Acute
Frequently name-checked as one of the most influential works of postmodern composition, Glenn Branca's
Lesson No. 1is nothing less than a completely successful amalgam of avant-gardecomposition techniques with dissonant post-punk rock n' roll. GlennBranca had previously been part of the brief No Wave scene with hisband Theoretical Girls, and several other solo and group projects, butthis short album was his first commercially released recording. When 99Records originally released the album in 1980, it was clear that it wasnot without precedent; following as it did in a clear line of evolutionfrom LaMonte Young and Terry Riley. But Branca's use of rock n' rollinstrumentation, heavy duty percussion, unorthodox guitar tunings andover-amplifications and minimalist repetition makes "Lesson No. 1 ForElectric Guitar" an essential influence on all of the avant-garde rockmusic that has come since. The eight-plus minutes of the title trackare absolute perfection: a glossy, propulsive patchwork of chimingelectric guitars, hypnotically riffing on three chords, ascending anddescending, falling in and out of sync beautifully. Its simplicity andpower recalls Terry Riley's majestic synthesizer classic "A Rainbow inCurved Air," even as its trance-inducing, minor-chord refrainunmistakably evokes vintage Joy Division, apparently a notableinfluence on Branca in the early 80's, if I am to believe the eruditeliner notes by Alan Licht. "Lesson No. 1" is ground zero for all of theavant-leaning rock music that came after, clearly influencing SonicYouth ("Expressway To Yr Skull"), Boredoms (
Vision Creation Newsun)and even Acid Mothers Temple, who attempted their own merging of TerryRiley and [acid] rock with their cover of "In C." Following from"Lesson No. 1" is "Dissonance," certainly less accessible, but no lessmasterful, a chaotic mass of overdubbed guitar shredding, complexdrumming (periodically punctuated by the metallic clink of asledgehammer) and an insistent sense of drama, continuously buildingbut never finding its full catharsis. "Bad Smells" is the third andfinal track, a 16-minute rock epic originally released on the flip sideof John Giorno LP released on the Giorno Poetry Systems label duringthe same time period as Branca's
Ascension. Originally composedfor a Twyla Tharp dance performance, the musicians include, amongothers, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore (soon of the aforementionedSonic Youth). The track unfolds in several different "movements,"opening with galloping beats and heroic guitar melodies, then quicklytransforming into an angular punk-funk jam, before taking a sharp leftturn into high dissonance and stop-start, No Wave-style spastics. Alsoincluded on the disc is a fascinating Quicktime video of Glenn Brancaconducting his "Symphony No. 5," shot in 1984. It's quite a possessedperformance, Branca casting himself as the physical conduit of themusic, jumping and thrashing around with wild abandon, expressing themusic's intensity. Acute Records has done a good job re-issuing
Lesson No. 1, solidifying its place among the most influential rock albums of all time.
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Twenty Hertz
The last time these two got together to make some music, I was thoroughly blown away by the results. Behind Your Very Eyesis an amazing piece of cinematic drone work that set a new mark tomeasure these kinds of records by. Drone music is notoriouslytwo-faced; either it works or it doesn't. There really isn't any middleground for the music to tread on so far as enjoy-ability goes. That'snow changing with the release of Confluence. Colin Potter andPaul Bradley recorded the first track as a kind of cluster: the soundsare reworked from studio rehearsals and so on until they are made tosound harmonious. The two following tracks are remixes of this firsttrack. This all sounds fine, but Confluence is amazingly unevenas a record. Where Colin Potter and Paul Bradley succeeded before wasin their radically transformative flow of sound. I feel a bit uneasycalling their music "drone" because their stream of noise and samplessimply never sat still long enough to drone away into the darkness.Potter and Bradley both used, in the past, a wide palette of musicaland non-musical sounds to create an emotional and sensational (relatingto the senses) experience. The first track on here, however, is afairly monotone mix of wind tunnels, chimes, and various effects thatare far too related. Diversity can often lead to a kind of unity thatbecomes recognizable upon repeated listens, but no such quality isevident on "Confluence 1." That being said, the track is relaxing andheads and shoulders above other similar songs. I know, however, justhow good Potter and Bradley can be and so I am disappointed by the lackof change and difference on this song. "Confluence 2" and "Confluence3" both suffer from the same problem as "Confluence 1" though indifferent ways. "Confluence 2" sounds as though it is based on onesound source alone. That source is then pitched, slowed down, and spedup to create different degrees of textural tension and shiftingmelodies. A few minutes of this sort of thing would be great, but thesong is over seventeen minutes long and just drags a bit too much.There are some creepy samples to be found here and there (readilyrecognizable as slightly morphed versions of sounds that are on"Confluence 1"), but they do little to add to the appeal of the song."Confluence 3" is the aquatic closer on this record and it is the bestof the three tracks. The sounds here are more open, moretransformative, and they resonate in a way that creates the sort ofethereal heaviness that always attracts me to Potter's work. Thepreviously silenced noise samples are now front and center and theirdevelopment works well with the tones that surround them. The churningreminds me of the sound of coffee running through a grinder for somereason (a manual one, not electric) and its wavering quality is verycomforting. This record sounds a bit haphazard and unfinished and thevery nature of its creation suggests that there could've been more roomfor development. The album could have certainly used it; it has a lotof potential, but needs to be thought out more carefully. 
