While their debut album was equal parts all-out guitar assault and plaintive resignation, Explosions in the Sky plumbs the depths of their oeuvre by digging within on their second record, even in its first moments. The quietly played notes that begin the first track eventually join with a heartbeat of percussion that builds into a carefully blended swell where all instruments feel like they're being played with someone's life on the line. When it all finally combusts, it's not at all like before: it's better.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Tom and Christina Carter's work as Charalambides improves with everyrelease, and now with the addition of Heather Leigh Murray —Christina's bandmate in Scorces — on pedal steel and vocals, they are aforce to be reckoned with. Kranky is generously reissuing severalCharalambides releases that were never widely available. Unknown Spinwas originally released on the band's own label in a CD-R pressing of300. With this particular reissue, Kranky is righting a colossal wrong:that this music was relatively unavailable for so long. These songs area real step forward for the band, as they work more into each other'spatterns, with the expansive nature of the music benefitting from anodd start/stop quality that intensifies the whole album's aura. Theopening track, also the title track, is thirty whole minutes ofminimalist joy, haunting in its need to take so long to build. Littlepieces of music are repeated, but spaced out in an almost mind-alteringpace. Eventually all parts join together, build, soar, and chill to thebone. With not a track under eight minutes, and given their history,this track sets the tone for the whole release. The songs approach purebeauty here and there, but is is the final track, "Skin of Rivers,"that pulls it all together. With Heather and Christina's dueling vocalsand little else until about five minutes in, there is a pure fear andisolation in place that just decimates. It's probably the bestCharalambides track ever, and the album as a whole is quite anaccomplishment. With more to come from Kranky, perhaps this fineensemble will finally get the respect they deserve.
Somewhere there exists a Metal Valhalla, an otherworldly paradise where all of the head-banging Vikings, beer-swilling Satanists, fist-pumping Klingons and face-painted Odinists are slam-dancing under the dark crimson moonlight to the pure amplified glory of the heaviest sounds in the Universe. For all we know, this Guitar Nirvana might be completely out of reach of mere mortals, at least in this lifetime, but that doesn't stop people from trying time and again to invoke it right here on Earth.
The world of drones is necessarily deceptive. The successful drone isalways an illusion—you wind up being drawn into a special perceptualstate that I call the zone,believing that you're listening to a complex world of fractionaldetail, motion, drama and beauty while it's perfectly obvious to thecasual observer outside the zone that it's just a bunch of tones, quitepossibly rather unpleasant ones. The conjuror illusionist's skills canbe explained, understood and taught but the inner workings of theconvincing drone illusion are, to me at least, very mysterious. Thesame mystery is at the heart of minimalism—it's unbelievably easy to bea minimalist but very few have made good minimalist art and I doubtthat anyone can explain the key ingredient. This is my excuse for notbeing sure what it is that doesn't quite work about Texturizer.Everything is lovely in theory, Coti K. provides slow mellow electronictones and noises and Nikos Veliotis plays bowed harmonics and othercello sounds on top of that. But somehow it doesn't quite gel anddoesn't get me into the zone. The electronic part itself is hard tofault; it has nicely unstable resonances that sound like they mightcome from feedback loops fed with ambient sounds, perhaps street noise.The cello part is perhaps the issue. My all time favorite musicalinstrument is the cello and I love what its overtones can do but here Idon't get the sense of a cohesive effect playing. Live improvised droneplaying (I presume is what's happening here) involves a generativeprocess of discovering the perfect sonority and then working it,holding it, keeping it and moving it around. There should be a balancebetween the freedom of the autonomous discovered sound to behave underits own volition and the control of the musician. Too much control andall we hear is the performer, too little and the sound's lack ofintrinsic aesthetics will show through. Veliotis is tending to theformer. It's as though he never quite finds his perfect sonority,passing over several good opportunities and dwelling on inadequate oneson a trajectory of his own that also fails to make sense as a celloimprovisation. As wallpaper Texturizer is entirely functional—areally rather enjoyable and unimposing accompaniment to ones work. Butclose listening reveals the absence of illusion. 
