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07 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

I have always enjoyed Ikeda's albums but never truly appreciated them until I saw a live performance by the man last year. Seconds into the performance I realized that I was listening to his albums at an unreasonably low volume. Afterwards I was sure to play his CDs at the appropriately loud level and they blossomed from being great examples of electronic music to being works of true beauty. This is the first release since that I have listened to properly from the first instant and it is a blinder.

Raster-Noton

As per usual, the amount of information included with this album is minimal. Aside from recording dates, titles and the barcode art of the cover (interestingly there is no commercial barcode printed on the sleeve), the only concrete piece of information is that this is part of Ikeda’s ongoing Datamatics project. However, according to Ikeda’s own site:

“test pattern is a system that converts any type of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. Through its application, the project aims to examine the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception.”

What this means is very much up to the individual. Ikeda is famously silent about what is work means or could mean, leaving it up to each member of the audience (whether live or seated in their own homes) to come to their own conclusions. My opinions on Test Pattern are still in their formative state but my take home point, should you choose to accept it, is that Ikeda is highlighting that the vast majority of information out there is not in a format that we can understand. Barcodes and binary form the basis of communication in commerce and the world at large, these are machine-readable systems that cannot be understood directly by humans. First, by taking media familiar to us (such as film, sound and pictures) and converting them to this data format, Ikeda shows that no matter how realistic these images are, they are still just the edge of what we can experience (the 1s and 0s will always be alien). Secondly, by further converting these pieces of data into sound, he rehumanises the data and allows us to engage it in another way.

Philosophical blithering aside, it sounds exceptional. The aesthetic present on 2005’s Dataplex is instantly familiar but the music here is far more composed sounding: both deliberate and rhythmic. Some moments could easily be built up into dance tracks a la Autechre but the strange nature of data pulls it away from the brink. Played at the right volume, frequencies high, low, and everywhere in between stream from the speakers. The room rattles and the body tries to respond to the complex rhythms but gets knotted and lost. Each piece becomes steadily more complex, starting with a relatively short and simple “Test Pattern #0001” and peaking with the cluster-fuck of “Test Pattern #1101.”

In a career of consistent high quality, Test Pattern sticks out as being one of the more viscerally satisfying releases. Ikeda has cooked up a storm here but seeing that this part of the Datamatics project also exists as a live multimedia experience, I cannot help but feel that I am only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Considering the high power and resolution of modern home audiovisual equipment, I am surprised Ikeda has not explored the area of DVD further than he has. That being said, as long as he keeps releasing audio CDs like this, I’m not going to complain.

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07 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

Phil Elverum's precise insights into the human condition have never sounded better than on these duets with Julie Doiron. Her guitarist, Fred Squire, also helps to make a record that is meticulous, profound, stark, and truly beautiful.

P. W. Elverum & Sun

Julie Doiron is Phil Elverum's favorite singer. He acknowledges that it was her work with Eric's Trip which first inspired him to make music and that the chance to work with her during a week-long session is the culmination of a dream. Consequently, he ensures that her singing has ample space in which to shine. The only adornments on Lost Wisdom are two guitars, a vibraphone, and his voice, all of which frame her voice perfectly. Elverum's intimate songs (as The Microphones and as Mount Eerie) live or die by the power of his words. He makes sure they are not buried under other instruments and his voice carries a depth of feeling without straining to convey emotion.

Several of these songs were written during a winter in Norway a few years ago and they were recorded swiftly to a reel-to-reel tape machine. Maybe those are two reasons why, despite lyrics with both weighty and fragile concerns, the music never loses a sense of confident clarity and a natural feeling of lightness. Strangely, the only time this is threatened is on "If We Knew..." when Doiron accompanies herself (with double-tracked vocals) and a little contrast seems to be lost. For some reason Lost Wisdom recalls a time when people tried (unsuccessfully) to convince me that Leonard Cohen's first two albums were depressing. The arrangements and melodies are simple, the playing is quiet and slow, but there is an openess and intensity here which ensure that the music never becomes stodgy or pretentious. This is arguably the best of Elverum's releases to date. For me, "With My Hands Out" is the standout track but these things often have a way of revealing themselves slowly. Most assuredly, there isn't a dull piece here.

