Miss Autopsy shares a lot of common ground with early Mountain Goats, such as uncomfortably raw vocals and a tendency towards rather wordy narrative lyrics. However, Steve Beyerink has something that John Darnielle does not: a singular propensity for squirm-inducingly soul-baring misanthropy and pessimism that precludes absolutely any possibility of widespread acceptance. While certainly somewhat flawed, this album is not an easy one to forget.
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While many artists use the sonic medium as a canvas to paint imaginary journeys conceptually through sound and instrumentation, this Australian duo takes the concept to a more literal point by utilizing recordings of actual events and elements referenced in the track titles in addition to traditional instrumentation. The result is a wonderfully dark, post-rock tinged trip that shows the 12k label is at the cusp of more than just laptop programming and art installation sounds.
With these two being recorded in 2008, it is not surprising that these two LPs from this solo project have a similar sound and vibe to them, though both do go in somewhat different directions, with Psychosis focusing on the droning slow space rock material, while Night Flights opens the sonic pallet up to include more than just guitar and bass, but primitive analog electronics as well. They both definitely take minimalist droning guitar into a more astral plane than usual, however.
For its maiden release, the new Staalplaat sublabel Le Petit Mignon has issued this clear little 7" in gaudy, bright packaging with each of the artists tackling a side. Between Chessex (Monno) abusing his saxophone and Riviere (Textile Orchestra) destroying an electrophone, the results is a precious few minutes of pure sonic destruction.
Given that this is a collaboration between a noise duo, a toy collector, and guy known for sometimes playing an electrified rake, it is not entirely surprising that this recording session is a bizarre Dadaist mess. Nevertheless, I remain deeply confounded by it all and cannot begin to guess what exactly the participants were attempting to achieve or to what degree they may have succeeded.
In this, the third installment of the Songs trilogy, Matt Elliott continues to celebrate the values and world-views of working class peoples. If Drinking Songs was dedicated to the worlds favorite pastime, and Failing Songs was about the impossibility of hope when faced with the magnitude of the worlds ills, then Howling Songs is the cathartic venting of bottled up pain. Here Matt Elliott is found screaming into an unrelenting wind, and sounding better than ever before.
Friendly Pants finds Sakata, now 65 years young, as agile and observant as ever. Joined by the equally virtuosic duo of Darin Gray on double bass and Chris Corsano on drums—here known by the collective name of Chikamorachi—Sakata's heartfelt blasts of alto saxophone find a rhythm section more than competent to bring seduction to post-bop jazz.
Brain Foote, along with Honey Owens, Paul Dickow, and a few new faces, have produced one of the most varied and unique records I've heard all year. The progress won on their Infinity Padlock EP has been further refined into a near seamless blend of miscellaneous musical styles and sleek, spaced-out atmospheres. With As Good As Gone Nudge has entered a world all their own; nobody else sounds quite like they do.
This is the first release from these long time friends and collaborators. Having been cohorts for 40 forty years, playing in groups together as far back as 1974, this album captures a day's recording back in 1992. My preconceptions of this collection of vintage home recordings being like the musique concrète stylings of early Dead Voice On Air were shattered within seconds of the album's opening track. I will confess to stopping the LP and taking out the disc to check it was the right album.
This second collaboration between these two veterans of the 1980s UK noise/cassette underground is enigmatically rooted in the works of Lewis Carroll and schizophrenic outsider artist August Natterer. The result is an engaging, yet temporally dislocated, foray into ambient industrial music that sometimes favorably recalls some of Cabaret Voltaire's more abstract and loop-based moments (as well as a host of darker, and more sociopathic, tape-based experimentalists).
