Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) has taken Komëit's (Julia Kliemann and Chris Flor) recording "Falling into Place" apart to remodel its contents. He's kept the essential vocals, guitar lines and other critical signatures from the original and just enhanced their lightness of being.
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Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt's two albums last year both represented departures from their trademark audio strategies. The Civil Warsaw the duo incorporating medieval and American folk elements into aseries of pastoral compositions while The Soft Pink Truth's Do You Party? was Drew Daniel's unique take on leftfield digital disco and bottom-heavy electro. Rat Relocation Programis a return of sorts to the old conceptual bag of tricks; a briefexperimental EP that utilizes the microtonal sampling techniquesfamiliar from Matmos' antebellum days. Slightly less academic than the"amplified neural activity of a crayfish" stuff the duo is known for,the sounds on this release were drawn from recordings of a rat humanelycaptured in the couple's San Francisco apartment. This descriptionimmediately recalls "For Felix (And All the Rats)," a track off of2001's A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure that was constructedfrom the bowed and plucked ribcage of their deceased pet rat. Becausethis is volume six in the Locust's Met Life series of "field recordingsand ingenious sound responses," it consists of two tracks: theunaltered recording of the rat protesting its incarceration, andMatmos' digitally processed musical response. I doubt anyone would wantto listen to the fourteen minutes of "Rat" more than once, consistingas it does entirely of piercing rodent shrieks and the sound of tinyclaws trying to breach the metal bars of its cage, with long silencesin between. "Rat Relocation" is a different animal entirely, a longformaudio narrative that preserves the poor creature's squawking, butanswers each shrill cry with a measured electronic response rangingfrom sudden attacks of pummeling drum n' bass, to psychedelic funkexcursions, to minutely detailed DSP fractures that sprinkle the stereochannels with fractal debris. The track feels strangely narrative amidits abstractions, not dissimilar to some of Nurse With Wound's moremercurial sidelong tracks. A clear empathy is created between themusicians and their captured pest, as Matmos attempt to vividlyillustrate the hardwired fight-or-flight instincts of a rat trying toescape its captors, whether they be pacifist animal-loving bohemians orwhite-coated lab technicians. It's an epic on a microcosmic scale.
Compiling a various artists collection isn't easy, especially for avery young label with a wide array of styles in mind and nobleintentions in their heart. Over three years after the passing ofJonathan Hicks, this collection has surfaced, featuring over two hoursof exclusive audio contributions from much admired acts like Tarantel,The Album Leaf, Jessica Bailiff, and Her Space Holiday, along with ahost of relative unknowns like Moonpony, The Potomac Accord, and UnwedSailor. Jonathan Hicks was a young man from Indiana who lost his battleto a rare cancer at the age of 23. Chris Bennett, an amateurphotographer/filmmaker made a short film entirely in Super 8mmfeaturing Jonathan, still alive and recently diagnosed, and completedit with the intentions of leaving his family an "etheral portrait ofJonathan." The film was sent to various musicians to make soundtracksfor the short film, and the submissions are amazing. While most of themusicians probably didn't know Jonathan, they have provided honorablesounds to go along with the film, from Tommy Guerrero's analogue beatsto the melancholy acoustic guitar and banjo work from Your Friend;pulsing electronic synths of Mikael Jorgensen to echoed piano, violin,and drums from Early Day Miners. Tunes like the Album Leaf's"Jonathan's Song" are simple yet rich with a beautiful sadness, whilethe compilation's closer, "Figure Eight," from Jessica Bailiff ispossibly one of the most chilling, yet wacked out pieces I've everheard bleed from her guitar. Additionally, the silent film is includedto play along with a favorite submission or to simply watch in silence.Most of the people who end up with this collection will never knowJonathan Hicks, but he must have been special enough for somebody to beas dedicated to see this project through to completion. Proceeds fromthe sale of the compilation will be donated in Jonathan Hicks' honor tothe Children's Inn in Behtesda, Maryland, a place where Jonathanreceived treatments for over two years.
