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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With anoverwhelming anglo-dominance in the techno scene, it is perhaps all-tooeasy to be ignorant or forget that even the genre's most obvious rootsare black in origin and, I assume, Lars Fenin is hoping to somewhatrectify that injustice. Though not at the level of Rhythm & Sound'snear-impeccable, devotional aesthetic, Fenin's debut album evokes arespect for this heritage and lineage with an accessible aural lessonwhere the barriers between the two genres are regularly crossed withouthesitation or explanation. Deep dancy cuts like "Aware" and the bassheavy "Konstrukt" may seem like familiar territory (or even old hat) toinformed clubgoers and home listeners who have embraced these types ofsounds, but they will likely be impressed by the heavier portions ofmore traditional reggae thrust into the mix on the opening title track,moreso particularly with its unabashed reverence to the stickiest ofthe icky. Here, vocalist Gorbi, who contributes his rootsyWailers-inspired voice to the album's finest tracks, adds a truly vitaledge to Fenin's work that sets it apart from many of his peers."Thrills," the album's lead single, bounces with a bumping downtempobeat, springy synth bass, and just enough vocal to make this apotential breakout summer jam. In that same vein, "No C.I.A." recallsthe political and social passion of the finest Jamaican toasters, withGorbi riffing fantastically over Fenin's sparse three note melody andclicky percussion. The fusion of the genre's fits together rather wellon the dub-tech groover "None Of Them," where Gorbi drops in on thefirst hard 4/4 kick and rarely ceases for most of its duration. Groundedcloses out with the subtler shuffling rhythm of "South," where thestudio aceticism of masters like King Tubby and Lee Perry is paidwell-deserved homage, making for a fiiting end to this reverent debutfrom a producer I hope to hear much more from in the future.
This is not to say thatit is a facsimile. Rather, it is a flirtation with the structures andtropes put forth by Jeff Mangum and company. Consider the evidence: thequiescent initial invocations of each band's protagonist (for NMH, theTwo-Headed Boy; for Okkervil, the Black Sheep Boy) occur in the firstsong and then roar grandiosely into attention-grabbing second songs.The protagonists both rear their (abhorrent) heads throughout the songson their respective albums, causing listeners to shudder and rejoice atthe same time. Songs are all similarly connected by common threads andthemes, be they musical or lyrical. The communion between NMH andOkkervil goes beyond simply the brash employment of brass instrumentsin certain songs, such as in the waltz-like "A King and a Queen." Songson both albums gracefully flow into one another, perhaps takingOkkervil's aquatic moniker too literally on one side. Okkervil River'smeditation for this album is the Black Sheep Boy's (it's unclearwhether it is a proper name and should be capitalized, or rather anarchetype and thus lower-case; excuse my presumption but I am goingwith the proper name and upper-case solution) modern-day ostracism andrejection. He seems to be some modern hybrid of the ancient figures ofAnubis, Dionysus, and the Cretan Minotaur. If the artwork on the albumis any indication, he is a grotesque abomination yet is as undeniablyfascinating as a savage automobile accident. The album begins with theeponymous "Black Sheep Boy," a proper intro of one minute and eighteenseconds which elegiacally introduces the main character with a lightcollection of guitars, strings, keyboards, and brushed percussion. Theintro seamlessly elides into the first real track, the name of whichfittingly is "For Real." Even at a first cursory listen, the song willtransfix you. It enters methodically with repetitive and monotonepluckings only to have the guitars and drums crash in unexpectedly andunannounced without breaking stride. Will Sheff's voice is occasionallystrained to its upper reaches, on the precipice of cracking for themore sonorous parts of the song. The effect is startling without beinggrating or abrasive. By the end of the song, Sheff's vocals areshattering delicately all over the place and the raw energy released bythis is pleasing and welcome. The song's energy then decays into thedulcet lethargy of "In a Radio Song" which meditates wistfully for overfive minutes. It is the gentle eddies of placid waters to the class 5rapids of "For Real." Lyrically, Okkervil River are formidablestorytellers. Their narratives sing of imperfect lives, unrequitedloves, and the darkness of forced hermitage. The ponderous "A Stone"decries the injustice of a girl who chooses to love the callous andunadoring rather than the dedicated and true. Towards the end, there isa remarkable moment when the instruments drop into the background andthe vocals emerge to narrate this allegorical and modernized fairy taleabout stones and queens and flowers. Sheff starts to insert more andmore syllables into each line (more than would normally be seemly) inorder to economize and fit the story into just one or two verses. Theresult is a two-tiered narrative which weaves itself elegantly into thestructure of the song's large ensemble/instrumentation. Like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,there is a satisfying alternation of rockers with ballads. Energy isexpended and recouped throughout the album and requires intercedingsongs of quietude to buffer the harsher numbers. "So Come Back, I amWaiting," the penultimate song, captures both of these loud and softextremes in its pure majesty and does a fine job of condensing andsummarizing the themes from the album. In past efforts, Okkervil Riverhave hit on a mixture of successes and, well, non-successes on theiralbums. Black Sheep Boy is the full realization of the band'ssuccess into a musical suite of eleven well-formed songs, bearing noneof the ugly horns or murderous tendencies of the album's titlecharacter.
