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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Over a decade since his weeded out, hip-hop tinged hit “Herb Fi Bun” and the corresponding dancehall-geared solo debut Stand Out, the man known to his mom as Everold Dwyer fully extols a sincere love of Jah with this above-average collection.
Topically par for the course with the bulk of modern roots, The Most High finds Daddy Rings constantly and affably singing praises for Empersor Haile Selassie and the virtuous tenets of Rastafarianism. Those unfamiliar with this music might be put off by these spiritual and heavy-handedly judgmental verses, conveniently located in an uncharacteristically fat booklet. Still, any dedicated reggae fan will recognize the talents of this practiced performer on songs such as "African Glory" and the cautionary "Cut Off."
Not committed to any particular style, Daddy Rings revels in the joys of variety, as with the saccharine pop ditty "Hard Road," replete with lilting backing harmonies, and the rugged Mavado-like dancehall militancy of "Rise With Jah." As someone more than appreciative of ganja anthems, "The Weed Song" just about exceeds my expectations and, in my estimation, surpasses the socio-politically apt though musically dated "Herb Fi Bun."
With contributions from heavyweights Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, along with several other producers and session players, The Most High doesn't surpass leading lights like Luciano or Sizzla, though it certainly reminds that modern roots music doesn't begin and end with the more prolific ones. Daddy Rings' return to the full-length album format was well worth waiting for.
Not just another British dance rock import, this Oxford-based ensemble imbue and invigorate the sagging subgenre with virulent, playful hooks that feel so natural they ought to shame the DFA Records stable in immediate, unconditional retirement.
The youthful group's impressive chart success in their native country might not translate to similar appreciation stateside, though listening to these sensational, emotive, and often electrifying tunes, that hardly seems relevant.
Foals make a joyful though secular noise throughout Antidotes, from the percolating opener "The French Open" all the way through the duo of exclusive bonus tracks which Sub Pop has astutely chosen to include. With some of the best usage of horns in rock music this side of The Stooges, the band constantly raise the bar for other post-millennial indie upstarts with the splendid singles "Cassius" and "Balloons," the latter having practically burnt a hole in my now-deceased iPod from excessive repeat play. The multitracked vocals of Yannis Philippakis mount the sturdy rhythms and quirky melodies of quality tracks like "Olympic Airways" and the spacious, arena ready anthem, "Big Big Love."
Somewhat famous already for rejecting the initial production work done by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio, Foals have little need for name-checkable collaborators, as these intelligent, angular party tunes more than compensate for their neophytic status. Ignore at your peril.
The immediate aftermath of Jane's Addiction's disbanding yielded an even split of its membership into two unusual projects. Flamboyant frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins formed Porno For Pyros, darker and even more psychedelic than their former band. With far less popular success, bassist Eric Avery and guitarist Dave Navarro started Deconstruction, a one-time project with the former taking on vocal responsibilities.
Despite the pedigree and undeniable talent of these performers, Deconstruction's self-titled 1994 album proved no match for Porno For Pyros' own eponymous debut released a year before, which boasted the quirky, blithely apocalyptic alterna-rock classic "Pets." Avery's quasi-gothic tone starkly contrasted Farrell's anti-commercial, yet nonetheless familiar, over-the-top vocal presence, and, quite possibly, the fickle marketplace simply may not have desired two post-Jane's acts. Curiously, when Jane's Addiction opted to reunite later on in the 1990s, the co-founding bassist passed on the presumably lucrative opportunity, much to the dismay of many dedicated fans. After a few years of operating under the radar of the increasingly commercialized and undermined alternative music scene under the moniker Polar Bear, Avery seemingly withdrew from public life, resurfacing occasionally and under odd circumstances, perhaps most notably auditioning to replace Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in the unintentionally hysterical documentary Some Kind Of Monster. In recent years, his former Californian cohorts have stayed in the news if not in the charts, with Farrell devolving more and more into a hippie punch line and Navarro starring in his share of reality shows, including an embarrassing behind-the-scenes series chronicling the lead-up to his doomed marriage to Carmen Electra. It is unsurprisingly though commendable that Avery chose to return to the scene with dignity and self-respect when he could have just as easily taken up residence on some VH1 D-list celebrity atrocity. Uncompromising and independent, Help Wanted sets just the right tone for his reemergence from the shadows a startling seventeen years later.