When financial ruin, explosive internal tensions and abortive,drug-fuelled recording sessions finally claimed the life of Frenchelectro-punk group Metal Urbain, Metal Boys rose from their ashesPhoenix-like and went on to a celebrated and influential 20-yearcareer, applauded by critics worldwide for their originality anddaring. Well, not quite. In fact, the Metal Boys only lasted a coupleof years, they are celebrated by no one, and they could only muster onealbum, recently rescued from total obscurity by Carpark subsidiaryAcute. Acute smartly released a career-spanning retrospective of MetalUrbain earlier this year, but they not-so-smartly follow-up with twolackluster latter-day efforts by Metal Urbain refugees (Dr. Mix and theRemix's inessential Wall of Noiseis also due out soon on the label). It's hard to say what the problemis exactly with Metal Boys, the project of Eric Debris and CharlesHurbier from the original lineup of Metal Urbain. Perhaps it's theircurious lack of identity, as they schizophrenically shuffle through ahandbook of genres, unable to settle on anything. The opening trackshares the energetic, motorik stomp of Metal Urbain, but its quicklyfollowed by "Suspenders in the Dark," a blind stab at theSuicide/Throbbing Gristle sound that borders on parody with ridiculousEnglish-language vocals such as "The rain stops my tits from growing"and "I saw my mother fucking a nuclear missile." It's unclear whyBritish singer China didn't alert the French duo to the grammaticallyawkward, hokey lyrics they were asking her to sing. Other tracks (andeven the album's sleeve artwork) seek to emulate such electro-dandyoutfits as David Sylvian's Japan or early Duran Duran, but thesongwriting is stunted, songs are often far too long, and the stylisticinconsistencies all conspire to make Tokio Airport one of themore laborious listens I've had in a while. Amateurish, Kraftwerk-esquesynthesizer ditties like "Carbone 14" might be charming on some work ofoutsider bedroom-electro, but from musicians who used to be involved increating challenging, enduring rock music, it seems rather unfortunate.The pessimistic, cold-war futurism of the album's lyrics and thegroup's angular, dandified bearing are conceits directly lifted fromtheir new-wave contemporaries. A pair of bonus tracks originallyintended for release as a 12" single, "Disco Future" and "Outer Space,"sound like low-rent versions of classic TG tracks "Adrenaline" and"Persuasion." So, the Metal Boys are not the logical continuation ofMetal Urbain, but rather simply an odd historical footnote that mayappeal to borderline-autistic completists, but are generallyunremarkable otherwise. - 
While the debate over what is or isn't 'real music' is tired, there arestill releases now and again that call that nagging question to mind,just as a reminder of the very far extremes of music that exist beyondeven the peripheral vision of most CD-buying folks, and this iscertainly one of them. For roughly 18 minutes, English treats us towhat could be a foley recording session for a major motion picture ifsome of the sounds weren't layered and overlapped through time. There'slittle emotional or psychological reward for making it through those 18minutes, and the theme of "Ghost Towns" isn't explored in anysignificant way that stuck with me, but the disc works like a trainingguide for careful listening. While some of the mixing techniques are abit obvious (a humming sound slowly pans from stereo right to left;distant sounds slowly fade in while closer sounds pop into the mix),most of the time the sound isn't drawing attention to its manipulation,and that's a good thing. In a very traditional Music Concrete sense,this work is about the sounds themselves in space; sound as an objectto be perceived. To that end, the record can be enjoyed vastlydifferently in different settings where gongs, distant trains, torturedpianos and chewing potato chips aren't usually familiar. The onlytraditionally musical timbres included are a gong and some mutedpercussion at the beginning and a piano that is being banged on andplucked at ferociously towards the end of the piece. The bookendinstruments hold together a string of recordings from amplifiedroom-tone to all of the scraping and crackling sounds that these kindsof records generally include to keep listeners guessing. I can imagineLawrence English performing this piece on a stage full of seeminglyrandom objects and tape machines with loops of field recordings. I cansee him scurrying back and forth between the pile of leaves, the birdcage, and the broken crash cymbal as a well-dressed art crowd looks onand wonders "is this really music?" The wonderful point of music likethis is, however, that none of it matters in the end. The sounds areobjects, you are free to browse them at your leisure. There will besome you find quite pleasant and others that are objectionable, whilestill others may leave no impression at all, and if you have anycomments please leave them with the curator.