I like that the songs are not hidden beneath layers of sound or behide obstuse phrases. Instead, they rest on themes of love, meaning and suffering amid recognition of impermanence and mortality. The opening lines to "O My Heart" suggest that Elverum is wise enough to know that none of this can be forced:

Somewhat against the grain, Phil Elverum is making worthwhile artifacts even as recorded music is increasingly presented as a virtually invisible construct of the digital age. Lost Wisdom is available in October as a CD or on white vinyl with a massive poster. In November another Mount Eerie release, Dawn, will follow, containing music from the same 2002/2003 winter. Dawn will be out as both a white vinyl LP with a booklet of self portraits, and also as a CD bound in "wood" paper, with 16 photo cards, and a 144 page hardcover book of Elverum's journals of the period.

samples

07 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

Artist: Merzbow
Title: Anicca
Catalogue No: CSR107CD
Barcode: 8 2356647102 8
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Japanese Noise / Free Improv

Buy CD | Download

The first track on Merzbow's latest opus was recorded at Tin Pan Alley studios, London, on 20th April 2008 - the day after his momentous performance at ULU. Akita created an astounding and very unique 20-minute track, playing freestyle drums over his trademark noise. The final 2 tracks were created at Munemi House in Tokyo.

Another fine example of why Merzbow is the undisputed King of Japanese Noise! 58 minutes in total.

Tracks: 1. 'Anicca Part. 1' (18:22) | 2. 'Anicca Part. 2' (21:41) | 3. 'Anicca Part. 3' (17:18)

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06 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

The music on this third volume owes a debt to Liebezeit’s heritage, recalling as it does such outfits as Can itself, Pierre Moerlen’s Gong and Neu, as well musicians like Manuel Göttsching (Ashra/Ashra Tempel). Fluidity and cyclicity are the two main themes present, with a seamless weaving together of rhythm and sound, a space where neither dominates but both intersect and interact in surprising and sparklingly magical ways.

Non-place

The word ‘secret’ in this context is not meant to signify hidden, rather it is meant to highlight less common, as well as new and emergent, rhythms. Indeed, these species of rhythms inhabit the digital grooves of this CD in abundance. Here on Secret Rhythms 3 the emphasis is placed on creating a tapestry of exotic panoramas, from jazz and dub to calypso and late night ambience. While doing so, the musicians play off each other, sparking off new ideas and elaborating new textures continuously. Rhythms shift and swirl endlessly, appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing, only to reappear in some mutated form later on. Instrumentation encompasses both the acoustic and the electronic forms, as well as the electric. Sounds melt in and out of vision, sliding in to take their turn and then once more receding when others demand their time in the spotlight. What results is pure liquid musicianship, a scintillating marriage of percussion and sound, a blend of the exotic, the colourful, the laidback, and the urgent.

“Morning has Broken” exemplifies the combination of almost shapeless melodies draped over a solid rhythmic framework so typical of the pieces on this album. Liebezeit’s drumwork, while not overly complex in nature, nevertheless pins the wings of this exotic creature to the canvas, so to speak, imparting a kind of amorphous structure to what would otherwise be a somewhat elusive beast. A constant and languorous Latin-style beat, aided and abetted by a syncopated guitar rhythm, creates a girder framework around which e-bowed guitar flies and swoops gracefully. “Gegenwart” follows a similar path, where a deceptively simple drumbeat masks a startling complexity augmented by saxophone running in quicksilver manner and set against more of that fluid background. While separately they appear to be just random elements, together they form a complex network of sonic threads and in turn helping to delineate a detailed picture.

“Trittbrettfahrer” ups the ante and the urgency with a funk/calypso number, even going so far as to include faux steel-drum tones dancing around the clipped guitar funk-rhythm. Even though its heartbeat originated in the Caribbean, this treatment rips it out and transplants it into a European context. Keeping with the funkiness, “Entsafter” pulls us back onto the dance-floor before having a chance to sit down. Chopped acoustic six-string motors behind some over-driven wah-wahed guitar, the pulse just tempting, nay driving, the whole body to move in sympathy. It’s infectious, seeping into and affecting every part of the human frame, until it is nigh on impossible to deny.

