05 June 2011

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Albums and Singles

Jesu is back with another mammoth slab of religious iconography, loathing, and detuned metal chords played deadly slow. If Loveless wasn't already taken, that might be a more fitting title for this record of empty-hearted love songs.

Caldo Verde

Ascension begins with "Fools," a song which lays out the Jesu philosophy clearly enough. A mournful acoustic guitar, rhythm loop, and hushed lyrics about "fools," "heaven," and "hope" give way to a deep wall of metal riffing slowed down to quarter time. The words and chords repeat and then grind on for another five minutes until Justin Broadrick's voice, drowned out by dissonant guitars, stretches to sing "You'll be there at my end." The song is humorless and cynical but it seems to be coming from a romantic place, as if Broadrick desperately wants to write love songs but has nothing worth pulling from to make them sweet.

Other songs like "Broken Home" and "Black Lies" support the notion that Ascension is going nowhere fun, fast. The album rings out with bitterness but it's not the kind of bleak, nihilism that might be expected given Broadrick's dark and unforgiving history with Godflesh. Instead, Ascension feels tragic, as if birthed from someone who wants love and faith to brighten the day, but can not believe that things will work out in the end.

"Broken Home" is my favorite song on the record and it may be the best example of what Jesu does so very well. The song is intensely personal, made almost painfully honest with a dry and cracking vocal that sits atop slow metal riffing and a drum beat that sounds as if it's going to fall apart at any moment. Like many of the songs on Ascension, it is notably pretty but also quite broken and sad.

Broadrick makes one misstep here with the sped-up "Sedation," a song that almost sounds like a mid 1990s college radio number. It plays to his worst inclination to sing sincerely but outside of his range, and the upbeat tempo simply breaks the album's otherwise steady flow in a jarring way. Once that bump is over though, the album lurches forward through "Brave New World," "December," and "King of Kings"—all songs that stick firmly to the formula laid out in "Fools," and provide more evidence that Jesu is one of the most consistent acts in recent times.

Beneath the walls of slow-burning guitar and crash cymbals and the dreadful heartache that turns nearly every song into a lament, Ascension seems like it is trying to be a hopeful record. I'm not sure that Broadrick believes that his stories can have happy endings, but this seems to be what hope sounds like when it pushes itself out of continual ugliness.

Samples

• Birth Day
• Broken Home
• Sedation

 

 

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05 June 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This compilation of German experimental music from the last five years is a nice sketch of what is going on outside of Berlin these days. The material covers field recordings, atmospheric electronics and bits of noise. The material also covers the good, the mediocre and the bad.

Gruenrekorder
 
Thankfully like in all good stories, the good prevails. The field recordings sound a little clichéd but etzin’s “Voegal-Verteidgung der Nester” is a wonderful piece, four minutes inside of a murder of crows is exactly what does it for me as regards field recordings. On the other hand, the album’s opener “Zwergohreulen in der Vikos-Schlucht” by Costa Groehn documenting insect life in Greece is a bit tedious. Groehn wins me back with “Baustelle” later on: a far more interesting recording of percussive rhythms from what sounds like a canteen or a factory.

In more traditional music areas on AudioArt Compilation 02, Ohrginal are the highlight. Their “Kombinationen 04” is the least experimental thing on the album: it is straightforward and simple with a drummer playing a lazy beat in front of mainly synth-produced rhythms and melodies. It is one of those musical nuggets that is worth keeping a compilation for. What is not worth keeping a compilation for is the work of Dirk HuelsTrunk and three tracks are given up to this man. “Forward” and “Fall Out” are two of the most boring things I’ve heard in a long time, both consist of chopped up vocals, whereas “Nie” is just annoying. All of his work on AudioArt Compilation 02 sounds pretentious and amateurish. I’ve no problem with being pretentious once you have the material to back it up. HuelsTrunk does not have said material.

