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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Orthlorng Musork Andrew W.K. and Pink have never sounded better. Britney Spears andJustin Timberlake can be enjoyable! So long as the combination ofapples being gnawed up, pigs snorting, children laughing, andelephant-speak is processed, destroyed, and turned into a headfuck ofan album; then bad music can be made beautiful. Secret Mommy specializein the annihilation of all that sucks (including French educationalrecords) and all that can be used to make the pain of bad music lessexcruciating. The thirteen tracks on Mammal Classare composed of the dead bodies of pop stars, the flucuating anddecaying breath of large mammals, and various instruments that may ormay not be readily indentifiable; but who cares? This sort of thing hasbeen done for a while, now! What could possibly make me want to spendmoney on this record? First of all, "Bottom 40" features aspeak n' spell alongside Britney Spears and the mating calls of catsand turns out to be one hilarious and nerdy ride through funkdom.Second of all, the whole of this record is hilarious! "Shania Twang" isthe best combination possible of cowboy screams, mouth harp, ShaniaTwain samples, pigs, chickens, and off key banjo. "Andrew W. Cake" iscatchy, spontaneous, and makes the best use of Andrew W.K.'s outrageousmusic all while serving as a therapeutic means of getting back at allthose celebrities I've come to hate by using them in ways that wouldmake certain record companies jealous. Besides the funny aspect, a lotof the music here is just plain fun to listen to; it's the bestsynthesis of creativity and accessibility that I've found in a longwhile. What isn't cool about frogs, guitars, and girls being used tocreate rhythms that would send any dancing feet into the stratosphereand would also happen make certain "IDM" provocateurs red in the facefor their academic journey into blandness? Incessant giggling, goodtunes, and a real live imagination is the name of the game; this is themost entertaining time I've had listening to a record in forever. It'sextravagant, lushly melodic, and a real benchmark for other purveyorsof the strange and wonderous to test themselves by.
Merge It is nearly impossible to discuss Camera Obscura without mentioningtheir fellow countrymen and kindred spirits Belle & Sebastian. Thecover photograph of the former's second album was taken by B&Sfrontman Stuart Murdoch (which alone screams of his own band's retro /twee stylings), in addition, he has produced one of Camera Obscura'searlier tracks. While CO might seem to owe a heavy debt to them, it isinteresting to note that both bands formed in 1996, and although theiroverall aesthetic is similar, the two clearly spring from differentminds. Underachievers Please Try Harderputs the band squarely in the realm of jangle-pop, and primary vocalistTraceyanne Campbell's gentle, breezy, inobtrusive vocals are perfectlycomplimentary. "Suspended from Class," "Teenager," and "Keep it Clean"are all classic examples of the genre with their sunny, simpleconstruction and topped off with twee lyrics. There are, however, a fewunexpected twists in this overall sound. "A Sister's Social Agony" hasechoes of the angelic, dreamy pop your parents might have danced to attheir prom, while "Your Picture" has a suprisingly melancholic tone.The latter may be the result of the Morrissey-esque male vocalist whotakes over for a few of the tracks. It is ultimately Camera Obscura'slyrics which seem to save them from lapsing into a saccharine overload.They are marked more by a pensive reflection on adolescence than bymere nostalgia. And although they aren't breaking any new ground withtheir music, they good a fine job of carrying the torch passed down tothem by their C86 forefathers.