This is a mysterious piece of music. At times rising above nothing morethan a series of simplistic drum patterns and a possessed guitar, theeffect is radiates is eerie and strange. It's as if the wholearchitecture that the sound rested upon was made up of a liquid masssubject to change at anytime. Symphonic washes of melody that soundadrift on the sea are meshed with the sound of metal or wood beingground into a pulp and then recycled into a series of hypnotic rhythmsthat move each track along in a soft but drunken manner. On a tracklike "Random Hiver" the spectacular residue of this combination isnothing short of enchanting, but the hollow and vaccuous halls of soundsometimes become too plain and uninvolving. This is especially true forthe middle third of the album. Vocals samples are used early on in goodtaste to provide a sense of voyeurism within the music, but in themiddle portion of RI.Tit just serves to stretch out tracks that weren't meant to be stretchedout. "Aritec" and "We Watch Over You" are both far too alike to beenjoyable back to back. If it weren't for "Random Hiver," I might havebecome sick with the album too soon and missed the promisingconclusion. A series of sucking sounds (think snot) lead "We Watch OverYou" into "Cheyenne," a tune that creates an empty and strange embracebetween keyboards and drums. The drums never quite sync up witheachother nor with the self-destructing melodies fading and buzzing outof the sound spectrum. The end of the song is a mess of alien sound andinstellar noise that dissipates into thin air before the escapist"Enron State" topples into being and blows itself out on its own gustof wind. Yes, the song has a bit of a political tint to it, butnevermind such a distraction: the music is lovely. The end leaves mefeeling lonely and somehow depressed: the entire album just feels likea byzantine cathedral that echoes to the point discomfort. It'sgorgeous, without a doubt, but there's something about that void thatis unsettling; it's a space that's hard to look into without beingabsorbed by it.
The immediate reaction I had to my first airing of this CD is probablyquite common: It's impossible, at first, to believe that this isgenuine. Thankfully, the intensity and craftsmanship of the music lenda great deal of credibility, and after repeat listens I am less andless inclined to challenge the band on whether or not their hearts aretruly in this. I grew up listening to Slayer, Anthrax, and Metallica,sporting the worst mullet on the planet and a backpatch on my denimjacket to strike fear into all those who opposed. As I grew older, Igot into Yes, Dream Theater, and even some King Crimson, and learnedhow expansive one could make rock sound. Nightfist have taken the worksof these and other collective metal and prog-rock influences andbettered them, even if only here and there on their first release. Iftheir bio is indeed true and Nightfist's members are recent high schoolgraduates, then color me doubly impressed, as there's not one slip-upis to be found in these louder-than-love anthemic passages, and thatkind of skill is rare on music so technically precise as this. Theprologue and epilogue come off a bit forced, like an afterthought,detailing the warrior's journey in two brief monologues; thankfullythey let the music do most of the talking. Furious drumming, blazingguitars and mad-scientist keyboards abound, and the songs take on alife of their own. I saw the warrior, put upon by so much strife,swinging his sword and crushing enemies with one blow, striving towardsthe final battle. The entire CD is a metaphor for this up and comingband, and at this rate they'll be the stuff of legends sooner ratherthan later. 