Apart from these tracks mentioned the rest of the CD is a mixture of noise and electronic music that vary in quality from pieces that provide good ambience in your chosen listening space to some pretty decent recordings. AudioArt Compilation 02 is a mixed bag, the majority of pieces will cry out for repeated playings and others I wish would apologise for wasting my valuable listening time. Such is the nature of compilations.

samples:

• Dirk HuelsTrunk - Fall Out
• etzin - Voegal-Verteidigung der Nester
• Ohrginal - Kombinationen 04

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30 May 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Myrmyr - Fire Star

Under The Spire Recordings

Spire041 LP/CD

Listen to samples and order: http://underthespire.co.uk

1-3 Hot Snow (Side A)
4 Fire Serpent’s Lull (Side A)
5 Thunder Stars (Side B)
6 Golden Ashes (Side B)
This sophomore release from Agnes Szelag (Evon, Dokuro) and Marielle Jakobsons (Darwinsbitch, Date Palms) is an album of astonishing fragile beauty and darker, more foreboding atmospheres. Following their critically acclaimed debut album, The Amber Sea (Digitalis, 2009) Fire Star was recorded during a snowstorm on Shasta Mountain April 6-9 2010. The duo performs on violin, cello, voices, harps, bells, and electronics. It is recorded by The Norman Conquest and mastered by Miles Boison.
Spire041 is super limited to 200 vinyl LP and 150 CD (CD will only be available directly from the label, vinyl more widely distributed). Initial vinyl pre-orders from the label will also get a copy of the CD:
http://www.underthespire.co.uk/releases-buy/myrmyr
::myrmyr.net :: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.::
underthespire.co.uk
Myrmyr is Agnes Szelag & Marielle Jakobsons from Oakland, California. With a foundation of violin and cello, the duo creates an intimate post-classical atmosphere inspired by folk elements of their common Eastern European ancestry. Since 2004, they have performed across the US, collaborated with dozens of musicians and filmmakers, and premiered several works for large ensembles such as sfSound & the Oakland Active Orchestra.
Their debut album was hailed as “one of the most unique and absorbing albums we’ve heard this year” by Boomkat. Myrmyr has been nationally syndicated on KQED for the show SPARK, performed at the Stone (NY), the De Young Museum (SF), as well as several national festivals, published in the Leonardo Music Journal, and received an American Composer’s Forum Grant

::myrmyr.net :: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.::
underthespire.co.uk.

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30 May 2011

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Albums and Singles

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MATT CHRISTENSEN

A CRADLE IN THE BOWERY

Under The SpireRecordings

Vinyl and CD available now.

http://www.underthespire.co.uk/

Matt Christensen of Chicago’s premier pastoral bliss inducers Zelienople ventures out on his own with this triumphant set of dedications to his young daughter. Siphoning strains of melancholic Americana through the trancelike prisms of groups such as Spaceman 3 and Galaxie 500, he creates swirling vistas on tracks such as mesmeric opener Someday I Won’t Matter that’ll be familiar to his group’s many admirers. But elsewhere Christensen pares back the layers to reveal this beautiful album’s emotive, breathing core, baring pellucid folk patinas that recall everyone from Nick Drake to Damon & Naomi, all shrouded in Christensen’s distinctive, nebulous veil.

Featuring contributions from Type head honcho/Xela stud John Twells, as well as post-production wizardry from Pete Jørgensen, A Cradle In The Bowery marks a milestone in the catalogue of the burgeoning Under The Spire imprint and documents a pivotal stage in Christensen’s own personal journey and continuing evolution as an artist.

 

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30 May 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

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MATT CHRISTENSEN

A CRADLE IN THE BOWERY

Under The SpireRecordings

Vinyl and CD available to order now.

http://www.underthespire.co.uk/

Matt Christensen of Chicago’s premier pastoral bliss inducers Zelienople ventures out on his own with this triumphant set of dedications to his young daughter. Siphoning strains of melancholic Americana through the trancelike prisms of groups such as Spaceman 3 and Galaxie 500, he creates swirling vistas on tracks such as mesmeric opener Someday I Won’t Matter that’ll be familiar to his group’s many admirers. But elsewhere Christensen pares back the layers to reveal this beautiful album’s emotive, breathing core, baring pellucid folk patinas that recall everyone from Nick Drake to Damon & Naomi, all shrouded in Christensen’s distinctive, nebulous veil.

