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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Techno godfather Juan Atkins' finest productions lie more than a decade behind him, his post-millennial output utterly unmemorable by contrast. When Timbaland and Missy Elliott appropriated wholesale and slightly repurposed Cybotron's "Clear" a few years back for the "Lose Control" single, the succeeding and lingering stench of musical necrophilia made the Detroit legend's faded glory all the more uncomfortably evident. Moderately diverse and unsurprisingly enjoyable given the contributors, this remix collection dusts off yet another Atkins oldie for another nine rounds.
Issued first in 1995 under the Model 500 moniker, "Starlight" was packaged with a Moritz von Oswald version on the flipside, making it a sought-after gem today for Basic Channel obsessives. Revived and reproduced here, it serves as the starting point for a series of mixes—most of which previously released on vinyl—that generally exploit the assets of the originals. Fortunately, this rediscovery effort was spearheaded by the Echospace Detroit imprint, one of the hottest outlets of deep techno thanks largely to the amazing in-house duo of Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell who incestuously pervade this compilation with a handful of solo and shared aliases. As DeepChord, Modell presents a characteristically spacey and lengthy mix adorned with blissed-out patches and warm pads cluttered by bits of aural detritus. Collaborating with Hitchell, he features on two Echospace versions, the first of these primed for the dancefloor. Scaling back some of Modell’s abstractions to make way for some real Detroit soul and Berlinesque dub, the previously unreleased track finds its mojo via a robust bassline and some wondrous melodies. The second Echospace mix is half as long and entirely beatless, a drifting reprise that recalls moments from The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld in a way that Kompakt’s long-running Pop Ambient series has yet to achieve. On his own, Hitchell greedily appears with three separate aliases, his Soultek mix bringing both old-school electro funk and AFX flair. Simmering with white noise and tension, his Intrusion dub version closes out the disc.
Magnanimously, Modell and Hitchell allow a few others to share in the fun of reviving a classic. Detroit native and Matrix Records founder Sean Deason garnishes his jacking mix with a little Sheffield bleep that bounces around the funky fluttering hats and crashes, while Mike Huckaby delivers some proper dub techno for the fetishists and fanatics. Convextion, a rising star in the scene who has previously recorded for Matrix and Echospace Detroit, takes an unexpected path on his turn, programming an urgent melodic mishmash draped around a schaffel beat that seems further removed from Atkins’ original than anything else here. It’s a respectful reworking like all the others here, though one obvious omission stands out: where is Atkins himself in all this? Surely he’s given his blessing to this project and pocketed some kind of fee or royalty, though I can’t think of a better opportunity for the man to remind us all of his talents than by trying his hand at a remix of his own.
The brainchild of Uppsala, Sweden's M. Zetterberg, exemplifies the typical expansiveness, vastness of scale, and sheer coldness of most Scandinavian dark ambient/industrial output. Zetterberg, although in many ways staying within the somewhat narrow confines of the genre, also strays out of it occasionally, sometimes springing a surprise or two along the way. While Core won’t win any marks for originality, it is at the very least above average and steps outside of convention on one or two occasions to make it untypical of many entries in the field.
The tried and the tested prevails for the most part here, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Deep rasping electronic bass drones, clean ringing tones, whistlings, howling winds, scratchings, and ‘cold’ shivering iciness each play their part, combining with treated instrumentation—such as zither and theremin—to create a distinctly menacing subterranean ambience. Its depiction of cold, freezing, and weighty isolation and despair is absolutely spot-on, even if it follows a species of prescription. Tracks such as “Core III,” for instance, descend into the freezingly cold and hellishly glacial depths, bringing to mind images of subterranean caverns of cyclopean proportions. Deep, sustained drones and eldritch winds crash and reverberate endlessly, superseded by sweetly crystalline tones and harmonies singing out from the darkness while crackliness spits, pops, and punctuates icily. Unfamiliar shapes, both real and imagined, loom out from the stifling gloom in vaguely discerned silhouette against an even darker background, threatening to overwhelm the nerves. Further fine-tuning the unsettling atmosphere are strange disembodied scratchings and scrapings, their cause unseen in the light-engulfing Stygian darkness.
Indeed the alarm spreads through the follow-on track, “Core IV,” with its strident bell-like klaxon warning tone keeping the nerves on edge, in anticipation perhaps of some catastrophe. Hugely tectonic clashings bear down from above, an avalanche of sound just waiting to bury beneath tons of ice and rock, snuffing out air and life. The weight is palpably oppressive, crushing in its potential to overwhelm. “Core V” continues that stifling bleakness, cold howling qlippothic winds barrelling through underground tunnels, tunnels denizened by the strange warbling of the troglodytic and chthonic.
