E.E and The Owl Archimedes love dancing to death... literally. Adoringly these two sculptors have put one of the world's most-revered tunes to the chopping block and, by virtue of its eradication, developed a new spectrum of radiant sounds and mutant un-rhythms to enjoy. This is a requiem for the dancing queen, who in death sounds as marvelous as she did in life.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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This rare second album from the band gets new life, five extra bonus tracks, and a bit wider recognition on its reissue on Tzadik (on the "Fullforce Composer Series," seriously John, is there a series to go along with every album you release?). All kidding aside, that is a pretty good description of the style presented here. Shards of metal, hardcore punk, jazz, and the avant garde all come together here, somehow as a congealed package.
By all accounts this is a metal album. From the dark, lo-fi black-and-white artwork, gore-ified fonts and titles, I expected some form of death or black metal, and I was pretty much right on target. Now, knowing the label that put this out, I assumed it couldn't be just any generic metal album, because Alien8 is known for leaning towards the experimental.
Italy's Alessandro Tedeschi (the man behind both the ambient Netherworld outfit and Glacial Movements) seems to be waging a one-man campaign through his label to make us aware of the fragility of the icy snowbound environments situated at both poles of our planet. This release, by fellow Italian ambient artist Oöphoi (Gianluigi Gasparetti), is the label's fourth foray and steadfastly continues the tradition set by the previous three in bringing extended and hauntingly crystalline sound explorations of these threatened environments.
27 has quietly become one of my favorite bands over the last few years and their latest album is the perfect explanation for why that is. I'm an unashamed fan of pop music, and I am thankful that there is a band like 27 that continues to offer a reason to love hooks, lyrics, and songs.
Taking for the name of her band the title of her previous album, Carla Bozulich's latest broadcast is as unsettling as it is beautiful. Crushing No Wave-style rhythms sit beside milder, contemplative songs; the contrasts making for an album that in lesser hands could end up sounding disjointed and fragmented but, thanks to Bozulich's vision and the stellar cast of musicians accompanying her, Hello, Voyager is more than a collection of songs on a CD. It is a call to arms against all that is wrong with the world.
Son Lux, otherwise known as Ryan Lott, hails originally from Denver and is now based in New York. Here he presents us with his debut CD of 11 exquisitely styled and crafted slow-burn songs, a pleasing marriage of lean classicalism with trip- and hip-hop beats, and the whole flavored with a distinctly otherworldly ambience. Only three months into 2008 and I have already come across a possible contender for best of year.
The three names emblazoned on the simple and stark cover of this CD should be familiar to most people here–Duncan, von Hausswolff, Koner, and Tietchens have been around for many, many years, establishing themselves as elder statesmen of the scene. The present disc features three extended explorations recorded live, committed to tape in San Francisco, Montreal, and London, and represent a summation perhaps of the combined artistry and talent that these people have shown us all these years.
It is safe to say that noise as a genre has officially achieved crossover status. There were hints at this before, such as Wolf Eyes landing on Sub Pop and delivering rhythmic, yet still brutal punk influenced noise and Prurient becoming a Pitchfork pin-up boy for the genre. Fuck Buttons (my early winner for subtle band name of the year award) have adopted some of the harsher elements of noise, but framed it with melody and other musical elements that somehow works.
It doesn’t take a psychic to figure that two members of the Boredoms and one from Reynols getting together for live improvisations are probably not going to be creating smooth jazz or g-funk era R&B. Across the four tracks and all possible permutations of the trio (the first three tracks feature each working as duos before the final full trio lineup), there’s enough psychedelic tomfoolery to satisfy even the most jaded of adventurous listeners.
