"Musipal" is Luke Vibert's fourth album as Wagon Christ and debut forNinja Tune. I've always been a moderate fan of Vibert, I don't listento his music all that much but I buy everything he puts out, listen toit for a week or so, file it away and pull it back out on occasion.This album is much the same as past ones with lots of goofy easylistening mid tempo dance for the party. Super crisp and clean beatsset the electro-hiphop-soul-jazz-funk foundation for numerous sampleanecdotes and melodies. "The Premise" sets the agenda with plentifulspoken samples - 'the premise of this album is, well, the danceactually, dance business, the highest definition ever achieved inrecording'. "Bend Over" features the sped up tale of a young Brit who'scertain he will have to 'bend for it' to get what he wants. "ThickStew" is quite serious at first, that is, until the animal sounds comein. The spoken mantra that gives "It Is Always Now, All of It Is Now"its title is damn near satanic in its distorted repetition. "Boney L"has an extra thick bass line for its mere 2 minutes. "Tomorrow Acid"intensifies the bleep factor while "Perkission" ends the album on amore up-tempo bossa nova tinged rhythm and even more jungle sounds.Yep, "Musipal" is pretty cool. Vibert will be DJing all over the worldthroughout June ...samples: * Boney L * It is Always Now, All of it is Now * The Premise
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After two full-length albums, one of collaborations and loads ofremixes and other appearances, Mice Parade is no longer a 'sideproject' of Dylan Group member and Bubble Core founder, Adam Pierce.The man is musically a one-man powerhouse, multi-talentedmulti-instrumentalist, collecting influences like a world travellerpicking up intereting souvenirs wherever he finds them. On the businessside of things, his work with Bubble Core shows a seemingly undyinglove for music and desire to share and exchange others' music from allover the world. [note: Americans can thank him for making Sigur Ros andother Fat Cat releases available in this country along with a selectfew of other odd labels and artists.] Be jealous, be very jealous ofhis incredible amounts of talent, but respect his hard work and skill.Mice Parade's third full-length disc once again is another maximalisticgroove-ride: a joyful adventure down a bouncy instrumentalpost-tortoise-rock path with jazz, beatbox, South American and Asianinfluences bleeding into the mix. The disc opens up with two 'jams' ofAdam essentially playing with himself. On these songs (spread over sixtracks) Adam displays flawless mastery of drums, vibes, guitars, synthand cheng (chinese harp). His relentless skills are perfectlycomplimented by his talent of making great songs: to clearlydistinguish his music from a music performance college final project -to make it enjoyable. While the rest of the following tracks featurevarious ensembles, Pierce remains the centerpiece. The musicsurprisingly maintains a linear and sensical flow, evolving with guestplayers on strings, sax, drums and voices, keeping up the sameemotioanly charged groove and feel established from the start. Everysong on here is a new adventure in modern music. At the end I'mstunned, appreciative and wondering where he finds all the time towrite, practice and play.
Former member of Flying Saucer Attack Rachel Brook has turned to alighter touch with her current project. Far from the murky feedbackdrenched, distortion driven soundscapes of FSA, Movietone barely peepswith the sounds of subdued Latin jazz, post-rock minimalism, and thewispy coo of Kate Wright. While the result succeeds in inclining theear, the album never really arrives. With a scant range of sparse andslow to deliberate and detached songs-and hardly an emotionalregister-the songs build an impassive tension that never releases. Thesustained mildness, the still and dreamy stroll of Movietone can besuprisingly...oppressive. When "The Blossom Filled Streets" finallyhits a gallop, it's as if the band has stopped holding its breath. Whathas been missing becomes startlingly present: change, direction,attitude. Though many critics have described Movietone as morose andeven "emotionally draining," it seems The Blossom Filled Streets hasmore to do with paralysis than emanation. If there's anythingdepressing about this album, it's the lack of expressiveness ratherthan the expression of lack. The core of most songs is a heavystillness pushed about by varied instrumentation (including clarinet,acoustic and electric guitar, piano, bass, drums, viola, and guicello).Often, the delicate colors added by each instrument seem to gesturetowards the many spaces and silences on the album rather thancommunicate in themselves. Some might enjoy this band's impressionism.Me, I'm not too impressed.
