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20 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

For reasons unknown, Thomas Brinkmann's Georgian muse simultaneously presents her third and fourth full-length releases for the clandestine Max Ernst imprint, comprising three discs worth of all-new material. Seldom groundbreaking, flagrantly derivative, and intermittently appealing, Natalie Beridze's purposefully glitchy compositions appear apropos of the icier temperatures of the season.

Max Ernst

Brinkmann's production silence in 2007 was near deafening after the explosive back-to-the-well experimentation of Klick Revolution, which makes it all the more worse that he would choose Berdize's bland brand of regurgitated sound for such grand attention in lieu of new material of his own. The unfocused TBA double album Size And Tears and its immediate single disc successor The Other as Tusia Beridze dropped concurrently this past autumn, and, admittedly, it has taken me much time to comprehend why Brinkmann opted for such inessential overindulgence. Had the latter of these releases been unleashed in lieu of the expendable former, I would probably find myself far less irritated by his decision to release such undeserved glut from a minor artist.

Without any hesitation, I can assert that Size And Tears embodies the type of self-indulgent pretension that no listener should willingly subject himself to when, out there in the marketplace, a plethora of great new music awaits. Full of amateurish tape manipulation of speech samples, "Monster Council And She Goes Under The Ocean" sets the precedent for the dreadful experience that follows. In her creative attempts to invent an updated take on Lewis Carroll's Alice tales, Beridze spends too much time on concept and not nearly enough on anything else. "Teacher" basks in its own quasi-cool, reveling in the clichéd apathy of its hackneyed, droll delivery and tinkling piano schmaltz. Comprised of throwaway track after throwaway track, this dubious collection feels far more like a cathartic hard drive dump than the creative, introspective journey it presents itself as. Clocking in at over two hours, the barely palatable Size And Tears demands a level of patience and attention that it just doesn’t deserve.

Though undeniably dated and practically stinking of its naturally moldy 1990s IDM influences, The Other is by far the more stimulating and lucid of the two, creating coherent songs from the incomplete sketches and concepts scribbled in the margins of the disjointed Size And Tears. Gauzy opener "After Me In Soft Poles" instantly recalls Aphex Twin's ambient days, replete with intimate warmth like an old blanket or knitted sweater. At the same time, "Weeksends" seems derived partly from his Polygon Window period with agoraphobic, heavy machine atmospheres begging in vain for a hard 4/4 rhythm a la "Quoth" to erupt and lay waste to the factory floor. Occasional Brinkmann collaborator Marcus Schmickler, known best for his work as Pluramon, lends his voice to "Beam Plaster," a laid back blend of shimmering drones and softly skittering percussive clicks. Beyond this, Beridze handles the remainder of the vocal work. At times, her tense, evocative delivery lies somewhere between Cosi Fanni Tutti's hypnotic cool and Nico's alien indifference as on "Somewhere There's A Father," "From UR Eyes," and the abstractly funky "Into The Lost Moments." Sometimes, however, she almost reaches the pulchritude of 4AD's former stable of quasi-gothic chamber singers. "X. It Snow" shrouds Beridze in a shoegazer mist, her slurred voice simultaneously whispering and calling out amid the thick fog of pads and glitchy crackles.

Devoid of originality, these two releases provide retrograde entertainment for those still clinging to the specters of electronic music’s recent past. Considering Brinkmann's thrilling and enlightened body of work, Beridze seems almost unworthy of sharing space on Max Ernst with him. Then again, after listening to Brinkmann's latest, When Horses Die, perhaps the man has grown fond of regressive mediocrity in the hopes that others might as well. Either that or he has completely lost the plot, in which case I am more than a little inclined to blame the muse.

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20 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Instrumental bands are everywhere and invariably they sound like some combination of Mogwai, Godspeed and Explosions in the Sky. Other influences creep in but rarely do they escape the dreaded "post rock" tag, not without some gimmick anyway. The Jimmy Cake do manage to come across as being separate to this whole thing, despite on paper sounding like they are the archetypal late '90s/early '00s art rock band: nine core members, string section, unusual instruments and long songs. No, they are more than that; they have a creative spirit that pushes them beyond their contemporaries.