Returning to a musical life in the shadow of band as monstrously popular and revered as Jane's Addiction would be daunting for any musician, especially with this much time having passed. Yet within the two minutes of epic album opener "Belly Of An Insect," its unsung bassist has clearly returned reinvigorated with an edge that his former cohorts’ most recent efforts (Farrell’s Satellite Party, Navarro and Perkins' The Panic Channel) excruciatingly lack. Based on the lyrical content of many of these songs, the years haven't brightened Avery's life all that much. On "Beside The Fire" the hypnotic rhythm section briefly make room for tortured, almost paranoiac self-evaluation "I don't know why sometimes I lose my mind / When everything seems just fine" before soaring guitars and creepy organs overtake the mix. His impressive, sincere voice channels Ian Curtis and Peter Murphy without the pretense of today's so-called gothic artists, as on the bluesy single "All Remote and No Control" and the moody yet often bombastic "Unexploded." Avery gives up the reins occasionally for a few notable guests, not the least of which being Shirley Manson of Garbage, who lends her typically unmistakable pipes to "Maybe," a slow burning and stirring ballad. Picking up the tempo a bit, "Porchlight" shifts from folksy comforts to Southern rock between verse and chorus, repeating with great effect.
Sharing Dangerbird's small but respectable roster with Silversun Pickups, a band with more than their share of reasonable comparisons to nineties' acts, Avery appears to have made a wise strategic decision. Dangerbird, in turn, surely benefit from releasing this album mere days before Avery agreed to reunite with his fellow bandmates as Jane's Addiction is dubiously honored by an overrated British tabloid music publication best known for defaming Morrissey and attempting to portray drug addict/occasional musician Pete Doherty as a tortured genius a la Shaun Ryder. Still, this win-win situation should be viewed not as cheap tactical marketing but, rather, serendipity. Help Wanted is by far the best thing to come from the Jane's Addiction breakup this century, and an outstanding release in its own right.
This slice of progressive folk music from the summer of 1970 is a charming recording by the duo of David McNiven and Angie Rew augmented by a rhythm section of Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, on loan from Pentangle. What's so funny about youthful possibility and childhood memory?
The constant stream of rediscovered legendary lost releases can be wearing for those of us who feel that many of those works were lost for good reason: they weren't up to much in the first place. The Strange Tale of Captain Shannon and the hunchback from Gigha deserves a chance, though, not least for the sincerity and openness of the singers. Their songs hail from a period in modern Europe (and maybe in the lives of McNiven and Rew) when everything seemed freer and permissible; an era of full employment, a loosening of gender roles and sexual morality, and cheap continental travel. The simple inspiration behind each poetic song is also made clear in the copious liner notes. The material is good enough to stand this transparency and the fact that the writers have woven some childhood experiences into song merely adds to the allure. The notes also give off a strong whiff of earnest late night philosophizing—the kind that some artists might choose to hide under a veil of cynicism.
The record opens with "Hymn to Sylvia," concerning McNiven's chance meeting with a female biker in England after he walked across Northern Spain and hitchhiked the length of France. This song and the closing title track (set on a remote Scottish island) are epic, immersing pieces that, along with Danny Thompson's upright bass and Terry Cox's drumming, give the album a solid yet flexible spine. Apart from a few small sections of forgivably pretentious gibberish (it was 1970 after all) the psychedelic or acid aspect to the music is so low-key as to be virtually non-existent. By which I mean that it sounds hypnotic and transporting without being wrapped in obvious elements that have come to be misheard as representative of psychedelic music.
Of course, not everyone will swallow the wide-eyed optimism of lyrics such as "So draw your magic circles in the sky/Take a chance on all your dreams before they die," and those who enjoy the naturalistic production may be outnumbered by those who find it wooden. I find that, along with the nimble clarity of the guitar work and richness of the voices, the "flawed" lyrics and "dated" production are actually the strengths of this recording. And the fact that the duo still live in the landscape of Scotland lends an air of resilience to their music. After all, anyone could be a hippy troubadour in the Californian sunshine, right?
