For those who first heard Retina on Hefty's 'Immediate Action' seriesand fell in love like I, a full-length is now readily available. Whilethere's a sea of electronic piranhas trying to out-chomp each other interms of experimentalism, in turn stretching technology beyond alistenable threshold, a certain amount of composition and structure hasbecome compromised. Thankfully labels like Chicago-based Hefty havebeen focusing on releasing musicians who aren't necessarily pushing theboundaries, but doing an awesome job at the music they're doing.Retina's full-lengther pulls in some supersonic high pitched elementsand swirls them up in an effective dub-influenced mix combining awonderful serving of low-end bass, and attractive head-bobbing beats.Picture 90s-era Richard H. Kirk that doesn't bore you for 8 minuteseach song or stretch far longer than an hour. Not coming clear yet? Howabout a true intelligent dance music act who at loud volumes causesuncontrollable hip and brain gyrations? Yeah, it's pretty damned cool.
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6 yrs ago Peter Adarkwah and Ben Jolly graduated from their legendary,free-form turntable exhibitions in London (known to include a mixtureof brazilian grooves, hip-hop, funk, disco, techno and the like) toembark on a progressive mission. Their label, "Barely Breaking Even",has laced us with the rare jems of those genres and more since. Thelatest BBE releases, housed 'neath the "Beat Generation" umbrella, areno exception. Hold tight as I mention Marley Marl, Jazzy Jeff, DJSpinna, and my personal favorite, 88 keys in the same sentence. Nowimagine that same list to include King Britt, Pete Rock, and Jay Dee;then give them the freedom to do whatever they want. Sound sick? Well,the first two presents from this series are just that. Jay Dee's'Welcome to Detroit' and Pete Rock's 'Petestrumentals' offer, rather,pave us a new direction in hip-hop, while raising the bar in productionto a stellar level.
Pete Rock can be credited for creating the smooth, jazzy, downtempofeel, that others like Jay Dee are perfecting today. 'Petestrumentals'is like an educational pamphlet, detailing the proper way to constructan emcee canvas. It refrains from becoming a cluttered, "over-the-top"production effort, and leaves room for vocal compliments. For instance,'The Boss' sultley shows his fine sample manipulation by initiallyusing a simple piano loop for the songs first few bars. It then beginsplaying backwards, all in timely fashion. 'Play Dis Only at Night'takes the very familiar bass line in 'Check the Rhime' and almost makesyou forget that someone else tried to use it previously. 
Those who have followed Spring Heel Jack's evolution from day one through last year's collaboration with Low and the Disappeared LP think they might have been prepared for what was next, right? Perhaps. Last year the Blue Series from Thirsty Ear surfaced with The Matthew Shipp Quartet's album, 'Pastoral Composure', this year Shipp and an extended family have been paired up with the former early drum 'n bass champions, Spring Heel Jack for the continuum of the Blue Series.
Nick Willscher is a New York City-based sound sculptor whose ambitiousCD-R trilogy "Solutiore of Stareau" probably slipped beneath your radarlast year. Well, don't worry, it did mine too. Now disc one isavailable as the debut release from Infraction Records, the new inhouse imprint of music retailer Riouxs Records, following up on thereissue of disc three as "Willscher" by Apartment B Records. This 70minute continuous piece (indexed at the noticeable transitions everyfive minutes) is a fairly minimal, malleable mass of low volume sound.Tones and soft fuzz abruptly flicker on/off to give a cut-up pulse tothe otherwise lukewarm haze. Unidentifiable fragments surface and sinkhelping to create an otherworldly effect. Meanwhile, a beautiful,recurring drone signature slowly swan dives in and out of a handful oftracks. But perhaps the most beautiful moment of all is thedeconstruction that takes place within the final track, the previoushour plus gently fading from short-term memory in crackles and signalnoise. Altogether it makes me think of what a Vladislav Delay trackre-processed by Kurt Ralske might sound like: soundscape bliss, though,not quite as breathtakingly so as Delay's "Anima". Regardless, keep anear out for this guy (as well as Infraction) 'cause he's definitelyonto something. Zammuto has since appeared on numerous compilations andthe drastically different "Full Martyr Status" remix EP is availablefor download from notype.com. 
