Minty Fresh
I am somewhat ashamed to admit I have been struck with a feeling ofnostalgia for something that I never quite experienced before with therelease of this collection. What's even worse is the sticker on thefront cover advertises as song as featured in a Dentyne Ice commercial.Regardgless, I'm pretty certain that there was a time in the 1990s thatcommercial alternative radio was occasionally adventurous and sometimessupported a local group who had a great song. The two most notablestations here in the USA were probably NY's WDRE and LA's KROQ.Boston's WFNX wasn't far behind, and here in Boston, we had our shareof local hits that never quite made much of a difference outside of theBay State, no matter how hard Kay Hanley tried. Papas Fritas wasn't aband who I felt much affinity for, but whenever "Lame to Be" or "HeyHey You Say" came on the radio I soaked it in. I wasn't terriblyimpressed with pop songs back in the mid-1990s, and Papas Fritas wereclearly obsessed with Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac and the Replacements.To their credit, they made the most impressive dense pop records theycould with the budget they had. Often recording on their own 8-trackrecorder, the core trio of Tim Goddess (guitar), Keith Gendel (bass),and Shivika Asthana (drums) each shared vocal duties, often singingtogether like a 1970s Hanna-Barbara cartoon band. Despite theirconfined conditions, the group were joined by string players, horns,and percussionists and achieved some sparkling clear results. Yetthere's a reason why these songs rarely stretch much longer than threeminutes: they've given away all the songs' secrets within the firstminute. It's the beauty of simple pop and what attracts so many peopleto the bloody Beach Boys. They didn't cloud their music with effectsand distortion, nor did they ever wander from the verse-chorus-versestructure, but listening now, there isn't a dull moment and everythingseems honestly direct. Named after their self-publishing company (and aplay on their name) this collects 17 musical tracks on one disc andthree music videos on a DVD. Most of the tracks are from bonus cuts offinternational releases, compilation tracks, and singles, but eight oftheir biggest radio album cuts from their three records also appear tomake it more of a hits package as well. It's nice for people like mewho would have honestly probably let their full-length records collectdust as well as fans who wanted fully digital versions of songs thatwere only available on cheaply made flimsy 7" records or expensiveimports. The video DVD is entertaining to watch, and the band's justtoo cute in "Hey Hey You Say" not to fall in love with them. It's aperfect visual accompaniment and I strongly encourage all labels tostart doing this. If there's anything the rest of the industry canlearn from this is that including multimedia extras as a bonus (ie: notmaking so many separate DVD releases, but tossing in a second disc likethey should) can only be a good thing.
I am somewhat ashamed to admit I have been struck with a feeling ofnostalgia for something that I never quite experienced before with therelease of this collection. What's even worse is the sticker on thefront cover advertises as song as featured in a Dentyne Ice commercial.Regardgless, I'm pretty certain that there was a time in the 1990s thatcommercial alternative radio was occasionally adventurous and sometimessupported a local group who had a great song. The two most notablestations here in the USA were probably NY's WDRE and LA's KROQ.Boston's WFNX wasn't far behind, and here in Boston, we had our shareof local hits that never quite made much of a difference outside of theBay State, no matter how hard Kay Hanley tried. Papas Fritas wasn't aband who I felt much affinity for, but whenever "Lame to Be" or "HeyHey You Say" came on the radio I soaked it in. I wasn't terriblyimpressed with pop songs back in the mid-1990s, and Papas Fritas wereclearly obsessed with Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac and the Replacements.To their credit, they made the most impressive dense pop records theycould with the budget they had. Often recording on their own 8-trackrecorder, the core trio of Tim Goddess (guitar), Keith Gendel (bass),and Shivika Asthana (drums) each shared vocal duties, often singingtogether like a 1970s Hanna-Barbara cartoon band. Despite theirconfined conditions, the group were joined by string players, horns,and percussionists and achieved some sparkling clear results. Yetthere's a reason why these songs rarely stretch much longer than threeminutes: they've given away all the songs' secrets within the firstminute. It's the beauty of simple pop and what attracts so many peopleto the bloody Beach Boys. They didn't cloud their music with effectsand distortion, nor did they ever wander from the verse-chorus-versestructure, but listening now, there isn't a dull moment and everythingseems honestly direct. Named after their self-publishing company (and aplay on their name) this collects 17 musical tracks on one disc andthree music videos on a DVD. Most of the tracks are from bonus cuts offinternational releases, compilation tracks, and singles, but eight oftheir biggest radio album cuts from their three records also appear tomake it more of a hits package as well. It's nice for people like mewho would have honestly probably let their full-length records collectdust as well as fans who wanted fully digital versions of songs thatwere only available on cheaply made flimsy 7" records or expensiveimports. The video DVD is entertaining to watch, and the band's justtoo cute in "Hey Hey You Say" not to fall in love with them. It's aperfect visual accompaniment and I strongly encourage all labels tostart doing this. If there's anything the rest of the industry canlearn from this is that including multimedia extras as a bonus (ie: notmaking so many separate DVD releases, but tossing in a second disc likethey should) can only be a good thing.
