We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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For their Thrill Jockey debut, this Baltimore three-piece continue to hone their signature electro-pop to new levels of clarity and focus. While looking to ‘80s synthesizer bands like OMD for inspiration is certainly a pretty common occurrence these days, Future Islands manage to make those familiar sounds seem fresh, muscular, and invigorating by departing from the blueprint in some inspired ways.
In Evening Air is likely to be most peoples' first exposure to Future Islands, but they have actually been steadily releasing material in one incarnation or another since 2003 (when they were known as Art Lord & the Self-Portraits).All those years toiling beneath the radar were clearly well-spent though, as the band’s frequent touring with fellow Wham City collective folks like Dan Deacon seems to have chiseled their songs down to their punchy essence and garnered them quite a following (the vinyl version of this album sold out with impressive speed).
Future Islands have only been a trio since 2007, but it is difficult to imagine them any other way, as the three members complement each other so perfectly that there doesn’t seem to be room for anyone else.The core elements of the band’s sound are J. Gerritt Welmers’ lush synth hooks and propulsive drum machine beats, but it is the other two members that elevate the music to something significantly more than skillfully rendered synthpop revivalism.I don’t tend to notice bass players very often in rock music, but the pared-down minimalism of Future Islands' sound pushes William Cashion’s punky strumming very much to the fore for dramatic effect.Welmers certainly does a great job crafting memorable melodies and bouncy songs, but their impact would be much blunted without Cashion’s throbbing and energetic low-end contribution.In fact, some songs ("Long Flight," for example) would still hold up beautifully even if the keyboards were removed entirely.
Front man Samuel T. Herring, however, is what truly sets the band apart from their peers.On record, his vocals are an endearingly soulful croak that imbues the songs with a ragged emotional resonance.That said, it was not until I watched a few videos and live performances that I began to fully appreciate him: he is so theatrically manic that it's like watching a Jack Black skit, but Herring isn’t joking.Or maybe he is, as the charmingly low-budget surrealism of the band’s early videos betrays an excellent sense of humor.Regardless of whether his exaggerated mannerisms are intentionally comic or not, he is undeniably fun to watch and very difficult to look away from.A singer that positively oozes charisma and heart provides the ideal foil for Welmers’ songcraft and melodic sense and Cashion’s general ballsiness.Future Islands have achieved that most elusive of qualities: excellent chemistry (coupled with the self-awareness needed to make the most of it).
In Evening Air is not quite a flawless album, as Herring sometimes errs a bit too much towards hamminess for my taste (particularly on "Tin Man").Also, the band can be a bit blunt in displaying their influences at times, most notably on "Walking Through That Door" (a forgivable crime though, since it is a great song).Nevertheless, the bulk of the songs are so catchy, well-constructed, and exuberant that I can’t help but fully embrace the album anyway (especially "An Apology").
This cassette is the debut solo release from Andrew Fogarty (also of Boys of Summer and Toymonger) and it builds on the same dreamy electronic textures as his other projects. Caught somewhere between '80s sci-fi soundtracks, sound effects, and drifting electronics, the music on this EP is a shimmering blend of styles and sounds.
The two pieces on the cassette both investigate the variety of tones that can be wrought from analogue synthesizers. The bubbling and racing sounds Fogarty extracts from his synths on side A gives a feeling of traveling at speed through a kaleidoscope. Some of Fogarty’s style is instantly recognizable from his work in Boys of Summer but he expands his palette significantly throughout this and the subsequent piece. Ray guns, radiation, tractor beams, force fields and teleporters: these are the kind of images that come to mind listening to Dinosaur.
Side B is an altogether warmer piece as dozens of balmy loops and layered melodies compete with each other; the mix boiling like a primordial soup during a storm. Suddenly the chaos gives way to a wet, pulsing noise which steadily increases in its intensity. The piece eventually returns to a similar kind of kosmische-influenced sound-scape like on side A.