The only hope that remains for this piece of twisted wreckage that we
used to call civilization is that, as globalization and homogenization
increase, the counter-cultural and transgressive elements of humanity
will increase in direct proportion. Judging from historical social
paradigms, this seems a forgone conclusion, but in this age of
political puppetry, consumerist plasticity and televised humiliation,
the situation can at times seem almost hopeless. Richard Metzger
created Disinformation in 1996 as a hex against corporate-owned media
conglomerates, a source of alternative news reports and a hub for new
science and the counter-culture. Disinformation's publishing arm has
delivered on this mission statement, publishing a handful of impressive
volumes of essays including You Are Being Lied To and Book of Lies,
collecting the works of disparate underground journalists,
philosophers, occultists and outsiders under the broad banner of
alternative media. The unparalleled popularity of this unique
enterprise eventually led to a Disinformation TV series on the BBC,
hosted by Metzger himself. Containing segments on such various taboo
topics as transsexuality, extreme underground pornography, Satanism and
mind-control conspiracy theory, the show also featured profiles of
underground figures such as Joe Coleman, Paul Laffoley and Genesis
P-Orridge. In an absurd scheduling strategy, the Disinformation series
was placed in a prime-time programming slot directly following Ally
McBeal. It lasted only four episodes, but was soon purchased by the
Sci-Fi Channel for broadcast in the United States. Apparently, the
network execs realized too late that the show they had purchased was
too obscene, bizarre and transgressive to ever actually air, and the
series was promptly shelved. This 2-DVD set compiles the four complete
episodes of the series, along with some unaired segments and a bonus
DVD of footage from the 2001 Disinfo.Con held in New York City. The
series itself is ridiculously entertaining and often riotously funny, a
postmodern redux of the prime-time news magazine format, moving rapidly
from the insane misanthropic ramblings of Brother Theodore; to footage
of a real family lighting their drunken, passed-out uncle on fire (from
the cult underground video Uncle Goddamn); to an in-depth
investigation of the inter-dimensional, time-travelling homoerotic
conspiracies of the so-called Montauk Project. It's all delivered by
Metzger in a mischievous, cocked-eyebrow tone that leaves you wondering
if any of it can be taken seriously. This DVD is a marvelous
opportunity to take an objective look at the forbidden science of
Radionics, followed by an extended interview with cultural theorist
Howard Bloom, right after Songs in the Key of Z author Irwin
Chusid introduces the video for "In Canada" by the flamboyantly awful
outsider artist B.J. Snowden. The second disc contains a series of live
speeches and interviews from Disinformation heroes like Adam Parfrey,
Kenneth Anger and Robert Anton Wilson, appearing on stage at the
Disinfo.Con. The speakers discuss the current state of culture and
media, and their various explanations, solutions and provocations for
maintaining a grasp on individualism and expression in the new aeon.
Along with Robert Anton Wilson's Maybe Logic, I would recommend
this as essential viewing for anyone interested in moving beyond the
borders imposed on all of us by the all-pervasive meta-programming of
modern media.
Sure, Mute are trying to muster up enough support for Throbbing Gristlefor the festival at Camber Sands or to buy those expensive boxed sets,but is this the answer? Mutantis a pointless collection of people who generally bore me to tears likeCarl Craig, who's version of "Hot on the Heels of Love" does nearlynothing to the original other than loop a couple parts for an endlesslydrawn out house tune which goes nowhere. Two Lone Swordsmen don'treally remix "United" but do a lame ass cover which is equally asboring as Carl Craig, but, well, completely nauseating too. There havealready been three full-length albums of TG cover tunes: Entertainment Through Pain on RRRecords, We Hate You CD+7" on the Norwegian Jazzassin label, and In-Formationon Attention Defecit Recordings (later issued by Invisible); and allthree got the point: they're all entertaining while being completelypainful. As for the remixers collected here: Simon Ratcliffe: crap;Hedonastik: crap; Motor: crap! Carter-Tutti: didn't they alreadyremix/reinterpret TG on the EAR releases a couple years ago as Chrisand Cosey? I actually liked those versions. The second Carl Craig mixcomes around and opens with a little bit of promise, but it seems theonly thing he discovered in this version is the echo/reverb unit andpanning. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't think TG was abouthomogenization on the dance floor, but completely hijacking culture. Atleast with Mute's Can remix album, Sacrilege, there were plentyof remixes so far removed and individualized and re-interpretized, thata lot of tracks stood on their own merits. Even the "Yashar" and "Nag,Nag, Nag" remixes of Cabaret Voltaire were pretty good. Maybe with thearsenal of talent at NovaMute's fingertips, something good could havebeen made, but this is just utter crap. Save the agony of 52 minutesand download the 60 second version free from Mute's site and enjoy allof this rolled up into one mix. 
