So while there's this movie out now called "the Songcatcher" by somelady who found it necessary to exploit music of the Appalacians, thisCD does a good job of exploiting Cambodian rock music. It's a 70-minute22-song collection of late 60s/early 70s pop songs brought back fromthis guy's trip to Cambodia. Whatta trip it is - these songs (whichimitate popular western-world music of the late 60s) sound like that'veaged much better than stuff that would imitate popular music of today.There's absolutely no track listing, however, no idea who's doing what,but some record label in NYC seems to be making money off of it. No,it's really fun, but completely sketchy.
While we patiently await another full-lengther from 606, the materialfrom the Mille Plateaux release from last year gets treated on this fundisc. While it's not as campy as his latest live experiences where 606butchers Missy Elliot or the "Sandwiches" song, it is entertaining withcontributions from Matmos (originally on the Twirl EP) who remix aphoto shoot/interview with Miguel himself. Atom TM's contribution is agoofy butt-shaker, Pan American patient piece sounds like upbeat PanAmerican stuff, Twerk is fucking cool and I hope to get their new albumsoon, and the rest (which even include some 606 tweaks) have much morepersonality than the original album in its original form. 606 hasprobably gained more respect in the artful critic circle with his moreintrospective releases but it's really incredible to hear him let loose.
If you like dub and own no Twilight Circus then you're a fucking tool.Ryan Moore has delivered an astounding number of albums over the lastfew years exploring the sound of old school (late 70s/early 80s)organic instrumental dub. This is the real shit, not dub-style glitchylaptop stuff, but a real person playing the drums, bass, guitar andorgan. While the albums don't evolve in style, Moore is most certainlysteadily evolving in the production and writing aspects. Volcanic Dubis 12 new dub tunes, 45 minutes of bliss. This edition is less amake-out album as the other releases but is no less wonderful. It'sindeed volcanic, baby.
For those of you who own the bootlegs and are wondering if the upgrade is worth it, there are noticeable differences to consider. The overall sound of the reissues is much brighter and a lot of subtle nuances are more perceptible: voices and instruments are now apparent that weren't before.
Some call it skank rock. I call it lo-fi fucked-up laidback slackerrock. And it's brilliant. The Moldy Peaches are the best band you'venever heard. This album made me elated beyond all hope of coming back.It was a journey I'll gladly repeat if I should ever find my way home.Like the lo-fi Belle and Sebastian, Kimya Dawson and Adam Green craftjuvenile songs that are strangely catchy with great melodies andtwisted lyrics. And they're fun-filled, too! Mostly acoustic guitar anddrums with vocal trading and intertwining between Dawson and Green, allbadly recorded with lots of static, the Moldy Peaches' album ischock-full of youthful exuberance, adolescent angst, and bizarrehappenings. Songs end abruptly because the recording just stops. It'sjust a strange listen. There's even a ridiculous rap moment. And theycover "Little Bunny Foo Foo." It's just plain great. Often I laughed,because of the ridiculousness of the lyrics, but it's all incredible.It's a bit like the car accident you can't help looking at, but moreentertaining. There's really not much more to examine than that, thoughpsychologists would have a field day with those lyrics. Here's asample, from the album opener "Lucky Number Nine": "Bloody Mary Motherof God/Grampa's on the hobby horse again/Dampened broken pantschaffing/I'm running out of ethnic friends." Even when they approachoffensive material, like on "Downloading Porn With Davo," it just comesoff sounding like people singing about things just to try and provoke aresponse, or nonsensical gibberish set to music. Either way, you'lllove the result. If you don't, then who cares? These burgers are crazy.
Teutonic riotmaster Alec Empire rears his ugly head again on thisrelease, throwing down a new bag of tricks far removed from his bestknown work as titular head of teen-noise-pop-sensations Atari TeenageRiot. Here he dips into a grab bag pastiche of studio tricks to producea 62-minute slab of chunky hip-hop beats, some atypical noise guitarand the vocal stylings of MC El-P. Then again, since this release is 12mixes of the same song, it's better geared towards completists and DJ'sthan the general consumer public. The track itself is hard hitting asexpected - funky, menacing keyboards reminiscent of ATR's 'Waves ofDisaster', a nice cold feeling permeates this track even asunidentified electronic squee warms the brain and much head bobbing isinduced. The other tracks are all variations on this one theme:'Accapella mix', 'Hard Beats', 'Hard Beats and Voice' - you get theidea. The only real remix here would be the excellent 'No Wave Mix' - asubdued bit of tone generations, casio-style drums and squiggly 404action; and the 'Black Moon Mix' which is an excellent fucking mess -both of which would be great for those 3AM crank burnouts I'm sureyou're so fond of. Released in both the UK and the US so buy domestic.
Newcomer Mitchell Akiyama is the first release of Alien8's newsub-label, Substractif. On this, his first 'proper' album release, theMontreal-based Akiyama has assembled a library of field recordings, andprovided a complimentary score, at times with sampled, rhytmically andtonally restructured manipulations of the recordings. It's an excercisein a laptop-driven ambient dub soup, and at times the sounds have beenso far removed from their original state, that the toil in the processis almost entirely unnoticable. Don't take that the wrong way, however,it's a wonderful disc which has certainly grown on me incredibly. Thereisn't a piece of work on this album that doesn't take a fair amount oftime to evolve, however, so patience is essential to a listening.Akiyama is another case for my argument that greatness in electronicmusic can come from a understanding of organic music and composition,in that he allegedly comes from a jazz background. 'Hope' could easilybe like what a Pole album would sound like if Stefan Betke changed someof the stinking preset sounds for every track. It plays mind tricks ontracks like "Concentrate On One Leg" when the established beat breaksup at random places while a hypnotising throbbing tone never backsdown. Its unobtrusive beats, lengthy delays and a keen sense ofcomposition combine to make for a charming listen late at night withthe lights off and windows open while a cool breeze passes through onoccasion.
This is the latest in a series of CDs presenting one live performance from each stage of the Fall's more-than-25-years-long career. Most of the tunes on "Live in Zabreb" come from the "Extricate" album of 1990, a point in the Fall's life when they were past the angular, percussive post-punk scream of their classic albums (such as "Hex Enduction Hour") and were moving ever-closer to repetitive techno-rock.
What a great influence Weezer have had on the youth music scene. Their fun-sounding geek rock was almost revolutionary to most kids (who unfortunately had heard nothing like Weezer before) when "Undone: The Sweater Song" hit the radio and television airwaves. And now the kids influenced by Weezer and the like are starting to record music.