One of the most satisfying aspects about this for me was the breadth of atmospheres and moods portrayed. Just like an old master painting, satisfaction derives from observing the mastery with which the artist has created his vision and the way he marshals his media and tools to that end. Both Friedman and Liebezeit combined have a huge palette from which to work and on this outing they set about creating the right textures and hues to capture those moods and atmospheres. With a sureness and a deft touch born of long involvement with, and immersion in, music, it is immediately apparent that with just a few light strokes here and some broad strokes there they manage to conjure up the most magical of musical vistas.

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06 September 2008

Albums and Singles

On the follow-up to 2005's Bass Jihad, producer Dub Gabriel paves a clear road for the contributions of vocalists like Yo Majesty, Jah Dan, and, strangely enough, Michael Stipe. For the most part, the arrangements are relatively uncluttered and self-contained, playing to the strengths of his guests. The strategy works marvels, making for a solid album with occasional peaks of greatness.

06 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

Tel Aviv's Boom Pam bring their love of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern styles to a variety of multicultural covers. A further twist to their approach is that a tuba forms an integral part of their sound. Toss in their enthusiasm for surf guitar and spaghetti westerns, and the result is a unique, festive meeting between East and West.

Essay

The covers, a mix of instrumental and vocal songs, come from a number of sources, including Israeli film soundtracks, Balkan dances, a traditional Turkish song, and others. While I'm not personally familiar with most of the originals, the group adds so much of their infectious personality to them that it's hard to determine the cultures from which they come. In Boom Pam's hands, Dick Dale's pleasant head rush "The Wedge" and "Ay Carmela," from the Israeli film Comrade, could have been written by the same person.

I already mentioned the tuba, which memorably fills the role of a bass, but the other players are equally talented. The success of "Ani Rotse Lazuz" relies on its heavy beat while banjo and guitar have some great interplay in "Shayeret Harohvim." The guitar even gets surprisingly abrasive for a large portion of "Krai Dunvasko." The album finishes somewhat anticlimactically with a long stretch of instrumentals before the vocal version of "Aye, Carmela" finishes it on a high note. Apart from the slow section, the band plays with tremendous energy, lending credence to their reputation as a fantastic live band.

Puerto Rican Nights is hardly a typical covers album. Not only are the songs themselves far from usual fare, but the band's exuberant interpretations makes for an original and unexpectedly enjoyable experience.

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06 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

Destroy All Concepts

The album works so well because the memorable contributions far outweigh the forgettable ones. Jah Dan leads things off with the dark and appropriately bass-heavy "Chasing the Paper," decrying materialism and greed. Similarly, No Surrender aims for justice on "Run Down." Yet not every song is about social protest. Yo Majesty's unabashed lust is evident on the glorious "Pony Girl," while Karen Gibson Roc talks about God as a woman and springing from Her chest on "Spirit Made Flesh."

One of the odder tracks is "La Vie Senvolet," which features Judith Juileratt speaking French over an airy, percolating background. With rhythms but no real beats, it is a mostly atmospheric track with little development. It's not bad, but feels a little out of place compared to the other songs because of its lightness and soft vocal delivery.

Yet even more bizarre is the cover of Suicide's "Cheree" featuring Michael Stipe. To his credit, Stipe does an admirable job at interpreting the lyrics. The strangest part is actually the arrangement, which features various strings, harp, and even a glockenspiel. To be fair, the song sounds great, but the huge orchestration is at odds with all of the tracks preceding it.

Despite a couple of minor missteps, good beats and a variety of strong performances keep the album afloat. Its deep guest list coupled with its strong production make Anarchy & Alchemy a compelling listen.

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04 September 2008

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Albums and Singles

artist: Jonas Reinhardt
title: Jonas Reinhardt
catalog#: krank119
formats available: CD
release date: november 10, 2008

content: Drawing from traditions of 20th century instrumental synthesizer music, Jonas Reinhardt represents a love affair between analog electronics, sweeping atmospherics, and driving motorik beats. Combined together, these elements bring the album’s 13 pieces into focus as the soundtrack for an inner-eyelid space epic that never was.

Inspired in equal measure by the natural beauty of his California coastal surroundings, continental European art-rock experimentation, and the freewheeling punk aesthetic of contemporary home studio recording, Jonas Reinhardt’s music transcends it’s influences to bring into being a work that’s wholly new while referencing a celebrated aesthetic of the past.