Somebody was right when they thought, "you know, we're really going topiss some fans off with this one." I don't mind so much the twopiano-only bits which hint at a person taking a collegiate levelcomposition course, but the songs that have been the Clientele'sstrength for years are nearly completely absent. The new EP on Spain'sAcuarela label is inspired by the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico andcould have been either left in the group's archives or filtered in to afuture album. As a standalone EP, however, it's completely avoidable.The first real song, "Summer Crowds in Europe," is way too short andinstrumental. It's the pretty fanfare Clientele are good at with aresonant guitar leading a talented bassline and steady drum. However,the EP's middle piece can be completely thrown away. I have listened toa number of drones in my lifetime and will occasionally love them, but"The Sea Inside a Shell" completely sucks beyond belief. It's somebodysitting at an organ for 8½ minutes, adding one note at a time until thething's a complete unlistenable mess. (God my ears hurt more than thenew Pan Sonic record at only three minutes into the track!) This couldbe the longest 8.5 minute track known to man. (Only once have I made itthrough without skipping the track.) The second piano bit follows andfinally, at last (and after what seems too long), the group emerge withtheir only vocal track, "Impossible," which could easily make theirnext album great. The price of admission for this EP isn't worth it,however. 
Rammellzee was among the original NYC subway bombers, not only animportant graffiti artist, but a key figure in the downtown scene thatgave birth to the five elements of HipHop culture. With Jean-MichelBasquiat as producer, he created one of early HipHop's monumentalachievements: the ten minutes of "Beat Bop," with Rammellzee adoptinghis "Gangsta Duck" vocal style, trading elaborate linguistic puns andcomplex rhymes with fellow urban wordsmith K. Rob over a hypnotic avantgroove constructed from minimal violin and guitar. "Beat Bop" was anunparalleled classic of the original cultural zeitgeist of HipHop, soits strange that Rammellzee has only now, nearly 25 years afterrecording "Beat Bop," released his first full-length LP. Theintervening decades of obscurity have apparently provoked Rammellzee totravel further down his own idiosyncratic wormhole, combining hisGothic Futurist philosophies with baroque linguistics, bizarre humorand a clear penchant for the "black folks in space" imagery ofelectro-funketeers like P-Funk, Afrika Bambaataa and The Jonzun Crew.Legions of critics and old-school HipHop enthusiasts have been heapingpre-release praise on Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee,hailing it as a ingenious comeback by an influential artist.Unfortunately, the quality of the music on the record just doesn'twarrant this kind of enthusiasm. In fact, the album seems weirdlydisengaged, a series of turgid, verbose monologues in search of a hook.Instead of hooks, producers Death Comet Crew and Munk provide a seriesof retrofitted electro tracks that aimlessly wander through "PlanetRock" clichés and never find their footing, with sudden mid-track tempochanges and arrhythmic laptop edits that don't help. Rammellzee'sgrowls are processed and vocodered for the most of the album, whichseems a poor choice for such a talented linguist. The messy aggro beatconstructions constantly overwhelm the rhymes, which never fullyintegrate with the music. That's not to say that this album iscompletely without merit. I enjoyed the too-brief "Pay the Rent," astandout track featuring Rammellzee's old colleague Shockdell, the oneinstance on Bi-Conicals where producer and MC appear to belistening to each other. The liner notes are also fun, containingRammellzee's eccentric metaphysical exegesis in the form of a fold-out,Paul Laffoley-style diagram explicating the connection between thehuman reproductive system and the cosmos. Unfortunately, a definitivealbum-length musical distillation of Rammellzee's peculiar genius hasyet to be released. Perhaps if I wait another 25 years, my patiencewill be rewarded, but that's wishful thinking. 