Pilatus Records

Every city has one, a band that for some strange reason never really made it beyond its borders yet deserves to take over the world. Instead of being known for U2 or Westlife, Dublin should be known for The Jimmy Cake. Since I first heard them they have been in my top five artists of all time, fighting off much impressive competition to retain their place. Their previous albums and live shows have blended krautrock with blistering jazz, rock with contemporary composition and sprinklings of inspired improvisation. Unfortunately, for the last five years they have only surfaced occasionally in local venues, aside from the odd compilation release, there has been no recorded output at all since 2003's Superlady EP. Thankfully, despite many line up changes over the last few years, they are back with Spectre & Crown which has very much been worth the wait.

The most obvious change to my ears with this album is that the group have mellowed a bit. The fiery, jazzy explosions of their older releases has been dampened down, instead Morricone-esque motifs take to the fore. The whole thing sounds more measured and calculated. However, there is still a strong motorik rhythm going through the album, it is not like they have all of a sudden stopped rocking out. Pieces like "Jetta's Place" manage to combine this energy without spilling out of control. "The Day the Arms That Came Out of the Wall" is a more laid back affair; a languid and fluid bass line allows the brass section and piano to build up before reaching a joyous climax.

And joy is an emotion that The Jimmy Cake generally have in bucket loads. I cannot help but smile when listening to them but there are a couple of more solemn moments on Spectre & Crown. "Red Tony" is an elegiac piece; a downhill piano line starts the music rolling, each member of the band adding a small piece of melancholy. Elsewhere, the strings and recordings of rain on "The Art of Wrecking" evoke the same feelings as listening to Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of the Titanic. The combination of the mournful strings and water is crushing in its beauty.

Towards the end of Spectre & Crown is the monumental "Hugs for Buddy." Here is a melting pot of everything that makes The Jimmy Cake special. The powerful rhythms (centred around the most solid drumming this side of John Bonham's ghost) and layers and layers of instrumentation bring to mind the poppier side of Sterolab being channelled through whatever dimension that Can plucked Tago Mago from. In a word, it is cosmic. Doctors should use it as a clinical test for paralysis because it is impossible not to get completely lost in it and shake your money-maker for its duration.

I cannot convey how enjoyable Spectre & Crown is. After a painfully drawn out recording process, this could have very easily ended up overworked, overproduced and ultimately flat. Thankfully there has been no over- egging of The Jimmy Cake, they have risen to the occasion and now is the time for them to get their just desserts.

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20 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Just over a year after Klick Revolution, the dazzling, spiritual sequel to 2000's much lauded Klick, the veteran boundary-pushing German techno producer strives—and invariably fails—to capture a claustrophobic personal experience. A risible counterfeit masquerading as artsy, post-millennial singer-songwriter fare, this atypical record exhausts its pretense almost immediately and rarely recovers from the obviously nonexistent heft of false malaise.

Max Ernst

While a magisterial figure in the minimal electronic music world, and despite his apparent intentions, Thomas Brinkmann is no Alan Vega. Posturing like some disaffected trust fund nihilist on "Uselessness" amid otherwise stark, synthetic atmospheres, he instead calls to mind Richie Hawtin, another techno visionary whose laughable down-pitched vocal delivery on Plastikman's extraordinary Closer threatened to derail its obsidian majesty more so than his subsequent goofy emo hairdo. With few exceptions to the pervasive mediocrity, When Horses Die is meretricious tripe, insincere down to its very packaging. Here, Brinkmann takes pleasant enough studio outtake quality tracks, mutters some obnoxious lyrics over them, and audaciously expects the results to be taken seriously.

A sub par vocalist, Brinkmann relies on the words of others to aid in this industrial-tinged non-stop platonic cabaret trainwreck. Traditional songwriting is hardly the man’s forte, as evinced from directionless opener "Words." Brinkmann fumbles with canned fury midway through "Birth & Death," a flat attempt at Trent Reznor's type of aggressive dark pop. Clearly, mimicry appears to be his sole strategy. For "It's Just," he slurs like a third-rate Teutonic Leonard Cohen, desperate to attain even an eighth of that performer's unconscious cool; on the title track he practically parodies the unparalleled John Balance. Venturing backwards into a musical chasm far from in his comfort zone, Brinkmann naturally appears bewildered and disoriented, grasping wildly at influences without actually building on them. This distressing display would almost make him pitiable if these tracks weren't so execrable.

When Brinkmann terminates the aforementioned "Uselessness" mere seconds before what should have been a somewhat redemptive 4/4 assault, he indulges a sadistic inner narrative, an unspoken masturbatory rhetoric that intentionally and needlessly insults his core audience. Nobody can fault the man for veering away from the staid techno template, as he has done so creatively and brilliantly on the fearlessly academic Klick records. Yet that seven minute track's final false build-up of sequenced crash cymbals shows an unnecessary, unwarranted disdain for any fan who chooses to join him on this feeble diversion.

