City Centre Offices
It's been raining here every day at a time that I want to go outside and do something fun. As a result, I've been couped up with my computers and a copy of Let Your Heart Draw A Line for a couple of weeks, and it's the perfect formula for creating a blog-obsessed, blanket curling, mopey shut-in. The newest from The Remote Viewer continues with the set up they laid out on their previous record for City Centre Offices, but turns the lights down even lower and captures that stuck-in-your-bedroom melancholy even more effectively. While the instrumentation sounds mostly natural like real pianos and guitars, everything is processed in a way to make it sound smaller, closer, more discreet, and in many cases less perfect. This is the promise of digital recording technology paying off: the use of high tech tools to manipulate recorded sound to be less perfect, more scratchy and more detuned rather than the reverse. These are simple tunes rooted in sad melodies and softly sung or spoken vocals and all the hissing and cracking that can rightfully be added to or brought out of a recording without making it seem like a joke. People are finally putting the click and glitch culture to work for something other than deconstructed techno and dub, and The Remote Viewer are doing it as expertly as anyone. This is the best of the new wave of laptop folk that I've heard because it keeps the songs together and it allows them to speak and mean something rather than letting them noodle off into the ether. There's a difficult balance being struck here between novelty production techniques and straight acoustic playing, between self-consciously pretentious song titles and heart-on-sleeve honesty, but it manages all to work in the end with a little bit of humor and a lot of damp, rainy repetition. Often, the kind of earnest, sappy break-up records recorded by folkies and emo kids and sensitive rockers leave me high and dry because the rock or folk language of guitars and drums and bass guitars feels too played out to resonante. Here is a moody break up record for the rest of us then, sweetly mapping out those lonely longing days where a computer is your only window to the world.
samples:
Originally available only as 10", now in special-sleeved compact disc, No Sign comes from artists with a bit more exposure than Sedimental is used to; the music, also, occupies austere and familiar realms, making it less the shock-to-the-head I've come to expect from the label, however deep listening turns over a complex and powerful piece.
A northeastern American sax player bent on packing his unique and extreme vision into an unassuming, highly personal statement, David Gross might as well be poster boy for the Sedimental label. His first for solo alto saxophone, Things I Have Found To Be True follows fellow Bostonian James Coleman's tremendous solo theremin recording Zuihitsu and Performing Tonight, a collection of baffling sax/voice duets from Gross and Liz Tonne. Gross' 15-year history of instrument discovery stops here in an indecipherable tome to childhood and personal history. Gross has made statements about dismantling completely his concept of looking for new niches within a history of jazz etc, and these ideas are completely supported from minute #1 of this disc. The artist's style is probably derivative of someone else; more appropriately it is entirely derivative of the saxophone as an inert vessel of forces, ideas at the core of any history of free music, but Things I Have Found makes clear that these matter not. By covering the disc with personal referents, including Gross' grandmother's beautiful cover painting of the artist and his brother as children, he creates a mythology that is more than simple juxtaposition of abstract sound and subjective information. The first track, "Partially Buried Woodshed," becomes obscure childhood memory, plea for the abstract expressionist credo of emotion-through-basic-gesture, and a brut simulation technique all flooding at once with Gross struggling to keep his breath within the spaces. Others have described the artist's style as "sculptural," a perfect term that hones in on the physicality of the playing and sounds played, while leaving room for projected spaces within the saxophone itself and divergent, imaginary realms created. A woodshed of breath, brass, earth, flesh, and…wood creates itself, outside of history, outside of temporal concerns, a bound diary of suspended moments, whittled down to a purity of expression without a purity of intent. The surprises come when things even remotely close to traditional (read: human) sax sounds creep through, as if by accident. "Dystonia" is a numbing human-voice-through-saxophone-bell piece whose guttural meanderings have surely been done-over countless times but enter the mythology of the record in a refreshing way here: comfort and assurance in, yes indeed, a human presence and abject terror at how the presence asserts itself. Gross' playing is more sparse on this release than any of the other documents I've heard, though these are his most complex compositions; the intimacy with which he approaches the saxophone, each screw in each latch, every fiber in the reed, every pad or valve, and all the negative space in between, is simply astounding.