Previous member Carolyn Davis is featured on one song and her voice bears a pleasing resemblance to that of the great Lal Waterson. There is an affecting breeziness to Rew's voice and McNiven's has a sensitivity akin to that of Lindisfarne or (the vastly underrated) Ralph McTell. McTell is best known for his recurring hit single about the plight of London's homeless people, but it's worth hearing The Boy With A Note (his album about Dylan Thomas) and Kenny the Kangaroo and (the imaginary village) Tickle on the Tum are among the best albums of genuinely innocent songs ever made.
The group take take their name from a 1950s Italian movie, a romantic comedy. Captain Shannon… was originally intended for release as a double with Bread Dreams and Love's Amaryllis album which is also just reissued by Sunbeam Records.
The tenth studio album by Jack Dangers' main musical outlet takes a maximalist approach, combining apocalyptic dubstep and industrial-strength breakbeats with the assimilative spirit of a beat hacker. In the process, he creates an album true to the MBM legacy: one foot in cyber-age cross-genre multimedia assemblage, and one foot firmly planted in the timeless psychedelic ocean of sound.
Autoimmune refers to reactions which inolve the body's immune system misrecognizing certain constituent parts of the self, and attacking them as if they were foreign invaders, the other. In a world in which fiercely pitched ideological and physical battles are being waged in the name of nationhood, religion, ethnicity and class—all of which hinge on the differential identity of self and other—autoimmunity becomes an interesting metaphor for political and cultural unrest. This bodily metaphor may be particularly close to Jack Dangers, as he suffers from psoriatic arthropathy (the Singing Detective disease), an autoimmune disorder, and thus is the living embodiment of the self turned against itself, the breakdown of the "body politic" metaphor in the age of unprecedented control, wiretapping, globalization, climate change, sleeper cells and hacktivism. Though the embodied, rhythmic ("meat beat") manifestoes of Dangers have always danced at the edge of politics, this album seems particularly apocalyptic, an acknowledgment of a world gone mad.
The album opens with the introductory "International," trying to cleanse the geopolitical borders literally and metaphorically from the outset. The dense layers of sound and samples from radio and television place the album immediately in the territory that MBM inhabits so well: the multimedia, audiovisual perceptual landscape. "I Hold the Mic!" is pulse-pounding dubstep with dancehall vocals and yawning layers of echoplexed sounds, the audio equivalent of Tokyo's Ginza district as seen in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, a teeming human metropolis in which all markers of nationality, ethnicity and language have disappeared, and all that remains is a confounding, extra-geographical hybrid. "Hellfire" gets more diabolical, with a vocal formant synth spitting out nonsense syllables over a deep, resonant dubstep groove that keeps dipping itself into the fiery magma of distortion, with haunting X-Files melodies weaving in and out, and frequent samples of the familiar phrase "This is a test." It's interesting to compare this track to something that The Orb might have done in the late 1990s: the techniques are similar, but MBM ends up with a track that is less playful, more urgent.
"Children of Earth" is a standout, beginning with a child intoning "Hello from the children of planet Earth," and quickly entering the land of loping, rubbery riddims and elastic acid basslines that fly across the stereo channels. It's a particularly frightening soundworld, bearing some similarity to the backing tracks created by The Bug and J.K. Broadrick for their Techno Animal hardcore HipHop project. On tracks like this and "Guns n' Lovers," MBM seems to nod to past associations with industrial music, as these rhythms never tire of toying with barely-reigned-in distortion, constantly flirting with the red, and never shying away from playing up the machine aesthetic, reminding us of our technological inheritance rather than attempting to obscure the methods of production. "Return to Bass" sounds like something that might be at home on the Ant-Zen label, if any of the artists on Ant-Zen were interested in bringing some groove along with their taste for violent distortion. It's Miami Bass for a generation weaned on Venetian Snares and Otto Von Schirach. "62 Dub" is the closest Dangers gets to bringing a rocksteady, traditional dub groove, but it is still dark and distorted as fuck, with treated didgeridoo (a la Love's Secret Domain-era Coil), and echo drops that make me feel like I've suddenly lost my footing and I'm falling through a vacuum.