While Dinosaur does not shift Boys of Summer from the top of my favorite Fogarty-related projects, it does pack enough punch to be a serious contender. Both sides of the tape show enough variation and tonal development to place Reptile Brain beyond the categorization of simple noise. There is more in common here with music from the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop than with the contemporary noise scene; granted this is not that unusual but Fogarty does it with a lot of class.
This is a tantalizing set of early '70s reel-to-reel tapes by Soft Machine co-founder Ayers: lovely, intimate, and enlightening stuff by an idiosyncratic talent who made it look easy while giving off an allure of privilege, trippiness and innocence somewhere midway between Howard Marks and Christopher Robin.
Kevin Ayers may yet get his due. His influence on British psychedelia and the avant-garde school of glam rock are pretty obvious. Equally, Brian Eno's first solo records (the pre-ambient period beginning with Here Come The Warm Jets) owe as much of a debt to Kevin Ayers as they do to the Velvets. Older music lovers won't need to take my word for it, though, as they will fondly recall the 1974 concert and album Ayers did with Cale, Nico, & Eno (ACNE).
A late harvest is in bloom for Ayers with this release, as well as the 4 CD set Songs For Insane Times 1969-1980 (including an unreleased 1973 London concert) and his rapturously received new album Unfairground (made with fans from Neutral Milk Hotel and Teenage Fan Club, Bill Wells, Bridget St. John, Phil Manzanera and others). Ayers best work is a dance between his joyful talent and his lack of killer instinct. His concerns tend to be women, wine, and philosophy (not necessarily in that order).
Fellow former commune dweller G.F. Fitz-Gerald has hung on to these discarded tapes for more than 30 years. The sections where Ayers is laying out both simple and complex demos and specifying what will go where, who will be doing it and what it will sound like are fascinating. Hearing Ayers singing again reminds me of the contrast between his voice and that of his fellow Soft Machinist, Robert Wyatt. Wyatt's cracked, yearning voice can sound beautiful but always seemed like a strain. Ayers sounds like a man permanently on holiday and his resonant tone slides around as rich and easy as rum spilled on a glass table. His guitar playing is underrated, too, as shown on the playful and fuzzy instrumental track "Crystal Clear."
While What More Can I Say is probably destined to be known as a footnote to Ayers' work it is quite fascinating and very much more than scraping the barrel. It harks back to a time when he was almost something of an It-Kid, what with his joy of punning, his easy talent, his posh other-ness, his languid baritone croon, and his dreamy blond looks. It could all have turned out differently, and yet may. What has turned out is that he never had a star's ego or an inheritance. Marvelously, even now his photos exude the style of a bloke who used to hang out with Bardot and Deneuve but with whom it would probably be a rare pleasure to spend time sharing intoxicants; the least of which would not be his music.
A lot of artists find inspiration in the works of H.P. Lovecraft but very few capture the essence of his horror. Metallica's "The Call of Ktulu" is a classic piece of thrash but it comes nowhere close to the cosmic terror and unease of Lovecraft's prose. Similarly, Alexander Hacke and The Tiger Lillies’ Mountains of Madness was a loving but ultimately camp tribute to the author. However, here the Southampton trio have honed their sound to create the same sense of dread that made Lovecraft’s stories so disturbing.
Obsessed with Lovecraft, ritual and recreating the atmospheres of an underground temple, it is easy to see how Moss arrived at their musical aesthetic. After the eerie Hammond organ, barely audible vocals and distant percussion of “Ritus” provide an unearthly start to the album, the ground opens up with a swell of guitar and swallows the victim whole. The drums and vocals both sound like they are coming from a chasm deep within the earth, the howls of a beshrouded priest and the percussive rhythms of the ceremony he is performing.
