “Addiction,” which soon breaks up and then rights itself (or writes itself) as a whole new jarring pattern of swamped levels of buzz. This is the sole piece which shows off Giffoni’s infamously minute manipulations (which are too broad to be subatomic) and his ease at shifting new sounds and new emphasis into a song’s mix. There are clear digital tones which beautifully spin and alter over and over depending on his focus as he tweaks volume and the mix spotlighting different parts. Its evil twin “Addiction #2” only manages to perform as a piece of straightforward fucked bleepery which has been chipped and sped up into something resembling cold pure digital vomit.

He manages to produce some warmth with the sharp two sided sliced heat whine of “Why,” which is then cuffed and smothered and again on the fierce distance of droning “No.” The song’s circular heated hum and ebbing warmer waves within gives a further glimpse of a Carlos Giffoni on the mark on this LP that should’ve been an EP.

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23 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

This re-release from Andrew Chalk's newly formed Faraway Press imprintwas written for the soul. Its mental and spiritual power can only befelt by the patient, however. Each of them waiting for that moment ofbliss to sink into their bones and erase their minds of the world ofsame-old-shit errands and tasks. That moment of bliss is, of course,defined by the instant that the music puts a blanket over the rest ofthe universe and convinces the listener that it simply doesn't existanymore.

Faraway Press

Drone is escapism. There's nothing for it to rebel against, it has noinherent message, and it speaks of no material or political concern.Drone is like moving straight from politician to Buddhist, unconcernedwith the body, money, power, sex, drugs, or control. All thefree-association that has been used to write about drone music hasfinally found its reason: drone only wants to let the mind go on avacation. If all the stereotypes about college students, politics, andradio are true, then this sentiment won't sit well with mostlisteners, but those same listeners would do well for themselves ifthey just shut their mouths and listened close. Andrew Chalk's Shadows from the Album Skiesmakes clear drone's statement. It is the manifesto for all music ofthis kind as applied to the modern individual and it says somethingmuch like this: quick, run away.

What makes this record's intent so clear and what also happens tomake the rest of the drone world come solidly into non-focus is howunapologetic it is. Two tracks, one nearly half an hour in length andthe other over forty-five minutes in length, are all that compose it.One is higher in pitch, consisting of wind-washed whistles and subtlewave contortions. The other is lower, fuller, somehow more tangible inthat it echoes like a voice does off of marble walls. The variationpresented on either track is minimal or, at the most, hard to recognizebecause change happens so silently throughout. In any case, it isevident that this record is less about entertainment and more aboutquiet escape: abscond into the night and don't come back unless it'snecessary. For everyone that is sick of the telephone ringing, for allthe people so exhausted after work that they can't bring themselves topursue their own hobbies, for all the headaches induced by customers,bosses, clients, and co-workers, for all that pent up frustration thatmight explode if its kept in any longer, there's this record. Switch iton, do not think of anything else, let its amorphous sound turn out thelights, shut down the sun, and pull the curtains tight. It can donothing more, it offers little outside of a quiet place where all thatfrustration can be let go uselessly, without harm, without depression,without hate. It makes concentration possible again because there'snothing else around to break it as long as the disc keeps spinning.

And there will be no apologies for this escape. So often I am forcedto confront things I have absolutely no chance of changing, forced tocorrect other's mistakes, forced to yell angrily at a television thatisn't listening, bled to death by a nation that disagrees with mewhole-heartedly, and left wondering what the hell more I could've done.Many people feel this, always confronting, always fighting, but nevergetting anywhere. Andrew Chalk is well aware of this, his music is thechance to rejuvenate, after all. Escapism isn't the product of deadmind, it's the product of a mind that's been working so hard it is nowon the edge of breaking down and washing away with the next powerfulwind that catches it the wrong way. What good is it to fight if thenext movement will kill the fighter? At least there is somewhere to gowhen the brain becomes desperate.

But desperate people aren't the only ones listening to drone; theymight not be desperate at all. Drone is relaxing on the whole, perfect inits contemplative air and un-aggressive with its whispered delivery. Soif drone is escapism, and the listener isn't always on the verge ofhomicidal self-destruction, that means it must be escaping to something or away from something else. And if Shadows from the Album Skiestells us anything about what drone might escape to or from, the onlyreference it has is the listener. In absence of the need to escape fromthe material world, perhaps drone lets us escape from ourselves or backto ourselves. Even if the world doesn't have us locked down in itsmachinations, all that paranoid, schizophrenic second-guessing anddoubting we submit ourselves to still exists. Perhaps, then, dronegives us a way to leave ourselves behind and reconstitute ourselvesinto something new, reform ourselves, experience that reformation as adeath and a birth, or just plain leave ourselves behind with no plansof coming back. I'm not quite sure what comes after that, I'm not sureany drone album has gone there, yet. Shadows from the Album Skies,however, is a revelation of an album. It's a key to understanding andappreciating some of the deeper strangeness experienced while listeningto drone records and perhaps a door for everyone who hasn't yet beenseduced by the extended tone of Andrew Chalk's exemplary work.

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