Kranky
I always like knowing that Mark Nelson is involved in a new album. Whether he's involved in Labradford, in a collaboration with another musician, or is writing music as Pan?American, Nelson's compositions always come as welcome, quiet, and warm embraces. Quiet City, his fourth Pan?American album, is a much different recording than 2003's The River Made No Sound
, but it maintains the calm and pacifying sound that has permeated all of Nelson's projects from the beginning. Alongside rainy pulses and misty keyboard flourishes are the seductive sounds of an upright bass, guitar, trumpet, and flugelhorn. Their presence in Nelson's writing only adds to the spaciousness of the songs; they never make the electronic peace too busy nor do they take away from rattle and wash of the near sub-conscious percussion. The entire record moves together like a creeping cloud, but there are standouts that can't go without mention. The 9-minute engagement that is "Wing" plays like a waterfall easing in slow motion towards an unending abyss. Its harmonious ring of low and subtle keyboards, tribal dub-rhythms, and erratic scratches and pops was intoxicating enough to keep me pressing the back button a few times before I was willing to move to the song. The folk-like "Inside Elevation" bares a fragile guitar that slow-steps in and out of a near-accordian complement and blends into the suprising and pleasing "Skylight." The opening is remiscient of deserts and folk-music to me, but the heart of the song is band-centered and has a certain nobility to its organization and melody. When I say band-centered I mean that there is a definite drummer, guitar, voice, and bass arrangement, but it is accompanied by what sounds like a full brass orchestra and Nelson's consistently supple electronics. Song after song is a relaxing and simple relief from the any and everything that is busy. While I expected this much from Nelson, what caught me off guard was how well-written every one of these songs are. The songs on here aren't just epic forays into estranged sound, they're pieces of melodic silk that breathe and twitch with a human likeness. A casual listen to a song like "Het Volk" will reveal exactly what I'm talking about. The poppy and child-like keyboard sounds grace along like a classical composition while the the flugelhorn plays like some slow jazz on a lamp-lit street corner. The combination is irresistable. This is the way that the electronic and acoustic combination should be done. After a while I wasn't even conscious of the fact that there were different elements being used. The product of their masterful fusing is greater than the parts being fused.
Matt Waldron's music as Irr. App. (Ext.) covers a spectrum from hallucinatory and intricate strings of sound that are broadcast from the universe of the wacky to found-sound recordings that share spaces with crunching glass, odd-ball vocal samples, and gorgeous guitar. Ozeanische Gef?le, however, comes as a complete surprise. Rooted in the experiments, philosophy, and beliefs of Wilhelm Reich, the term "ozeanische gef?le" translates, roughly, as "oceanic feelings." This term is wonderfully appropriate for the music Waldron has assembled on this recording. The self-titled and 42 minute opener is a consistently hypnotizing blend of bells, wooden drums (I think?), organs, submerged choirs, obscured hums, brushes, crickets, and solar flares. These references and images may seem fanciful, but one listen to the record will reveal that Waldron has somehow recorded life and placed it on a compact disc. Waldron's most exciting and captivating technique is his blending of completely opposite sounds into a whole. No matter how disparate Waldron's sound sources may be (horses trotting on brick roads, a poorly tuned ukulele, wooden boards crashing, rain drops and thunder, there are a ton of sounds I'm sure I'm missing), they sound entirely perfect together. The result is a strangely fascinating organism of living tissue, meterological events, and cosmic birth and death. The music isn't just fascinating though, it isn't just some exercise in academic sound collage. The sounds course and wind into eachother and make a heavenly soft bed out of the air. The combination of bells, buzzes, sonic burps, and resounding echoes is radiant and graceful and never fails to soothe or entertain. The second track, "The Demiurge's Presumption," carries over from the sonic dust of the first 40+ minutes and blows it up to the tune of expanding straws, static electricty, broken springs, and divine presence. There is a constant ring through the track that attempts to obscure the work of a stream of sounds that pulses steadily beneath it. On the whole, the final track is a much more dense affair than "Ozeanische Gef?le," but it is a fitting end to the quiet sanctuary that much of this album is. It fades away into silence as a stringed instrument is plucked randomly and softly out of existence. This silence lasts only a few moments before a strange collage of bird sounds, bubble-like distortion, and phased noises lap over and into themselves. As the music flows throughout this album, as it moves away from its center and produces newer sounds and more diversity, it becomes more and more addicting. Waldron is demonstrating another side of his musical personality that had been hidden from view for too long and the resulting musical tide is mind-blowing.