So far, so conventional, one would suppose (and quite rightly so from my description thus far). However, to think along those lines though would be to do Manifesto a disservice. Principally what sets this apart is Zetterberg’s inclusion of a distinctly un-dark ambient instrument: the trumpet. On “Core I” South African trumpeter Alex van Heerden lends an utterly haunting bizarreness to a track that relies just as much on its sparseness as on the sounds themselves. The track is punctuated with stretches of deep silence in between rasping bass drones and the peals of high-pitched ringing and shimmering tones, and amidst this comes the mournful sound of the trumpet. On paper at least it would seem to be a non-starter, and it shouldn’t work; the fact that it does is both a surprise and a testament to van Heerden’s sympathetic interpretation. Furthermore it adds an intangibly eerie dimension to the track, and elevates it to the above average. Van Heerden also adds very subtle hints to “Core III,” much less noticeable perhaps, but its presence is just enough to introduce more of that indefinable otherworldly element.
Like intimated above, this won’t set the world alight; but in some ways that’s not what dark ambient as a genre is about. It’s about mood and feeling, and on that score this album succeeds admirably. It also accrues kudos simply because of bringing in a new element in the form of the trumpet, a hitherto unknown player in the oeuvre of dark ambient instrumentation, unless one counts Jon Hassell’s Fourth World material. I certainly enjoyed what Manifesto had to offer and it also offered a glimpse of what might be possible if dark ambient artists stepped out of genre boundaries once in a while.
Antenne is Kim G. Hansen, formerly of Institute for the Criminally Insane, with vocals from Marie-Louise Munck. Together, they use electronics, acoustic guitar, and voice to make music of strange and delicate beauty. These are moody pieces for a rainy day, strong in execution if lacking in variety.
They do a great job of maintaining a melancholic air throughout the album, but unfortunately some of the songs lose their distinction in the process. While the similar tempo on each song is partly to blame, Munck's vocals also glaze these tracks with a recurring familiarity. Her voice is good, but her frail, slightly trembling delivery doesn't vary enough in its emotional intent. As a result, the first few songs come across as one long track with the vocals becoming less noticeable and less important over time.
What comes to the fore instead is the subdued background electronics, which are subtle but quite effective. An inventive, varied approach makes them the album's true draw, even if it takes attentive listening to pick out what's going on. Despite this, the album's instrumentals fall into the same pitfall as the other songs, going on for far too long with little development. The saxophone on "Ttreea #7" combats this well, and it's a strategy that could have been exploited effectively elsewhere on the album.
Still, much of #3 is pretty and peaceful. It may not have a wide range of expression, but it does a great job of sustaining a singular mood.
On Ladyhawk's second album, their spirited rock songs are decent but fairly ordinary. They bring plenty of angst and passion to the material but don't do enough to develop these impulses. Too frequently their arrangements play it safe, as if they're trying to refine the same song over and over rather than challenging themselves to break new ground.
Song titles like "Fear," "Corpse Paint," "Faces of Death," and "Ghost Blues" point to a preoccupation with death and darkness, expressed with a profound weariness. This is coupled with a sense of angry yearning that erupts at climactic moments throughout the album, but the same approach song after song eventually devalues the cathartic value and lessens the effectiveness. Not helping matters is that each song follows this same formula, starting with slow and sparse sections that erupt in impassioned outbursts.
Another problem is that the band is going for an epic feel but doesn't always have enough to say to make it work. "Fear" is a good song, but they don't capitalize on its strengths. Rather than solidifying the hooks, they draw it out by expanding the slower sections of lesser interest. Likewise, "Ghost Blues" builds to a powerful, screaming finale. Instead of concluding after its peak, however, they drag it out for almost four more minutes, which only detracts from its overall effect when the music peters out rather than ends with a roar.
Some of the better songs are "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying," "S.T.H.D.," and "Corpse Paint." Too bad, then, that so many of the others come across as imitative filler, making Shots a solid but unexceptional effort.
This week’s release from the prolific duo is actually the reissue of a 2006 CDR-only release of live material that truly demonstrates how proficient the band is in a live setting, with a four song set that could easily be mistaken for a tightly constructed studio album, and two additional live pieces that differ somewhat in feel, but are still of the same high quality.