Armed with a battery of analog synthesizers and vintage drum machines, Jonas writes music that is at times stark and spare and at others lush and all-encompassing; all the while keeping an underlying rhythmic pulse just beneath the surface.

Jonas describes his technique as ‘a spirited conversation between man, machines, and the ecstatic truth of the chaotic unknown.‘ With this album, Jonas carefully constructs melodies and rhythmic foundations then pushes the limits of recording to the sonic fringes and beyond. The effect is a warm, hauntingly familiar sound bounded by unpredictability.

context: Jonas Reinhardt hails from San Francisco, CA. He has been writing, recording and performing music with analog synthesizers for more than a decade both as a solo artist and in groups. He was initially inspired to use synthesizers during a summer sabbatical in Houston’s museum district and, in the late ‘90s, studied music synthesis at the Harvard Electronic Music Center.

track listing: 1. Lyre of David 2. Modern by Nature's Reward 3. Lord Sleep Monmouth
4. How to Adjust People 5. Fast Blot Declining 6. Tentshow 7. Every Terminal Evening
8. Worm Preach the Struggling Fire 9. Tandem Suns 10. Blue Cutaway/Tore Earth Clinker
11. An Upright Fortune 12. Crept Idea For A Mom 13. Lucian Lift

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31 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

This lovely snapshot in LTM's Auteur Labels series focuses on the cult label which, despite sprouting out of Brussels, released such artists as Durutti Column, Anna Domino, Bill Nelson, Michael Nyman, Tuxedomoon, and (former Skids vocalist) Richard Jobson.

LTM

LTM are doing a bang up job with their Auteur Labels compilation reissues. New Hormones 1977-1982 has everything from the neurotic energy of Buzzcocks, and the mysteriously unworldly clang and wail of Ludus, to the clunky disfunk of Diagram Brothers, and the outer dub jazz of the brilliantly named Eric Random. Factory Benelux 1980 – 1985 depicts a sort of musical channel tunnel shipping “spare” tracks from Factory Records artists to be stamped with the exotica of mainland Europe, in Brussels. Those doubters among you have never tasted Belgian beer, chocolate or sausage. However, of the three releases in the Auteur series thus far, my favorite is Les Disques de Crepusules.

If we disallow mistakenly overlapping packaging (for example A Certain Ratio’s "Shack Up" was issued by Factory Benelux/Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1980) then Crepuscule’s first musical release was the cassette From Brussels With Love. There’s nothing from that tape here, though, and the disc opens instead with their first vinyl issue, Michael Nyman’s “Mozart,” from early 1981. The piece is rather thin sounding but the repetition and dry rhythms echo several other tracks from this compilation. Elsewhere, Thick Pigeon’s “Subway” has a charming nocturnal sensibility and lyrics concerning male public urination and three piece suits provide a perfect contrast to blips and robotic female vocals. The jittery punk-funk of Josef K’s “Sorry for Laughing” needs no introduction, surely?

Antena’s “Camina del Sol” is a beguiling electro-samba with simple synth waves splashing, exotic (coconut shell?) rhythms knocking, and Isabelle Powaga’s voice flickering between celebration and regret. Talk about wish you were here; back in 1982 Antena toured with Cabaret Voltaire and 23 Skidoo. Anna Domino’s “Land of My Dreams” has always been a dreamy favorite of mine and time has done little to diminish its blissful narcotic thud and roll. “Party” by Durutti Column is as good an example of Vini Reilly’s guitar oeuvre as I’ve heard and the squalid romance and heartbreaking ordinariness of the lyrics are still affecting. Tuxedomoon’s contribution, “Ninotchka,” is as we have come to expect, rather unexpected.

The package depicts a bygone era of enduring relevance. Consequently, the allure of the Plan K venue, for example, leaps from the booklet text and my jealous regret at the thought of lucky patrons hearing Bernthøler play their legendary “My Suitor” in the Interferences café (Crepescule’s answer to the Hacienda and an intimate setting for performers and audience alike) is again aroused. The recent Joy Division films will hopefully stir an interest in other music from the period such as Les Disques du Crepuscule. As with all LTM releases, this one comes with a superb booklet rich in historical detail, photographs and artwork: unsurprising, of course, since the Auteur Labels are chosen for their elements of distinct sound and singular design.

samples

Antena - Camino Del Sol
Durutti Column - Party
Richard Jobson - Autumn

31 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

In the mid-1920s, The Gramophone Company sent representatives into Iraq to investigate the indigenous music found in its record stores and performance halls. Their research laid the foundation for sessions that produced almost 1,000 recordings. The selections on this disc, restored from their original 78s, present a compelling multicultural portrait of Iraq that is all but forgotten today.