Featuring contributions from Type head honcho/Xela stud John Twells, as well as post-production wizardry from Pete Jørgensen, A Cradle In The Bowery marks a milestone in the catalogue of the burgeoning Under The Spire imprint and documents a pivotal stage in Christensen’s own personal journey and continuing evolution as an artist.

 

 

Matt Christensen - Someday I Won't Matter by Under The Spire Matt Christensen - Daddy by Under The Spire

 

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30 May 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Twenty Knives follow the compiled track "The Royal Vomitorium" and free EP The Royal Invitation with an intriguing album wherein a spaceship crashes and the pilot explores a weird terrain guided by a small robot. With an overblown digital game sensibility and an air of glam-electronica, this is slightly dated harmoniously malfunctioning music. I enjoy it more for knowing nothing about the artist and the whole concept being almost as laughable as it is mysterious.

Hymen

In the 1970s, concept albums were popping up faster than hands at a meeting to get a free lifetime supply of Belgian ale. I can do without most of the better known ones but still have a huge soft spot for some of the so-called minor attempts. There was Virginia Astley’s twee pastoral record From Gardens Where We Feel Secure bathed in the minute sounds and details of a single day spent in rural England; an atmosphere of comfort and dread in time passing. Home’s The Alchemist also leaps to mind: a tale of schoolboy friendship, magic, the lure of treasure and sacrifice and the inherent destruction in both; somewhat sunk by muddy production. Both remain memorable and had an identifiable concept.

The Royal We has less clarity and is less reliable than either of those efforts. It perhaps belongs more with Spacemate and Klub Londinium (two projects of Sudden Sway, a largely forgotten group with an ear for vaguely futuristic concepts, an eye for mind-bogging inanity, and a bizarre sense of humor). Twenty Knives seem to have a similar approach wherein the future is a bit of an impenetrable mess, a plethora of hollow opportunities and irritating value systems.

The Royal We includes several engagingly clicky songs the most euphoric of which may be "Royal, Inc." Other pieces share a triumphal atmosphere quite out of keeping with some of the sinister lyrics. At least I think they are sinister, the record uses digitized singing throughout: doubtless necessary to the concept, but often hard to decipher. Luckily I enjoy going back to try to work out what’s going on. Somewhat clearer is "The Royal Computorium," a conversation between the robot and one of the "users" who have passed through the island. The robot’s intentions are unclear, it rambles on and cracks the occasional awful joke before drugging the user, who's responses are the sounds of one of two buttons for either yes or no answers. Following this, neither the title track nor two shorter, peaceful, instrumental pieces reveal anything.

The album was written, recorded, and produced by someone called "SJM" between 2007-2011. It is a puzzling facade which embraces and mocks notions of consensus and paranoia; a light record which nevertheless alludes to contradictory aspects of ordinary life in the technology-dominated near future. It was preceded by The Royal Invitation EP which can be downloaded at the Twenty Knives website where a message states: "This informational data repository is provided to you on behalf of the Royal Holy Island's Travel and Information Committee. Unfortunately we cannot field any further inquiries via this repository; please wait patiently for your brochure. If you are accessing this site via a public information terminal, please wash your hands to prevent the spread of disease."

samples:

• Royal Inc
• Square Brain
• Royal Computorium

 

 

 

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29 May 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

While the use of old blues samples in modern songs is hardly a new idea, this is a great example of when a seemingly overused concept is reinvigorated. Here, the jazz pianist Adam Fairhall teams up with Paul J Rogers (best known to readers of Brainwashed as a member of The Long Dead Sevens) to mix the old with the new, highlighting the continuum of recorded music in the 20th century and performers in the 21st. The merging of Fairhall’s skill as a pianist along with Rogers more studio-orientated talents has lead to this fantastic collection of recordings which may not shatter all expectations but certainly put more life into the blues than most contemporary efforts.

 

All Sounds Contemporary

Throughout the album, Rogers uses a variety of recordings of old blues and jazz songs as jumping blocks for the duo’s own compositions. The dead men and women who lend their talents to Second-Handed Blues are all credited on the back of the album, this is not a wholesale plundering of found recordings but a celebration and reverent tribute to these artists. Granted some of the samples are treated but many are left as is, their power needing no tweaking or massaging to fit with Fairhall and Rogers’ playing.