Listening to this album during the day is a futile endeavour, Sub Templum is all about context. Sitting down at night with the detailed sleeves in your hands and turning the volume up is the only way to do it. The arcane symbols and darkly psychedelic imagery of the sleeve make this less of an album and more of a grimoire. It would not surprise me if you could conjure up some foul demon by knowing the right gestures at the right points of the music. The three piece suite “Gate III: Devils from the Outer Dark” which takes up the second half of the album is how imagine such a moment would sound like, only in reality I doubt it would be as frightening.
Most of the descriptions and reviews of Moss I read treat them as just another doom band and while they are indeed as doom as fuck, they have made an album that manages to transcend the doom genre that spawned the band. Sub Templum is a dizzying and upsetting sonic journey that just happens to have massive riffs. There is a lot going on between the grooves and it is not all just Sabbath worship. Since their debut, they have sculpted their blackened sound away from genre clichés and have managed to develop a unique sound that on the surface is metal but this only hides in its depths a portal to a weird and foreboding dimension.
This review was made from the vinyl version of the album so unfortunately no mp3 samples.
Moving past his more abstract work from the Trans- series of releases, Carsten Nicolai instead opts for a more rhythmic electronic work that, while not well suited for the club, demonstrates his knack for turning pure chaos into rhythmic composition, even if it can’t be danced to.
The ten tracks that comprise Unitxt do not deviate dramatically from one another, at least in the instrumentation used: all tend to be based around the requisite beeps, clicks and digital errors stapled on a framework of conventional 120bpm electronics. The actual dynamics of the pieces do vary notably, however. While the actual etiology of the sounds is not made clear, the presentation of 15 tracks named after various computer programs at the end leads me to believe the overall sound comes from opening data in sound editing software. I assume elements of the buzzes, blips, and screeches that were created were then carefully molded and shaped into the glitchy techno that comprises the album.
Tracks such as “u_06” and “u_04” both glide on microsonic clicks and pulses shaped into rhythms, the former featuring an obvious, but fractured and obtuse rhythm, and the latter propelled by a monotone digital click drum and a backing of what could be ancient modem connect tones sequenced to be almost synth-like. “u_08” and “u_09-1-2” also follow along with this more conventional techno structure, though the latter encroaches into more harsh territory with a build up of white noise covering the more rhythmic spots.
These noiser leanings are more apparent on “u_08-1” and “u_03”, both of which move along with clunky distortion-laden sounds that could be described as the sound of a dying hard drive or a malfunctioning sound card. The album as a whole begins to become more and more chaotic towards the end: the extreme high and low end frequencies of “u-05” are reminiscent, dynamically at least, of an abstract techno take on PIL’s Metal Box, while the closing “u-09-0” has even more noisy outbursts and textures mixed with pastiches of utter silence.
A few of the tracks feature spoken word elements by French poet Anne-James Chaton, which contrast the inorganic nature of the music very well. The opening “u_07” is perhaps the most conventional “techno” piece on here, and it’s frail, thin sound is nicely contrasted by the monotone reading by Chaton of the contents of Nicolai’s wallet. The other tracks with vocals are not quite as memorable, but the voice does inject a nice human counterpoint to the otherwise purely digital world.
I don’t think anyone would expect a Raster-Noton release to be a hit at the clubs, and this one is no different. However, as a clinical, glitchy disc that for all its abstraction, remains a tightly structured rhythmic work. It is an engaging set of sounds that functions well both in the headphone meditative listening as well as bowel shaking loud volumes that give a more visceral experience.
This URSK series by Utech has been establishing itself as a force in bringing wider attention to projects that otherwise may have lingered in obscurity. For example, this Malaysian band has had only a few, very limited releases before, but with this higher profile disc more will get to hear this distinctly unique take on dark, murky free jazz.
Sonically based around dueling saxophones and underpinned by dark, heavily reverbed guitar ambience, Schwarzhagel is an extremely dark, tense listening experience. The short opening track of black, reverb drenched ambience and violent guitar string bends serves as a more than adequate prelude to the pummeling that awaits.
