Splitting off briefly from usual drummer Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh and experimental jazz elder statesman Paul Flaherty embarked on a brief Northeast jaunt in the closing months of summer, 2007. Taking full advantage of the abandoned rhythm section, the violin and saxophone duo lose none of their power or chaotic potential while skillfully wielding the precise interactions allowed for in such an intimate musical setting. A logical addition is found in trumpeter Greg Kelley's inclusion on two of the pieces, as his breathy playing fits neatly in with the obtuse sonics explored throughout.
Three new episodes for your listening enjoyment. After two weeks off, we are back with three brand new episodes: three hours / 36 tunes. Episode 697 features music from Beak>, Brothertiger, Kate Carr, Gnod, Taylor Deupree, FIN, Church Andrews & Matt Davies, Ortrotasce, Bill MacKay, Celer, Kaboom Karavan, and Ida. Episode 698 boasts a lineup of tracks from Susanna, Nonpareils, KMRU, A Place To Bury Strangers, final, Coti K., Dalton Alexander, Akio Suzuki, The Shadow Ring, Filther, Aaron Dilloway, and Ghost Dubs. Episode 699 is bursting at the seams with jams from Crash Course In Science, Chrystabell and David Lynch, Machinedrum, Ekin Fil, Finlay Shakespeare, Actress, Mercury Rev, Dave Brown / Jason Kahn, øjeRum, d'Eon, Jeremy Gignoux, and Shellac. Mountain photo taken in Japan by Chris. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Calder refracts the Northern Lights of the Icelandic countryside—where Lower was recorded—into music as beautiful and arresting as the Aurora Borealis itself. Fusing acoustic instrumentation with electronic instruments is not a new concept. To say that it has been done well, in an era of ubiquitous self released CD-Rs and instant digital downloads, is not usually warranted. The music available far outweighs the music that is listenable. Larus Sigursson and Olafur Josephsson take the simple elements of guitar, piano, and glockenspiel, along with a handful of other instruments and transform them in a process that is best described as alchemical.
After coming first coming together for one absolute monster of a collaboration, guitarist Michio Kurihara (best known for his exquisite playing in Ghost) again joins Boris for what is essentially a disappointing album. The two long pieces featured here form two ends of the same spectrum; one highlights how powerful a simple, noisy drone can be and the other shows just how bad self-indulgent guitar freakouts can be.
This album combines two pieces from either end of Ferrari’s catalogue. A piece from his classic late 1960s period is paired with a more modern composition from 2000. Both pieces show how there is no distinct sound to be associated with the composer and how he did his best to innovate consistently during his career. The album has been lovingly put together and is one of the better posthumous releases that have seen the light of day.
Neil Campbell forms part of a trend of contemporary musicians who feel that they need to release every single thing they do. Acid Mothers Temple, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and Nadja are other big names that come to mind and while these all release decidedly sub-par material, the good releases tend to make this practice forgivable. Unfortunately, Campbell has been more miss than hit for me and this has put me off his work as the risk of being burned is too great. Needless to say, I was surprised when I actually liked Plug Music Ramoon which, although patchy, is one of the more interesting items in his post-Vibracathedral Orchestra back catalogue.
The reappearance of these two unpardonably out-of-print platinum-selling albums recorded in the later years of the R&B group's celebrated 3+3 lineup presents listeners with aural snapshots taken at the twilight of '70s funk and disco. By this time interpersonal tensions in the group and the changing tastes of audiences had begun to affect the sextet, though one could hardly tell given the radioactive funk emitting from these songs.
Mark Nelson’s post-Labradford work has always done more for me than Labradford itself. This is not a disparaging comment on Labradford but a testament to how good Nelson has become. With each Pan•American release, Nelson has further crafted his distinctive and often copied style. These are not just interesting sounds or clever use of musical form, the music goes beyond that (and any "post-rock" clichés) to become a genuinely moving experience.
I cannot think of a single artist that is afflicted with such a relentless torrent of inspiration and amazing ideas that a triple album is warranted. Texas's Korperschwache have not changed my opinion on this issue, but they have made a surprising successful, varied (particularly for a noise band with a Holocaust-derived moniker that names songs after H.P. Lovecraft monsters), and listenable effort nonetheless; especially when considering that the band began in 1995 with the intention of producing "blown-out junk noise hell built on the maxim that you can never be too loud or too obnoxious."
This release from eminent sound ecologist Francisco Lopez and Michael Gendreau—member of Crawling With Tarts (1983-1998)—is less a collaboration between the two than a pairing together of similar pieces culled from recordings they each made in the Far East. Lopez created his tracks from original recordings of machinery in Singapore, China, Taiwan, and Japan, whereas Gendreau's microphone captured sounds from inside the factories of Taiwan and Malaysia. Together as a two CD set, the musical pieces presented by each artist are quite complimentary of each other.
This collection featuring four artists from different countries is strung together by the conceits that all of the artists are relatively unknown and all of them are women. The disc is agreeably diverse, taking turns through lo-fi pop, fuzzy electronics, and odd singer-songwriter territory.