The nearly 17 minute"Histories Repeating as One Thousand Hearts Mend" marches along slowlyto a steady swell of hubcaps, marimba, and cello. "Why She SwallowsBullets and Stones" is a beautiful piano piece that breaks up the darkovertones of the previous three pieces and provides much neededbreathing room from the often dark and melancholic tone that aboundshere. This is perhaps Esmerine's greatest liability. While they aremasterful in their ability to evoke a nefarious atmosphere from theirsongs, all the melancholy and anxiety can become a little suffocating,but I give credit where credit is due. Esmerine are capable of inducinga range of clear, striking images: barren landscapes, war-torn cities,and quiet desperation. As the final bent notes on "Le Rire de L'Ange"fade away, I can almost see the mushroom cloud from my bedroom window.
This isn't the first time Mathieu has taken up therecordings of others for his own revision, but it feels now like atotal revisioning, something with legs. What might seem like a fairlystraight-up digital drone recording up front reveals later to be acavernous amalgam of disparate sources and foreign intents feeding twosoftwares' insatiable and somehow melancholy blanket constructions bydeep and luscious weaves of histrionic and celestial noise. Theartist's own intent is either invisible or secondary to a giganticprimary. After a long list of Matheiu's sound-sourcing "collaborators"on the back of another beautiful Headz package job, each track featuresthe artist's poetic descriptions and instruments used. Three of thelonger tracks are Mathieu's commissioned sound portion for a German daVinci exhibit. Another is a dance piece soundtrack featuring violadrones run through "the Death Chimes of a Macintosh Classic IIcomputer." The digitally homogenized strains of a classical vocalquartet, stewing with hammered dulcimer, harpsichord, and Handel sonatafragments precedes a fascinating track where the sounds of Mathieu'sdaughter "cooking sticks-and-stones soup" combine with Derek Holzer'sStarfield Recordings for a Latvian Spacelab project. On "Smile,"Mathieu's pump organ, "playing a motor's endless drone" finds the sadpassing of time in an Italian waiter reciting Luigi Pulci. Wheneverything is not a quaking, sumptuous mess of drone, the artist backsup to let the machine assert more than its own making. Track one,"Anakrousis," styled as an ancient Greek overture, is all log-insquelches and the humming click of start-up. Later appeals to the AppleIIe and a primitive digitizing of a 1909 phonograph recording point toMathieu's interest in engaging his computer with a huge history ofrecorded and un-recorded sound-making. The great, droning melancholyalive in all of these tracks takes the artist's gesture far from commonironic or self-referential goals. His title exploits the mystery ofnow-commonplace items and methods being filtered through time andassigned personality, while at the same time introducingnon-intellectual music perfect for sleepy drift-off. My best comparisonis the work of Akira Rabelais (whose software Mathieu uses), whose Benediction, Draw was a favorite laptop release in past years as The Sad Mac could be this year.
I Thought I Was Over That not only comes off the heels of a successful LP and tour, but the tracks included are of a varied enough nature to please devoted fans who missed a single here or there and curious newbies alike.