The second, longer piece begins similarly with wobbling pitch guitar and carefully controlled feedback that swells and sustains violently, but never feels unnecessary or unfocused. However, once the saxophones enter, the bleakness is replaced with pure violence. Tham Kar Mun and Yandsen both manage to produce the most tortured, pained shrieks from their instruments that rivals anything Peter Brotzmann or John Zorn has done similar in sheer brutality. Unrelenting, the guttural screams continue, occasionally dropping off into a death rattle just to come back strong. Finally, the horns retreat and the piece retreats into the calmer darkness of the guitar that opened it.
The third long track is more focused on noise laden guitar riffs that are punctuated by subtler, but still uncomfortable horn blasts. The guitar grows noiser and noiser until the latter half where it erupts into pure unhinged noise that could have been the work of Hijokaidan or Solmania for utter guitar raucousness. Throughout this piece, however, there is a greater variety of dynamics taking place. While the former piece was one unending blast, this one allows for some breathing room in the first half, with the volume and density of sound swelling and then retreating, allowing for more tension and less pure chaos.
Ending with another short track, the album closes is a much more softer manner than it opened, chiming, crystalline guitar tones shine through the mist of reverb, and the piercing feedback swells stay carefully under control. As a whole, it’s an interesting take on what is usually just considered free jazz. Even with the sonic parallels to the FMP label and other such camps, Klangmutationen retains a darker, more sinister quality that was never quite as apparent in other similar works.
At its core, this spilt CD has monolithic foundations of thick, oily, viscous slabs of broken-down and tar-black overdriven guitar and feedback. Here, the Australian Grey Daturas' familiar line in bonecrushing doom-laden oppression is ably bolstered and reinforced by the equally weighty French female-fronted Monarch, both outfits commanding an impressive array of heavy weaponry. Between them, their down-tempo gargantuan dirge is seemingly capable of crushing whole continents. One gets the impression that they would like to physically obliterate the miles between Australia and France if they could, and for the most part it succeeds.
Having already reviewed the Daturas' Dead in the Woods CD a short while ago, I was anticipating a sustained barrage of raw granitic blockiness and in that respect I wasn’t to be disappointed. Despite that, their sixteen and a half minute slice of doom, “Golden Tusk the Endearing,” left me somewhat unconvinced. All the right ingredients are there: slow-moving tectonic plates of gravelly guitar, interrupted by splintering, sharp flinty shards as fault-lines shift and break, along with the protesting squeal of feedback, with the whole culminating in cyclopean seismic ruptures in its fabric. Yet, there is still something missing. Compared to the previous album, this one seems to wallow in a sludgy one-dimensional pit of its own making, and just self-indulgently stays there. It never really appears to elevate itself beyond that, determinedly staying in the lower registers without attempting to inject a measure of personality or dimensionality into it, which I found massively disappointing. I got the impression that it was too self-limiting and unwilling to break bounds, preferring instead to root around in the mud and muck, simply for its own sake.
Monarch follows a similar path, equally subterranean and equally monolithic in execution, on their somehow appropriately titled “Rapture.” The difference here though is there is palpable heat and electricity being generated as the geological processes stack up in coiled-spring tension, releasing energy in tectonic spasms of high Richter-scale detonations. Utilising the same dirty filth-inflected instrumentation of granular guitar explosions and feedback, but this time augmented with the behemothic percussion of Stephane and the hellishly demonic vocals of Eurogirl (aka Emilie), “Rapture” dives and plunges into the lightless Stygian depths. Apart from any other consideration this adds the multi-dimensional layering missing from the Grey Datura’s entry. Miasmatically black swirls of noxious, asphyxiating essence clog the senses, enveloping and suffocating. Knife-sharp feedback and chainsaw guitar slice through, wielded by unseen hands, cutting and dicing with malign abandon. A genderless angelic voice rises from the airless gloom, enticing and pleading, until all pretence is dropped and its true demonic nature is finally revealed. One feels the weight of both the subterranean gloom and the mass of rock above. Oppression and dread take on a physical form here, cowing and buffeting the soul mercilessly.
