For those who don't frequent the sites of MP3-only, Creative Commons-licensed netlabels, Jan Gleichmar's Jahtari is a go-to virtual imprint enamored with the long-departed sounds of 80s digital dub and dancehall reggae. Since 2004, his simulated 7" releases both there and elsewhere in the netlabel world built up enough of a reputation to warrant this physical release to showcase his balmy eight-bit informed productions.
Look up Music for gazing upwards brought to you by Meat Beat Manifesto & scott crow, +/-, Aurora Borealis, The Veldt, Not Waving & Romance, W.A.T., The Handover, Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Mulatu Astatke, Paul St. Hilaire & René Löwe, Songs: Ohia, and Shellac. Aurora Borealis image from California by Steve. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
|
In 1997, Bristol's trip-hop troubadours Portishead released their self-titled sophomore album, a deeply moving account of agonizing, feverish love and world-weary heartbreak. Its forlorn brilliance stunned me, leading me to privately refer to it as the soundtrack to a suicide. Now, another British electronic musician follows up a critically acclaimed breakthrough with a superlative sequel that, for me, shares both that ominous honor and my firm vote for Album of the Year.
With the freak folk empire still flying its tattered psychedelic flag, it a relief to see Dumb Supper arriving on the horizon unconcerned with scrambling the folk format. Mainly a collection of traditional re-tellings, the Tylers manage to both stay true to the form's roughened simple roots.
Listening to Amidst the Noise and Twigs is like wandering lost in the middle of a forest after discovering that the breadcrumbs leading home are actually beetles that then scamper away and vanish. Luring the listener deeper into the wood are mesmeric melodies and hypnotic chants that both welcome and warn. The siren call is addictive and disorienting, and it's a delirious place in which to be lost.
These Japanoise legends' first album since 1996 is a triumphant return, a single joyous no-nonsense extreme noise barrage lasting for 43:18, and their second album (after 1996's Flash) on the UK label Cold Spring. The trademark walls of fuzz-drenched guitar overlaid with howls and ear-splitting high-end keyboard screeching coupled with Mayuko Hino's vocals are all there and are a perfect recipe for further consolidating their status in the upper stratosphere of japanoise acts.
Two of ambient music's greatest strengths are conjuring up isolated locations and immense timelines. In Time Frost, Robin Storey uses them to imagine a Europe chilled by ocean currents altered by global warming. It is easy to be cynical about climate change as an artistic subject considering its status as Hollywood's pet-cause of the moment. Time Frost does something far more satisfying: it calls to mind vivid images that do not need to be interpreted through an ideology.
The second album since the adoption of the more formal sounding name of Carter Tutti is a strange beast. The title of the album made me expect a more violent and frenetic style but the duo show that being feral is not all about bared teeth and naked aggression. Feral can be more beautiful and tender than any tamed creature or thought. The music is wild in that it is free from much outside influence. Immediately it is obvious that no matter what the name on the CD case is, this is the same animal at heart.
I cannot say I am a hip hop guru (hip hop is for the most part is one of those "must investigate at a later date" areas of music for me) but I know what I like and I like Northern State. Although their new album is not consistently great, the bits that shine are bright enough to obscure the weaker moments. The album is fairly formulaic but these ladies have a charm which lets them carry the songs off.
A solo work from Hototogisu/Double Leopards member Marcia Bassett sounds exactly like the photo on the cover: dark, gray, and sinisterly mysterious. And it excels at living up to these adjectives.
Ephemera Blues reflects a metaphysical journey through issues of mortality. These superb songs frequently emphasize death's cyclical aspects more often than its dire ones, lending vigor to the search for personal enlightenment. The album is mellow but never dull, earnest and cathartic in its yearning for transcendental validation.
