Alessandra Celletti has previously interpreted Glass, Gurdjieff and Satie with her splendidly vivid piano style. This third album of dramatic original material adds vocals and drums on some pieces and, incidentally, reminds me why I listen to music.
Look up Music for gazing upwards brought to you by Meat Beat Manifesto & scott crow, +/-, Aurora Borealis, The Veldt, Not Waving & Romance, W.A.T., The Handover, Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Mulatu Astatke, Paul St. Hilaire & René Löwe, Songs: Ohia, and Shellac. Aurora Borealis image from California by Steve. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
|
While this moderately hyped debut showcases the tried-and-true qualities of these two seasoned rockers decorated with bloodstained major label merit badges and a priceless caliber of indie credibility, rarely does it step outside their established comfort zones to celebrate this sacred union of American misanthropes.
An established New England artist, Murray has worked in the framework of "drone" for quite a while now. Before it was the trendy thing to do, I might add. In that respect, it is no surprise that his work transcends the "let's see how long we can sustain this note for" school, but more of the pure, dissonant minimalism akin to the old masters like Niblock and Xenakis. What comprises this album then is therefore dissonant and difficult, yet compelling and hypnotic in its brutish subtlety.
A three way live improvisation recorded at the Musica Genera festival in 2006, the 30 minute set (indexed as 4 tracks for convenience) manages to be extraordinary abstract in sound, yet features some of the most structurally sound improvisational elements that I have heard in years. Crossing the often faint boundaries between electro-acoustic, ambience, and free jazz, it is pretty unique in its overall sound.
For reasons unknown, Thomas Brinkmann's Georgian muse simultaneously presents her third and fourth full-length releases for the clandestine Max Ernst imprint, comprising three discs worth of all-new material. Seldom groundbreaking, flagrantly derivative, and intermittently appealing, Natalie Beridze's purposefully glitchy compositions appear apropos of the icier temperatures of the season.
Instrumental bands are everywhere and invariably they sound like some combination of Mogwai, Godspeed and Explosions in the Sky. Other influences creep in but rarely do they escape the dreaded "post rock" tag, not without some gimmick anyway. The Jimmy Cake do manage to come across as being separate to this whole thing, despite on paper sounding like they are the archetypal late '90s/early '00s art rock band: nine core members, string section, unusual instruments and long songs. No, they are more than that; they have a creative spirit that pushes them beyond their contemporaries.
Just over a year after Klick Revolution, the dazzling, spiritual sequel to 2000's much lauded Klick, the veteran boundary-pushing German techno producer strives—and invariably fails—to capture a claustrophobic personal experience. A risible counterfeit masquerading as artsy, post-millennial singer-songwriter fare, this atypical record exhausts its pretense almost immediately and rarely recovers from the obviously nonexistent heft of false malaise.
While folk music these days seems to have forgotten all the traditional songs that make it the music of the folk, some artists are remembering the old songs that sound as vibrant today as they probably did when they were performed first. Directing Hand know what they are up to when it comes to traditional music, there is a reverence for these songs yet no fear of adding the sound of a new generation to the pieces. Combining these dusty old tunes with improvised pieces of their own, this album is a true new folk music; it sounds like the here and now.
Nobody will ever be able to accuse Pan Sonic of holding back from their fans. The duo has always been quite generous: issuing albums which are double the length of the average full-length, with the exception of Kesto, a -four- disc set of all new material priced reasonably; releasing numerous albums in various configurations, either solo or with others; and even opening the floor out to their fans for offers of places to perform. This, their first official DVD release is quite a present for the fans, however, it's not a monumental accomplishment in their catalog for the more pedestrian consumer.
The looming silhouettes of the pyramids on the cover give some idea of what to expect on Sam Shalabi's latest release. Born in Egypt and finished in Canada, Eid is an eclectic and ecstatic album. Each track sounds like it was pulled from a local radio station in Cairo yet no two pieces sound like they came from the same station. Shalabi fuses Western and Arabic music without straying into trite, watered-down fusion territories.