1983's Flaming Demonicscomes right at the end of James White's four-year run as the reigningKing Shit of No-Wave Fuck Mountain, and the intervening years have notbeen as kind to this album as they have been to his earlier efforts. Bythis time, White had parted company with The Contortions/Blacks, andthey are sorely missed. For Flaming Demonics, White insteadutilizes an assemblage of studio session players, who, while certainlytalented, are more orthodox in their approach, bringing much of themusic the too-polished veneer of traditional jazz playing. Coming afterthe similarly lackluster Sax Maniac, this album probablysounded a death knell for the artist, evidenced by the fact that hestopped performing and recording not long after its release. Inhindsight, however, the album is not nearly as bad as some haveclaimed, and it contains several tracks that James White converts willfind especially entertaining. The album continues White'sMephistophelian obsession with the diabolism of jazz and funk music,with plenty of lyrical allusions to the selling of his soul and thedemonic possession supposedly evidenced by his serpentine horn blasts.The album opens with "The Devil Made Me Do It," where unnaturalpolyrhythms form an uncomfortable backdrop for staccato swipes ofjangling funk guitar and an abrasively lyrical saxophone dialogue."Rantin' and Ravin'" is an extended rock-bop instrumental, soundingsurprisingly similar to James Brown's early-80's work ("Livin' InAmerica," anyone?). Your reaction to that comparison will no doubtlargely determine your opinion of this material. Things get a littlebetter with a medley of Duke Ellington classics ("Caravan" and "ItDon't Mean A Thing"), which are unceremoniously thrown into the mixwith the White original "Melt Yourself Down.". The whole mess providesnine minutes of ararchic fun, especially the incongruously chaoticelectric organ solo towards the beginning. This reissue includes threebonus tracks, which travel even further down the homogenized, early80's rock-jazz path, veering dangerously close to Huey Lewis and theNews territory. A version of one of my favorite early-60's rock n' rollsongs, Gene Pitney's "Town Without Pity," is a little tooself-consciously "cute" for White, and his head-scratching version leftme wondering about his motives in covering such a classic song. Allgood things must come to an end, alas.
A recording of a live performance on May 13, 1980, Live Aux Bain Douches is the single best James Chance live album available, eclipsing ROIR's White Cannibal and Soul Exorcismreleases. The recording is far superior to any of the other livematerial I've heard, and the band seem to be fully engaged with thematerial, delivering an energetic set to a wildly appreciate audience.Opening with a unexpectedly searing version of Michael Jackson's "Don'tStop Till You Get Enough," Chance and the band expertly tear through aset comprised equally of raucous funk, sophisticated hard bop andadrenaline-pumped dance music. The creeping forward momentum of "IDanced With A Zombie" is an opportunity for Chance and his horn sectionto showcase their talent for blistering improv, creating interwoventhreads of smoldering brilliance. On a pair of James Brown covers — "IGot You (I Feel Good)" and "King Heroin" — Chance displays his uniqueperspective on the material; on the former, he adds a level of snarlingrockabilly attitude to the perennial Brown favorite; on the latter, heslows down and extends the song into a tortured, emotive blues thatpierces straight to the heart with gut-wrenching power. Switching backinto fast tempo for the final one-two punch of "Put Me Back In My Cage"and "Contort Yourself," Chance hoots and hollers, throwing his entirebody into the performance, as his band throws together a hyperactivearrangement that constantly threatens to upend itself. Live Aux Bain Douchesclearly manifests a confident ensemble, fully in control of theirtalent, delivering a blazing set unparalleled in the annals ofpost-punk. My only complaint is that I wasn't there to witness theperformance firsthand.
Though Off White was released in the same year as Buy,it points to a new trajectory for James Chance. Renaming himself JamesWhite (in a snotty white-boy parody of James Brown), he recast TheContortions as The Blacks and veered towards the kind ofslickly-produced funk-disco hybrid that had already become a Ze Recordstrademark. The album opens with two new versions of "Contort Yourself,"the first a radically reworked and extended mix by August Darnell ofcartoon Latino-disco gangsters Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Darnell'sversion of the song subtracts the dissonance and adds a loopedbassline, uptempo hi-hats and full-on disco throb. This could be adancefloor classic in any era. The rest of the material on Off Whiteis engrossingly unorthodox, fearlessly matching White's asymmetricalfree-jazz with smoothed-out NYC disco sleaze. "Stained Sheets" is abizarre dialogue between White and an anonymous woman enraptured in herown sexual malaise, over a druggy, slow-cooked improvisation. There'snothing more embarassing than pandering white-boy versions of islandmusic (see Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot"), but "(Tropical) HeatWave" somehow sidesteps the usual pitfalls, mostly because of White'sblazing saxophone solos. The two parts of "Almost Black" act as adancefloor-friendly showcase for White's unstoppably intense soloing,as anonymous female voices admire White for being so nearly a blackman: "I love him cuz he might be white/but every time I feel thatsmack/I want him more because he's almost black." White's cavalierattitude in dealing with this kind of edgy race material (other songtitles: "White Savage," "Bleached Black" and "White Devil") isrefreshingly provocative, especially in our current social climate ofgutless, politically-correct racial dialogue. The tastiest bonus trackon the disc is "Christmas With Satan," a 10-minute narrative aboutYuletide with the devil that deliriously quotes classic holiday tunessuch as "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Hava Nagila." For sheerinventiveness and off-kilter funkiness, Off White is without compare in the James Chance catalog, and this disc is far and away my favorite of the bunch.