Sedimental Ielasi will be best known for his label, Fringes, which has beenbrightening the Italian improv community for the past six years with aslew of successful releases. Starting out as a guitarist, he performedin several bristly, tense ensembles (even playing acoustic at times)before easing into electronic improvisation, a transition thatintroduced a more understated method of expression and produced worksthat, while full of the scrape and bounce that characterize Ielasi'sguitar-playing, contain new attention towards careful sculpting of thesmooth approach and weightless hover of each piece. Such concerns haveexploded with Plans;at only thirty minutes, the piece is a major addition to Ielasi'salready-intimidating catalog and marks a considerable stylistic shiftfor the artist. Not a work of pure improvisation, Plans wasactually created over a sixteen-month interval and is of remarkablydense construction, including everything from layered field recordings,thick accumulations of vinyl surface noise, and a toy museum's worth ofclatter and acoustic tinker, to the surprisingly "present"accompaniment of live drums and Ielasi's narcotic strumming. Not onlydoes Plans travel through a succession of movements, but themusic transitions with rare, effortless stride, captivating in itsjoining of contrastive sounds and playing styles, over passages thatnot only sound perfectly-aligned but maintain an emotional current thatremains close to the surface. This is the power of Plans; itsimmediately palpable, almost nostalgic beauty becomes a catalyst forforgetting just how intact Ielasi leaves his sound sources. Plaintivechordal phrasing lines up neatly next to the most atonal, asymmetricalbits of sturm und drang, all sounds recognizably different, even (itwould seem) in direction, but down to the slightest of details each onefits and seems created with full knowledge of every foreign item thatwill graze its path. Like the artist's recent improvisations, Planslifts dense assemblage to airy heights without the sacrifice of thesounds' material qualities. One particularly illuminating moment comesin the third or fourth "movement" when out of breezy, layered surfacenoise Ielasi introduces a pristine recording of keys fumbling and heavymetal doors being swung open and shut. These harsh, solid soundsimmediately take their place within the airborne whisper of the whole,an explicit representation of Plans' achievement, iron doorsswinging between the clouds. It is not hard to believe that thisrelatively short piece took so long to create. Even the improvisedelements appear intricately placed, often spliced via electronics tofit the multiplicity of layers and the "larger," more demandingcompositional structure. This music demands repeated listening, and itsrewards, I've found, are almost limitless, such that I cannot evenmuster predictable criticism of the disc's short length. Plansis an easy favorite from the new crop of Sedimental releases and leavesme hoping Ielasi's next work will continue in similar stride.
Sub Pop Though odder and odder this one becomes with each listen, I think I'vefinally found the piece of my heart that loves The Elected. With onefoot planted firmly in the indie psyche-rock weeds and the other in themore low-down country aspects of life, this Los Angeles ensemble playswith genres and styles in an effort to find their niche, but the truthis they needn't try so hard sometimes. Me Firstis a well-paced and structured debut with funny, intelligent lyricsabout classic themes but with clever twists. All the while, there'splenty to swallow whole, as savoring it instead of devouring it won'tmake it any more logical or understood, like the finer moments of theFlaming Lips or the Shins. This is the road trip record for drivingthrough the dusty south and southwest, with pure Americana and shortstories to keep the feet firmly on the ground, though the mind is freeto roam. Blake Sennett, principal songwriter and guitarist in RiloKiley, is also the mastermind behind The Elected, and certainsimilarities can be found in the two bands. Sennett seems to have someya-yas to get out about relationships, though, and that's where thesesongs have their strengths. Whether it's failed romantic relationshipsor hiding the secrets from family and friends, the subjects of thesongs are lived-in, and that's the the real appeal of The Elected'sdebut. In the age of vapid and vacant pop stars who steal the beats andbasslines of classic songs to try and duplicate the stardom or revive agenre bigger than them, it's nice to hear a band that can just do theirthing and sound like they've been around forever making music with thebands of the age. This is record I will be listening to all year, I canjust feel it.
CD Eb + Flo marks a number of departures in the work of one of today's most interesting sound artists. The double-disc is Matthews' first solo release using theremin as primary sound source, following her retiring of the violin which had formed the core of her excellent first three discs (recently reissued as a trio). The artist's method remains somewhat constant on Eb + Flo, involving the live sampling and laptop manipulation of sounds created with the theremin and projected via quadraphonic soundsystem throughout a particular room.
Matthews sets up a system of microphones in each performance space (five in total for these discs), enabling the pure tones of her instrument to feed back in a manner unique to the architecture of the room. Environment plays the biggest role in the artist's music and has never been as much of a factor as it is on this release. As with previous recordings, Matthews has placed additional microphones around the room to gather specific pockets of sound, influenced by audience movement, noise from outside etc. However, where on her debut, CD Ann, the artist credited these "hidden" mics with only "the essential wild card," Eb + Flo is more sympathetic, the blank purity of the sine tones allowing for uncluttered, even languid compositions that seem to evolve with an ear trained, more than ever before, on the details and happenings of a particular space. The release's double-length is perhaps indicative of new patience and openness in Matthews' work. The sine tones could not be further from the frayed, "comfortable" strains of her violin, and the individual pieces on Eb + Flo are drastically minimal compared to the warm, droning pile-ups that fill earlier releases. But while these pieces are more demanding, they also maintain a grasp on the ingenuous nature and simple luxury that separates Matthews' work from many similar-minded artists, such as fellow sine-stress Sachiko M. Several tracks take on a playful air, such as the two pieces that open cd eb, "Long Line Starting" and "Clean Tone Falling," whose titles seem to poke fun at the solitary pure tones jetting across both in comical animation. Others bearing titles like "Hallo Vera" and "For Mama" echo Matthews' commitment to keeping personality, and a level of immediacy, in her increasingly abstract style; the latter with its mournful drones and captured bird-songs (via open window?) is particularly subtle and rich with sentiment. Played at a volume high enough to register the intricacies and unique spatial referents of each sound, Eb + Flo manages a unique and fulfilling sound environment, full of movement and mesmerizing activity, and it is an expertly restrained effort as well, allowing the most intimate picture to date, of the artist's process, her degree of involvement and particular response to what a space might offer, or give back.