Tribute albums can often be enlightening. They can also beexcruciating. It can be illuminating to hear differing interpretationsof a songwriter's back catalog. A cover version can give you a freshperspective on a familiar song, or place it in a new musical contextthat may lend itself brilliantly to the original material. In the past,I've heard wonderful collections of artists interpreting the songs ofsinger-songwriters Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Lee Hazlewood. The Bells Shall Sound Forevercollects 15 tracks from 15 artists, paying tribute to the songs ofCurrent 93. From the beginning this project is doomed. David Tibet'swork as Current 93 is so irredeemably idiosyncratic, and is performedand produced in such a specific way, that any reinterpretationnecessarily runs the risk of diluting the meaning and power of theoriginal material. Current 93 albums do not contain songs; they containstanzas. Each album is a poetic cycle, weaving together Tibet's musingson Christ, cats and apocalypse with sparse and evocative soundsettings. The very idea of isolating a track and reinterpreting itseems, on the surface, to be a ridiculous venture. Tibet's dramaticspoken-word vocals, Michael Cashmore's haunting instrumental backdropsand Steven Stapleton's mindbending soundscapes and production acumen:all of these elements are vital to the sound of Current 93. David Tibetcan't play any instruments, he can't read or write musical notation andhe can't write a song. Therefore, the idea of covering a Current 93song seems just as pointless as covering a Wesley Willis song. TheEuropean and American artists on Bells are largely obscure,often amateur, with a clear emphasis on bedroom industrial and neo-folkmusicians — people who have had their brains twisted by constantexposure to Sol Invictus records. Sonne Hagal's limp take on "Death ofthe Corn" is made comical by the thick German accent of the singer.Dorien Campbell turns in a capable but unremarkable rendition of "ASadness Song." Vequinox manage to make the already boring "Earth CoversEarth" even more lackluster, sounding like a middle-aged, pot-smokingWiccan couple recording on a four-track in a dusty tool shed in theirbackyard. German industrial band Engelsstaub attempt to transform"Happy Birthday Pigface Christus" into one of those faceless EBM clubtracks. What an outrageously bad idea! Hungary's Cawatana contribute ahilariously corny version of "A Song for Douglas After He's Dead",complete with silly pan flutes and broken English. "Crowleymass" is anembarrassing mess — it's hard to tell what Storm of Capricorn werethinking with this annoying cacophony of multi-tracked vocals and dullCasio keyboards. If you've ever wanted to hear a heartbreakinglybeautiful song turned into utter shit, listen to Der Feuerkreiner'sself-consciously "gothic" reading of "Soft Black Stars." PancreaticAardvarks turn in a seven-minute dark techno track clearly influencedby Coil, but it appears to have nothing in common with the Current 93song that it purports to be a cover of. The tracklisting containsseveral glaring errors, mixing up the order of the tracks 12 through14, which is fine with me because I'm sure I won't be searching forthese songs in the future. I actually liked O Paradis' psychedelicflamenco version of "Calling For Vanished Faces I," if only for theamusement of hearing the lyrics sung in Spanish. Apparently, DavidTibet donated a Louis Wain painting from his personal collection forthe sleeve image. If this means that he is giving his stamp of approvalto this project, I would question his judgment. All I felt afterlistening to The Bells Shall Sound Forever was an overwhelmingdesire to dig out my old Current 93 records and listen to these songsin the proper context. Perhaps that was David Tibet's plan all along. 
Those familiar with Electrelane may not recognize them now. Wherebefore they were apt to formulate long, dire instrumentals with murkybass, flamboyant keyboards, and fuzz guitar, these four ladies fromBrighton have apparently decided that less can be more, provided that the energy is right. On Paradeis a sample of what's to come from the band on their debut full-lengthon Too Pure, and has an intriguing concept given their past. Threesongs weighing it at a little past eight minutes is a little shocking.The Bruce Springsteen cover ups the oddity level, though they've playedit live in the past with good notices. But the punk-injected soundtakes the taco, as the Electrelane of before has been replaced by thebastard daughter of Snowpony and Sleater-Kinney (recent tourmates =coincidence?). At any rate, it's a fairly by-the-numbers EP: new soundon track one, strangely appealing though out of character cover ontrack two, and a more traditional-sounding (read: instrumental) trackthree to prove to fans they haven't completely lost their minds. It'sfairly mediocre, but not in that it-almost-stinks kind of way. It'sjust nothing all that special. Verity Susman has that husky JohnetteNapolitano quality in her voice that always sounds like it can't domuch more than it is right now. The music is catchy and has a certainulterior groove to speak of, but at the end of the day I'm left wantingto give it all the old heave-ho on days when I want to trade in old CDsfor new at my local. The jury's not out so far that I wouldn't listento the forthcoming debut, but I'm suspect nonetheless. 