Honest Jon's

Rural Arab folk singers, Kurdish violinists, professional Jewish musicians, and prostitutes share equal billing. Various ethnicities, faiths, and dialects intermingle in a delicate balance that seems impossible by today's standards. This disc reveals a different side of Iraq from the more festive Choubi Choubi! released by Sublime Frequencies a few years back, one perhaps more somber but also more poignant.

Even without the album's title, the intense, passionate yearning for love or at least some sort of comfort comes through in this music, whether in the pained vocals of Hdhairy Abou Aziz's "Wenini" or the Kemani Noubar's lonesome violin on "Taqsim." Although the historical value of this collection is important, the virtuosity of the musicians is the real highlight. Blazing runs and hypnotic drones form the background of Badria Anwar's "Lega Taresh Habibi" while polyrhythmic hand drums work with pleading vocals to entrance the ear on Said El Kurdi's "Aman Aman Zakko." Sayed Abbood's voice in "Shlon Aslak" encompasses a vast emotional and aural landscape, commanding attention with every breath.

Not understanding the languages in which these songs are sung has its drawbacks at times, slowing some of the album's flow and tiring the ear in places, but that's almost to be expected on a collection of this breadth and length. The bulk of the material is an exciting hybrid of cultures that blends styles and beliefs in expressions of emotional crises and longing.

samples:

Khedayer Bin Kessab - Taqsim
Siddiqa El Mullaya - Ma Tehenn Alayya
Sayed Abbood - Shlon Aslak

31 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

The man behind the Room 40 label makes his debut on Touch with this remarkable album. Blurring sound sources (both regular instruments and field recordings) with a variety of studio techniques, this Australian has created a swirling and amorphous group of compositions. Every moment on this album is captivating. Each piece is an exercise in sound sculpting perfection and yet is not just textbook examples of audio manipulation; the music is completely aesthetically pleasing.

Touch

The album’s title is Japanese for “sound of fog” and, listening to the music herein, it is easy to see why English used this phrase. The sounds here are dense and pervasive but at the same time they are ethereal, never coagulating into a solid force. It is up to the listener to orientate themselves in this vapour as English deploys a number of post-production techniques (analogue filtering, divergent mixing and distortion) to smear his original source sounds into this auditory fog. He leaves no landmarks and there is no trail of breadcrumbs to fall back on. However, the result of this is not a terrifying solitude in limbo but a feeling of travelling through a cloud without the aid of machinery; floating in isolation in an almost amniotic environment.

From time to time, sounds make it through English’s fog (an organ here and natural sound there) which pulls me back down to reality (or could be phantom artefacts generated by English’s production technique). The sound of the sea on “White Spray” is as close as it gets to a tangible reality before fading off into the distance. Alien atmospherics on “Allay” give the feeling of being far, far from home. It would be no surprise if those strangely fluid mechanical sounds were the utterings of some benevolent being resting in the periphery of this auditory pea souper.

What makes Kiri No Oto work so spectacularly well (and it is a spectacular album) is that no matter what situation I’ve listened to it in and no matter what sort of sound system I use, it still sounds phenomenal. Not that it sounds hi-fi on all formats but everything from my stereo system at home, my car stereo and right down to an iPod broadcasting into a nearby mono radio channels the music in a unique way. It surpasses the usual idea of ambient music (i.e. that which becomes part of the surroundings and is ignorable) as it subverts the ambience of a room (or car) and redefines the sonic space thereof. Instead of fitting the room, the room is made to fit it which fits in perfectly with English’s approach to designing these pieces, namely filtration and mixing.

As this is supposed to be the first in a number of experiments using these techniques, I am eagerly awaiting the follow ups to this wonderful album. It is a rare thing to hear an album that is so engaging and stimulating; that it is just the beginning of an ongoing work is joyous news indeed. I sincerely hope that all of the subsequent releases live up to the standard set by English with Kiri No Oto but even if they pale in comparison, the fact that this exists is more than enough.

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