Improvising cellist Daniel Weaver is best known as a former member ofthat rum bunch of plunderphonic organ transplanters Stock, Hausen andWalkman. 'Pulse' is a dance work for six women, performed by Echo EchoDance Theatre Company of Derry, Northern Ireland. The music Danielcomposed for it displays a more serious side, and unlike the frequentjump cuts of Stock, Hausen and Walkman is comprised of mostly fairlylong pieces which shift and evolve relatively slowly, running into eachother at walking pace for the seventy minute duration.
Loren MazzaCane Connors has made a career of serene guitarwork:ambient, atmospheric, sparse, spacious, or whichever word you feelwould classify it best. The latest disc pulls together fourteen newguitar melodies for a collection just shy of 40 minutes. While there isa time and place for Connors' music: like having tea and reading a bookbefore going to bed, I personally am feeling rather unsatisfied, almostas if there needs to be something more this time around. I've heardthis entire formula before from Connors on previous releases. On top ofthat, I can't shake the thought that I feel I'm listening to a MarkKnopfler soundtrack the whole while. Connors knows all about making arich and beautiful sound out of one source, treated guitar, but it'sgrowing tired and the guy needs to start working with some people againto get some fresh ideas and external sounds going. Having one CD likethis in your collection is encouraged, having 20 is excessive.
Also to be filed under the "just not enough" category this week is thelatest solo release from Pan Sonic member Ilpo Vaisanen. The disc alsoclocks in under 40 minutes with eight tracks which seem almostheartless/soul-less when listened to alongside Pan Sonic releases.While it started out rather promising, on the whole the disc feelsbland, thin, repetitive, thoughtless and unfinished. The disc is shortand rather sketchwork-esque in nature. The "songs" utilize the sametypes of electronic sounds and styles that can be heard commonly on PanSonic releases, yet comparitively speaking, the songs here are lackingin depth. While I'd like to be able to separate the different entities,it's hard to listen and not compare the them as the sound sources arepretty much the same. The low-end drone/low-tech pulse combo of"Vallitseva" for example sounds achingly familiar, almost as if it waspracticed live but discarded for album releases. The stereoscopicallyphased-out "Jaett" also echoes grounds covered in previous releases.I'm left somewhat confused, wondering if this was something Ilpo hadpromised to Mego or whether it was something old and kicking around,perhaps rejected by previously issuing record labels like Mute orRaster-Noton. 
Slick Idiot is En Esch and Guenter Schulz, the other half of KMFDM thatdidn't become MDFMK, and this is the mail order debut from their ownItchy Records. Surprise! It sounds an awful lot like KMFDM and that'sfine with me. And goofy band name and album title aside, it sure isgood to hear these guys again. The basic formula is the same: Esch'sdistinctive deep growl, Schulz's metal riffage, dance beat and synthprogramming (less flashy and complex than KMFDM/MDFMK), some femaleco-/backing vocals and sing-along choruses. Lyrically Esch foregoes thesociopolitical rabble rousing of his former band in favor of moreemotional and interpersonal topics. "Lazy" is the most humorous withEsch and a female trading off old school rap styled boasts such as"yeah I'm En Esch and you can't fuck me - I got my shit on your recordand shiny CD". "Forgive Me" drops the guitar while the following tracks"Idiot" and "Get Down - Give In [Sex Song]" provide the heaviest andsexiest riffs of the disc, as well as the barely adequate rapping ofone Middleman on the former. Pretty good, though I know they're capableof more judging from Esch's superb '93 solo album "Cheesy" and Schulz'sremixes for KMFDM. Full length mp3s and video clips are available atslickidiot.com ...