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20 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

While folk music these days seems to have forgotten all the traditional songs that make it the music of the folk, some artists are remembering the old songs that sound as vibrant today as they probably did when they were performed first. Directing Hand know what they are up to when it comes to traditional music, there is a reverence for these songs yet no fear of adding the sound of a new generation to the pieces. Combining these dusty old tunes with improvised pieces of their own, this album is a true new folk music; it sounds like the here and now.

Dancing Wayang

There are two sides to this album (both literally, it being an LP, and figuratively); soft, pastoral folk songs of the kind that Shirley and Dolly Collins have spent their lives cataloguing and recording sit next to furious explosions of free improvisation, tumultuous drumming and ecstatic singing. From the first two songs this dichotomy is plain to see. The gentle pulse of the harmonium (and the squeaks of it being pumped) that begins "The Temptation" provides a warm blanket for Lavinia Blackwall and Alex Neilson's vocals, both of them singing in a high register, coming in clear over the music. This blanket is then swept off, fully exposing the music to the elements in the form of "Speed Agreement," Blackwall's unearthly singing sounding like it is coming from mythical creature.

Throughout What Put the Blood there are countless magic moments where both musicians go beyond just playing together and meld into a perfectly symbiotic unit, feeding into each other to bring the music up to another level. Just when I think that Blackwall has hit her peak in a song, Neilson's drumming picks her up and they smash through whatever barriers might be there. Their version of "My Lagan Love" pushes the song far beyond its limits, six minutes go by before any recognisable melody or lyrics appear. This is by far the jewel in the album’s crown, a mighty combination of free drumming and sleepy Irish ballad.

The album is housed in a gorgeous sleeve; a silhouetted drawing in black, white and bright blood red. The stark and vivid imagery very much suits Directing Hand’s approach to the traditional song. Inserts with a short essay on the group by David Keenan are reminiscent of the type of albums the aforementioned Collins sisters released, words trying to capture the je ne sais quoi that runs through such powerful traditional music (although the focus is more on Directing Hand's improvisational skills with copious references to Albert Ayler and the likes). Although these are just trappings (albeit beautifully done) surrounding what is a wonderful, wondrous collection of songs.

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14 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Cover art for

Ever since the release of his first cassette on the renowned and legendary Cologne-based label Entenpfuhl in 1993, Jo Zimmermann aka Schlammpeitziger grants an international audience insights into his private cosmos. The musician, graphic artist and tireless inventor of increasingly strange song titles with a ribald as well as subtle humour has been coining a highly distinctive style for these last 15 years. On his new album he demonstrates how to combine artistic development and remaining true to oneselves' style.

On "Schwingstelle für Rauschabzug", Schlammpeitziger discovers deep frequencies and pulsating beats. And all of a sudden, his tried and tested combination of eloquent melodies (which more often than not seem to lead a life of their own) and lively rhythms acquires a completely new pull. With this album, Jo Zimmermann pulses his listeners (and surely himself) into hypnosis. This new quality transforms Schlammpeitziger's music in a remarkable way: it remains friendly and weird, but gains in seriousness and depth. And in physicalness. Where we used to nod with our heads we are now inclined to exercise our pelvic floor. Beneath all those subsonic donnybrook basslines and the synthlines which stimulate our laugh muscles, each track has a second and a third level to be discovered. It’s always a joy to realize how cunningly Jo Zimmermann palms his musical depth off on us. This kind of club-suitable pop music (or radio friendly club music?) possesses hidden qualities which readily disclose themselves on a second or third listening. And all of a sudden, one is confronted which a wholly new piece of music. This musical "double entendre" was already hinted at on the last album "Everything Without All Inclusive" (sonig 32CD/LP). Now it has become Schlammpeitziger's new musical trademark. Still, each track is capable of telling long and complex stories (which are often triggered by their titles). Still, the listener is caught up in a net of intricately woven melodic lines. And we still love to dive deep into the depths of Schlammpeitziger’s three dimensional sound vaults and his sturdy beats. "Schwingstelle Für Rauschabzug" is mixed by Andi Toma (Mouse On Mars/Von Südenfed) at St. Martin Tonstudio, Düsseldorf. Track 10 (on the CD) is a remix by Pingipung's Springintgut who recently released an album on City Centre Offices. Furthermore the CD contains a beautiful video to the track "Rastplatz Rastlos" by video artist Ulrike Göken (responsible for Schlammpeitziger's live visuals & other music videos).