The overall sound and feel of this album shouldn’t surprise any Nadja fans, there are no drastic departures in the formula: slow stripped down drum machine programming, massive walls of low end distortion and carefully controlled washes of guitar noise. To get my personal preference out of the way, I’m still not big on the Nadja overdriven digital distortion sound; I think I’m cursed to keep my preference for a warmer analog sound, but it’s not a detriment at all here because there is so much else going on at any given time.
Most amazing is the fact that this is all entirely within a live setting: the rigid structure and synth-like sustained guitar work on “Breakpoint” sound like it would have been much more of a studio creation than a live one, but that definitely wasn’t the case. Similarly, the slow build from quiet dark ambience to a more forceful sound and finally a blowout of noise and distortion that makes up “Corrasion.”
The band also covers Swans’ “No Cure for the Lonely” during this original performance, which stripped the material down to a duo performing it as opposed to the original’s full lavish band, but the song loses little in the transition, and even awash in the buzzing distortion and bass roar the melodies of the original track shine through. Vocals are even present, though so low in the mix to become essentially inaudible, but still there. It is refreshing to see Baker and Buckareff pick an obscure post-Burning World track such as this as opposed to one of earlier murky sludge material.
The centerpiece of the album is the sprawling 17 minute “Tremble,” which actually appears here in a second version recorded live in Philadelphia. Both versions follow the same blueprint, but the sound and recording settings set them apart. The track opens with carefully controlled feedback, swells of noise that the band manages to reign in and shape, combined with digitally stretched loops. The track continues to build and build in volume and density with guitar drones that sound like an entire orchestra performing until finally reaching a crescendo of pure noise, only to fall apart at the very end into a cacophony of bass and guitar fragments and what could be a dying drum machine. The alternate take recorded by Scott Slimm (of the Archive label) is essentially the same work, but with a reduced level of distortion and noise that allows more of the pure guitar and bass tone to seep through. It follows the same compositional structure and pattern, but the color of the sound is different, and subtler.
The other additional track, “Stays Demons,” also has a slightly more open feeling, driven by heavier bass frequencies, but the multitude of guitar tones that appear sound more like an army of players rather than a single instrument. Again, either the different setting or different approach the band took to this performance allows an entirely different feeling to shine through that, while different than the remainder of the album, is just as well done.
Considering this is a live recording, the diversity and attention to structure and composition are especially notable. Assuming there was a minimal use (if any) of pre-recorded backing tracks, the sheer depth and variety of sound that is produced here is astounding. Coupled with the well developed structure and composition of the tracks, and this makes for some of Nadja’s best work yet.
When the tracks that make up the first half of this EP were first released about a year ago on a split 12” with Eluvium, it represented a somewhat drastic change from what Jesu had been doing up to that point. All the way through Conqueror, there had been a definite concession to shoegaze pop, but still enshrouded with the monolith riffs that established Godflesh as a force to be reckoned with prior. But here was a mostly electronic, very calm and almost pure pop record that, in hindsight, heralded more recent works (the split with Envy, parts of Pale Sketches). And now these tracks are available on CD with two alternate versions that represent a very different take on the original material.
In a recent interview, Justin Broadrick said that he specifically sat down to make pop music on the original issue of this. While his definition of “pop” might differ from the masses, there is a different quality to these songs versus the ones that led up to it. The difference is obvious from the moment “Farewell” begin: a stripped down electronic percussion section and what is either a guitar that sounds like a synth or a synth that sounds like a guitar leading the slow pace of the track. Coupled with Broadrick’s oddly clear and audible vocals, it was a notable departure at the time it came out, and is no less wonderful a year later. None of the traditional metallic riffing pops up here, and the track even ends with a bit of vibraphone that would have been an odd inclusion on previous tracks. The alternate version that is exclusive to this CD issue strips some of the pop elements out, turning the percussion to a click and a cavernous reverbed kick drum. There are more synthetic textures, but the simple, elegent melody remains, as does Broadrick’s vocals. While feeling significantly more stripped down and more “experimental” than the original, it retains the regal beauty, and even some chugging guitar riffs that weren’t in (or at least weren’t audible in) the original.
“Why Are We Not Perfect” follows a similar structure to “Farewell,” but rather than focusing on electronics, hinges more on multitracked rhythmic guitar and simple drum programming. While structurally more sparse than most of the previous Jesu material, the simplicity owes more to Joy Division than the usually cited My Bloody Valentine. The alternate take adds greater lushness in the form of keyboards and more effects on the guitar playing, which actually makes for a very different sounding track that still feels like the original (as contradictory as that may sound).
