Podcast Episodes 721 & 722 are live!
Mid-November midweek special
Two new episodes are now available.
Episode 721 features Throwing Muses, Eros, claire rousay, Moin, Zachary Paul, Voice Actor and Squu, Leya, Venediktos Tempelboom, Cybotron, Robin Rimbaud and Michael Wells, Man or Astro-Man?, and Aisha Vaughan.
Episode 722 has James Blackshaw, FACS, Laibach, La Securite, Good Sad Happy Bad, Eramus Hall, Nonconnah, The Rollies, Jabu, Freckle, Evan Chapman, diane barbe, Tuxedomoon, and Mark McGuire.
Wine in Paris photo by Mathieu.
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Et Sans latest release (and first) on Canadian label Alien 8 is analbum that finds the band pushing themselves in familiar yetchallenging directions. The four tracks here burst at the seams withideas and inventiveness, all while managing to remain uniquelyaccessible to those unfamiliar with their influences.
Did you ever wonder where Grace Jones and Miss Kittin learned all their moves? Look no further than Gina X Performance's 1979 electro new-wave classic Nice Mover. This, along with their follow-up, X-Traordinaire, have been reissued by LTM and given the special LTM treatment with restored artwork and bonus tracks.
When I was in high school, my friends and I used to have thisdiscussion all the time about how Jack Dangers had such a signaturesound that he could take anyone else's song and remix it into somethingthat was unmistakably Meat Beat Manifesto. It shouldn't come as anysurprise then that some fifteen years later when Dangers has taken onthe task of producing a jazz record for Thirsty Ear, that the result still sounds like quintessential Meat Beat.
Randolph Carter was one of author H.P. Lovecraft's most memorableprotagonists, a man so frightened by the sudden, unexplainable death ofhis companion that he could only provide sketchy details on thenameless ancient horror they both glimpsed at night in a catacombs,amidst foul miasmal vapors issuing from an open sepulcher. The music ofRandolph Carter is similarly unspeakable, a collection of chillingambient soundscapes each darker and more nebulous than the last,creaking machines and rumbling undercurrents of noise, strangevibrations bubbling up from the core of a dying star. It's a noiserecord, but one that relies on the subtle creation of insistent dread,rather than aggressive squalls of feedback, for its effect. It's moreakin to early work by Lustmord or SPK than the familiar cadre' ofmodern noise artists, but there is a thread of subtle beauty runningthrough these compositions as well. It's anyone's guess what kind ofgear was used to create these effects, but there seems to be some usageof analog synthesizers and a variety of effects pedals, as well as(maybe) some tape effects. The elements pile on top of each other,creating an appealingly suggestive low-fidelity tangle of sound, inwhich one can pick out backwards-masked voices, animal sounds,chattering machines, and other sounds which may or may not actually bepresent. On "The 9th Duke, Manifest In All His Insufferable Beauty," aresounding, earth-pounding heartbeat forms a cataclysmic rhythm, while"Nero Is My Lover" is the soundtrack to an erotic nightmare about aTesla coil. The H.P. Lovecraft influence can be felt on a track like"I'm Clipping Your Wings," a yawning cave echoing with thereverberating groans of some hoary demon releasing foul, malodorousbelches while bathing in a sea of entrails. "One Who Glistens Horribly"sounds like the opening kettle drum fanfare for the commencement of aweird Witches Sabbath rite performed at the edge of a volcano. Much of Easter Paradeis utterly nightmarish, and I was left awestruck, watching amorphous,necrophagous shadows dance beneath an accursed waning moon.