"Colors of Sound" is something else entirely, a whole track given over to the chirping of analog synths, weird alien skronk from a galaxy of wacky oscillators and filters, complete with tape-cuing sounds just like vintage musique concrete. It's an interesting ambient stopgap, and sounds like nothing else on the album. Eclectic is never a bad word in my book. Then comes my favorite track, "Spanish Vocoder," which combines the hardcore breakbeat of earlier tracks with some devious and delicious Detroit electro action. I don't mind HipHop and dubstep, but electro is like crack to me, and Dangers really knows how to bring the Cybotron in his own inimitable style. Though this track certainly feels a brighter and less apocalyptic than the rest of the album, it nevertheless maintains an intensity and urgency, with chopped-up vocoderized vocals and layers of choral voices weaving in and out of the mix. The didgeridoo is also back, this time treated to sound like a buzzsaw. By the end, the track fades out into ambient territory, with only the vocodered voice left to frantically attempt to communicate its message, fading out into deep space.
MBM certainly aren't the first to link up electronic music with cyber-age political outrage, but they do an excellent job of it. Part of what makes Autoimmune work is that its nods to contemporary trends—British dubstep, HipHop, post-Jungle IDM—are combined with sounds that are utterly out of fashion, and would sound more at home with the outmoded '90s chillout-rave or breakbeat sound. This isn't a problem for Dangers, who is clearly uninterested in staking out a clear position in the marketplace, instead allowing his eclecticism free reign. Paradoxically, this gives the album a timeless quality, as it moves between eras and styles effortlessly, evoking the contemporary mediascape in which time seems indefinitely frozen, and past and present sprawl out in front of us on the magic screen, organizing themselves in infinite combinations, with unpredictable results.
Having made themselves a household name with their drone collaboration with Sunn O)))'s Altar album, as well as their "breakthrough" (ugh) album Pink, the overly prolific trio have set the bar high with this new full length album. They manage to keep the quality high, though they still don't stray far from the template, and are perhaps heading more and more into conventionality.
The band largely strays away from their noisy drone material (such as their collaborative releases with Merzbow) and instead fully embraces the idea of doing singular, stand-alone songs. This isn't really a NEW thing: older works like Akuma no Uta had a few pieces that stood alone as individual tracks but here there is less abstraction and more focus. While somewhat formulaic, the opening half of the disc does call to mind 2006's Pink pretty overtly, with a few subtle tricks. While Pink opened with an extended, furious take on shoegaze, "Flower Sun Rain" starts furiously, with a monolithic sludge guitar tone that grabs the listener’s attention before retreating.
The track largely remains a gentle cover of the PYG track, with the only harsh elements being an overdriven guitar lead. And then, just like the transition on Pink, it goes into full on rock mode with "BUZZ-IN," relishing the lo-fi garage rock sound that they do oh so well. However, it becomes obvious that even in the blistering chaos, there is a greater sense of structure and complexity. There is a great amount of layering and subtlety in the mix that was not as noticeable on the previous albums.
Interestingly, the thicker production and inclusion of some electronic elements give the tracks an overall different sheen: "Laser Beam" feels like a sunnier, non-drug-addled take on Ministry's The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste with its rapid guitar riffs and tightly structured synthetic percussion elements. While this might be somewhat of a stretch, it does definitely set it apart from some of the band’s previous work.
This new found attention to song becomes most overt on "Statement" and "My Neighbor Satan," the latter featuring collaborator Michio Kurihara on guitar. "Statement" is probably the greatest concession to popular music the band has made: although it still features the blown amp overdrive inertia the band is known for, its length and double tracked vocal stylings (and cowbell) make for a much more pop, if somewhat psychedelic in nature, work than most in their catalog. "My Neighbor Satan," on the other hand, shines more in its structural nature: the track shifts pace from more gentle, melodic work to full throttle blast in a way that makes perfect sense.