Pieros Aranos is a unique musician, a classically-trained cellist andmulti-instrumentalist whose resume is not filled with the usual chambermusic ensembles, modern composition or minimalist drone work that onemight expect. Instead, he has become noteworthy based on a series ofuncategorizable collaborations with Nurse With Wound that sidestep allof the usual implications of avant-classical composition. Aranos'peculiar style is based in the Eastern European gypsy songs, trad-folkand rock music of his childhood in Czechoslovakia. From hiscollaborations with Steven Stapleton, he absorbed the techniques ofdislocated psychedelia and surrealistic composition. Those techniqueswere in full display with the Irish jigs, skewed gypsy fiddles andcracked experimentation of his first two albums for his own Pieroslabel. For this album, Aranos collaborates with El Monte, the nom deguerre of Nick Mott of Volcano The Bear. Allied Cooking But Not As You Know It!is a collection of eleven improvised tracks, utilizing an array ofinstruments including the usual strings, shakahuchi, trumpet,saxophone, gongs and an array of homemade instruments. In a techniqueworthy of Eno's Oblique Strategies, each improvisation is based uponmeditation on a nonsensical imperative — "Think Like Warm IntestinalBeing!" or "Think Like Madly Projected Fleshcups!" Their collaborationresults in a series of low key tracks, meandering around a series ofsubtle conversations that scrupulously avoid musicality entirely.Several tracks create the abstract mental imagery of dark jungles anddamp marshes, with the slowly rubbed cello strings creating an creepingatmosphere of dread. At other times, the music is decidedly morehyperactive, Aranos jumping over his strings like a frog in a fryingpan. On "Think Like Veering Toads and Rude Proons!" an odd speakerglitch creates a brief piece of minimalist electronica worthy of theRaster-Noton label. Apparently, this was all recorded and mixed in thespan of a week that El Monte spent in Ireland with Aranos.Unfortunately, this really shows, as the whole affair seems to sufferfrom a severe dearth of well-executed musical ideas, attempting tocompensate for this lack with an overdose of creepy atmospherics,exclamation points and surreal gobbledygook.
KimoSciotic Dave Wright's approach to music serves as his greatest strength and thehinge upon which his weakness rests. Near every song on his newestrelease has a soundtrack quality to it, coming across as if it belongedto any number of gritty sci-fi movies from the past twenty years. Thereare layers upon layers of jumbled drum tracks, erratic signal chaos,computer malfunctions, and muscular bass melodies. I can see the floorsof abandoned houses soaked and creaking from numerous leaks, the lightof candles flickering across the walls, and the awkward crawl ofshadows jumping across the room with the sudden gusts of air billowingthrough the rooms; but what's missing is some element that keeps mewanting to come back. Carrion Soundsfeels so thematic that I find that I have difficulty maintaininginterest throughout the album. By the time "Worlock Radar" drops itsblack breath over my head, I'm feeling rather removed from the musicand there's little making me want to get back into it. Some of thesongs just over-extend their welcome: seven minutes of insane drumprogramming and strobe-light special effects is difficult to sitthrough unless it's done to perfection. With that in mind, "BebeBarron's Panties" (featuring Mr. Meat Beat Manifesto) is a realstandout: it isn't one of the longest tracks on the disc, but the spacethat Jack Dangers provides in between the sounds improves the formulathat Not Breathing works with throughout the duration of the album. Carrion Soundsis unique, however, many of the sounds have a life all their own anddon't feel overused or familiar. David Wright certainly providesinteresting rhythmic and melodic combinations, but overall fails tokeep my attention for a long stretch of time. I find the record pullingat me every now then for a quick and heavy dose, but the record is besttaken in steps: Wright certainly has a lot of talent, just a littlerefinement and this record would be excellent.
