05 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

As if the allure of Jessica Bailiff's voice isn't enough to get any reasonable person excited about Northern Song Dynasty, then knowing that her fantastic song writing mixes exceedingly well with Jesse Edwards' approach should be enough to motivate everyone else.

All Is Number
 
Chances are you didn't get one of the 100 copies of this album thatwere released back in 2002. Now that it has been re-released, you'llwant to go out and grab it as soon as possible. Yes, Bailiff'smelancholy and hallucinogenic streams of sound are ever-present and yesher voice is as angelic as ever, moving softly beneath the pluck ofacoustic guitars and amps filled with enough reverb to shake thewindows right out of the wall. What's different from her work is whatJesse Edwards, of Red Morning Chorus, brings to the table.

As far as Bailiff's last, eponymous release goes, there was a definite emphasis on repeating, overlapping structures and simple, melodic themes. Though never feeling stagnant, the pull of her repetitive chords and buzzing music was deceptively complex: the simplicity of the album was a huge part of its beautiful success. Seeing how the Northern Song Dynasty record was developed in the time leading up to that album, I'm surprised to find how much that emphasis is minimized.

From the second that "The Disappearance of Patrick Phillip" begins, it's fairly obvious that there's more waiting in the wings. The indefinite, hovering weight that the Northern Song Dynasty emulates is a compliment between Bailiff's ethereal approach and what must be Edwards' love for cerebral and hypnotic songcraft. There are repeating motifs and longing guitar work scattered throughout the record, they feel more restricted, however. The songs are tighter somehow, because whether or not a definite chorus or verse ever makes an appearance on the record, it feels like each leaves its mark. Where Bailiff's music progressed in subtle movements, Northern Song Dynasty announces its paradigms and slips into them with trumpets hailing the metamorphosis.

Edwards' voice is exciting, too, his low, humming style of singing harmonizes with Bailiff's voice effortlessly. When they sing together and heavily distorted guitars begin to buzz away behind them, it's as though they're trying to slip into the track unnoticed and make an escape, trying to make the music swallow them whole even as they spin the music together. When the music is stripped bare, leaving almost nothing but a voice and a guitar, Bailiff seems to stand out more often. It is on the heavy, electric outings that Edwards shines. As the songs move back and forth between each other, how well these two work together really begins to show and the whole album becomes a cohesive and shining work almost as though the whole thing was a magic trick. Despite being released in October, the album is entirely appropriate for the winter. Not because it is cold or particularly festive, but because it is a radiantly warm set of songs. This is the other significant difference between Bailiff's solo work and her collaborative efforts: her last album sounded very bleak at times, almost romantically resigned to a quiet suffering, but this sounds joyful, sometimes exuberant. "Those Days" almost pops out of the speakers at points when trails of celestial guitar funkiness spiral out of it like comets. Not to say there aren't sad moments or even heart aching ones, but it is the happy songs that stick out most for me and seem to pull the most weight on the album.

If you've never heard Jessica Bailiff or Jesse Edwards' work, then this might actually be the best place to start. The balance between desperation and happiness on this album might make it more attractive to some who have approached either's work and found it akin to reading Sylvia Plath. After enough exposure, neither sounds particularly cold and the subtle magic they both work on this record will permeate everything, making whatever darker themes are present seem less important than the sonic brilliance demonstrated in their work.

samples:

• Seizures
• Storm
• One Step Down

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05 August 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Chalk has again walked a very fine line between complete abstraction and conscious identification. It's something that I feel only this genre is capable of and that Chalk, in particular, has managed to portray on Vega.

Faraway Press
 
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra; it'd be easy to make some vacuum of space reference when talking about Andrew Chalk's music, but it wouldn't be very helpful or insightful. There are plenty of opinions that'll make every drone record sound the same because, apparently, they all have the same focus. All of them imitate the feeling of floating weightlessly, of being taken somewhere else and it is because they provide little context for the average listener to hold onto while navigating the often beat-less, melody-less grooves of whatever record it at stake. Well, if all of them sound the same, how is it that Chalk always sounds unique?

There are two answers.

The first one, the short one, is that the genre actually doesn't lend itself to homogeneity: it is more prone to being consistently different than just about any other genre barring noise. The other answer, the interesting one, is that Chalk steps a bit differently, proceeds with his sound in a fulfilling fashion, and somehow works with his sound more like a composer than anyone else. I can imagine him toying with his sounds like they're clay, shaping them to make an architecture or to plan an entire geographic region. Every release Chalk has seems to produce this same effect, this sense of a musician as sculptor.

Vega opens up a space without a doubt, but the feeling it produces is like sound trying to find its borders. As the album begins the entire sound is bathed in a kind of blind stupor, sounds traveling aimlessly for minutes at a time before the distinct impression of a bell is made clear. As the record progresses over its three movements, the overall structure of the album becomes more acute despite being composed of broad strokes and impressionistic stabs of sound.