It seems that Caleb Mueller just can't decide what kind of musician he wants to be. As Decomposure, he pinballs between singing pop songs in his basement and using household items to create experimental electronica (not just in his basement but his living room and kitchen, too). Despite the ingenuity, Decomposure has had difficulty finding a base audience mostly because of Mueller's refusal to adhere to one musical style: when he sits behind a piano and tries (not entirely unsuccessfully) to croon he alienates the electronic demographic; and when he bangs on pots and pans and records his cordless phone's beeping to make insane and frenetic beat sequences he loses the verse-chorus-verse set. But where At Home and Unaffected falls short in clarity, it shines in sheer sonic novelty, aided by Mueller's obvious and unbridled passion for making music his way. For the open-eared listener Mueller has crafted an ambitious and impressively creative mixture of both styles, with some further forays into spoken word and slam poetry and even some singer-songwriter guitar work. Don't let the stylistic wanderings fool you, as Mueller does have a purpose: strictly adhering to a rigid guideline (included in the liner notes), Mueller made At Home and Unaffected using (with a few minor exceptions) only sounds found in his home, sequenced with computer but not otherwise electronically altered in any way. He uses real instruments as the situation desires—guitar, piano, drums and even melodeon; he also is able to make sound out of household stuff, ranging from strums on rubber bands to whatever percussion he could glean from bathroom items. The liner notes, while detailed, are insufficient in explaining Mueller's method and are thankfully supplemented on Decomposure's website: one can read the explanations behind the more baffling songs in detail, including what Mueller used to make the sounds as well as the inspiration for the songwriting. The latter isn't merely agreeable-sounding fluff, either—Mueller tackles post-modern alienation (Center of the World) and modern-day religious hypocrisy (Disconnect) with equal verve. But as an album, At Home and Unaffected is flighty and disjointed—the rapid fire beats and glitches don't mesh well with the more melodious fare, and the listener is hard pressed to not be driven away (or crazy). Worst, some will dismiss Mueller's work as a gimmicky rather than ingenious. In a way, it is: ultimately, the idea wins out over the end result, as it proves to be more interesting to hear about a song crafted using the sonic residue from a Trivial Pursuit game than it is to hear the finished product. Still, Mueller has more going for him than novelty. He wins significant style points for creativity and method, and At Home and Unaffected isn't at all doomed to be background noise—the album's pop nuggets can surprise and delight, and the more manic electronic moments will challenge and amuse, especially rewarding those few who will bother to spin it more than once.
There's only one way to view Applied Communications second release Uhhh Sort Of, and that is as a very crude slice of self-help therapy for a kid who never got over his mother's death. The specter of dead parents, fickle friends, and cheating girlfriends abounds here. Applied Communications' Max Woods repeats child-like mantras like "It was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream..." in his whiny, prepubescent snarl over tinny drum samples and toy instruments. On "It Bothers Me It Bothers You I Snore," Woods ascends to a anxiety-ridden peak, using distorted drums, wah-wah guitar samples, cow bell clicks, and his particular brand of, um, lyrical stylings ("I didn't mean to take off your clothes and throw you on my mattress!" he squeals at one point). The problem with Uhhh Sort Of comes from its unremitting angst. This is the record that results when the eighth grade geek makes a record, and it isn't a pretty picture. We're talking years of pent-up aggression here, touching on everything from sexual insecurity, boredom, pop culture detritus, and death. That Max Woods builds these awkward, and sometimes touching rants on top of fairly innocuous, though serviceable laptop bells and whistles makes this an even more perplexing record, one not easy to dismiss yet not easy to embrace either. The biggest albatross on Uhhh Sort Of though is the death of Max Woods' mother. He references her passing constantly in a way that is both ironically self effacing and emotionally naked, yelping on "DFK" over a simple drum loop "Please forgive me/ I love you mom/ don't die again!" In many ways, Max Woods' messy self-help sample pop most closely linked to the work of Daniel Johnston, an artist whose (often) inarticulate, scatter-shot musings could reveal much more than was expected of him. While Uhhh Sort Of is liable to scare off most listeners within the first thirty seconds, those who stick it out will find a record that, though often frustrating, is mesmerizing in its emotional honesty and willingness to be stripped bare for all to see.
The Wilderness' eponymous debut boasts a sound as expansive as their name suggests. Opening track, "Marginal Over," is the kind of song that is tailor made to achieve lift off. Colin McCann's guitar rings out, drenched in echo and late afternoon sunlight, while Brian Gossman and Will Goode's rhythmic attack keep at least one foot grounded here on Earth. While these and other such moments from Wilderness make this release a cut above other third-rate shoegazer hacks, there is also a fair share of less inspired moments. As a result, Wilderness isn't an out-of-nowhere revelation so much as it is a solid debut with much to build on for the band. Like "Marginal Over," songs like "Fly Further to See" and "Say Can You See" are built on foundations of beautifully rising and falling guitar lines, percolating beats, and the oddball singing (or is it announcing?) of James Johnson. When he isn't recalling the ghost of David Byrne past, he sounds like a more controlled John Lydon, spouting absurdist lines like "commerce your comment, comment your comment, standing as landing, living as giving." Though a good chunk of these songs mange to be engaging throughout, particularly "The End of Freedom" with its crisp tom hits and sturdy bass runs, there are a few moments that are not as striking. "Post Plethoric Rhetoric" for one takes too long to get off the ground, and once it does it fails to pack the punch of their shorter compositions. Another complaint that needs to be registered is the lyrics, which tend to follow the lead of the guitar and spout off random imagery and meandering thoughts. Fortunately, James Johnson's delivery is just affecting enough so as to keep things from becoming laughable. Wilderness, overall, is a record that desperately wants to break through (though to what I'll probably never know). While it seems clear that they are still in the test stages, there is still plenty of reason to look forward to hearing more from The Wilderness in the future.