The meeting-of-the-minds approach is extremely popular in the remix realm, bringing a new edge and almost rebirth to the music. It's almost designed to backfire on occasion, where the new work is different enough from the original works of the two main ingredients that fans of either are not impressed. It can also be magical, where the new work transcends the original. Unfortunately, this "remix" of Stylus tracks by EAR lies in a third area, where the new work becomes so convoluted and strange that it's almost better used as a cure for insomnia.
Though the music does bear a new signature as well as familiar sounds, it doesn't really represent any brave or new shift from the original material, and it tends to reduce the music to a static lull. In fact, I don't really feel like this is a remix at all. The CD is one long track, clocking in around fifty-two minutes, and moving through different Stylus tracks with various additions and effects applied as well as samples, field recordings and other manipulations. The long track approach is not a new one, but where on other remix CDs there's too much happening to split it up effectively, here the tracks could be split as major shifts occur. As it stands, Exposition is a virtual snoozefest, with few peaks and valleys. EAR is led by Spacemen 3 alum Sonic Boom, and it's regrettable that this release is not really all that experimental. The works of Stylus, aka Dafydd Morgan, are usually experimental enough on their own, and the title holds the promise of moving it all to new heights. By reducing those works to their least dynamic elements, EAR has a work of little consequence.
Whoever considers Einstürzende Neubauten's musical output from the 1990s to be lackluster has got to be tone deaf. The group opened the decade with a forceful sound that began to integrate their noise tendencies with clever musical arrangement and song craftsmanship. Haus der Lüge—although released in 1989—started the phase off, paving the way for 1993's Tabula Rasa, which was a complete breakthrough marrying elegance, sound exploration, composition, and noise.
I'm even finding myself going back to Ende Neu and Silence is Sexy, rediscovering things I might not have fully appreciated at the time of their release, as I will probably do with their new album. With Perpetuum Mobile, the group has made their transition even further away from the post-techno stronghold, with no songs that sound like post-post-industrial Deutche-chants. Without the sing-alongs to latch on to, it makes it a more difficult album to get into from the get-go, however, the atypical instrumentation, ace production, and Blixa's peculiar lyrics and subjects are enticing enough to always want more deeper listens. "Perpetuum Mobile" is the rather jaded perspective of the world by a person who is constantly on the move: with false amenities and the ugliness of reality, while on "Selbstportrait mit Kater," Bliza admits repeatedly "Life on other planets is difficult!" Einstürzende Neubauten has always struck me as a group who's very generous to their listeners: the lavish packages that accompany their standard releases are far more intense than nearly anything else obtainable at regular prices. The music is undoubtedly worked and reworked exhaustively, leaving the lyrics and melodies intact while restructuring everything else to the point of bearing almost completely no resemblance to conventional pop/rock/electronic/whatever songs. Friendly, relatively quiet tunes like the album's bookends "Ich Gehe Jetzt" and "Grunstück" are not foreign for the group, almost meant to leave pleasant impressions while the group pushes the boundaries with songs like the title track, where, for nearly 14 minutes, the underscoring melody rarely moves from the same note (the colorful percussion, lyrics, and samples make the song far less boring than it sounds). Elsewhere, familiar Neubautenisms can be found: homemade percussive instruments lie alongside bossy bass guitar and faint, squealing guitar lines and double-tracked vocals. A DVD is included for a limited time in some of the releases, but it's an audio-only supplement of 5.1 surround mixed versions of only four of the songs on the album. As always, I anxiously await the next Neubauten tour.