Keeping it simple and writing good music go hand in hand quite a lot.The guitars, drums, vocals, and other instruments on this album speakthat rule clearly and demonstrate that excellent music doesn't alwayshave to be radically new or different. Mike Fellows writes rock musicwith just a bit of folk and country influence. His guitar picking andharmonica playing is simple and structured around smooth songstructures fronted by a broad and gentle voice. Bits of piano andelectronic drums highlight this otherwise straightforward attempt atwriting a good album. There's no flashy production, no outrageousarrangements that call for ten-plus instruments to flood the mixsimultaneously, and, most importantly, there isn't an air ofpretentiousness surrounding anything Fellows has to say. All of hislyrics recall stories told on the front porch with a cold one in handand a beautiful, moonlit sky up above. So what is left if there isn'tany of the extra stuff mentioned above? All that's left is really allthat matters: good song-writing and a clear sense of direction. WhileFellows never draws his voice out like some famous country croonersmight, his instrumentation is clearly a throwback to when country androck weren't opposites at all. This love for acoustic instrumentation,easy rhythms, and clear, distinct melodies could've gone terribly wrongif it weren't for the fact that Fellows never lets a strong stray toofar away from its origins and never bothers trying to extend songsbeyond their proper range. Limited Storyline Guestis just over a half-hour in length and of its nine songs, only threebreak the four-minute mark (and just barely at that). The songs openstrong and stay strong from start to finish, expanding on the themesthat Fellows open them with. Besides all of this, the songs are simplygorgeous and have a whimsical edge to them that makes them all the moreattractive. "Way I Love" and "AM" have, in particular, unforgettablemelodies that have stuck in my head since I first played the CD. Imight be able to chalk my appreciation of this album up to nostalgia,but repeated listens have proven that the songs can stand repeatedlistens and, in most cases, the tunes become stronger after being givena few chances. There's not a bad song on the album and after awhileFellows' voice becomes one of the most addictive elements of the album.I'm going to take this outside with me and play it while I watch theworld go by. It's a good relaxing album with no extras added because noextras are needed. 
This collection, highlighting obscure underground post-punk and newwave from France was released on Tigersushi Recordings, therecord-label arm of the Tigersushi website, devoted to cataloging andtracing obscure connections between underground, post-punk, dance andavant-garde music. Previous compilations from Tigersushi includedK.I.M.'s superlative Miyage CD, as well as No More G.D.M., which together contained more leftfield classics and unjustly obscure artists than anyone could shake a stick at. So Young But So Cold,compiled by Volga Select, is a bit less generous with its treasures.Perhaps the chosen time period and geographical area narrow the fieldtoo much, forcing Ivan Smagghe and Marc Collin to include many tracksthat have a hard time living up to "lost classic" status. However, thedisc still includes its share of tasty nuggets, chief among them a pairof stunning tracks by a group called The (Hypothetical) Prophets. Likemost people, I'd never heard of this early-80's French new-wave groupuntil this compilation. Their single "Person to Person" seems to havebeen influenced by The Human League, but takes off in its ownidiosyncratic trajectory, lyrically and musically. Male and femalesingers describe their romantic fantasies in a monotone, proto-HipHopstyle: "I want a middle-aged, plump and cuddly, distinguished,hairy-chested, double-breasted, gray-templed, tall attractive, rich andactive father figure." This against a minimal rhythm-box beat decoratedwith analog detritus and electronic drones, with occasional BeachBoys-esque expansions into vocal harmony. The Prophets' otherappearance, "Wallenberg," is a dark synthscape intertwining mutatedvocals narrating stories from World War II, with frequent blasts ofsaxophone, eerily evoking the later work of The Legendary Pink Dots.The first track on the compilation "Suis-Je Normale" ("I Am Normal")reminded me of Broadcast (or Broadcast's forerunner The United Statesof America), with its minimalist synths and Jane Birkin-esque vocaldelivery. Mathematiques Moderne's "Disco Rough" has a raucous beat, butits chorus is unfortunately reminiscent of Kenny Rogers and DollyParton's excruciating "Islands in the Stream." The Metal Boys were anoffshoot of underappreciated electro-punks Metal Urbain, but theirtrack "Carnivale" proves that the talent didn't come along for theride. Charles de Goal's "Synchro" bears an unmistakable resemblance toThe Vapors' hit "Turning Japanese." Was Moderne's "Switch On Bach"meant to be the French response to Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus"? It's hardto say, but at least this collection ends on a fairly strong note, witha row of Kraftwerkian space-rock and proto-techno tracks. Best amongthem is Nietzschean scholar Richard Pinhas' funereal, TangerineDream-influenced "Iceland," a densely atmospheric foray into theice-cold nether regions of arctic tundra. A more inconsistentcollection is not likely to be found, but Tigerushi's So Young But So Cold still has much to recommend. 