I'm not usually one to buy DJ Kicks or DJ mix records but when I saw this collection from the Kompakt label boss sitting in the used bin, I couldn't refuse. Usually, these collections are from artists, who, more often than expected, have pretty poor taste in music and rarely acknowledge any of their contemporaries. It often results in a comp which is of friends and buddies and doesn't hold together nicely as a unit. Meyer, on the other hand, being the head of a label I adore, is an interesting pick, as with his picks, he might choose a bunch of stuff he likes but wouldn't find a place for on his label.
Ten tracks of soulful, sophisticated synthpop by a Canadian trio withthe cleverly unassuming name of Junior Boys might well be exactly whatthe world needs now. Recent attempts at reviving the urbane electropopof Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys and The Human League—by Erlend Øye, ThePostal Service, and even The Human League themselves—have beenhalfhearted and largely uninspired. In their painstaking efforts torecreate the sparkling synthetic tones, drum machine rhythms anddetached vocal style of 80's new wave, they seem to have completelyforgotten about the qualities of innovation, creativity and originalitywhich were the original watchwords of the new wave. Luckily, JuniorBoys have not repeated these mistakes. Understanding the importance ofthe word "new" in the term "new wave," their Birthday and High Come DownEPs were beautifully crafted works of startling freshness, merging theromantic, cultivated elegance of David Sylvian's Japan with the jiggy,imaginative beat constructions of Timbaland. Now comes theirfull-length album on KIN Records, combining both EPs and adding a fewnew tracks. Pop music hasn't sounded this inventive and accomplishedsince New Order released Power, Corruption and Lies. I'm notexaggerating; I've had this record on constant rotation since Ireceived it, and it continues to reveal new charms and ingeniousdimensions with each listen. As I write this, I'm listening to "HighCome Down," a stuttering, off-kilter beat with staccato bass hits andhigh-end synth flutters. Jeremy Greenspan wraps his soulful,androgynous voice around a sad, fragile lyric that recalls the finestby Marc Almond or Dave Gahan. Junior Boys appreciate the value ofsilence and space, and they keep their songs refreshingly unadorned byextraneous composition, analogous perhaps to European MicroHouseartists but without the same annoyingly rigorous asceticism. There aresubtle sonic flourishes that seep into the music almost subliminally -a rattling dub echo or a synthesized chorus that underscores eachbreathy vocal refrain. Of the ten tracks on Last Exit, abouthalf are pure pop genius, and the others aren't too shabby either."Under the Sun" is a song that I keep returning to, a hypnoticseven-minute synthscape with one line repeated like a mantra: "You'rethe sweet one/The sweet one under the sun." This is repeated,trance-like, over a dark, Moroder-esque disco groove that slowlyunfolds to reveal a bright vista of clouds and sun. Junior Boys havecreated an impressive debut album that goes on my shelf right next to Violator, Dare, and Architecture and Morality. 
The plot of Perche Quelle Strane ... involves a cheesecake photo model in a swingin' Italian metropolis whobecomes the target of a mysterious serial murderer. Nicolai'seffervescent theme is perhaps among the most catchy tunes of hisrepetoire, bouncing its way through scenes of sexy photo shoots andflirtatious rendezvous. From there, the mood changes to outrightcongo-driven exotica for a strip-show-turned-wresting-match, but movesswiftly on to rapidly pulsating strings and funky base as the bodycountbegins to build. Nicolai adds creative flourishes to the mix like asoulful violin solo which ties in excellently with the plot twistswithin the film.
Il Tuo Vizio, composed for a very liberal film adaptation ofEdgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat," is accordingly somber and sinister,with more of a classical influence than Perche Quelle Strane.Its themes alternate between two slow movements using harpsicord andoboe with hints of harp and a multitude of strings, and create a moodthat is haunting and seductive. There are, of course, energetic burstswhen the tension is heightened. The results are beautiful, chilling,and often romantic. The pieces at times sound as if they could haveinfluenced Angelo Badalamenti's score for Blue Velvet or In TheNursery's delicate orchestrations. Because each of the releases arebased on one or two primary themes, listening to each as a whole feelrepetitive on an initial listen. But once carried away, it's hardlynoticable. Not only that, but it's entirely possible you'll be hummingthem in your head for days afterwards.