For followers of the fertile New York City scene circa 1977-1983 thatspawned the avant-punk-funk-dance-jazz meltdowns of the so-calledNo-Wave and Mutant Disco genres, there could be no better news than theresurrection of the classic Ze Records label, and the accompanyingreissue program. Having already released a clutch of fantastically rareand sought-after albums from Was (Not Was) and Lizzy Mercier Descloux,Ze recently unveiled four superior reissues of James Chance/White'sclassic LPs, adding bonus tracks of rare material and reproducing theoriginal artwork and liner notes. Together with recent reissues andcareer-spanning discs from DNA, Mars, Glenn Branca and the TheoreticalGirls, my No Wave cup truly runneth over. Most of this materialappeared on Tiger Style's recent Irresistable Impulsebox, but there's something more satisfying about having replicas of theoriginal packaging, each album kept to its own disc. The only advantageof the Tiger Style set was the inclusion of 1982's Sax Maniacalbum, which tanked on Warner back in its day. However, if you'vetracked down this LP as I have, you would probably agree that thismaterial is far from essential. 1979's Buy is inarguablyessential, however, the first full-length LP from The Contortions aftertheir appearance on Brian Eno's epoch-defining No New Yorkcompilation. Their lopsided funk energy is in full swing on this set ofstudio material, all dissonant melodies, lurching rhythms and jaggedbleats of saxophone, together with Chance's bratty, nihilistic vocaloutbursts. The rolling basslines and urgent drumbeats suggest dancemusic, but the material is so aggressively irregular that it begs forsome kind of interpretive spastic acrobatics, an imperative made clearin the lyrics for the Contortions' most well-known song: "It's betterthan pleasure, hurts more than pain/I've got what it takes to drive youinsane/Now is the time to lose all control, contort your body and twistyour soul...Once you take out all the garbage that's in yourbrain/Forget about your future and just go insane." Chance slows downthe tempo a bit with the intriguiging noir-jazz stylings of"Anasthetic," imparting the dark sense of claustrophobia experienced innarrow metropolitan alleyways. Bonus tracks come in the form of threesuperlative early live cuts, including one particularly angular coverof Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock," which Chance introduces in histrademark confrontational style: "And now a little something for allthose of you who live in the past, and that's about 99 percent of youidiots out there." 
Sandwiched between two sheets of metal, numbered out of an edition of333, and signed by Z'ev, Crippled Intellect Productions has released anexcellent 10" of a percussive singularity. The two performancesrecorded on this release are of the kind that are rarely played live orrecorded in the studio. Side A begins with Z'ev suggesting that some"travelling music" be played and what follows is a series of metal onmetal rhythms that, on the whole, don't seem to fit a single rhythmictime signature nor suggest any kind of ethnic reference. The entirepiece feels like an experiment in time; it is as though the pulsingthat consistently finds its way into this piece is moving time along ina new way and the texture of the instruments on top of eachother createa new terra firma to experience this time on. Whether the travellingZ'ev was suggesting was of a mystical kind or merely a trip across landand sea, the movement of these apparent non-rhythms slowly builds intoa piece that creates the illusion of recognition — the rhythm wasalways there in my mind, Z'ev simply showed it to me. Side B beginswith the humming of metal sheets. They are surprisingly melodic and, astime carries on, they begin to resonate in a rubbery way, bouncing in aperfect wave form and releasing their ghost in the form of a beautifulmoan. It sounds as though Z'ev must've added some kind of extrainstrument to this performance or somehow mixed scrap pieces with therest of his instrumentation because their is the constant effect ofmetal rolling about slowly over this wave of sound made by the metalsheets. Z'ev doesn't seem to be in control of this extra element allthe time, but the result is amazing. It's hard to imagine how Z'evcould make music like this solely from percussive elements. The secondtrack on the second side is a comparatively more straight-forwardexercise in diversity. Z'ev opens by banging away at some kind of metalpipe that changes tones here and there; it's either that or Z'ev ismoving like a speed demon between multiple metal drums, each of whichcarry a different tone. The rhythms on this track are more definite,but I find it difficult to keep time with Z'ev and his sense ofdirection and composition. The instrument used on this side isincredibly beautiful and at times sounds like an incredibly low steeldrum that emits the most powerful of sounds.At times it seems as if the rhythm is weaving like a snake through Z'evand his hands. This is undeniably a kind of work that I have neverheard from anyone else. Z'ev's music is unique beyond compare and hiscomplete mastery of texture and sound only adds to the unique characterof his drumming. 