There's something about the current direction of independent hip hopthat makes it more interesting to listen to than most major labelstuff. The freedom to mix and match elements of other types ofunexpected music genres makes for great listening. Backing trackcompositions and production stand out on their own and can be just asinteresting as, if not more than, the MC's sharp rhymes and skillfuldelivery. Halifax-based Vaughn Robert Squire (aka Sixtoo) is a triplethreat as he handles the roles of DJ, MC and producer with equalprecision. Having contributed to collectives such as Anticon and theVinyl Monkeys, as well collaborating with fellow east coast Canadianhip hop artist Buck 65 for the Sebutones, Sixtoo is equally comfortablein each of those roles and the proof is apparent throughout Antagonist Survival Kit'sten tracks. The cool, relaxed groove of "A to Zero" is woven with tightrhymes and scratches, distant melodica lines and warm acoustic guitarpicking. An upper register bass guitar motif repeats on "Fear ofFlying" to clipped machine beats and pulsing synth drones beneathpolyrhythmic lines and rhymes. "Outremont Mainline Runs Across theSunset" brings sparse vibraphone to the mix of laid back, boomy drumloops and great lines such as "Love doesn't tear us apart/You see, it'sthe little things" and "When we start looking in mirrors forcharity/It's embarrassing." The impressive twenty minute instrumental"The Mile-End Artbike/Suicide Manual" moves through separate sectionsthat have the common thread of electronic/hip hop meets musiqueconcr?e, using other elements such as electric guitar, Rhodes piano andassorted percussion. Some of the disc's tracking is mixed with one andtwo minute interludes that could be seen as teasers as they stand outimmediately, only to subside and lead in the next great track. Sixtoohas been described as being an important catalyst for hip hop'sevolution and advancement. A few listens to Antagonist Survival Kit give weight to those words. 
There are three kinds of human, as you call them. There are the poordoomed huddled masses who are yet to hear Fennesz, cowering inignorance of the F-able; there are the enlightened who recognise him asa gloriously original experimental musician orbiting spheres way beyondmere progression; then there are total morons who probably waste theirtime listening to Britpap for lack of any clue whatsoever. The Austrianentity who has totally defined and redefined the interface betweenovergrown hedge cutting laptop mutation and pick'n'strum guitar beautyplayed for around forty-six minutes in Japan in the second month ofthis year. As the summer hit too hot to move, this CD fell into mylucky ol' player on the fifteenth and shimmered with utter perfection.If you didn't dig Endless Summeryou are not worth a flick of my fag ash, and I don't even smoke.Chrissy F as his friends almost certainly never call him (I mean haveyou seen the guy? He looks so serious no one could call him Chrissy F,except maybe that utterly punchable dillweed who tries to sing forBlur) would doubtless not approve of such an irrelevant sentance withparentheses appearing in what is after all supposed to be some kind ofdescription of his latest triumph. Hip Nips (the Jap chaps who clapquiet) hailed the master of cracklepops as the finest laptop performerthey had witnessed. Reviewed, it seemed that this was the inevitablehype of the press release, but the disc is ample amplified evidencethat this was one sweet shimmer burn of a unique event. Familiarfragments and refrains from Endless Summer are repositionedamongst ever more sundrenched light too bright. Fennesz has shifted hiswhole unmistakable shtick up a gear here, and made the magnificent Endless Summerseem like a mere rehearsal. If you are one of the enlightened then youknow you need this. If you want to elevate beyond the bilge this is thedisc to pick, yellow obi 'n' all. Bob Geldof has not been hailing thisas the greatest thing he's heard since the Pistols, and Fennesz hasnever tried to feed the world. How can you tell them it's Xmas timewhen the summer is endless? 
For me, the best music is the kind that digs its way underneath your skin, and momentarily seizes control, allowing every note to hit you at a deep, physical level that affects your body, increases your heart rate, and opens your eyes to the easily missed facets of its design. On their latest self-titled release, Gardenbox reveals a keen understanding of this concept. The music touches on calm excursions of thought as well as massive experimentations of melody, drone, and energy that boil your blood and viscera.