It wouldn't be a Boris album without a bit of abstraction, and "KA RE HA TE TA SA KI-No Ones Grieve" and the untitled final track fit the bill. Both are longer than the previous tracks in duration (9 and 15 minutes, respectively) and allow for more space exploration than the tighter, conventional tracks preceding. The former is a fast pace number with lots of distortion, occasioning building to impermeable walls of noise, but features some of the softest, most melodic vocals ever on a Boris track. The latter, featuring Stephen O'Malley on guitar as well, alternates and mixes the more restrained elements of the tracks with the distorted, drone guitar work Boris is also known for. In a way, it’s a perfect encapsulation of the band in its use of pop rock elements infused with some drone metal and a hint of pure noise as well.
I feel the need to editorialize a bit, however. My promo copy of this intentionally omitted the track "You Were Holding An Umbrella" in a ploy by Southern Lord to ensure everyone buys a copy. We here at Brainwashed aren't making any sort of salary for contributing reviews, our only compensation is the free music when we spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing and promoting via review. To be told I should still have to purchase a copy after spending my time writing this review is a bit annoying to say the least. Other labels have adopted this tactic as well, sending plain sleeved CD-Rs and links for "virtual promo" mp3s. Seriously guys, we're not just doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, we like to get rewarded once in a while. Rant over.
Although they haven't completely rewritten their playbook, Boris has shown that they are consistently tweaking and adjusting their approach with each release. Smile manages to successfully follow up Pink without letting the listeners down, and even though their edging nearer and nearer to the mainstream with each release, Takeshi, Wata and Atsuo keep it real with dissonant blasts on every album as well. While I still personally like Pink as the better album, I have also had that one around for a few years longer, so perhaps my perspective will change on this one over time.
The Public Eyesore label has been extremely prolific in recent years, bringing out some of the most abstract and out of left field works from artists that are either extremely obscure or simply getting their start in the world of sound art. Bob Marsh's disc therefore definitely fits in the raison d'etre of the label, as it is almost impossible to classify, yet has the sense of experimentation and even some sonic similarities to some of the most abstract of the early industrialists.
The similarities come with one of Marsh's major instruments, the violin. Both Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire employed the old instrument in similarly esoteric ways, and here it gets run through enough delay and echo to resemble those early artists. However, the level of abstraction here is even further out. The opening "Over Time You'll See" captures this clearly, the effected and treated violin creating dissonant waves of sound as small fragments of echoed, indecipherable vocals. "A Walk In The Park" plucks the strings of the violin through the wall of echo and creates a wall of sound that is much larger than the sum of its parts.
The vocals on here are probably the most "out there" element: the seemingly random nature of "Bring Out The Dead" is combined with an electronic backing that sounds like every Rick Wakeman keyboard solo layered together. The short "Keep It Sample" is based completely around that: a track based largely around a processed and manipulated voice sample is the entire basis of the track.
In that regard, the disc has a certain dada poetry aura about it. "Voice of America" (possibly a reference to the Cabaret Voltaire album of the same name, but doubtfully) has a repeated vocal motif that is obviously there, but cannot be clearly discerned as to what the voice is actually saying, or if it is anything at all. The sleeve references that nature of the disc as words that "are not clear are unclear," so obviously Marsh intentionally made everything this way.
Granted, this is an extremely difficult listen, as it eschews most things that can be used as reference points in music. As a piece of sound art, it is a captivating document using limited sound sources to compose a unique work. As entertainment, well, I found it an interesting listen, but it is not the type of work I could really see myself returning to many times in the future.
After 24 years David Tibet's debut full-length as Current 93 has been reissued in its original form on compact disc. The audio has been completely re-mastered to great effect, but the additions available on the 1992 release from Durtro are gone, replaced only in the first 1,000 copies by an icy Andrew Liles remix. That remix rounds the album out quite nicely, but the omissions are nonetheless annoying.