Hatred and comedy have never seen to come together so frutifully. Kites' side of this split 12" is The Hidden Familyand its features stick out in my mind as some perverted hallucinationof a three-ring circus. The music isn't particularly carvinal-esque,but for some reason Kites doesn't sound vicious or biting enough toconvey a sense of dread that freezes me to the core. Track titles like"All the Jesus Shit" and "Screw Style" do little to change theappearance that this is a near-humorous attempt at frazzled samples andTV-static composition. This isn't a complaint, though. Kites' approachto noise is one that makes the second half of this split seem all thatmore disturbing. There's nothing particularly amazing about the Kitesside, but it doesn't amount to anything near amateur, either. It's justnot my cup of tea. Perhaps my exposure to a live Prurient performancewill bias what is to follow, but Prurient's White amounts to ahellaciously viscious vocal attack that comes away simultaneouslyaddictive and abusive. A pounding series of feedback serves as arhythmic base for Prurient to scream his unrelenting vocals over.Whether or not the poem included on the cover of the split 12" isactually what is performed by Prurient is questionable. The words beingspoken aren't exactly what's important, it's the delivery of thesehalf-words and hate-fuelled screams that makes Prurient's music sofrightful. As soon as "Spanish Moss" (the centerpiece of this side)finished, I immediately replaced the needle at the start of the recordand went over Prurient's music again trying to decide what it was thatfascinated me so much. Prurient live stuck in my mind because of hispresentation and how in control he was of the noise when all he had wasa couple amps, a couple mics, and distortion pedal or two. On record,Prurient is so utterly raw that his noise is hard to ignore. Drumsmashes, psychotic mumbling, uninhibited feedback and a feel for whatis and isn't bearable makes Prurient more entertaining than many otherswho feel noise is just a mix and mash of heavy and disroted sounds. Trylistening to this record with the sound turned down, the effect is justas chilling as when the volume is loud enough to make ears blister andhearing a difficult task. -
Translating as "hare's ears," "Oreledigneur" has become a blanket termto mark the assorted collaborative works of this duo, proprietors andkey players of the Fringes/Bowindo camp, responsible for two of themore remarkable release schedules in improvised elecroacoustics toappear in recent years. Though it is their third album under the name, Oreledigneuris the first produced by Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi alone,despite their countless outsourcing of material for labelmates'releases. Not only do the duo's friends feed happily off of theirever-expanding stockpile of skeletal acoustic ambience, field capturesand intimate electronic scavenging, but the artists themselves drawfrom these private sessions to fill gaps in their own solo work. Arecent example would be Ielasi's Plans which uses generoushelpings of Rinaldi's endlessly warm percussive meanderings and lushacoustic surface-testing to fill the gaps between the disc's moresculptural inclusions, like the cyclical guitar figures that helpdelineate the piece's turns. With such a picked-apart history, theOreledigneur sound might be tempting to describe as glamorized filler,as the yet-unrefined bursts of inspiration from these two stalwartsound explorers, rushed to tape in a frenzy and either given over tofuture improvements or left to stew in their own crudity. Luckily, Oreledigneurthe album, while not without its rough edges, is no collection ofthrowaways. Rinaldi and Ielasi have clearly taken time to blend andpolish five concise statements of mission, each a distillation of thetensions the duo seems compelled to uphold, and of the surprisingly"available" emotional quotient of their work, solo and otherwise. Trueto the sensibilities of both artists, there is a constant dynamicbetween sounds with a genuine "presence" or immediacy (often due totheir connection with recognizable instrumentation or phenomena) andother sounds that appear as if glimpsed across a dreamy distance,suspended in the same near-nostalgic limbo that consumed Plans.Any sense of crudity in the music is likely an immediate response tothe forced tension between the surface sounds, like the labored enginechugs or metallic patter that opens the disc, and the more opaqueunder-layers, the rich atmospherics flaking restlessly off Ielasi'sbrittle guitar or dropping from the great underwater bells anddoor-hinges that might now be signature Bowindo sounds. The effect ofthis kind of tension, rising as the disc progresses, is that the soundsmore comfortably left half-filled-in, those shifting about with noclear resolution, become the ones that carry the greatest degree ofemotive weight. The sense of longing that these nebulous patches ofchiming guitar and blooming analog fragments provoke seems somehowinappropriate in the face of the blank machine drones, everydaymechanics, and scattered street ambience that populate the foregroundof Oreledigneur. The effected result, to borrow a phrase, is"nostalgia for nothing," emotion without center that shifts nervously,though sincerely, with each listen, guarded against sentimentality butalways left somewhere, hanging. While the previous Oreledigneurproductions offered similarly beautiful, barely-anywhere bits ofecstasy, neither came close to these trembling heights.