14 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Cover art for

Elevations Above Sea Level is the second Mound Magnet part from Lithops aka Jan St Werner, 1/2 of the prolific duo Mouse on Mars, 1/3 of last year's surprise collaboration Von Südenfed with the Fall's Mark E Smith and 1/2 of the dsp group Microstoria. Though he is a prolific producer he seems to have a fascination with rollover dates (he cancelled mostly every Lithops gig in the last 5 years) does that spill into a fascination with cycles of nature? No! Actually he's more interested in the cycling by man-made machines, as expressed in the Mound Magent sequel. Elevations Above Sea Level gives us aural diagrams of a large, hypermodern cities with futuristic vehicles moving around. The electrical ticking of fluorescent advertising panels, a thwappy airiness of the ventilation system, the rattles of trains and chopped up hums of distant roads, the mechanical groans that maintenance machinery starts up with, rain drumming on the stretched glass roofs of urban malls, the howling groans of motorcycles on city highways. It's not an ambient record by any means, nor is it purely musique concrete. It's rather an acid fulled hallucination of how to detect an idea of the future in the noises that surround us. Though he uses some of the sound editing methods like his contemporaries (and his own other groups), this doesn't mass into huge pools to make a statement; the basslines, hums, jolts and whooshes divide and multiply into sections like buildings and streets are divided, from sub-basements to rooftops, alleys and boulevards, by stories. Lithops' narcoleptic programming has a precision which holds the listener completely captive -- difficult, haunting and highly enjoyable. Vinyl limited to 300 copies.

Tracklist is as follows:

01 Roctrum
02 Rosa In A Light Speed Vessel
03 Caribbean Circuitry
04 Bleasure Pastique
05 Every Detail's Matter
06 Noo Non M Oon
07 A Generation Without Conent
08 Mound Magnet Pt.1 Remixed By The Allophons
09 Fahrtenheit
10 Concretemess And Absaction
11 Serendippo
12 Baliation

13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

The looming silhouettes of the pyramids on the cover give some idea of what to expect on Sam Shalabi's latest release. Born in Egypt and finished in Canada, Eid is an eclectic and ecstatic album. Each track sounds like it was pulled from a local radio station in Cairo yet no two pieces sound like they came from the same station. Shalabi fuses Western and Arabic music without straying into trite, watered-down fusion territories.

Alien8

Given the recent explosion in interest in Arabic, African and Middle Eastern music thanks to labels like Sublime Frequencies and the almost rabid reissue schedule of '70s Turkish psychedelica, it is hard to not compare Shalabi to these seemingly never ending scores of artists. I must admit, he compares quite favourably as he hits a lot of buttons that a lot of these other releases do not. Firstly, the quality of the recording is obviously far superior and secondly, the druggy nature of the music captures my ear to a far stronger degree than many of the Turkish bands that have been unearthed in recent years.

"Jessica Simpson" takes the white hot guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix and White Light/White Heat era Lou Reed and transposes it to another continent. (Take the quotation marks out of that sentence and you get a dizzying thought.) I do not know if Shalabi himself plays this solo, as there is a list as long as my arm of performers in the sleeve notes, but whoever is hitting those guitar strings knows what they are doing. This is followed by "Eid," a very different piece altogether. Repetitive melodies go in and out of sync with each other, stringed instruments sounding like they are bending space around them. The effect is mesmerising on a number of levels.

Unfortunately, the album dips in quality with a couple of somewhat pedestrian pieces. In fairness, anything coming after that title track is always going to come off worse. However, it is not all downhill as Shalabi brings things back on track with "Billy the Kid." Elizabeth Anka Vajajick's vocals sound strong but in danger of falling apart, like there is only so much emotion that can be forced through a human throat.

Overall, Eid is a patchy but frequently brilliant album. When it is good, it burns like an immense bonfire and at its weakest it at least still gives off enough light and heat to keep the listener close. Its huge cast of players (over 30 contributors) is both its greatest asset and its downfall; dozens of styles and instruments are used but even if this approach works, it causes the album to stumble from time to time. Still, it is difficult to let these faults mar the better points of Eid. On the strength of its best tracks, this album is well worth investigating, even if it is a track by track dissection from an online download vendor.