Mitchell Akiyama and Tony Boggs create wildly illustrative music bydestroying vocal and instrumental music that they record. Whatseperates this studio-foolery from other projects aimed at makingbeauty out of destroyed sounds is the way the chaos is controlled andshaped perfectly. D?ormais compose songs, plan their moves ahead oftime, and give their dying sounds life by stacking them together and ontop of each other in meaningful ways. It doesn't hurt that all thedrum, piano, string, and vocal parts were recorded by the group andthen disassembled and rearranged by the same people. Regardless of theprocess, the music is absolutely gorgeous. Bits and pieces of slideguitar, piano, and acoustic strumming cascade and flow as one stream ofmusic with each instrument sliding above and submerging beneath thesurface. Violins rattle, pop, hum, and echo throughout the backgroundcreating the illusion that this music must have been created in acathedral dedicated to dead and dying instruments and compositions longabandoned by their composers. The mass of sound is glowingly beautifuland never seems to repeat or ever hints at any patterns that it may bebased on. The creation of the music must've been a long and painfulprocess as no two songs sound alike and each features a variety ofinstrumentation used in various manners. "To Sing Before Going toSleep" is particularly good example of what can be done with awell-written song and an ear for space, silence, and timbres. It driftsso elegantly with mysterious female vocals nearly crying out from theslow flow of crystalline guitar picking and howling, unidentifiableinstruments. Each song sounds as if every second were random, but theresult is so perfect that I think it must've been planned that way. Iambroken...is a blueprint for what can be done with glitchy sounds and a bitcompositional patience. Of course defective sounds can be gorgeous, butthey're magnificent when composed and arranged in a way that feelsfamiliar. In all reality, however, it's truly alien.
"File under Electronic" says the promotional blurb. It seems thatSchematic are trying to sell this reissue of Velez 1985 release to theAutechre brigade. I can see the parallels but is trance-drumming whatthe electronica heads are after? Velez, a superb drummer and authorityon frame drums, their various traditional techniques and musicalstyles, draws on those references in five longish improvised piecesthat are ultimately not traditional music but his own. As with theelectronica, rhythmic framework is always apparent and layers ofcomplexity are added. But here every individual touch is a unique humangesture in real time as (opposed to programming and looping) and theresult is all the more exciting for it. Velez' control is amazing.While the tonic rhythms are never lost, their internal complexity isbuilt up and pushed to breaking point only to suddenly return home—theapparent instability was all an illusion with Velez in perfect controlthroughout. Since the rhythmic modes are quite clear it sounds morelike process music than improv and has the hypnotic character of goodminimalism. That and the overtone drone singing at a couple of pointsgives a hint of New-Ageism and World Music. In a certain sense, there'slittle difference between this and hippy drum circles. But practicallythe difference is enormous: Velez can really play, he devoted his lifeto mastery of these instruments, achieved that and it shows. Theexcitement of bravura virtuoso performance is the distinction. Velezcan create the illusion of as many as three drummers playing at once.This isn't to say that Velez is a flashy show-off—not at all, the musicis fairly muted with an aim at detail and nuance. The low dynamicsactually allow one to better hear the nature of the sound of thevarious drums he uses. At a surface level it may seem static butunderneath there enormous depth to the variation of both rhythm andsound. It can be quite the head-trip if you give it the opportunity,which I suppose is what Schematic hope all you Autechre fans will do. 
Typically I enjoy listening to scratches, hums, explosions, defectivemotors, swarms of bees, and intergalactic noise galore, but somehow Iam incredibly unimpressed with these exercises in manipulation. Itdoesn't even start off on the right foot: "Bsf”zyk 5" is the longestfour minutes and sixteen seconds I think I have ever sat through.Strings somehow caught on the event horizon of a blackhole pulse anddistort themselves while constantly being destroyed and repitched. It'sas if they are constantly gaining velocity only to lose it in whatsounds like a hyperspace effect from some sci-fi film. "Stocha AcidSlook" takes up just over twenty-one minutes of this forty minuterecording. It begins so promisingly with a low rumble sounding like theperpetual chant of a monk stuck on a solitary note. It slowly developsinto a more abrasive track filled with high pitched waverings of birdsmutated by a nuclear meltdown. It might read as if it is entertaining(and the first few minutes are), but after awhile it becomes moreannoying than people chattering over the music at a concert. After theonslaught of sound, the remaining tracks feel like little leftovers orhalf thought-out soundscapes that go nowhere and do nothing for thealbum as a whole. Perhaps an entire release dedicated to these littleshorts would make for an entertaining listen. It's their placement nextto this one, mammoth piece that makes them feel insignificant. Afterawhile everything begins to sound the same and all the effects becomeso foreign as to be completely alien. There are some fascinatingmoments here and there, but it ultimately distances itself too far fromme. There's no way for me to relate to it as it has almost no emotivequalities: eventually glithced out noise like this will have to findsome familiar ground to touch upon to survive. The effect of becomingso abstract is not always fascination, sometimes it just leads to plainold frustration. 
