With this split vinyl EP marking the final release of the late Hydra Head label, it almost seems fitting that it is the work of two artists who have embraced their own independence throughout their prolific careers. It also stands as a monument to change and evolution, with Justin Broadrick's re-embracing of his harsher past put alongside Dominick Fernow's recent surprising turn towards melody and ambience.
Two new shows just for you. We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults. The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings. The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine. Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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This CD consists of 16 HipHop tracks made by 5-10 year old children from Amber Charter Grade School in East Harlem, New York City. The children write and improvise their own raps, play their own instruments, and program their own drum machine beats. They named their own groups and created the cover art for the CD. So why is this album credited to a middle-aged white guy named Dave Soldier?
After a night of hard drinking, I discovered by chance that Leaving Songs represents the mid-life hangover, figuratively as well as literally. As my thinning hair turns noticeably greyer, the frank subject matter the Tindersticks frontman presents here hits home like a brick hurled through the window.
It's tough to try to talk about a release from the High Llamas without mentioning Stereolab, but when you've got Sean O'Hagen leading a chorus of girls singing pretty "la la"s combined with airborne melodies, loads of chimes and vintage organs, comparisons are as unavoidable as the moose standing in the middle of the highway as you barrel towards it at 65 miles per hour. I quite like this disc however.
A major tragedy of thelast few years is the growing usage of computers as exclusive musiclistening environments. Kids are growing up in a world withoutexperiencing true high fidelity, a life without listening to anuncompressed music source through a stereophonic amplifier with warmroom speakers. It's all MP3 to them and why the hell not: it's freeright? Ikeda is probably onto this, which prompted him perhaps torecord something like 'Matrix.' Disc one, "Matrix [for rooms]"stretches about an hour over ten tracks. It absolutely cannot beexperienced to its fullest intent without a relatively decentstereophonic sound system with appropriate space between speakers,placed well inside a room. Well who the hell are you to tell me how tolisten to this? Track one: the pulses are established, elements fadein, space is established between the speakers. Walk around the room andhear pulses changing sequence or solidifying into one solid tonedepending on where you stand and how you hold your head. Track 2: thewood on a coffee table starts vibrating, rattling a pen. Track three:pitches change, earlier tones fade out, this guy is either a fuckinggenius or I'm going crazy. Track four: where can I get somehallucinogenic drugs? Track five: blissful massaging of the inner ear.I think I'm going to stop here and reccomend that you try your ownexperience now. Think of this CD as a movie you buy on video or DVD tohave at home, to watch every now and again, to entertain guests with(this disc does sound different if there's multiple people in the roomversus being alone) or just to pull out on a Saturday afternoon betweenlunch and your evening plans. Do not, however, listen to this on yourcomputer or in your car or anywhere 'convenient.' It demands your fullattention. For fans of Ikeda's head bobbing, almost poppy rhythmicmulti-tonal work, there's always disc two. ".Matrix" also features tennew tracks, a half hour of cleverly-crafted beat friendly gems, stylishand intoxicating. It is in no way less spectacular than disc one, bothof which make this package well worth the wait and an excellent bargainfor the inexpensive price.
Following the energy fromthis year's spectacular full-length offering, "And then Nothing Turneditself,..." Yo La Tengo have come up with three pleasant newinstrumental gems. The group called all three songs Danelectro andcoupled them with a remix of each to round out the CD EP. A short butsweet hip-hop variation is brought to the table by somebody who goes bythe moniker of Q-Unique, while a rather intense jazzy cut, spliced andover-layered version has been treated by San Fran's Kit Clayton. Myfavorite however would be the 11+ minute electronic sunshinereinterpretation from Nobukazu Takemura. In my opinion, whileTakemura's work was in no way 'cut out' for him, he did have theprettiest source material to work with. While I'm fond of Yo La Tengo'sLPs and this EP, these songs might sound rather out of place on analbum from the group known for their vocal pop rock material. There'ssomething that's somewhat indescribable about the brightfulness of themelodies themselves, it's almost as if they possess a certain Holidayspirit. Perhaps this EP was intended to be a Christmas-type releasefrom the NY threesome. I'm not aware of this yet I'm not convincedotherwise.