In England's Hidden Reverse David Tibet compared the sounds on Nature Unveiled to the appearance of shadows cast by a candle's flame. The exaggerated dance of figures projected by the fire is an excellent metaphor for the reverberated moans and chants that jump and teleport throughout "Ach Golgotha (Maldoror is Dead)." Steven Stapleton's ability in the studio helped to translate the entire record into an exaggerated and frightening play of monumental blocks of sound. The way different samples are lumped together and cut irregularly is dizzying, causing no little amount of disorientation. That image of slowly undulating figures above describes the entirety of Nature Unveiled partly because of Stapleton's talent and partly because of Tibet's monstrous and lucid vision. The first groans of sound are as a rising curtain and what follows is a nightmare puppet show of light, wherein the Antichrist is summoned only to be cursed and rejected by an adamant and frightened Tibet. As various samples begin to clash and blend into a supreme panic the effectiveness of Current 93's approach on this record becomes plain. Annie Anxiety's truly awesome performance in "The Mystical Body of Christ in Chorazaim (The Great in the Small)" is one of her most memorable and it heightens the play of human cries, treated pianos, monastic chants, unidentifiable stereo oddities, and defiant vocals that populate both songs. The details are made more powerful thanks to Denis Blackham's re-mastering job and remarkably this album sounds more clear and robust than many modern recordings made by artists with similar palettes. It has been 24 years since Nature Unveiled was released, but it sounds more powerful to me now than it ever did.
Tibet's preoccupation with Christian imagery, apocalyptic narratives, and both surrealism and mysticism is evident throughout the record, something made doubly clear by the revamped liner notes. These same topics are eventually addressed with greater maturity later in Tibet's career, but conceptually Nature Unveiled is surprisingly accomplished. The dual authorship in the liner notes helps to emphasize the dual nature of the record's subject matter, drawing the album's many themes together in the characters of Ducasse and Christ 777 . By reifying man's potential for evil in the character of Maldoror and by emphasizing the hope in Christ's return Tibet manifested the phenomenology of fear and redemption with a fairly amazing depth, even if immature lines like "Fuck you, Maldoror" rear their head now and again. The tension between Isidore Ducasse's anti-God-man and Christ the God-man bares fruit in the end and grants credence to Tibet's synthetic approach. All of this plays out, of course, with respect to "nature," a thing I can only imagine Tibet associates with man. Indeed, closer inspection of the conceptual work also makes clear some still relevant political and social commentary, which are couched in religious expectancy and a sense of hopelessness concerning man's fallen state. Current 93's early output is often sandwiched into the industrial category due to its abrasive qualities, but clearly this recording was unlike anything else being made at the time either sonically or ideally.
It is unfortunate that this reissue is missing the additions from the 1992 CD version of the album; with them it would be a near-perfect release. In that 1992 edition six extra songs were provided: "LAShTAL" and "Salt" from the LAShTAL 12" on L.A.Y.L.A.H., "No Hiding from the Blackbird" and Nurse with Wound's "The Burial of the Sardine" from the 7" originally given away with the record, and "Maldoror Rising (Live in Amsterdam 1984)" and "Maldoror Falling (Live in Brighton 1984)" from two then extant bootlegs. To my knowledge these songs are not widely available and though they are of a lesser quality than the principle material, they still compose an interesting part of the early Current 93 canon. To Durtro/Jnana's credit, the first 1,000 copies of the reissue come with a remix of the album by Andrew Liles called Nature Revealed. In some respects this remix deserves a review all its own, especially considering the massive alterations Liles makes to many important parts of the record. His style brings an odd iciness to the whole affair as he freezes many moments on the record and casts them into an uncomfortable stasis. He also increases the presence of pure noise on the record, which provides an increased anxiety and semblance of destruction. Liles manages to summon the Antichrist with bravado, but unlike Tibet he seems happy with allowing his evil to brood. Unfortunately this remix is only available to the first 1,000 people that buy the reissue and so in some time I imagine Tibet will have to give due consideration to all the material associated with Nature Unveiled.
Originally put out as a limited CD-R upon Steven Stapleton's appearance in Portland, Oregon, in celebration of the release of She and Me Fall Together in Free Death back in 2003, this recording now appears on vinyl for the first time. With muffled voices and strange drops in audio that at first don't seem intentional, this is an odd album in a discography that practically defines the term.
