Stars of the Lid make the finest drone-rock around, and everyone knows it. I remember hearing them for the first time and turning to a friend and saying "Who needs drugs when you can listen to music like this?"
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!
|
And the gybe! side projects continue to grow in number. It's almost as though they're becoming more of a commune of musicians, a collective whose parts are ever-changing and ever-growing. This release features a lot of the same components and dynamics we've come to expect from gybe! and Silver Mt. Zion: field recordings, strings, chiming guitars, loud-soft variations, solid drumming.
Although this release came out first in 1999 through Origin in Sweden, it has only been picked up by Apollo (an R&S sub-label) earlier this year. Graham Lewis (Wire/Dome/He Said) and Andreas Karperyd (Omala) have teamed up again, but not as He Said Omala this time. While I have been a Wire fan for nearly two decades, the Graham Lewis material can always be hit or miss, yet when he's paired up with a good collaborator, the results can be incredible. Fortunately, the collection of ten songs deftly combines the strengths of the Karperyd's undeniably hypnotic electronics and the super sexy voice of Lewis.
LPD's frontman has delivered his solo release for 2001 rather late, butthe wait (if you consider it a wait as the volume of material from LPDand related projects exceeds everyone else) was worth it. 'Caste' is aone-track CD with a multitude of songs or 'movements'. The phasesevolve over the course of 18+ minutes from pulsating drum machine andvocal plays, creepy ambient horrorscapes, cut-up samples and distortednoises, familiar Ka-Spellian anthemic calliope music, and theoccasional playful keyboard ditty. Various points seem to either harkback to the more sound-based (as opposed to song-based) LPD or paytribute to Neu!, Residents, and the more experimental Pink Floyd era.Thankfully, there isn't a weak link in the chain: unlike many of thesolo Ka-Spel discs, this one is absent of the occurance of anerve-grating piece which goes on way too long. I haven't counted theamount of movements in the disc yet, but it's safe to say that ifthere's anything on here you're not getting into, just wait a coupleminutes and it'll all shift gears again.
Anita Lane first came to music circa the late '70s via the Nick Cave-led posse The Birthday Party and later as a founding member of his solo band The Bad Seeds. Since the mid-'80s she has recorded some singles and the solo album Dirty Pearl and has collaborated with Die Haut, Bad Seed Mick Harvey, Barry Adamson, Einstüzende Neubauten and Gudrun Gut. In particular, Harvey is her longtime musical guru and is once again responsible for production and much of the instrumentation for this 10 song album.
Part of the Elephant 6 collective (Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia TremorControl, etc.), Beulah craft clever pop with intelligent lyrics thatbite and chew at the witty edges, all with less spacey dreamscapes thantheir brethren. After releasing two albums on as many labels, Beulahwere set to make their "major label debut" with this, their thirdrecord. Then the label, Capricorn, went away in the Unigram merger. AndBeulah were left out of the deal. Some former employees of Capricornformed Velocette Records — also the current home to Jack Logan, VicChesnutt, and Jucifer — and now they are releasing "The Coast Is NeverClear." And it's worth the wait. The album is different enough fromBeulah of "When Your Heartstrings Break" to be considered artisticgrowth, but enough of the same to please any Beulah fan. The productionseems a little smoother and clearer, and the mix more well-rounded, butthe songs contain that great full-fledged pop sound and the ironiclyrics you've always loved. On "A Good Man Is Easy To Kill," MilesKurosky's lyrics reach their finest hour, as he sings about the fearsof love and the beatification of the desired: "Give up give up yourlove/I promise it's not gonna kill ya" and "And when they cut out yourlung you said we could all breathe easy." The imagery is what'simportant, as anyone can sing songs about the trials and tribulationsof love. It takes the special ability to paint the picture for you soyou can see it for yourself to make the grade. There are a few minordisappointments. "Hello Resolven," though short, has all of the charmof a Beck b-side, which, given some of his a-sides, can't ever bepretty. And in some places it seems almost as though these songs wereintended for a major label debut by an indie artist: water down theirtrademark sound so that the average listener can stomach it. Overall,though, a strong release from these architects of fine pop music.
No matter how much they kick and scream, sometimes you just have to ripthat acoustic guitar out of the hands of the sissies. Maybe that's whatAstralwerks and Source were thinking when piecing together the 'remix'album of Norway's answer to black metal. I have to admit I'm a littlejaded about the concept of remix albums, and while it's rare I evenlike an entire remix disc, I can safely say I enjoy this one far morethan the originals. Nine songs (three of them twice) have been pluckedfrom the group's 'Quiet is the New Loud' album and have beentransformed by collaborations, remakes, rearrangements and remixes.Most of the time, the songs actually sound more 'complete', withadditional instruments added in cases like David Whittaker's stringarrangement enhanced version of "Toxic Girl", Riton's remix of "TheGirl Back Then" or Andy Votel's remix of "Winning a Battle, Losing theWar". Evil Tordievel does a punchy brass-heavy cover of "LeaningAgainst the Wall" while Alfie goes bass, percussion and distortedguitar overboard with their cover of "Failure." Ladytron skillfullyleave their muddy analogue synth sounds and chunky beats all over theirremix of "Little Kids". The most impressive contribution, hands down,would have to be the virtuoso sampling and playground antics of FourTet's "The Weight of My Words" (so good that an instrumental versionwas included). Fans shouldn't worry, however, as through all of thesealterations, however, the overall sense of sensitive new-age whiteguy-ness prevails. Thankfully this time around, the coupling musicisn't nearly as sappy.
They say timing is everything. Sometimes the timing is too eerie forwords. This is the debut album from explosions in the sky, if you don'tcount their self-released CD put out a few years ago (judging fromtheir comments about it on their website, they'd prefer not to countit, either). The album's full title is "those who tell the truth shalldie, those who tell the truth shall live forever," and the artwork isjust plain frightening. The cover has an angel emitting rays out of itshands towards a plane in the sky, while the heads and rifles ofsoldiers march underneath. Inside, a drawing of the plane isaccompanied by the caption "this plane will crash tomorrow." Another ofthe angel alone says "help us stay alive." It's funny how some eventswill make you question/believe in clairvoyance, or just examinesimilarities in a whole new light. Does any of this apply to the musicinside? A lot, apparently. explosions in the sky create epic guitarrock instrumentals much in the vein of Mogwai or the harder moments ofgybe!, and this release is like the soundtrack of foreboding doom. It'san amazing record, capable of destroying the will of even the strongestbeing. I am personally dumbfounded at how stirring it all is. Thismusic moves from moments of extreme quiet to moments of pureannihilating walls of guitar without warning. My pulse races justwriting about it now. The opening track, "greet death," breaks you withits crushing noise until the harmonic guitar line turns it intosomething much more beautiful and frightening. And there's a bit ofclairvoyance in the songs, too: on "have you passed through thisnight?" a man delivers a monologue where he says "Who's doing this?Who's killing us? Robbing us of life and light. Mocking us with thesight of what we might have known." It's horribly affecting. All inall, and eerie (now) qualities aside, this release is greatinstrumental rock music from four guys from Austin, TX. Music mattersagain. Buy this CD.