Ulan Bator is a French avante art rock trio who apparently take theirname from the capitol of Mongolia. "Ego : Echo" is their third albumand it was for the most part spontaneously created during 3 weeks ofsessions last summer in Florence, Italy with producer and Young GodRecords head Michael Gira (SWANS, The Angels of Light). Ulan are allabout tight and minimal, tense and repetitive guitar/bass/drum rockgrooves - both noisy and subdued - as musical and (French) vocalpassages become hypnotic head noddin' mantras. Add organ, piano, bow,keys, horn, tape loops, electronic drone, 'la la la' styled backingvocals and Gira's dry, crisp, clean and full production. Comparisonsto Can, Faust (Jean Herve Peron contributes horns to 1 song), the BadSeeds and Gira's own projects is inevitable as everything is sparseyet beautifully melodic and the sound and feel is similar, at the veryleast, in spirit. The 16 minute centerpiece "Let Go Ego" in particularprovides the variety of most everything Ulan Bator do in one song withextensive stretches of drone, somnambulant sonic meandering, heavy rockout and lengthy coda chant. "Ego : Echo" is a dynamic rock record thatresonates with passion and a sense of straightforward urgency. It'sone of a handful of cool musical things lately from France and it fitsright in with the rest of the Young God catalog. Up next from YGR arealbums by Calla and Flux Information Sciences in January and the newAngels of Light album "How I Loved You" in February.
Can't say I'm terriblysurprised that a label run by the Autechre folks would put out an EPlike this. Team Doyobi's style is relatively remeniscent of an older,more squarish 4/4 beat-filled Autechre sound, yet the group exploresmore with melodic motives than Booth and Brown seemingly did back in"the day." The release is an eight track mini-lp stretchingapproximately a half hour. The music is enjoyable, bright and bouncey,with innovative usage of sampled and synthesized sounds tapping out themelodic rhythms. Fans of glitchy Mouse On Mars beat music willdefinitely be keen on this one as there's various video-game esquesamples and over-processed primitive sounding analogue syntheticstossed in to color the tunes. As good as it is, however, it's nice tohave it short and sweet. There's not an incredible amount of variety interms of tempo change and feeling between the different songs, sosomething like this would be a bit heavy to digest had it been twice aslong.
Though the bright, streamlined bounce of first-track "Container of Drudgery(Never Had a Name)" seems to be crafted with almost excruciating precisionnext to last year's noise-saturated Fingerpainting, don't let the openingstrains fool ya. The Red Krayola's new six song EP eventually flexes andfractures into the same smattering of electronic chirps and indifferentlycolliding rhythms and melodies that characterizes their other recent DragCity releases. Midway through the album, the spastic rhythms and synthesizedsquawking and burping commence. These moments are capable of producing thefear and agony of one confined to a room filled with two-year-olds andFischer Price instruments. On "Is There," vocals, guitar, synthesizer, anddrums all seem to improvise playfully with only the occasional nod tosolidarity and structure. This isn't a problem in itself, but the samecryptic sing-song lyrics and compulsively spastic tapping that carry throughmost of The Red Krayola's albums now seem uninspired and more likely toinduce nervous twitching than appreciation. Yet when the fun and bluesyinstrumental "6-5-3 Blues" eventually breaks into chewy electronic twists,you can't help but feel the scattered moments of cohesion are worth (mostof) the disarray. The last two tracks maintain this balance with flair.While 'Blues, Hollers and Hellos' may not be The Red Krayola's best, the morevaried use of electronics makes up for some the inconsistency and you can'thelp but be grabbed when it's disparate elements come together just right.The slow "Magnificence as Such" rolls with cymbals and fuzzy, meanderingguitars while Mayo Thompson's wobbly croon, "Still it slays me when I touchmagnificence as such," may even produce pangs of tragedy and beauty in thosewho typically cringe. Yum.
Talk about variety, thesecond Echoboy album of the year once again follows a seeminglymulti-genre'd blueprint as Volume 1. Richard Warren, who goes by thename of Echoboy has gathered another ecclectic collection of nineself-recorded self-produced delves into audio experimental popinfluenced rock tunes. Whether it echoes early 80s electro pop a'laPeter Schilling's "Major Tom" or 90s analogue synth retro, Warren'senergy is fiery and relentless, his talent as a songwriter and musicianis undying. Some songs carry a feverish pulse, with a utilization ofguitars and vintage keyboard sounds not entirely unlike good oldSuicide or Trans Am. When the slower paced tunes creep through thespeakers, the music is never less saturated. The usage of variousorganic drums with electronic drum machines, guitar filters, bass linesand special effects . Echoboy's loved by critics and adored by collegeDJs all over the world, I assume because it seems like the guy's arabid music fan like the rest of us, and hasn't decided to make a'band' to only focus on one style. If I only had one complaint aboutEchoboy, it would be that this guy has way too many limited editionsingles and EPs of which many tracks will probably be lost, never tosee the light of day again. Brilliant asshole.