The most change occurs in tone, however, elevating the album from a tomb-like sound to the hum of the open air. Conceptually the whole album sounds like a liberation from architecture and a step away from the tight, always very centered sound that Chalk employs. Whatever the case, Vega has that static and rolling sound in its first half and then slowly dissolves, revealing a subterranean process that might've been working throughout the whole album.

Once the mood lightens up, Chalk moves into new territory for me. None of what I've heard by him, even his work in Mirror, has ever sounded this free and random. He manages to maintain a hint of the thematic developed early in the album but slowly moves away from it until, at the very end, a completely new dynamic has emerged. The album is, for a time, tightly wound and dependent upon itself for tension, but the release generated at the end is almost vertiginous in its upward movement. There's a double effect taking place for the duration of the record, then. The sounds on the album become more obvious and take a definite shape throughout the whole album, even as the tone lightens up and the structure of the album becomes more indefinite and effervescent. It's hard to imagine but amazing to hear.

This is a change for Chalk, though, and it's a subtle step he's taken away from his earlier solo recordings. I imagine fuller and more extreme transitions are on the way.

samples:

• Untitled 1
• Untitled 2
• Untitled 3

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05 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

 

"Spirit of Talk Talk" is a finely crafted and lavishly produced book celebrating the music created by Talk Talk and illustrated with a treasure trove of images from long-time collaborator and renowned art designer James Marsh. Displayed alongside large original artworks and previously unseen sketches and alternative covers, are rare and previously unseen photographs of the band and a specially commissioned biography of Talk Talk by music journalist and author Chris Roberts. Photographic images have been supplied from the archives of photography luminaries Lawrence Watson, Richard Haughton and Sheila Rock amongst others.

The book includes the full transcript of Mark Hollis's final interview about the band and numerous tributes and eulogies from musicians, artists, producers, and people who worked with the band and knew them intimately. There are also honest, touching, and revealing tributes from musicians, artists friends and fans who were, and continue to be, influenced by Talk Talk's music.

This is the first book on the band, and is the brainchild of designer, fashion entrepreneur and long term fan Toby Benjamin. It has been created by and for fans and friends of Talk Talk.

More information can be found here.

 

 

 

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05 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

This is a landmark album in the Acid Mothers Temple oeuvre for a variety of reasons, but not all of them are good.  On the positive side, Cotton Casino has returned to the fold and Kawabata Makoto and company have ambitiously stepped out of their comfort zone to attempt a "true electric jazz album" in homage to Miles Davis' 1970 masterpiece.  Unfortunately, the end result of their bold experiment is a bit of an exhausting, self-indulgent, and muddled mess.

Important Records

Despite my historic cautiousness and skepticism towards Kawabata Makoto's work, I actually plunged into this album with pretty high expectations.  I love Bitches Brew, so the idea of Davis' vision colliding with AMT's deranged psychedelic chaos seemed like it had a lot of potential.  Also, the cool cover art, the return of Cotton Casino, and the sheer volume of material here (it is a double album) seemed to indicate that this would be major artistic statement of sorts.  And it seemed like it was...initially.

At the very least, Tsuyama Atsushi and Higashi Hiroshi do an impressive job replicating the queasily over-processed sax and distinctive synth sound of the original.  In fact, I found myself kind of loving the opening title track when the rhythm section kicked in with a heavy disco groove.  Unfortunately, my excitement curdled by the song's halfway point and never, ever recovered.  The nadir came when Stoo Odom repeatedly exclaimed "son of a bitches brew!" and cackled maniacally, but that was merely one in a host of many serious shortcomings and bad ideas (a category in which I include the wince-inducing, sophomoric humor of the song titles).

The insurmountable, fundamental flaw that torpedoes the entire album is that Son of a Bitches Brew is essentially 75-minutes of everybody in the band wildly soloing and making weird burbling noises at once.  There is none of the space, structure, and sensuousness of the original, just unending cacophonous squall.  The rhythm section intermittently elevates the disjointed noodling into something much better by sometimes locking into a barreling groove, but the album's unusual mixing significantly weakens the drums' impact.  That is a serious problem, as some raw, visceral power could made these songs a lot more enjoyable.  Finally, and most exasperatingly, this album is not actually much of a diversion from what I expect from Acid Mothers Temple: there is certainly a lot more soloing and freedom, but it is still basically a heavy psych-rock album peppered with more beat-less, structureless freak-outs than usual (and a sax thrown in).