Map of Hell makes slow-motion doom metal that should please thenewfound legions of post-Nordic sludge enthusiasts currently clamoringover records by Earth, Sunn O))), Khanate and Black Boned Angel. UnlikeRandolph Carter, Map of Hell is a full group: M. Sweet on guitar, CliveHenry on "deathgrunt" and unknown quantities bass and drums. MOH'sparticular brand of crushing death rock is a bit more tuneful and lessabstract than the aforementioned acts, and their lengthy excursionstend to stay grounded in something approaching melody and forwardmomentum, but the low-fidelity recording style constantly pushes theband's considerable bottom-end into the red zone of distortion. Thiscreates ugly squalls of noise that obscure the group's dynamics,forcing attention onto the compounding sediment that clings to everydowncast riff, accompanied by what vocals that sound like thedisembodied roars of a giant robotic lion with its tail being held to aflame. The drumming is the most impressive element, reigning in thechaotic spray of muddy guitar noise, creating an insulatingarchitecture amidst the poisonous, choking smoke filling the air. It'san undeniably hellish concoction that thankfully does not wear out itswelcome by the 32-minute mark, though I must admit that I might alreadybe tired of the whole "subterranean metal" subgenre at this point. Istill think that there are some unparalleled classics of thegenre—Earth's Extra-Capsular Extraction and Sunn O)))'s White 1—thatI will probably enjoy forever, but the sheer amount of this stuff beingreleased right now can't help but cheapen even a sincere effort likeMap of Hell's debut, though it's worth noting that this album wasrecorded back in 2002, well before the crest of the wave. The linernotes contain some cut-ups that contribute thematic justification tothe relentlessly negative riffage on the album, not that you everreally need an excuse to wallow in a pit of twisted, low-end metaldebris.
Pistols At Dawn With Afterglow create lengthy compositions, stretchingorganic drones and loops across the entire length of an album, withsubtle acoustic elements nudging their way in, lonely almost-melodiesthat bubble up and dissipate, leaving a trail of ghostly echoes intheir wake. On No Songs of Birds, No Rustle,an eerie drone keeps cycling around, rudely sputtering every time itbegins anew, sparsely decorated at unpredictable intervals withreverberating guitar notes, the bowing of a cello, or tiny pockets ofanalog glitch. Each of these elements disturbs the calm ever soslightly, sending out rippling echoes over the placid surface of thepastoral drone, the tiny waves intersecting and bouncing off of eachother, subtly changing frequency and wavelength, creating tiny,compelling microtonal events. Half an hour into the piece, when I beganto hear what sounded like someone sighing into a harmonica, it seemedlike it arrived exactly at the perfect time, just as it should have.PADWA is the improvising duo of M. Sweet and Clive Henry, who togetherseem to have an uncanny knack for creating compositions that graduallyreveal their treasures; beginning minimally, slowly coaxing outharmonious swells of sound. By the last few minutes of No Songs of Birds,the piece has become nearly overwhelmingly gorgeous, a thick blanket ofpregnant, vibratory cello drones with slow, uncomplicated melodiesshimmering in the surrounding atmosphere. Your Own Heaven Is Smokinguses a very similar palette and working method, but arrives increpuscular territory. The backbone of the album's first track is arumbling, uncertain drone that feels warm, wet and plugged in,nervously shaking as ghostly tones snake lazily around its cracklingfield of electromagnetism. Track two is even more adrift in theinterstices of ancient circuitry, much of the sound occurring justbeyond the threshold of cohesiveness, with only the chirping ofcrickets echoing out across a dusty desert at night to remind me of mygeneral location in spacetime. 
Four Man Ghost is yet another group, this one consisting of M. Sweet ondrums, Clive Henry on guitar and another unidentified human playingbass. The music made by Four Man Ghost is probably the moststraightforward of any to be found on the Blue Baby imprint: apost-rock trio that keeps rhythm and melody at the forefront at alltimes. The interplay of this trio of musicians is quiet and deceptivelysimple. Though I must admit I wasn't initially bowled over by theinsistent plainness of tracks like "Elizabeth Constance Byrd" uponfirst listen, I slowly realized that Four Man Ghost make their biggestmark by what they do not do: by the notes they leave unplayed. Thegroup is remarkably consistent at slowly building drama and intensityby deliberately refusing to fill every silence with extraneouscomposition and aimless soloing. This can sometimes lead tocompositions that build slowly and rely on repetition, but the resultsare more often than not quite gorgeous and hypnotizing. Songs oftentake six to eight minutes to run their course, meandering lazilythrough metronomic rhythms, subtle tempo changes and cyclical melodiesthat gather complexity as they revolve. Though the group consists ofonly three, the fourth man of the title might very well be a ghostlypresence, as most of the tracks are named after historical personagessaid to haunt various locations in Great Britain. There does seem to bea slight ghostly presence on some tracks, in the form of ripplingundercurrents of drone and creepy atmospherics. This is even moreobvious on FMG's second album, which is mostly a solo affair, M. Sweetplaying most of the instruments, utilizing overdubs, with C. Henryhelping out on a few tracks. While the music is no less precise andmelodic, songs are matched with electronic textures of esoteric origin,often upstaging the simplistic melodies. There is also a stronger senseof "room tone" on many of these tracks, with the rudimentary recordingequipment and impromptu overdubs bleeding through, creating a charming,low-fidelity quality. Both FMG albums end just as they are becomingtiresome, which is more than I can say for the last Tortoise album.