Yet neither one of the pair holds back in their playing, they never sound like they are trying to create an ersatz version of the original recordings. Fairhall’s piano on "Stavin’ Chain" sounds like it could be one of Diamanda Galás’ takes on the blues. It is powerful, full of fire and determination and given an eerie quality by the clink of metal links in the background. The same can be said of Fairhall’s playing on "The Katy Line," where Rogers creates a sinister rhythmic noise that keeps changing in tone as Fairhall plays for his soul.

However, it is not just the Old Testament brimstone of the blues that is being worshiped here as "Ballad of a Backslider" shows. Here Fairhall’s playing is far closer to his home turf of jazz, pretty but as deep as the Mississippi itself. Instead of opting for the unsettling soundscapes described above, Rogers plays an interview with an old blues man (unidentifiable by me as it is not my area of expertise) over the music, creating a poignant and captivating piece.

As an idea, I was unsure of how well Second-Handed Blues would work but Fairhall and Rogers have convinced me that there is merit in their methods. The thoughts of relying on the old source material to carry the album left me cold but the duo have used these blues recordings as a springboard to making their own music in comparison to the likes of Moby or Fatboy Slim using similar samples with minimal artistic input on their behalf. As a result, Second-Handed Blues has a vibrancy to it that belies its roots in a style of music that is approaching its centenary.

samples:

• Ivy Smith
• Stavin' Chain
• The Katy Line

 

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29 May 2011

John Kealy

Albums and Singles

In this second edition of our irregular overview of cassette culture, we turn our ears towards new music from some of our favorite tape labels including works by Deceh, Lunar Miasma, Reptile Brain, Basillica and Kyle Bobby Dunn amongst others.

Ireland’s Munitions Family have been releasing some great electronic and noise releases over the last few years and the latest two tapes from them are no exception. The split between Red Electric Rainbow and Reptile Brain is particularly nice; Red Electric Rainbow’s side explores some of the same ecstatic mind melting rhythms on "Audio Drugs" as Coil did on their track "Red Birds Will Fly Out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night." On the other side, Reptile Brain (a.k.a. Andrew Fogarty) creates another dizzying, kaleidoscopic piece that is even more satisfying than his previous solo recordings.

Also on Munitions Family is Godwit Songs by Paul Vogel. Vogel is a regular performer in Ireland’s small but committed improvisation scene and this tape is a nice slice of strange percussion and electronics. It gets a bit samey as it goes on but overall Godwit Songs works well, especially when listening back to back with the aforementioned Red Electric Rainbow and Reptile Brain split; it represents a cutting edge compared to the others’ comforting blanket of sound.

Important Records’ sub-label Cassauna continues to impress with two more releases from Ryan Gregory Tallman and Deceh. Tallman’s Haunted Tapes sees the Californian composer explore timbre and space using finely focused beams of sound. "Aching Dusk" slowly builds into a steady central column, composed of what sounds like the decay of piano notes and cymbal strikes. "Husked and Shucked" follows a similar trajectory but feels more solid with the piece seeming to hover low across the floor of the room like low-lying cloud.

The second of Deceh’s tapes for Cassauna, 3, is not quite a stumble but it certainly is not as engaging as the group’s other recent cassettes (see the last edition of this feature for more details on those). It is a nice bit of analogue ambience but it lacks the magnetic centre of other Deceh recordings. I expect to be sucked in and become completely immersed in their music but 3 never reaches the right intensity or hits the right frequency to drag me under. Perhaps with repeated listens it will open itself up to me but for now it is a good but hardly stellar effort.

Out on The Tapeworm is the utterly bizarre Cast-offerings: Visitations, Fetches, Revenants by Peter Hope-Evans. Cut from the same cloth as Daniel Johnston, these songs feature Hope-Evans alone with a microphone, a guitar and a variety of instrumental miscellanea. Deconstructing classic songs into his own little worlds, his delightfully un-tuneful singing voice is both annoying and a source of strange attraction. I cannot decide whether I like this or not but it certainly sticks out as either a work of genius or a bit of a joke. Or both.