I was more than a bit disappointed with the Grey Datura side, but it was more than redeemed by Monarch’s effort. Compared to it, “Golden Tusk the Endearing” lacked any energy or drive, remaining nothing but monochrome in the process. In contrast, Monarch ignited their engines, stuck them on full throttle and just let go. Consequently it felt like whole landmasses were moved and crushed, and mountains crumbled. Sadly though, the Grey Daturas never managed to emerge from their little pit.
The second, larger installment of their collaboration,following a double-3” on Phonometrography, is another deep slicing into the insurmountablevisions that make both peerless examples of sound artists driven by discoveryand new substance over stylized forms. It is also another immaculate package as expected from Hafler and Die Stadt. Die Stadt
What brought these two (rather these three—a trio again!) back for asecond take at the arch abstraction that has protected their careersfrom scrutiny thus far can only be guessed at, left unanswered orforgotten by those with the courage and the will captivated enough tostretch prone across these two discs, these vast hollow spaces. I havenever been to space, but I’ve been trapped in the funnel of a bedroom’srestless blanket-mess enough times, absent and terrified, alone in asearch for clues that might be miniature parts of myself, to know wherethis is coming from.
“Post-technoid” this is not; switch on the lightand you might see it evaporate, petrify in sepia, graft onto an inch ofwallpaper. Here is glitch as the subtle-supreme counterpoint to anotherfragment of McKenzie’s masterpiece of micro-strata exposed. Glitch asdistinct and spare as Autechre can make it, set, as if upon silkenpaper, as if in an ancient dressing, with proportions easily projectedbut also perfectly, so very regularly, aligned.
It's funny how logic cantrip such a wide hole. Autechre, the neat sutures to the Hafler game ofplaying sweet orchestra for those deeply paranoid. Droning, descending,solemn innerspaces get ruptured, even painfully, but never without anhonest recoil, to the oceanic calm that is more reticence thanacceptance, a cold glow across distances whose shortness is beyondmeasure. No beats save that heart-click, the slow break of a bodyturning in on itself, the thuum-ph of an eyelid that has only to riseon things changed in their own deceptive degrees.
I have fallen asleepin these silences (there are many), only to be awoken by the swingingof latches and humming and swirling of machines in warm-up, again, forme. (He has awoken; he will not quit us; he has visioned the walls ofthis room in their true dissolve; he can see again) No rust, nothinghangs, nothing weeps or weezes and everything moves with a purpose thatis the only the assertion of its own maintenance. I cannot be astranger traveling through, all is part of and one with; I have willednothing but exist on the obliterating fringe of every new noise.
Haflerdrones forward and around, Autechre finds, binds, and questions, whatcan stifle and disprove this atmosphere, which details can push thisdrift into harrowing reverse? The answer is none, and the answer ispart of a continued method of questioning bent on perpetual negationand discovery.
I am at a loss to describe this painful union of forces.
dOc It was a shock to me to find out that this was recorded live. Thearchitecture of the whole album is so well constructed that I was sureit was a studio album when I first listened to it. After payingattention to the liner notes, I realized that this was all done as aperformance without the help of editing. The music itself is a seriesof background drones recalling the feeling of winds blowing across avast desert, ominous hums that, for some reason, remind me ofstormtroopers and weaponry approaching over the horizon, and variousfound sounds tossed about as if in a blender. Here and there a guitarplucks some melodic but repetitive notes and builds a tension alreadypresent to a nice crescendo. The various sounds that cut into thewavering background range from the aquatic and metallic to the sci-fiand terrestrial. What's interesting is that after repeated listens theybegin to sound like melodies of noise. Either this is the result oflucky improvisation or it was a well-planned effect. In either case,there's something fairly impressive about the way these sounds aremanipulated and used. Backwards flutes and brief bursts of femalevoices either singing or talking cut into metallic chunks being groundtogether. The tension between these two samples resolves itself intothe sound of car horns pitched and extended creating a harmony betweenthe crunchy sounds of natural resources and the resonance of musicalelements. The two tracks here are quite long and can have someuneventful stretches but these are usually brief and do little todistract from the captivating moments. Did I mention that much of whatis featured here is done on turntables? I'm not quite sure how thesounds on this record were achieved by turntables and I doubt that theyweren't filtered and disturbed live by Pure and Martin Siewert butthere's really no indication that anything on this record was made withthe help of vinyl. The mystery, the music, the noise, and the overallatmosphere on Just In Case... are excellent and worth coming back to again and again because each listen brings out something new.