Veritable one-man-band J.G. Thirlwell returns with his first fulllength as Foetus proper since 1995's somewhat misguided major labeleffort "Gash". Holed up in his well-stocked NYC-based studio, theself-proclaimed 'Master of Disaster' learns and uses whatever he needsto forge his unique brand of industrial-jazz-swing-big-band-rock. With"Flow" he hasn't reinvented the wheel but he has built a better mousetrap. The over-saturation of heavy guitar that plagued "Gash" has beentastefully restricted to let the underbelly of sound flourish. Poundingrhythms — often constructed of jackhammers, shattered glass and metalon metal — lay a solid foundation for dense arrangements of horns,strings, bass, guitars, synths, samples and the one and only caterwaul.It could very easily be a giant mess, and in a way it is, butgloriously so as Thirlwell's composition skills are the glue that holdsit all together. And lyrically he's as clever as ever with numerous andhumorous insights, clich³s, puns, and pop culture references. "QuickFix" and "The Need Machine" are fun to sing along with as they knockyou down. "Cirrhosis of the Heart" draws a parallel between love andalcoholism over a lighthearted cocktail jazz jaunt. "Mandelay" and theepic, near 13 minute "Kreibabe" juxtapose quiet and simply brutalpassages. One of my favorite lines from the latter - "I wanna whisk youaway with me / I'll be the whisker / you be the whiskey". "Suspect" isa film noir joyride while "Heuldoch 7B" is pure big band bombast."Someone Who Cares" is foetal pop, featuring lovely horn and guitarsolos and female backing vocals. Yep, "Flow" is quintessential, classicFoetus. Other projects in the can: Manorexia "Volvox Turbo" (availablenow at the shows or foetus.org) and the companion album "Blow"(September 16) with remixes by Panacea, Amon Tobin, DJ Food, FranzTreichler of The Young Gods, Kid 606, Jay Wasco, PanSonic, CharlieClouser, Phylr, Ursula 1000, Kidney Thieves/Sean Beavan and Thirlwellhimself. Foetus are currently on tour in the U.S. through July.
Manorexia is J.G. Thirlwell, aka Foetus, and he is the sole person toblame for this 64 minute instrumental suite. "Volvox Turbo" is asoundtrack for ... something. A psychodramatic thriller? A good/badnight's sleep? An acid trip gone horribly right/wrong? All of theabove? Yes. Here Thirlwell engages in experimental territory similar tosome of the work of former collaborators Coil and Nurse With Wound,merging together 14 varied and indexed movements. Excepting a handfulof prescribed panic attacks, much of the journey is a surreal sort ofsubdued ambiance comprised of strings, horns, flutes, tinker bells,drone, line noise and found sounds. Juxtaposed within are bits ofethnic travelogue such as the gypsy swirl of "Helicobra", Hawaiian firedance of "Tiki Envy" and rain forest atmosphere intro of "TubercularBells". The mood gradually shifts gears multiple times from smooth andsoothing to tense and climactic, artfully amusing to deadly serious,cherubic to downright menacing. It's really a rather stunning piece ofwork, an antithesis of the latest Foetus album "Flow" but equallyinteresting, and more proof of Thirlwell's multifaceted abilities."Volvox Turbo" is available at the Foetus shows through July orfoetus.org.
This debut Beneath Autumn Sky EP on Hefty is five tracks of phat beats, wondrous melodics, and fulfilling bass. While it's noted that B.A.S. have come from a lifestyle of B-boyin, squatting, and living outside the boundaries of normal society, they have created what seems to me like a beautifully crafted mixture of old school sounds and new-school technique. It "keeps it real" on every level I could think of, and while I listen, the world around me seems to shapeshft into a land of wild landscapes and infinite possibilities.
The title of this collaboration between Will Oldham (Bonnie Billy,Palace) and Mick Turner (Marquis De Tren, Dirty Three) is something ofa misnomer: its twenty-odd minutes of dark and achey love songs neverreach the rolling twang of other Oldham or the thundering gallop ofsome Dirty Three. Not much gettin' on or jolliness here. Instead, thealbum reverberates with sonorous, swelling sprinklings of tremblingguitar, organ, and Oldham's plaintitive vocals, all steeped incountry-flavored ambience. Reverb is used liberally and to stunningeffect, drawing out the subtley shifting layers of instrumentation andfilling out the simplicity of their arrangement. Percussion (mostlycymbals) is only used on one track, and sparingly. Lyrically, as wellas musically, 'Get on Jolly' rouses the pangs in the bones and ache inthe chest of any dramatic and dreary rainy day. Pain and desireinspired by unobtainable or unexplainable beauty, loves absent ormisplaced, slowness and longing — all are significant themes on thisdisc. Despite (or maybe because of) the simplicity of Oldham's lyrics,a slightly odd turn of phrase deals a stunning blow. In "2/15" Oldhamsings praises of a woman who seems out of his reach: "hidden in theheart of things you make flowers into edible things" and "in the armsof your old charms, let me forever bask / or is that too much to ask"are two of the most striking and beautiful lines. My only complaint forthis impressive, intricate EP is: too short!
