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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We haven'theard from Rose McDowall in quite a while, that inimitable chanteusefrom Strawberry Switchblade, Sorrow and countless collaborations withCurrent 93, Death in June, Coil and Michael Cashmore, so it was verynice indeed to hear her lovely vocals again. Even though both versionsof "Afraid" are brief, insubstantial and slight, they are still verypretty, and a good showcase for McDowall's voice and Contreras'elegiac, vibratory swells of cello. Sandwiched unceremoniously betweenthese two tracks is an unexpected collaboration between Nurse WithWound and John Contreras, surreally entitled "Geometric HorsehairCavalcade." The horsehair refers perhaps to the rosined fibers ofContreras' bow, and the geometry perhaps to the angularly edited,resculptured strings of Contreras' cello and Steven Stapleton'sprepared piano. There's no telling where the cavalcade comes in. Thetrack, not surprisingly, bears a passing resemblance to Stapleton'scollaborations with another master of the stringed instrument on Acts of Senseless Beauty and Santoor Lena Bicycle.In fact, Aranos AKA Petr Vastl is listed as the engineer for all threeof these tracks, so there's your connection. On the whole, this CDEP israther disposable, but it's still a very nice little souvenir, and I dohope that these four collaborate on more material in the future, as afull-length might be very nice indeed.
Given that these two albums were meant to be a three partseries I can only speculate that the bonus material was part of thenever finished third album. Perhaps part three became Gira's Angels ofLight? This would make sense as listening to the reissues as it ispossible to chart the transition from the Swans to Gira's later worksboth solo and with the Angels of Light. The Body Lovers album (originally titled Number One of Three)is a number of interlinked tracks that over the course of the albumshows the diverse styles and range of Gira's output over the last 20years. There are riffs taken from older Swans songs and material thatwould later become part of Angels of Light releases. On the first trackGira seems to be working the Swans out of his system. Towards the endof album, a tone that is more the Angels of Light takes over. In fact, The Body Lovers sounds almost like a dual between both bands with the Angels seemingly the victors. The Body Haters album (originally titled 34:13)is the second round of the fight where the Swans come up trumps.Divided into two tracks, the first is ten minutes or so of unreleasedmaterial and the second being the original album. The unreleasedmaterial is only partly unreleased, it is a collage of variousrecordings, most of which seem to be used later in different contextson the Angels of Light album Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home. It does not really fit with The Body Haters,it sounds exactly like what it is, a piece of unused music to enticesomeone who already owns the album to buy it. The second track makes upfor the first with thirty minutes of drones and noise, not in anabrasive way but more ambient. It starts off disorientating as a fewsmall samples are looped and processed. It eventually builds up into aclamor that sounds like a church organ made of fire alarms. This goesup and down in pitch and Gira adds layers of effects to it over thenext half an hour. It finishes up with what sounds like Jarboe's vocalstime stretched and heavily treated which builds up to an intense andloud finale, something the young Gira would have been proud of. Whetherthis reissue is worth buying for those with the original albums isdebatable, the bonus material is good for a Frankenstein-type creationbut possibly not worth buying the set again for. Both albums do stillsound as fresh and exciting now as they did seven years ago. The Body Lovers/The Body Haters works as a nice overview of Gira's work, something like a best of without any actual songs that you know on it.
The two Black Bluesdiscs are not so much returns to the guitar-vocal arrangement, fromwhich the artist first touted his musical discipline, as they aregeneralized statements from the depths. Haino is less an explorer now,than creator of a two-sided tablet of commandments. One disc acoustic,the other electric, Black Blues is Haino at his most sensualand his most absolutely violent. The discs are themselves absoluteswithin a style that has rejected nearly every outside structuralimposition. Though more heavily composed than any Haino works in recentmemory, they are easily more intimate in mood and carry a directnessthat should be sourced in American blues music. These discs, if not themajority of Haino's work, though not blues in any traditional sense,carry the style's primitive aesthetic, condensed drama, and instinctivespirituality into a conceptual domain. The Black Blues volumesfeature the same six songs, some perhaps original, at least one cover(Hendrix's �Drifting�), and at least one traditional blues piece. Thetrad.song included, �See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,� is a 13-min.sleepy cascade of acoustic reverbed starlight on the first disc and, onthe other, a savage landscape of electric salvages, muddied harmonics,surface scrapes, and shaky, neck-rending exercises in contest with atypically asphyxiated vocal. Black Blues' electric versioncontains probably the most structurally bleak and consistently intensevocal performance I've heard from Haino; however, upon repeatedlistens, I find that the disc is equally listenable, certainly ascathartic, and even as calming as its acoustic half. The two can onlybe counterparts, and they are essential to a Haino collection. He'sprolific and singular enough that choosing goodies often seems futile,but I can safely say, if you can handle only one Haino this year, tryto handle two, and make them these two.
This addition, which could potentially be a significant change inthe band's evolution, never threatens to alter the genetics of theband's admittedly eugenic pop output. The Lucksmiths have always made efficient and economic use of their simple percussion, guitar, and bass trio. The same is true now with the only difference being that now thereare horns, strings, and sometimes dual guitar lines to complement the already-full sound. Despite the cumbersome title, lead single "The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco" is a marvelous variation on the theme which Tony Bennett made famous (like-minded Lucksmiths' pals Ladybug Transistor used the same inspiration in their song "Massachusetts"). Right from the first line the song is brilliant and does much to confuse the hell out of any conscientious northern hemispheredweller: "Is it April yet? I forget sometimes how slowly summer passes."For those who are antipathetic to the wordsmithing of the Lucksmiths', itwould be best to avoid songs like "Great Lengths." The song plays on someclever rhymes (few bands are deft enough to rhyme "guessing" with "acquiescing") and some rhetorical tropes (check out the rarely heard/seenzeugma in the lyrics: "you had your father's charm and thus your mother'sVolvo"). But it would be a shame to skip over "Great Lengths" even for those averse to such devices because the song is simply too catchy and tuneful to ignore, going beyond any wordplay which might scare you off. Furthermore, it's alright to listen to a band whose principal songwriter has a sharper pen than yours. There seems to be an inexplicable infusionof seventies sounds on this album, evidenced on songs like "A Hiccup in Your Happiness," "The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco," and "Young and Dumb." More to the point, one of the B-sides from the lead single was a cover of The Bee Gees "I Started a Joke." The song I keep coming back to is the subtle and understated "The Music Next Door." I passed it by the first few times and it actually took a live performance to relay the delicacy of the song to me. The song's gleeful cadence and dueling guitars are a strange accompaniment to the lovelorn lyrics. But,somehow, it works. The song is also a typical case-study for my experience with the entire album. At first, I denied that it was as goodas 2003's Naturaliste. But subsequent and frequent listens have shaken my once sturdy resolve. My one complaint is that the album trailsoff a little in the second half and the songs are less memorable (at leastat this point). Yet I don't trust myself entirely with this thought sinceI have already changed my mind regarding a number of songs. Just like theseasons they are so fond of elegizing, the Lucksmiths' songs have a certain vicissitude and mutability which makes generalizing an album quitehard. In other words, the seasons change in almost perfect harmony with my appreciation of particular Lucksmiths' songs, making the seasons a function of my appreciation and not the other way around. It's a theory,at least. While it gathers more data , Warmer Corners will reign as the first soundtrack to this summer.
Shadow Huntaz,"Valley of the Shadow"