Heavy Manufacturing Concern is M. Sweet working solo with an array ofanalog noisemakers, and it appears to be the project name reserved forhis most abstract and exploratory work. As HMC, he creates lengthysoundscapes full of warm, outdated factory machines throbbing noisilyalong with the rhythms of alternating electrical current. Ausserhalb Under Erasuresounds not unlike the sort of records that Beequeen were releasingseveral years back: oddly suggestive albums made up of dusty drones andatmospheres seemingly recorded in abandoned hospitals, disused militarybunkers and vast, uninhabited space stations. There are all manner ofghosts and strange chirping, electrical homunculi inhabiting themachines of Ausserhalb, chewing holes in the wires and pullinglevers to make the machine spin out of control. It's an album for deeplistening on headphones, with its fictional machine soundscapescaptured so vividly that they recall the finest of Nurse With Wound orCyclobe. The outstandingly named All Language Is A Drunk Goddess In My Mouthcontains one long piece, an exercise in reigning in static and whitenoise, creating psychedelic whirlpools of thought-cancelling noise,tunneling through your cerebellum, making way for a new imprintation ofreality. In the midst of all of these staccato detonations of mind-fog,you could almost miss the dark melody pushed far into the background,sounding like a reverberating church organ playing the love theme from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.It's a gloriously fucked sound, moving through a series of dark tonalshifts until it finally reaches down into a very dark place to finallyclaim your soul for good. Don't fight it.
Infraction has been a label to watch for some time. With each newrelease the label showcases a list of consistently excellent artistswhom are always trying to bend sound towards new pleasures.
Few records have the severity of depth that this one carries with it:developing and fluid in its every contour, ever-present, but alwayshiding behind the shape of a shadow. There is no resting point, nosound or simple feeling that these four pieces lean on in order tocarry out their miles-deep melancholy.
While the cover of this album is headache-inducing (a dizzying designusing the usual black, white and red motif), the musical contentmassages the brain's pleasure centers. The deviant pleasure centers.
Massimo and Pierce are best known around these parts as the Ghost Boyswho formed part of Coil's live shows. They set up Black Sun Productionsas a multimedia enterprise and Operett Amorale is their latest audio venture.
It's been an exhausting voyage for the emotionally disconnectedastronaut of Odawas' debut release The Aether Eater. Just a glance atthe lyrics, with references to constellations, outer rings, Dante, andVirgil, proves that the Indiana trio has self-revelatory traveling ontheir minds.
This Argentinean trio breaks very little ground on their latest outingon Darla, and for the most part, this is fine by me. Lacking thecoke-fueled swagger of groups like Fischerspooner, Entre Rios come ofas kids who bought the textbook and read very closely.
"Great," I thought as I opened this CD, "a movie soundtrack about a guywho runs around tagging in abandoned train yards and warehouses andstuff. HAS to be hip-hop, lots of down and dirty backpacker hip hop.Hopefully it'll be as relevant but less whiny than Sage Francis, aselemental but not as blunted as Madlib...wait, what the fuck? It's byKid Loco, Paris discothèque DJ, who spins trip hop and house to hordesof sweaty lycra and polyester wearing Eurotrash."