All 13 tracks are untitled, and sometimes it is hard to tell where one ends and the next begins, a distinction made even more difficult on vinyl. Voices play a big role on this album, often muted or wildly echoing often at the expense of intelligibility, almost as if they were announcements in a foreign country in which the traveler doesn’t know the language. When they are clear, they’re saying ordinary things like, "Right, yeah, check, we're all ready/We're all ready/Right, here we go," but they are more often at the edge of comprehension, like something uttered in a dream but forgotten upon waking. Feedback frequently erupts yet quickly fades, with mechanical objects frequently cycling from ear to ear to keep the listener from gaining any solid ground. Whimsical textures like silly laughter or the repeated clearing of a throat keeps things playful without sacrificing the menace generated by the other elements. The first side ends with loops and an increasingly loud drone that threatens to grow unbearable before it becomes fuzzy low-end oscillations.
The second side starts with sliding metallic echoes and a damp alarm that swells in volume over time before a quieter bass tone grows in its place. Clanging metal dominates from there, joined by rattling jars, chains dragged over pots for strange harmonic effect, more scraping metal, and even some brief liquid splashes. Even though many of these textures appear seemingly at random, in the background is a deep bass presence that returns intermittently to suggest some sort of meaning even if it doesn’t point to anything specific. Added to this is the non sequitur of someone of chewing an apple, which again lightens the tone. The album ends with a heavily processed voice that never manages to communicate its message despite whatever importance it may serve.
While mutated voices and metallic sounds have showed up on previous Nurse albums, they have never sounded quite like this before. Always amusing even as it confounds, Pierced Rectums has a distinct vibe all its own.
Cloudland Canyon deliver on the promises of a kraut-rock epic hinted at by their previous releases with their full length debut on kranky. The album traverses a breadth of sounds, embracing funky treadmill grooves, swelling synthesizer baths, and bucolic psych jaunts.
Between their Silver Tongued Sisyphus EP and their collaboration with Lichens on Holy Mountain, it was obvious big things could be expected from this duo. On those releases, it felt as though Cloudland Canyon were holding in the reigns, and giving us merely a taste of where their sound could go. Here Simon and Kip let loose and discharge their fullest noise yet.
"Krautwerk" begins with a swath of beautifully textured drones and synth washes that we've come to know these guys for, but soon ramps into a full-on groove living up to the song's title. Understated bass and percussion intermingle with squealing and wah'ed guitar perfectly. The clear and upfront vocal chants are a welcome addition to Cloudland Canyon's sound, which previously featured very little and over-effected voice. The track's beat never gets stale and comes to an end appropriately.
After the vibrant "White Woman," we get the obviously Cluster-inspired "You & I." A steady analog drum machine beat holds down the repeated shift between descending synthesizer sweeps and indiscernible but catchy vocalizations. You’re kept nodding until the tempo is drug to a snails-pace and the song is overtaken by an intoxicating waver and subtle distortions.
While hard to pick just one, "Heme" is the stand-out track on this record for me. After two minutes of soaring through the clouds, we're gently let down into a pasture where delicate keyed and plucked lines sift through the grass and into the ears. While this is perhaps the lightest moment on the album, it is also the most sonorous. The title-track follows and is an appropriately darker and intense juxtaposition. The closer, "Mothlight Part 1," is short lived but effective. It is certainly a happy note on the end of an album that runs the gamut of emotions.
Lie In Light is exactly what I was hoping to hear from Cloudland Canyon. While living up to the tradition of kosmiche musik and the 70’s kraut-rock masters, it doesn’t get bogged down in its roots and has carved out a unique space all its own.
Released on the occasion of Merzbow, Sutcliffe Jügend and Satori at ULU, London, 19th April 2008. Japanese Noise, Power Electronics and Fortean Electronics from these 3 giants of the Noise / Industrial scene, with one exclusive studio track from each act. This CD is presented in a full colour card slip and is shrinkwrapped. Limited to 1000 copies only.