Andrew Schrock's Grounded Records promises to release music fromartists who are forward thinkers in today's soundscape. If thiscompilation is any indication, the label has a strong future. Followingthe release of a handful of singles, Grounded Soundis the label's first CD release, featuring tracks donated by artistsSchrock respects as well as some repeat participants the label hasworked with previously, such as Greg Davis. All of the artists involvedgenerate ambient compositions with some level of digital processing.Several of them reveal manic tendencies, as well, with structures thatshuffle and shiver above the static sounds below. The end result is anextremely pleasurable experience, one that puts the mind and body atease with an elegant mix of similar styles yet different approaches.E*rock's "Ice Museum," for instance, is a slow-build hum withoccasional beeps and swishes and lovely vocals, while Melodium'sacoustic guitar-based "Impropre" starts! gently enough but then getsinterrupted and broken by all sorts of computer madness. Both tracksproduce the same feeling, but through different means and withdifferent components. Every track is a standout, from the here andthere stutter of Misterinterrupt, to the drum and tumble of DonMennerich, and on to the glow and gurgle of Charles Atlas. It's amazinghow cohesive the compilation is considering the fact that twelveartists participate, and although a few of the tracks are previouslyreleased elsewhere, it's full of new music that stimulates as well asit impresses.
After two years of experimentation and intense exploration, the artcollective known as Cerberus Shoal are finally prepared to unleash anew sound on the unsuspecting populace. The fusion with Tarpigh nowdefunct, the Shoal have been working with different artists on theirsplit EP series, seemingly searching for the right meld of identitieswith which to continue. Though those EPs showed some impressive, whileconvoluted, structures, this is where the real meat is. Chaiming the Knoblessoneis Cerberus Shoal at their most stunning, most ethereal, mosttheatrical, and most confused; and all of that has never sounded socarefully planned. It's a brand new language almost, or an originaltake on storytelling, melding equal parts rock, jazz, folk, and MiddleEastern music into a new type of spiritual. These are the songs of atribe of modern minstrels, detailing the woe and glory of a people whohad no hope but still strived. Perhaps it's a musical oral history,with a little bit of dramatic infusion and random leanings. With fivetracks over the eleven minute mark, Chaiming is also like anight at the opera of the human mind, with longer movements making wayfor grand exploits to taint your dreams and synapses. "Apatrides"starts with low chants and "oohs" that build to a chorus of madmenchanting random thoughts about "river skins" and "shadow-bentreveries." Suddenly, the twisted sounds of trumpets and accordionsannounce the arrival of a brain dance, where psychoses and neurosesmingle and mate with abandon. It departs just as suddenly, as theelectron thought bursts of "Mrs. Shakespeare Torso" arrive, whichdissolve into sweet voices, more accordion, and warped scales onstringed instruments. The climax of Act One, though, "Sole of Foot ofMan," is the most pure approach of all, with acoustic guitar strums,swirls of electric instruments, and strained male vocals joined byghostly female harmony. It has hints of every era of Cerberus Shoalwith the flavorings of the future, and is a beautiful and bravearrangement. The intermission of "A Paranoid Home Companion" isfrightening with its helium computer voice and trial of views that doesnot fully impress as a song, but as a scene it is fantastic. Act Twosoars above it all, with "Ouch" continuing with the madman chorus andthe ghostly harmony, but relying more on stringed instruments andstructured percussion. The struggle explodes at the end of the track,and then the aftermath is detailed in calmer tones and occasionalbursts of singing for the remainder of the album. As music, this is adifficult piece, as these compositions are jarring and loose, notadhering to any structure; plus it must be listened to in its entiretyto be appreciated. But as a piece of theatre, this is bold stuff,capable of changing whole landscapes with its power. Cerberus Shoalhave found a new direction worth pursuing, and anyone along for theride is guaranteed to have a frighteningly good time. Chaiming the Knoblessoneis available now on North East Indie's site and on September 2nd instores, when a second full-length will also be available on thewebsite.
Coinciding with the release of Mutant Disco, Ze unleashes another collection, this time concentrating on their other label specialty. No-wave was a short-lived outgrowth of post-punk concentrating on short, powerful bursts of atonal rock, with agitated vocals, primitive percussion and explosions of free jazz. The no-wave current lives on today through current bands like Erase Errata, Q and Not U and Liars that have obviously been influenced by the original NYC zeitgeist. Ze Records is using a relatively loose definition of the genre for this collection, including slightly off-topic contributions from synth-pop pioneers Suicide and more dance-oriented material from Lizzy Mercier Descloux. It all holds together well, though, making this a worthwhile compilation containing many previously hard-to-find tracks.