Thanks to Peasant Magik’s hugely prolific release schedule, there are a slew of new tapes to fill up my time with representative music from Lunar Miasma, Pet Milk, Kyle Bobby Dunn and Basillica. Lunar Miasma’s Heavy Mist sees them continuing to develop their explorations of neon-tinged electronics. The two pieces that make up side A explore a lot of the same ideas as on previous releases but the title track (which takes up all of side B) shows that they are pushing this approach to its limits. "Heavy Mist" is absolutely intoxicating.

A self-titled cassette by Pet Milk provides a short grungy blast of noisy pop rock that does not sound dissimilar to the likes of early Foo Fighters (although with more balls) or pre-Isn’t Anything My Bloody Valentine. The six songs are refreshingly immediate after all the minimalist and electronic music reviewed above. The aforementioned My Bloody Valentine get covered on side B ("Paint a Rainbow" for those keeping score) but songs like "Pictures of You" and "So Bored" could easily have been outtakes from Kevin Shields' songbook.

On Pour Les Octaves, Kyle Bobby Dunn ventures deep into Stars of the Lid territory with long, slow chords emerging out of the void. Both sides explore similar ground with Dunn taking a beautiful but seemingly aimless wander through these lovely tones. It is only towards the end of "Remnants" at the end of the album does he lock into any sort of commitment with a stunning finish as he creates a constellation of keyboard notes around the gravitational center of a sublime drone.

Basillica is the alter ego of Bong's Mike Vest and his latest cassette Black Delights sees him again summoning all sorts of dark matter out of his guitar and amp. This is a lot better than my last exposure to his solo work (2009’s The Correct Ritual) as I feel Vest is less self-indulgent in his approach. However, Black Delights is still too bloated to work properly and a good third could have been trimmed off this release. There is no piece that is bad by any means but it is too similar and too much for one cassette. Listened to in installments works best so I wonder would this had been better as a number of shorter cassettes.

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29 May 2011

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Albums and Singles

The first part of Andrew McKenzie's unresolved sex trilogy was created as a soundtrack for performance artist Annie Sprinkle's "masturbation ritual," a role that it apparently filled quite successfully.  As a stand-alone effort, however, it is not among McKenzie's most rewarding and enduring works.  The problem is not lack of quality or ideas, but rather that it feels too unnaturally condensed to be truly satisfying.

Touch

I have a difficult time accepting The Hafler Trio as an especially erotic entity and the first half of this 1991 EP does not do much to help me make that leap.  It's still quite good, but it sounds more like vaguely tense ambient drone than anything libidinal.  It begins with an insistently repeating piano note over a sustained bass hum buried low in the mix.  Gradually, a shimmering bit of feedback drifts into the picture and something resembling a processed inhalation/exhalation begins ominously echoing the piano. Around the three minute mark, however, Andrew begins to go for the throat: the bass drone swells dramatically in presence and and a deluge of alternately shrill and spectral noises begin bouncing from speaker to speaker.  The layering quickly becomes impossible to keep track of, as orchestrated chaos erupts and various mechanical sounds cohere into a dense throbbing rhythm that is probably as compelling as anything McKenzie has done.

Unfortunately, that highlight almost immediately segues into the markedly less beguiling lull of the second movement, which sounds like a web of crackling field recordings lazily unfolding over a deep and seismic pulse.  At some point, it begins being buffeted by mutant digitized birds, which is not an especially sexy sound.  That turns out to be a clever feint though, as the conspicuously eroticized final movement eventually evolves from the bass.  The party commences in earnest at the precise moment that the early-Autechre-meets-futuristic-strip-club beat kicks in (supplied by The Anti-Group).  I am surprised that Andrew allows the piece to flirt with IDM as long as he does, but he does ultimately crush it beneath a landslide of dissonant synth, increasingly seismic and overloaded bass, and (most significantly) the breathy sound of Annie experiencing some variety of Tantric orgasm.  Knowing the source of the sounds and their originally intended context distracted me a bit from the full picture at first, which is that the climactic crescendo is an extremely dark one: Masturbatorium ends as a frightening mechanized aural apocalypse.  It must have been quite a memorable show.