4AD John Darnielle has the reputation of being a consummate storyteller.His prolific output contains a variety of song cycles and storylinesthat unfold in chapters throughout his catalog, as well as individualvignettes that rise and fall in the space of a scant few minutes. Whatmakes his stories viable is the deep sense of urgency and passion thathe imbues them with. On early records like Zopilote Machineit seemed as if these tales were so heavy, so grand, that he couldn'tpossibly wait to confess them to his recording boom box, to give themlife with a reedy voice that made it clear to the listener that thesewords were important, and these stories were important. His firstrecord on 4AD, the immensely wonderful Tallahassee, proved thatthe cassette medium was not the magic that gave his songs life. Thefirst all-studio Mountain Goats album, it sounded every bit asimmediate, sometimes warm and sometimes caustic, but alwayscaptivating. We Shall All Be Healed claims to document acollection of characters that Darnielle knows (or knew) in real life, aslice of time where these characters moved about each other and playedan important role in a larger story. While it seems as if that shouldbe no trouble for the Mountain Goats, the storyline presents itself ina far more patient, meditative manner than the last effort. Perhaps itis the proximity of the subjects to the author, but the incisiveobservations and illuminating metaphors that traditionally overpopulatehis songs are strangely absent. Darnielle's voice dwells in a moderate,plaintive register for much of the album. Many of the songs seem likethey are indistinct messages to a single individual. Ideas appear asreferences without context, or nostalgic wisps that never really takeform, and leave a craving for some kind of impact that must lurksomewhere in the formlessness. "Home Again Garden Grove" peeks its headout with a glimpse of what we're used to. The vocals are crisp, directand pointed, and with lines like, "I can remember when we were in highschool / our dreams were like fugitive warlords / plotting triumphantreturns to the city / with tec-9's tucked under the floorboards /ah-ah-ha," it's a pleasing respite from the lack of concentration thatdominates the other songs. Perhaps more disappointing than thedisconnection of the lyrics is the simply flat sound of the music, likea soda left in the open air for too long. "Mole," which features anunfortunately under-observed scene in an intensive care unit features athreadbare guitar that absently plucks away at what sounds like a roughapproximation of the theme song to Hill Street Blues. There is verylittle energy in what is heard, and it is not a question of raucousspeed or volume, but of thoughtful investments in crafting a song thatdoes not merely plod along a stale strum or hackneyed change. We Shall All Be Healedsounds an arm's length away, a record that wishes to keep its distanceand wrap its secrets in a collection of comfortable tones thatcamouflage whatever kind of power they truly have in reality.
Sedimental In many ways Sunder, Unite feels like a continuation of the dialogue that began with Block's first two recordings, Pure Gaze and Mobius Fuse,both released on Sedimental to much acclaim. For those records, herstyle of composition centered on ideas of combination and alignmentinstead of juxtaposition; the music achieved a subtle melding ofextremes: found sound with scored passages, orchestrated parts withimprovised elements, and live or "natural" space with the imaginedresonance of synthetic creation. The disparate pieces of Gaze and Fusecome together to create half-hour intervals of transcendence, subtlesound environments as quick to reject the atmospheric, mood-orientedinterpretation as they are to quietly envelop the most unwilling oflisteners. I feel carried through her deceptively thick and intricatecompositions, afloat on currents of de-sourced field recordings,invisibly suspended piano notes, wind and brass ensembles blowing in asif on short-wave frequency, and all manner of electronic blurts andorganic sounds, sometimes manipulated via sampler, though more oftenleft unruffled to hang like flies in the gleaming web of the whole. Thesensuous drift of these early recordings makes them challenging in thebest of ways; Block's thorough blending of the natural and artificialrealms introduces confusion and disorientation only in afterthought,almost through a willful suspension of disbelief. Even the harshest ofsounds used, such as the clashing rock and wood noise or fireworkexplosions in Mobius Fuse, Block treats with the care of asurgeon, guiding each into unique functionality without a scrap ofsensationalism or over-emphasis. Sunder, Unite works in similarways, but with an increasing stress on the motion and physicalmanifestation of the piece. This shift in momentum comes with thepresence of Seth Nehil, who played with Block in Austin's Alial Straaand whose impressive solo output focuses largely on rough, physicalsounds sourced in the natural world. Much of the sound on Sunder, Unitecomes from previous live and field recordings by Nehil and Block duringa Japanese tour where the duo's performances involved the live, oftenextreme manipulation of natural objects like leaves, grass, and rock.But while these shows seem easily located within the Japanese noisetradition or the influence of sound artists like Akio Suzuki, Sunder, Uniteis a truly foreign creation. The piece is rarely harsh, nor does it getcaught up in Suzuki's ponderous method. Block and Nehil recognize theessential physicality of their source material, but their arrangementsshow greater interest in leading the sounds through the composed dramaof the piece's movements ("through," "within," "beyond" etc). Theyaccomplish this through an elaborate cut-and-paste of the originalmaterial, including the insertion of large chunks of silence andglitch-ist sound-chopping. Elsewhere synthetic drones or heavilymanipulated pieces of the original tapes form swooning backdrops forthe microscopic clatter and pop painstakingly organized across the Sunder's40 minutes. Block's contributions become especially effective as a windensemble fades in and out wonderfully on a few tracks. As a whole, Sunder, Uniteechoes Block's previous work in particular, through the subtle way itbrings together (in this case aggressively) natural or organic soundand "artificial" elements of strict composition and digitaldeconstruction. The result is music less concerned with the detail orclash of different sounds than with synthesis and progression, analways-beautiful blending of disciplines.