I cannot tell a lie, this collection is seriously borderingpointlessness. Pointless to a rabid music fan like myself and pointlessfor just about anybody other than a coffee shop or convenience storeowner. Yes, this is truly elevator music for Generation Y. Even AmandaPalmer commented that the packaging and the cleverly typeset tracklist(which separated artist from song title) "reeks of pretention." And itis quite pretentious. According to the booklet, all of these 39 artistsare part of a "new movement in music" (not a genre) where they're allworshipping glitches, expanding on the concept of a mistake. DoesPanacea, Kid 606, or Ryoji Ikeda consider themselves as makers ofglitch music, exploiting mistakes, eager to be lumped in with AlvaNoto, Vladislav Delay or Fennez? If I were any of these artists I wouldseriously question Mille-Plateaux's motives. Reading onwards in thebooklet, one would interpret this collection as a concept of mistakes.Disc one is truly a mistake with an abhorring mastering job which jumpsin volumes from track to track, clumsily unbalanced tracks haphazardlywhipped up on a computer. By track 10, the cleverly named Random_Inc.makes me almost cry to realize there's another couple hours of thisleft to go. Disc two luckily is a different take, but unfortunately thetake wears weak shortly. The artists here like Brinkmann or Kid 606 arebig disco fans who don't want to pay for or lug around a keyboard. It'slittered with thumpy bumpy artificial bass drum kicks, tacky cheap drummachies, and songs absent of concept, melody, or structure.Unfortunately these "artists" generally end the track two minutes afterit becomes completely unbearable. Disc three has the mostmusically-oriented pieces on here, with contributions from Matmos,Pansonic, CAT Politics, M2,Cyclo (Ryoji Ikeda with Carsten Nicolai) and Kit Clayton. Not only isthe collection on the third disc musically charged, it sounds likeserious, calculated tunes as opposed to accidental sounds over the lastcouple hours. I'm impressed with the opener from Twerk, as well as thewarm sounds of Fennesz, and the comical album closer from DAT Politics.Matmos of course are the A-team of electronica. As far as I can tellthese tracks are exclusive, which is good for fans as the disc doescome at a very reasonable price, easy to skip over the crap. Okay, somaybe I was harsh at first, but if this were reduced to the last CDonly in the set, I'd be behind it 100%.
A family group that includes five actual siblings (actual surnameSmith) and three "adopted" members, Danielson Famile was originally thecollege senior thesis of oldest brother Daniel. Their bizarre mix offolk and gospel influences, cacophonous circus-clowns-gone-amok tootand squeal, and Christian message enchants and unnerves listeners ofall and no faiths. Think vocals like Frank Black at his most unhingedand music like the psycho-psychedelic lurch of Captain Beefheartapplied to merry-go-round tunes. Its heavy dosage of sweet and surrealsilliness may make it more of a novelty than a standard in my cdplayer, but the Secretly Canadian re-release of 'Tri-Danielson [Alpha]'includes songs that everyone -must- hear. In fact, I've played"Pottymouth" for just about everyone I know. The majority of the songis a spoken conversation between two girls, in which one of themrelates an unsuccessful first date. Apparently the bad boy is also abit of a klutz — while changing a flat tire, the car falls on hisfoot... which he later drops a bowling ball on. After each incident theunfortunate suitor speaks in a "strange language" (cursing representedby emphatic gibberish in the background of the track, of course).What's a girl to do when, at the end of the night, the loser tries tosteal a kiss? The screeching sing-song tell-off is: "WON'T KISS NOPOTTYMOUTH! AWAY WITH POTTYMOUTH! ZIP UP THAT POTTYMOUTH!" Otherhighlights include "Rubbernecker," a rollicking indictment of lecherousmen, and "Between the Lines of the Scout Signs," which reclaims themiddle finger from its social stigma. Yup: "Shake hands with thatmiddle finger! Put 'em up right now, you heard me! Put 'em up rightnow! I SAID PUT 'EM UP!" If you're not yet enthused, check out aDanielson Famile show, in which the band regularly sports homemadenurse uniforms that symbolize "the spiritual and emotional healingtaking place" and Daniel has performed from within a 9-foot-tall,homemade papier-mache tree.
