For Sub Rosa's second blues compilation, they swing their gaze from relatively unknown blueswomen to unsung bluesmen. Crackling, distorted recordings betray the battered, forgotten nature of these individuals but through the murk of time come songs and voices that sound utterly alive and unblemished by almost a century of pillaging at the church of the blues. Although varying in quality (both in terms of the songs and the recordings themselves), I'm Going Where the Water Drinks Like Wine is a fine presentation of undeservedly obscure musicians long lost in the dusty recesses of personal record collections and thrift stores.
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With an impressive cast of characters including 2Mex, Saul Williams, and Mia Doi Todd, Thavius Beck's newest record charts a few different paths but manages to carve out a unique path for the LA-based producer. I was a fan of Thavius Beck's last record for Mush, but Thru is even stronger and stranger.
On the third album from A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Jeremy Barnes has held to his word and touring member Heather Trost now joins him in the studio to make a superb collection of new tunes. It is not a break away from the previous releases but it is a continuation of a high quality back catalogue. The Way the Wind Blows hangs together better and feels more complete, especially with the addition of more odd instruments and even stronger arrangements.
The debut full-length album from Delia and Gavin is like an extended single, comprised of four songs extended to their full potential, each stretching between 11 and 13 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time to pull anybody into 'the zone' and then drop them out before anything bad happens. The jagged, staccato sounds generated by the meticulous sequencing create nothing short of an aural strobe light, in the way that staring at it for extended periods of time can easily tamper with -all- senses of the body.
This is the product of a collaboration between Italian Gianluigi Di Costanzoand American Brian Salter that wants to come off as a timeless work ofelectronic pop music, but only makes it half-way there. What BochumWelt learns the hard way is that the middle of the road is a dangerousplace to be.
This 1995 album is one of those extraordinarily rare instances in which a remix album was actually a great idea. For one, it focuses almost entirely on material from Evanescence, an album that many (myself included) consider to be Scorn's peak, capturing Mick Harris during that all-too-brief nexus in which his more visceral impulses and his love of disquieting ambiance were in perfect balance. Then, of course, he managed to assemble several of the most compelling and uncompromising denizens of electronic music's shadowy fringes (Coil, Autechre, etc.) to warp it all to their liking.
The major recurrent theme for Soundway compilations is documenting that fragile and fleeting period when two cultures collide and the resulting music still seems exciting, fresh, and revolutionary. Palenque Palenque certainly fits nicely within that aesthetic, but the absorption of African music into Colombia did not follow a predictable path all, as this is a deeply strange and somewhat baffling album (albeit quite a likable one). Rather than sounding like a Latinized Fela Kuti, some of the artists more closely resemble a young Steve Reich on amphetamines trying to construct an Afro-Latin dance album from tape loops.
This piece for two pianos and a viola was one of the last pieces Luc Ferrari wrote and this recording documents its posthumous premiere along with a rehearsal performance. The two sides of this LP demonstrate that Ferrari was by no means running out of steam by the end of his life. The music as captivating as any of his other works for conventional instrumentation. Tense, violent and beautiful, Didascalies 2 is a potent reminder of Ferrari’s talent as a composer.
For this album the Magic Carpathians have played many roles: field guides, sonic scouts, and acoustic archaeologists investigating the musical heritage of the land they call their home. They have been applying the varnish to some improvised sessions recorded over a nearly sleepless two day period high up in a mountain lodge back in 2008. The results are like the whorls in a piece of wood picked up off the forest floor: fractal like, mesmerizing and endlessly intricate.