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Before I even got around to playing this album I was intrigued by the album's packaging. The red fuzzy sleeve contains both the CD (obviously) and sleeve notes printed on a thin, Styrofoam-like material. The different textures of the materials are at first baffling but then a certain kind of logic begins to emerge while listening to the album. The music itself changes texture persistently, from soft to rough, from hard to gooey; by the time I adjust to a piece I am lost again. It is a wonderful feeling, like being a little drunk in a foreign town.

Soleilmoon

Aranos is no stranger to variety, his music constantly changing shape from moment to moment and the pieces here do not break from this mold. The bizarre and repetitive barbershop of "New Boyfriend" is sandwiched between completely different styles. Preceded by "Awaking Horns," a very minimalist style composition that sounds almost like the run-off of a vinyl groove, and followed by the amusicality of "Some Clowns are Not Funny," "New Boyfriend” sounds like an island of melody in a sea of atonality. However, the island is nice enough to explore but the real fun is taking a dip in that sea, getting lost in the different sounds that make up "Some Clowns Are Not Funny." The creaking noises and the sound of hailstones on a hard surface are like the most exquisite coral and brightly coloured fish.

The first seven tracks fly from the stereo like scattering bullets, ranging in size from just over a minute to just under ten. Then Aranos throws another curveball. Not content with jumping styles, he includes too very long tracks at the end of the album. After the bite size chunks from earlier in the album, these two pieces are daunting to say the least. "Towards Glittering Warm Dumplings" is the sound of strange percussive scrapings, what sounds like guitar strings and some other heavily processed scrapes. Slowly Aranos adds other layers of rhythms and slight melody to the piece, the overall effect is like some of Faust's tape collages; something both familiar sounding but also completely warped. Mother of Moons Bathing finishes with the sublime "Invisibility Cloak of Time," featuring all soft drones and haunting ambiences. After the varied and sometimes frenetic music that has come before, "Invisibility Cloak..." is an unexpectedly calm end to a fascinating album.

The best way I can describe Mother of Moons Bathing is that it is an adventure. Dropped into it without much of a map (just a stanza of poetry in the sleeve notes), it is wonderful to just wander through it, not knowing what is coming next. As I am getting more used to the album's twists and turns, it allows me more time to pay attention to the immediate surroundings of the music. The textures are not just limited to the materials making up the sleeve; it is almost possible to run a finger along the sounds themselves.

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Although collaborators since the early 1980s, Raw Powder marks the first official release from this duo (excluding self-released CD-Rs) that encapsulates some 18-plus years of rock and roll into a sprawling, slap-dash collection of 24 tracks, intentionally raw and rough around the edges. While many may know Denham more for his/her connections to Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Greater Than One, and other integral bands of the era, s/he proves here that his musical sensibilities are just as noteworthy as his paintings and artwork.

Blossoming Noise

Even within the first few tracks that open this disc, the microcosm of rock and roll becomes immediately apparent: "Move Like A Tiger" is immediate and grippingly pure glam stomp, right down to the slide guitars segues into the folk rock of "Universe" and then into the rapid fire dance drum machine pulse of "Shine" that apes the likes of the Happy Mondays and others of the so called "Madchester" scene.

Other reference points are even a bit more specific, such as how "Spit Me Homage" and "Ship For You" pull off an excellent imitation of early Rolling Stones, from the rhythms to Denham's very Jagger-esque vocals. Perhaps the most odd is the hip-hop elements that come up in the beats to "Judas Fish" and even into the vocals somewhat on "Individual."

Some of the work eschews the rock sensibilities entirely for experimentation that is more consistent with Denham's early connections to the then burgeoning industrial scene, "Real World" and "Doncha Fear A Thing" are built on abstract rhythm loops and pure experimentation rather than conventional rock frameworks. The deep filtered vocals, processed rhythm loops and fuzzed out guitar of "Hang/Candy Bomb" seems to just exist on its own, not easily labeled into any specific genre.

As a whole, the disc is intentionally raw and rough: according to the liner notes it was recorded entirely to four-track cassette and largely improvised on the spot, which makes the music all the more compelling. In some cases the lo-fi nature brings parallel to other dissimilar artists: the somewhat lighthearted lyrics and rough guitar work of "My Hangover" could be something from The Pod era Ween, and that is a compliment.