Rune Grammofon is known for releasing consistently excellent recordswhile at the same time convincing listeners that all their music comesfrom Norway. One would think, given the output of this label alone,Norway should have long ago become the new Iceland…or something. Rune'sreputation for continually thwarting audience expectations will not betarnished by Fevergreens,the second release from outsider-composer Jono El Grande. Next to ArneNordheim's abstract electronics, Supersilent's dead-city jazz, andSpunk's inimitable improv, Fevergreens occupies a territory ofits own; problem is, the territory isn't so thrillingly exclusive thistime around. While El Grande's playful blend of easy listening,exotica, and soundtrack styling may stand out in Norway, there is a"tried" quality to this music that makes the disc less than impressive.Fevergreens is enjoyable; the exuberance of these tracks iscertainly palpable, the pathos-ridden moments gripping even. ElGrande's forays into easy listening and a kind of quasi-exotica arewritten well, never drifting into (more-than-appropriate) parody. Thedisc fails, somewhat admirably, in its ambitious nature. The musicoperates under a classically informed, theatrical guise, bookendingprologue/epilogue sections and all, with the soundtrack-influenced vibefueling the listener's vivid journey through the crests and denouementsof an elaborate, though abstract tale. Such a framework clashes with ElGrande's interest in jazz and the progressive rock sound bearing themark of people like the Mothers of Invention and Henry Cow. The avantpresence is subtle, isolated to bursts of rock drumming, spasticsynthesized melodies, and a more pronounced jazz edge, but relevantenough to pull the stoicism out from under what would otherwise be arather refined musical achievement. The short lengths of the songs,each packed with enough mood changes to make one's head spin, likewisedetract from the latent seductive quality of this music. I find myselfwishing the avant-rockist bits were allowed to flail and degeneratefreely, or the moments of a more classical resolve given more room tobreathe. The former would provide Jono El Grande a welcome (and stillunique) spot on Rune Grammafon's intimidating roster, while the latterwould still make him the best Norwegian making such interesting music(which, to be honest, could mean the best worldwide). 
If brevity is the soul of wit, then the 99 remixes of Cock ESP on Hurts So Goodmust be the wittiest music ever produced. Close to none of these songsexceed the two-minute mark, most of them averaging about 30-45 seconds.It's an album tailor made for noise lovers with ADD. Cock ESP isanother one of those aggro-noise outfits with a wicked sense of humorand a predilection for transgressive fun. V/VM Test records iscertainly an appropriate label for this stuff, as much of their humorderives from brutal parodies of pop music and pun-filled song titles,poking fun at pop culture clichés and other easy targets. Thisadolescent satire has the potential to wear out its welcome quickly,but when it comes in such tiny little disposable half-minute packages,it's hard to resist. Just reading down the list of the 88 band namesand 99 song titles that make up the album is a fucking riot. A samplingof some of the more ridiculous band names: The Edible Scab Package, DJEnormous Genitals, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Obscuration/Albee Featuringthe Mellow Oaks First Grade Choir, Uncle Fatso, Kid666 and DJSmallcock. The song titles: "Don't Stop Bleedin'," "The Pursuit ofCrappiness," "Enjoy the Violence," and "Hologram of Balls." The musicruns the gamut — mutated voices, perversions of pop music, sampledmedia cut-ups, harsh blasts of industrial noise, aggressive drill n'bass techno, clarinet solos, a children's choir, field recordings anddrugged-up fucking about — some of it hilarious, all of it annoying,but certainly that was the intention. As an unexpected side effect,listening to this disc on random repeat mode all afternoon has given methe strange ability to read the minds of people's genitals. In fact,your dick just told me that it wants this CD. - 