The distant howl of a fog horn turned low and dead prowls through the underbelly of these three tracks. It's unsettling and nocturnal, the perfect musical score to accompany the artwork included with this album. It may be a bridge lit by high, bright lamps, but it could be a Russian winter scene, the details of a city lost in the haze of a Ukrainian nightmare come to life. Submissive, intricately tempered whispers, wails, and waterfalls slide through a maze of slowly turning passages, each crossing the next and producing a wall of silent deaths lost to the trees and mountains that seem to dot the landscape created in the textural sprawl of large, impressionistic strokes and dizzying, detuned growls. The only light is the deep blue color of the moon, it seems to emphasize the paths the cold takes as it digs into bone and slows blood down into an icy sludge. Thousand year old corpses line the inside of a long forgotten tomb marked by escape attempts made by the living unfortunate enough to be trapped there and the unholy scripture of a language long lost to history. Zimiamvian Night can be absolutely horrific, the manner through which their vision is presented implies a certain scope and attitude, namely that silence and softness can be just as heartbreaking and fear inducing as the onslaught so often presented through power, high volumes, and abrasive sounds. The whole of "Between Moments" is a suffocated draft beating through the heart of a sunken city buried below years of war, weather, and catastrophe. The quiet movements and subtle variations in volume and texture create an uneasy atmosphere that keep me guessing as to what might be around the next corner. The music is also strongly visual, painting broad pictures of empty, destroyed landscapes and scarred memories abound with still fright: the sight of an almost dead human crumbling away or the image of a hand protruding from cracked dirt. Thinking about what the last moments for that human must've been like is much like listening to this record. My imagination has taken wild turns while listening to this, often finding reason to be quite scared of the dark. Zimiamvian Night's approach to sound worlds is slow and dominant, allowing sounds to develop into silence before moving on. It's a panoramic piece of music that spirals slowly into insanity, like watching a final heartbeat throb away in the slowest of motions.
Somewhere, in some dingy squat-house performance space, someone is flipping out over Hair Police. Totally loving that "shit man, they just don't give a fuck!" and that their craggy noise-scapes are probably pissing off the neighbors. When Hair Police are done he or she will light a cigarette and congratulate themself for being in on the cutting edge. Judging by the lack of anything captivating on Drawn Dead though, it would be a safe bet to say that the Louisville, KY trio is next in line to fall off said edge. Drawn Dead isn't so much a record that is out and out terrible, but suffers from the fact that I've heard this all before, generally from better bands. What makes this even more frustrating is that I know the kind of oral brutality Hair Police are capable of. Whereas albums like Obedience Cuts grabbed me by the nuts and flung me around the room in a PCP-fueled rage, Drawn Dead limps into action, taking a few half-assed swipes at me before deciding it would rather do something else. Despite this, there are some decent moments that save Hair Police. "Untitled 1" features garbage disposal gurgles that cut in and out along with what sounds like breaking piano strings, all of which slowly build for the songs eight minute duration. Throughout, ghostly guitar squiggles and distant whispers appear, furthering the tension. "Untitled 3" alternates between barrages of short-circuiting noise and almost ambient white noise, making it at least somewhat interesting. The band finally achieves something of a groove on the final minute and a half of "Untitled 4" where Mike Connelly's demented guitar squall and Robert Beatty's pissed off electronics shed more bile and blood then Jason Voorhees at summer camp. But small signs of light can't help Hair Police escape this dark night. As Jon Whitney correctly pointed out in his review of Wolf Eyes' Burned Mind, "People love beats and they love repetition." It's a spot-on assessment and is perhaps one way of explaining why Drawn Dead is so unsatisfying. While Hair Police are no more abrasive then Wolf Eyes or perhaps Throbbing Gristle, it's the fact that the songs on this release simply languish there—all noise and no swing—that makes them so frustrating. Never do the rhythms (of which there are little to none) rise above crawling, which makes me feel stuck in some sort of noisy fog that will never pass. While Hair Police are very abrasive and confrontational, that does not give them a free pass. Drawn Dead gives too little and demands too much, leaving me unsatisfied and annoyed. By the end, I couldn't be any less interested.