Between the two original tracks is the short instrumental “Blind and Faithless,” which was more of the traditional Jesu guitar workouts, but buried under an even thicker layer of gauzy electronics and overdriven bass synth. While the track sounds great, it feels unfinished, like an excerpt from a longer song that didn’t get released. Luckily, the Japanese pressing of the EP includes an alternate version of this track as well, but rather than the short three minute original duration, it’s a full six minutes that leans more heavily on the guitar and a more traditional, less electronic based rhythm section. There are even vocals, as buried as they are in the mix.
While both of the alternate versions that are added to this CD issue are good, personal preference is that the original tracks are still the better, more fully realized versions. They’re nice to have and are enjoyable, but still seem secondary to the original material. The exception to this being the alternate of “Blind and Faithless,” which feels so much more fully realized, but is unfortunately relegated only to the Japanese market. Musically, it represents the first stabs Broadrick made towards electronics based Jesu work, channeling his old Techno Animal project in a softer, milder setting. The disc is an expansion of an already multifaceted project that just seems to get better with each release.
That inimitable style of drawing that graces this EP's cover lets us know exactly what we are in for: rough and ready songs about death. Just like the cover, the songs here are from the same mold as previous outpourings of gloom from the trio. There is no massive shift in style or approach: ten songs; 20 minutes; in and out like a SWAT team on a midnight raid.
“A Handful of Dust” takes T.S. Eliot’s famous line from The Waste Land and turns it into a parody of itself. What is a chilling and resonant line from Eliot’s poem is a pantomime snarl in the hands of Nick Blinko. However, Blinko can hardly be expected not to stamp his own identity on any line he sings, especially when it is such a cherished line in literature, and in the context of No More Pain as an entity it works a lot better than taking the song at face value. Nearly every song here is about death and annihilation (especially the track “Annihilation”), not exactly a cheery record.
Blinko’s venom comes through on most of the songs, especially on “Eyes of the Dead” and the title track. Grant Matthews and Jon Grenville’s no nonsense bass and drum assault hammer home the songs, conjuring up the previous image of a SWAT team thundering up a staircase and crashing through a heavily barred door like it was paper. The macho vibes disappear for a moment on the quirky “Doodlebug Baby,” a song most incongruous on such a bleak album (though the dark humour does not move away totally from the grim reaper’s scythe).
The EP closes with a cover of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major (transposed to the key of E to suit the guitar/bass setup of the band). It is such a convincing appropriation of the piece that when I first listened to the album I was racking my brains trying to figure out what classic punk song was being covered but it was only when I remembered to check the sleeve notes that I realised what was going on. This is a far better commandeering of a cultural treasure than the above-mentioned Eliot quotation; a nudge and a wink at the end of so many songs about obliteration.
Yet there is something about Rudimentary Peni in 2008 that is lacking. Punk has long been a hollow shell of itself and any bands from that era that are still around have gone down one of two roads; greatest hits money spinners like the Sex Pistols or dramatic redevelopment projects like Wire. Being contrary curmudgeons, the Peni have walked a middle ground. They have not embraced change like some other bands have, at its heart No More Pain is a direct sibling of the group’s older material with a shinier production. Equally, they cannot be accused of “selling out” as they are hardly the kind of band kids in clothes shops want to listen to. They are dwellers of a limbo, still credible but not exactly lighting the world on fire.
Nobody has ever been able to explain to me just how we went from the awesome diversity and promiscuous intermingling of '90s alternative music to the present day's drab dichotomy of wussy hipster twee and cathartic yet indigestible metal. Specifically, I lament the loss of that seemingly dying animal known as noise rock, its Amphetamine Reptile and Touch & Go fueled heyday woefully behind us. Yet thankfully there are more than a few pilgrims to the jizz-soaked shrine to The Jesus Lizard, the obsidian monolith of The Melvins, and the crumbling temple of Girls Against Boys.
No Fun Fest friendly outliers like Hair Police and Lightning Bolt hold court at the fringes, to be sure, yet I'm far fonder of those who remember to actually, um, rock amidst the sheer hellish miasma that too often entices artists into more abstract and masturbatory directions. Recent years brought breakout sensations Pissed Jeans along with a number of grimy local heroes and zeros eager to grab that brass ring of indie stardom. As this appropriately brief new album makes clear, Young Widows possess the necessary aggression, attitude, and craftsmanship to resolve the gap that less impressive and comparatively weaker players like No Age fail to bridge.