After only seven months, the Berlin-via-Paris threesome of AdrienWalter, Mohini Geisweller, and Juste Faileux have managed to create abarrage of press in Europe's fashion and music industry. Following therelease of their first two 12"s, "Berlin Rocks" and "EverybodyDeservers To Be Fucked" (both of which are included here on theirself-titled full-length), Sex in Dallas managed to snag an exhibitionat the venerable Parisian design store and boutique Colette and werehailed as the next new thing in magazines from Technikart to Fashion Wired Daily.With most of this exposure due to their fashion sense and penchant forbinge-drinking and clubbing, I couldn't help but ask myself where theirmusic falls into play in all of this. With the release of their firstalbum, the group seems to demonstrate that their main priorities arefashion and image before music, though there are signs that point to agifted young band that shows promise. The first track, "Crazy Dogs,"lays samples of barking dogs over a spare electro backbeat. When thesynths enter at the one minute mark, it's easy to see the comparisonsthat Sex in Dallas receives with the Hacker and other big names inEuropean electro. "Songs of the Beach," "5 O'Clock," and "Lost in LaPlaya" are reminiscent of a more minimal Lali Puna, with Geiswellersinging in a soft, French-accented English. The standout track on thealbum, however, is "Everybody Deserves to Be Fucked," a four minuteelectro romp espousing the band's view on hedonistic equality. WhileSex in Dallas may be a band hyped for their image more than theirmusic, the indications are there that with a bit more maturity and timethey may emerge as major players on the European electro scene.
Loren Chasse and Jim Haynes make a very strange breed of murmuring andthrobbing music. Where other sound-sculptors might keep a consistentlyharmonious shift at work in their music in order to provide a sense ofchange and movement, these two are content with adding glitches,static, and faults to their instruments in order to affect a drift inthe music that could be almost unnoticeably small, but might also turnout to be radical in degree. Mud Wallsoriginally appeared on the Mystery Sea label in an edited form.Rereleased by Helen Scarsdale with twenty additional minutes of music,it is a consistently alien and confusing recording. There runsthroughout the duration of this one-track, fifty-eight minute record anoticeable hiss that becomes a bit annoying at times, but it alsoserves as the central element of the music and is about the only thingthat holds the album together as a whole. Two distant points on therecord share a similar trait: the sound of jewelry or glass rollingabout in a jar. Outside of these few elements, Mud Walls soundslike a bit of muddled sound-collage to me. This is part of what makesthe record so confusing. I know that, at certain points, the musicsuddenly shifts direction and introduces a new sound to focus on, butthat sound always seems to succumb to the hiss that is so aggravatinglyomnipresent. Going back over the record and skipping in between variouspoints in time, it is quite obvious that Coelacanth has a good varietyof tones, found sounds, and strange samples that are strung together bya universal mystery. Something happens in between these sections ofdiversity, then, that make the album sound all too samey. This isanother confusing aspect of this record: I didn't like it at first, itsimmovable and fixed nature simply didn't appeal to me the way otherdroned-out records did. I listened to it twice, anyways. By the timeI'd become frustrated with myself for not being able figure out whatdisliked about this record, I'd probably gone through the record tentimes. A few more listens and I was able to pick out the small detailsthat weren't so quickly obvious. And here I sit now, wondering why ittook so long to figure out the obvious. The different sections of thisrecord are, in hindsight, obvious. No matter how many times I repeatthat to myself the music ends up feeling too monotone by the end of thealbum. The actual process of listening to the music turns everythinginto a homogenous wall of sound where very few heterogeneous elementscan stand out. Knowing now what my source of displeasure has been, it'shard for me to not recommend the music. The trick the music played onmy head through subsequent listens was frustrating, but it was alsoentertaining enough to keep me listening and to keep me finding newelements on the record. There's a fantastic series of ideas or quotesthat serve as liner notes and one of them is particularly descriptiveof the music: "I can describe it in no other way than this: in thatmoment, I was certain there were ancient forces listening... in asilence like fossils." The silent transitions and changes on thisrecord can only barely hide that there is something more happeningbehind the inertia. -