The disc has an overarching sense of fun and whimsy that is so rarely represented in the more esoteric forms of music so many of us are fond of. Sure, across 24 tracks some feel more like filler and less notable than others, but taken as a whole, it is more good than "ehh." It is nice to hear something that can be both captivating in the musical sense, but also playful and lighthearted and seemingly created out of the sheer joy of making music that definitely feels "rock," but on Val & Oli's terms.

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

The premise alone sounds should be enough to get people's attention: a folk "supergroup" featuring members of Yellow Swans, Deerhoof, Six Organs of Admittance, and Charalambides, among others. Considering the pedigree, it is safe to assume that it won't be folk in the conventional sense. Instead of the "overly sensitive guy in the coffee shop with an acoustic guitar" folk sense, it's more of an ethnography of early Americana music. It is dense, rich, and more than just a bit sinister in nature.

Xeric/Table of the Elements

How this record got lumped into anything allied with the "freak folk" movement is a bit confusing to me, as it has little in common with the likes of Devendra Banhart or other such luminaries. No, rather than acoustic guitar and out there vocals and lyricisms, it is a work that captures the sense of early American folk music in the pre-recording technology era. The entire work is steeped in a sensation of isolated, rural Appalachia, the sound filling the cool autumn air as the sun starts to set and things start getting a bit creepy.

The tracks are awash in a thick, oppressive reverb that sets the mood throughout. On most of the tracks a bit of plaintive guitar pushes through the reverberation, sparse and sharp, but gentle and isolated. Often the guitar is played in a simple, rhythmic fashion, such as the minimal strums that make up "Mountain Wine" and "Duet," the latter accompanied by a decrepit sounding organ that may have been on its last legs.

Vocals make their appearance on a few of the tracks, notably on "The Crops That You Tend" and "Mountain Wine" and in those cases are exactly the type of vocals to best suit the music: multiple vocalists, layered, and heavily effected. The chanting cadence of them lends an otherworldly disembodied sensation that fits the music. The vocals are there, but they sound as if they’re coming from somewhere just out of sight.

The instrumentation manages to somehow be both sparse and thick, which sounds like a contradiction for obvious reasons, but there really is no other way to describe it. Layers of ambience that permeate most of the tracks and are featured in a few short instrumental passages such as "Whichever" and "Snowballs for Reuven," and as backing elements for most of the other tracks are thick and notable, and balance the more plaintive guitar/violin/organ elements nicely. There are a few moments of pure on electronic noise squeal as well; the droning elements of "We Are All Hopeful Farmers" and especially the opening of "Grow Your Hair" are nice contrasting elements to the more gentle moments.

The production of this entire work is noteworthy, as it is extremely murky in the best possible way. Not murky as in muddled or poor, but like a thick mountain fog that covers the entire album in a sheen of ambiguity. The sounds are somewhat familiar, but they're obscured by layers of echo and reverb that places the listener in recognizable, but mysterious territory, all of which adds to the underlying tension and malevolence that seems to hide just below the surface of the music.

This collaboration has produced a work that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a great, tension laden slab of darkness that outcreeps most noise and metal albums that have been released thus far this year. A wonderfully moody work that is extremely filmic and stands on its own without the need of images to go along with the sonics.

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12 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Exploring the limitations of an instrument can be more enlightening than obsessing about perfect tone or versatility. On Everydays, Onda and Licht use the button noise and trashcan fidelity of cassettes as a tool rather than a handicap. The results range from bucolic chatter to full on noise assault.

Family Vineyard

Some music doesn't benefit from quality recording. I doubt the crashing piano on the opener "Tick Tock" would be as abrupt and nauseating had it been pristinely sampled. The overdriven roar and whir of the tape spools is what really puts the ears off-ease. Not all the tracks are that spastic. The squeals and chirps on "Tip Toe" seem lifted straight from some interstellar aviary. Oscilators join the birdsong, undualting like a North Sea swell.

I could have listened to "Tip Toe" for the duration of the album, but Onda and Licht had different ideas. Everydays has a unity of approach, not mood. The closer, "Be Bop", tears the mellow vibes asunder, cassettes all spewing raw static and hissing shrieks. Squalls of feedback rear up and then disintegrate in coughing spasms. This CD does not die gently.

The main appeal of Everydays is the diversity. Onda and Licht tease out every disposition they can from their instruments. No small feat. When using tapes, noiseniks often shovel out an undifferentiated muck, without peaks or valleys to challenge the listener. Onda and Licht opt for a more surprising, anarchic experience. Everydays is definitely not for the fastidious, but there's something in there for just about every other taste.

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