Interestingly, the blogosphere, caught navel gazing in the self-referencing and self-legitimizing echo chamber that characteristically insulates it from so much great music, has taken to these Louisville sludgers like a newborn to a plump nipple or an unqualified Alaskan governor to a porcine congressional earmark. Arguably, advance word of Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou's role in the producer's chair for Old Wounds, while perhaps immaterial to the final results, added more of that intangible commodity known as credibility to the latest work from the Jade Tree alums, now safely housed at Temporary Residence. Unafraid of influences and hungry for progression, Young Widows plow through eleven heavy frenetic cuts that induce a tilt-a-whirl effect, simultaneously ebbing and flowing with concurrent waves of euphoria and nausea. While neither as nastily confrontational as David Yow nor as aurally hideous as Buzz Osborne, the members evidently hold these archetypes in high regard without succumbing to sloppy emulation. Opener "Took A Turn" blends the raw ingredients from the aforementioned with remarkable restraint and unsubtle mirrorglass shards of grunge era pop. "Old Skin" lurches from the Churchill Downs manure with stoner-grade headbanger potential, while comparatively subdued "The Guitar" maximizes the impact of its sparse instrumentation with hypnotic vocal repetition.
As much as these tracks invigorate and delight, there's truly nothing more gratifying for an AmRep enthusiast here than the raw bloody stinking meat of upbeat, downtuned grinders like "Lucky And Hardheaded" and "Delay Your Pressure", or even the familiar belligerence of swaggering standout "The Heat Is Here". With a noise rock resurgence of refurbished pioneers and teeth grinding youngbloods coming down the pike, Young Widows assertively assume dominant roles in the unexpected revival, reeking of promises to bring down as many lazy, cross-armed bloggers along the way.
artist: Boduf Songs title: How Shadows Chase the Balance catalog#: krank120 formats available: CD release date: september 29, 2008
content: On his second full length release, Mathew Sweet uses the same formula that he has employed previously; one microphone, one acoustic guitar, a few random instruments, a couple of field recordings, and a deft, understated touch with the mixing process. He locked himself away in his home studio (to be honest, his bedroom) and no one else heard a single note until he was finished. This album is a further step away from the "folk" label, which never seemed all that appropriate to Mathew's work in any case. If you record solo with an acoustic guitar the description is somewhat inevitable. But the results might more rightly be construed as "acoustic death metal" considering the themes of death, alienation, fear, hatred and isolation that are his forte, as well as his affinity for gothic imagery. Mathew states that the album was mostly recorded at night because there was less background noise to contend with in his neighborhood at that time of day. But if you listen closely you can still hears small bits of rain hitting the window, and cars sliding by on wet roads. The final result is one of the most unassuming, and engaging recordings of the year. It is intimate, extremely personal, and spectral in presence.
context: The second full length release from this uk resident follows his Lion Devours the Sun album from late 2006 on kranky. A lot of artists are described as "outsiders" or "underground", but with Mathew Sweet this is actually an apt description as he belongs to no 'scene' and is working on the farthest fringes of the 'music business'.
track listing: 1. Mission Creep 2. Things Not To Be Done On The Sabbath 3. I Can't See A Thing In Here 4. Quiet When Group 5. Pitiful Shadow Engulfed In Darkness 6. A Spirit Harness 7. Found On The Bodies Of Fallen Whales 8. Last Glimmer On A Hill At Dusk
press quotes for Lion Devours the Sun: "Hauntingly beautiful music that is oft mistakenly labeled "folk." This is something darker, something much more sinister, and Mat Sweet's songwriting muse dives into the troubled waters of a tormented soul and the mysterious forests of the mind. This is the best record of the year, period." Mundane Sounds "The spare use of his blurry instrumentation is the secret ingredient to the horror in these songs. Sweet packs a punch for such a quiet fellow, and his vortex is indeed a powerful one."" Tiny Mix Tapes "...the visions of human frailty channeled here are dry like a mouthful of dust and stirring in their haunted stillness." The Stranger Read More
Devising a method to capture a moment of exaltatio with sound is no small feat. Aranos attempts to do just that with a minimal and powerful arrangement of six Tibetan singing bowls and wood flute. Whether this recording brought me closer to release from duality is up for debate, but it certainly did not pull me further away.