Amish Records It's always funny to hear how environments affect certain albums, fromthe way the musicians felt to the actual physical environs of thespace. One recent winter, Dan Matz was in an upstate New York farmhouseafter a horrendous snow storm. There was no power, and all he had wasan acoustic guitar and dulcimer, and a friend who played piano to seeit out. So, they wrote and played some songs to pass the time. When thepower finally returned, it was time to record these songs that had keptthem company for the past few days. Carry Me Overis the result, and it sounds just like what I'd expect given thecircumstances under which is was composed. There is a stark beauty tothe arrangements, with very few instruments and virtually nopercussion. A chill passes through these songs, mostly due to thehaunting male-female vocals and the minor key progressions, but thereis also a closeness, as though people are trying to keep warm. Matz andAnna Neighbor play and sing with a staid and complacent nature, asthough this delicate music will break them if they let it out too much.They sing songs as poetry and prose, as declarations and pleas, urgingand convincing at the same time they are weak and afraid. Matz has avery calm and smooth though untrained voice, which means most notescome out solid with minor cracks, a fitting addition to the music thathas the same qualities. "Downpour" is a perfect pop song, withmulti-tracked vocals and keyboards to accompany the deliberate guitarstrums and drums. The title track and "Matthew" also approach thisbeauty, with an all-encompassing sanguinity and human frailty. Othertracks feature eerie choirs, reverb, and bare vocals that inject justenough variety to please even the most stubborn with at least one song.As a whole it is at once a dark, pretty, warm, and barren release, andthere are great songs within that show Matz isn't through crafting hisbrand of off-kilter pop.
V/Vm Test Records What a mess! Pig entrails and mash-ups? Demented children and piracy?Who's going to clean up this sticky filth? Certainly not me! To attemptto review a compilation of forty six tracks from various artists (whoaren't all V/Vm alter-egos) related to and enjoyed by V/Vm over twocompact discs is an exercise in futility. According to the V/Vmwebsite, contributions have come from all over the world, andconsidering the eclecticism displayed by these selections, I'm notsurprised in the slightest. Setting the tone for this absurd andsometimes entertaining collection is the goofy title track, performedby The Krankies, who are purportedly a "sick Scottish comedy duo".Unfortunately, this awkward children's song is a highlight on thisuneven compilation. Somewhat dull rock music bastardizations and blandnoisescapes are served here in heaping portions by several no-name actsprobably better off being unknown. The only tracks here that get myattention and praise are the pop and rap bootleg mixes. Toecutter's"DMX On Tick" takes the gruff rapper's standard shouts and turns theminto a glitchy freakout. Skkatter thrashes the BT-produced 'NSYNC track"Dirty Pop" with potent DSP fuckery. I would be remiss in my duties asa contributor to this fine publication if I did not mention KevinBlechdom's tribute to our fair-skinned editor-in-chief Jon Whitney."Jon Whitney Houston" is a touching, sentimental tribute to the man wecall Mom, a wonderful cover of "I Will Always Love You" sung word forword. All gushing aside, this really is an iffy release from the V/Vmcamp. After their tributes to love, Aphex Twin, and The Shining, Iexpect more from this shapeless collective of mad hatters and supergoons.