The Room 40 crew has amassed an impressive list of names for thistwo-disc set billed as "meditations on sound in sleep," and theprospect of new tracks from Oren Ambarchi, DJ Olive, DJ/Rupture,Scanner, David Toop, and Janek Schaefer ought to be enough to sell thedisc on its own. Really everyone here brings it, with solid tracks fromlesser-known artists that are equally impressive and often moreinventive than those from their well-known counterparts. The theme isbroad enough as to allow a wide range of interpretations withoutdictating any particular mode of composition. The two basic approachesto the idea seem to be physiological—that of capturing or recreatingsound as heard through the muffled filter of sleep, andpsychological—that of playing with the noises and music of dream statesand the subconscious. There are the expected slow, sleepy drones anddreamy chimes (Al Yamamoto, Steinbrüchel, Zane Trow, Barret, Musgrove& Sinclair), but the project also offers some more out-there takesas well, such as Skist's shrill whine accompanied by non-sequiturfemale vocals, Timeblind's ridiculously time-stretched speech, andDavid Toop's spooky dream narration. John Chantler starts disc two offwith a delightfully fun recording of his microwave that transforms intoa cheeky beep-beat before giving way to drums and guitar: not somethingI would have expected on a disc devoted to experimental musicianscomposing tracks about sleeping sounds. Philip Samartzis turns in alocation recording, while Martin Ng & Tetuzi Akiyama give us theobligatory microtonal sine wave ear workout. If i never hear a piercingsine wave composition again, it'll be okay with me. Scanner gives up asynth-heavy piece with some instructional voice-over through delay thatrecalls his Spore-erawork, while Frost plays with fuzzy dream guitar and simple pianofigures that are understated and beautiful. DJ/Rupture takes the pathleast travelled by producing a mix of beats and samples that impliesthat what he hears while sleeping are the muffled, fractured pieces ofhis record collection banging together into a mix. In the realm ofexperimental music, these kinds of collections too often offer artistsa chance to pad an already overstuffed discography with throw-awaypieces and under-realized mixes. Not so, here. Room 40 manages towrangle up some top talent at the top of their game for an engaging andrepeatable listen. - 
Fans of Slowdive and Mojave 3 can rejoice: this debut proves that theloveliest member of both bands indeed has the talent to carry a projectall her own. Not that this is a complete surprise, as anyone involvedin the aforementioned groups has to have some serious chops, plus an EPreleased a couple months ago let the cat out of the bag already. Thefact that Goswell can carry a whole album ostensibly on her own isnews, though, and it bodes well for the chanteuse's future works bothin bands and on her own. The finer moments of English folk and Americancountry are paired together with field recordings and a taste ofrhetoric to make these songs to live, and the voice of a fallen angelto command them to do her bidding. Goswell knows her stuff, letting inthe right amount of every ingredient and then taking the song towonderful heights. She also lets them all breathe just enough, nottaking the idea to an extreme or longer than it needs to go. These areconcise and fully-realized tales, perfect in their time and place.Shifting styles in the songs also show a willingness to explore newterritory, whether accordion or pipes and whistles, and though some ofthem don't add much to the proceedings it's nice to hear the attempt atloftier heights. There are more than enough moments where those heightsare attained, from the gorgeous double-tracked vocals to the infectiousmelodies, to heartfelt lyrics about missing the one you've discoveredwho makes life worth living ("No Substitute," easily one of the album'sbest tracks). Not every song is a gem, but there's more than half agreat album to be heard, and that's impressive for a solo debut. Thesongwriter within is finding the right elements and the perfectmixture. With the initial awkwardness past her, Goswell now has theability to improve on the concept and find all the right stops. 