Standing on its own, Samadhi is a gorgeous slab of ambient music. While this is drone music at its core, the subtleties of the acoustic instruments being played are captured in detail enough that the listener can either drift with the music or focus on minute detail. There is no question here as to whether Aranos as created a gorgeous piece of atmospheric sound or engaging music, he has achieved both simultaneously. As the mist that is this piece continues to roll it definitely gains a charge that seems to be bringing it closer and closer to a moment of unification with all.
The concept surrounding this release is what intrigues me the most. Consider the intense meditative discipline it should and most likely would take to release oneself from the grips of duality, cynicism, materialism, and desire. Indeed, in the liner notes for Samadhi it is written, “Preparation for it involved 35 years of meditation and a lifetime study of sound.” Now imagine achieving this state while also recording and playing six instruments. When I attempt this, I’m left feeling as thought the recording of this music certainly couldn’t have brought me any closer to the Godhead. My feet would be too firmly planted in the material world while creating a piece as intricately flowing as this.
Perhaps this release is only intended to be an aural representation of Samadhi and not a document thereof. Many musicians speak of a state of spiritual communion being reached while practicing their art, but it is another thing all together to use it as a catalyst to attain something of an ultimate religious experience. If Aranos truly intends to purport that Samadhi was reached on the midsummer’s night this was recorded, props.
It has been six years since this Chicago trio, best known for constructing mainly instrumentals based around two bass guitars and a set of drums, released their last record, 2002’s Millions of Brazilians. In that time it seems that their sound has been slowly fermenting and evolving in sparkling and unexpected ways, not least with the addition of vocals, and with the further addition of strings, guitar, and keyboards. What results is a strange musical dislocation, a selection of 12 scintillating, yet simultaneously bittersweet, indie-tinged rock songs that bubble along with a nervous, tangential energy that often goes off in totally unforeseen directions.
Having said all that, the surprises started before I even put the CD in the player. There was something about the package (allied to the press release) that led me to form the notion that Dianogah were a loud noisy hardcore bunch of unreconstructed shouty hooligans. However, what flowed from the speakers was the equivalent of getting culture shock or an unexpected temporal dislocation: here are beautifully crafted but somehow slightly fractured songs built from glassine melodies, chiming harmonies, and sinuously plaintive vocals. Styles veer from the introspective to the out and out explosive, in the process creating and presenting us with a whole palette of textures and moods. Whatever they decide to play for us, it’s never less than engaging and involving, a multihued exploration of feelings and atmospheres painted in a full spectrum of shades and subtle tones.
It’s hard to know where to start, such is the breadth and range on offer here. A brief delve into just the first half of the album is enough to convince anyone of Dianogah’s pedigree. “Oneone,” the album’s opening track, bases itself around a languid clipped bass-line framework, upon which are hung querulous vocals and ringing guitar harmonics that seem to hang in the air. The title track emerges from the other end of the spectrum, letting its hair down with a full workout of fuzzed up guitar ‘n’ bass and pounding percussion. The diametrically opposing “Andrew Jackson,” meanwhile, surprises me by opening with the refrain from Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” before settling into a mournfully beautiful guitar and violin piece, capable of evoking bittersweet memories and feelings, and full of pathos. Following on from that is the bouncy “Sprinter,” replete with the sweet vocals of Stephanie Morris (The Pawner’s Society, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir), but don’t let that sweetness fool you. A frisson of edginess runs beneath that charmingly honeyed voice wafting over the shimmering keys and Andrew Bird’s bowed and plucked violin. All the while the whole is firmly anchored by Kip McCabe’s drum-work, and Jay Ryan’s and Jason Harvey’s bass engines.
This is but a slight dip into the many facets of a broad and wide-ranging set of songs. With an album of this nature it’s hard to encompass the full impact in a short review and it’s nice to be confronted by an offering that refuses to stay still or occupy the same patch of ground for too long. Some would no doubt be annoyed by the butterfly character of Dianogah, flitting as it does between different stylistic flowers. However, there is also equal certainty that the nectar thus sourced is of a premium quality. In its superficially bitty stylistic approach lies its greatest strength for me. Saying that, there is still more than a hint of overall cohesion gluing everything together, enough anyway to stop this from becoming nothing more than a nervous hopping about, uncertain of where to alight. Dianogah knows exactly where it is going and where the best musical blooms are; one has only to listen to this to know that.