Given the provocative title, provocative purpose, and the decidedly immodest album art, the actual music on Masturbatorium is comparatively tame, content to serve as a tense and slowly intensifying backdrop for Sprinkle's live spectacle.  I was a bit wrong-footed by the overt nod to contemporary electronica, but I suppose it is fairly essential to the tone of the piece and the dynamics of the show.  More troubling is the fact that the piece sounds like three separate and truncated pieces oozing into one another.  The transitions aren't clumsy, but the whole feels rushed compositionally–it progresses faster than seems natural.  That may be by necessity though, as I imagine a 45 minute or hour-long masturbation ritual would be pretty demanding.  Nevertheless, I definitely wish the first part had been allowed to unfold longer, as it was becoming an impossibly dense and vibrant monster of a soundscape at the point of its abrupt dissolution.  There are definitely some striking moments, but there are some lulls too and it is all over a bit too quickly.  Fortunately, the next part of the trilogy (Fuck) took the unholy combination of sex and The Hafler Trio to a much higher level.

(Note- this album is currently out of print and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future)

Samples:

• Excerpt One
• Excerpt Two
• Excerpt Three

 

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29 May 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Following logically from the female-centric Masturbatorium, the lengthier and more complex Fuck (1992) shifts the focus to male sexual energy, which manifests itself in considerably more visceral and aggressive music.  Having exclusively heard Andrew's more abstract late-period work before I finally got ahold of this album, I was completely blindsided by its explosive and visceral nature.  I like it– brute force suites The Hafler Trio beautifully.  This album is great.

Touch

Andrew McKenzie does not waste any time with foreplay on Fuck, as the first half blasts into a hot-blooded coital frenzy after a mere 40 seconds of ominous droning.  It isn't an especially abstract or intellectually detached dose of aural sex either–McKenzie could not be more blunt in his attempt to musically approximate an impassioned fuck.  Naturally, such an endeavor has huge potential to be an embarrassing, unintentionally comic fiasco, but Andrew puts on an absolute tour de force and it is absolutely overwhelming (particularly played at maximum volume, as urged in the liner notes).

The backbone of the song is a beat that deftly replicates a rapid heartbeat that grows perceptibly faster and faster as it unfolds/explodes.  That unrelenting pulse gives the piece a very tense feel and a palpable sense of danger, as it sounds like it could all derail into utter chaos at any moment.  A lot of that illusion is also due to the escalating mayhem surrounding it, such as Andrew's rhythmic moans and gasps, the sinister and hollow-sounding roars in the foreground, and the grotesquely amplified cicadas and woodpeckers that seems to be trying to burrow into my goddamn brain.  McKenzie and his fellow mixers (Zbigniew Karkowski and  Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson) completely outdid themselves here–the first part of Fuck bursts from the speakers with singular violence and clarity.

After getting about as crazy as it possibly can, the "lust" half of the album gradually becomes slower and calmer until it is ultimately winnowed down to just Andrew's breathing.  That breathing then segues seamlessly into the album's languid, post-coital second half, which provides a much needed oasis of calm after the savage ear ravishing that preceded it.  It doesn't stay post-coital for long though, as a bass-y processed moan coheres into the slow and persistent rhythm of yet more sex.  It could not be more different than the first half though, augmenting its languorous cadence with only a pleasant shimmer and multiple layers of steady breathing (presumably all Andrew's, though Annie Sprinkle was intimately involved in eliciting the source material for the album).  It all stops without warning in the middle of the piece, leaving only the ambient sounds of the rural night, a sloooow heartbeat, and some haunting distant murmurs.

I am not quite sure what McKenzie was trying to do thematically by ending the piece with such eerie ghost-like moans, though I suspect it represents a slow fade from consciousness into dream.  Regardless, it sounds great and it is a perfect note to end the album on.  Also, the ambiguous shadow it casts at the end of a such a tranquil and organic stretch is naggingly and deliciously mysterious.  I can find absolutely nothing to gripe about here: Fuck is one of the most coherent, striking, and immediately gratifying albums in The Hafler Trio's vast and elusive oeuvre.

(Note- this album is currently out of print.  Also, the third part of The Hafler Trio's improbable trilogy of sex-themed albums ( I Love You) has never been released.)

Samples:

• Part One (excerpt one)
• Part One (excerpt two)
• Part Two

 

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