That said, I suspect that this album will be very polarizing and that many, many people will disagree with me.  Acid Mothers Temple's insanity, explosiveness, and excess can be very endearing at times and Son of Bitches Brew might be a high-water mark in all three regards.  To my ears, however, it is mostly a one-dimensional, senseless regurgitation of AMT's usual spew of space-y whooshing and guitar noise that drags on for well over an hour with little perceptible variation (albeit with somewhat higher artistic pretensions than usual).  I honestly do not know how anyone could listen to this album in its entirety.

Samples:

• Son of a Bitches Brew
• Helen Buddha: Miss Condom X
• Fellatioh's Dance also Bitch's Blow

 

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05 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

En's 2010 debut (The Absent Coast) was pretty much universally regarded as a great drone album, finding a nice balance between Stars of the Lid-style shimmering bliss and subtly harsh crackle and hiss.  Happily, their latest album repeats that formula, but takes all of their impulses a bit further: the harsh parts are harsher and the dreamy parts are even dreamier. Although it may not be not quite as uniformly solid as its predecessor, the highlights are a bit more impressive.

Students of Decay

It is quite hard to isolate and articulate what makes Maxwell Croy and James Devane's work as En so enjoyable, as their aesthetic is superficially quite similar to that of many other artists currently making ambient drone music.  Already Gone does not boast a particularly innovative approach, clever source material, or a compelling back-story, but En simply have a distinct talent for quietly making fragile, sublime, and subtly moving music (a trait they share with the aforementioned Stars of the Lid).  I guess that should not be surprising though, as Croy has clearly spent years honing his ear for great abstract electronic music while co-running the Root Strata label.  Devane's background is a little more mysterious, as practically all I know about him is that he did a classical guitar cover of one of my favorite Aphex Twin songs ("Rhubarb").  That might not sound like much, but it instantly made me predisposed to like him.

I suppose this one of those albums where the magic lies in the details, as En make a number of minor tweaks to the expected drone tropes.  Some of them are merely curious, like the unexpectedly prominent use of recognizable rock instrumentation (a bass) or the appearance of a koto in "The Sea Saw Swell," but others are much more fundamental to Already Gone's success.  Probably the most significant is that the duo conjure up beautifully warm and shimmering beds of sustained drones, but never let them completely take over a piece's focus.  Instead, they merely provide a spacious and welcoming backdrop for a more ambitious melodic motif.

Also, much like kindred spirits Damian Valles and Marielle Jakobsons, Croy and Devane have a knack for texturally balancing their blissed-out ambiance with sharper, more organic sounds.  This is especially effective in "Marble Steppe" and the title piece, as the bowed, metallic sounds cut through the surrounding drone fog to impressively raw and emotive effect.  En display a deep and intuitive understanding of how to present their ideas so that they are affecting and meaningful without being too blunt about it, which is incredibly difficult in drone music: obvious "hooks" can be ruinous for repeat listening.

My favorite among the shorter pieces on the album is "The Sea Saw Swell," as it features a beautifully quavering motif that sounds like a processed singing saw, but a strong case could be made for most of the others as well.  All are eclipsed by album's centerpiece, however: the closing 19-minute "Elysia" is as long as the entire rest of the album combined and is essentially a highlight reel of everything En does wonderfully.

"Elysia" begins with a blurry and melancholy descending melody (accompanied by little more than field recordings of distant birds and gently lapping water) before seamlessly drifting through passages of rippling processed electric guitar, angelic ambiance, and crackling and rumbling catharsis on its way to a tenderly twinkling coda.  It is an absorbing, beautifully constructed piece from start to finish and ends the album on a very high note.  In fact, it practically is the album, as it makes the shorter, simpler pieces seem kind of like bonus tracks by comparison.  From a sequencing standpoint, I found that a little perplexing, but I like most of them enough to prefer the idea of a very good, oddly constructed album to a near-perfect one-song EP.

Samples:

• The Sea Saw Swell
• Marble Steppe
• Elysia

 

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29 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

 

The most recent solo incarnation of pioneer Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, et al.), this is the definitive OLWDTW release spanning two discs. Thousands Raised To The Sixth is masterful exploration of texture and washes of sound that are strangely melodic and percussive. Nobody can reinvent himself with sound like Kneale, and this release shows him at his best yet.

Edition: 500 2xCD, oversized 5.5" fold out card with two art inserts, each disc in a black envelope, and placed in a slim slip cover.

 

More information here.

 

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29 July 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

There is no denying that Kawabata Makoto is an uncompromising and unique artist, but the sheer volume and unbridled excess of his work as Acid Mothers Temple has been yielding diminishing returns for me for quite some time.  Consequently, I always look forward to his more experimental and intimate diversions, such as this uneasy, drone-heavy collaboration with enigmatic Japanese accordionist à qui avec Gabriel. The two musicians make an inspired and complementary pairing, but Golden Tree does not entirely avoid some of Makoto's more irksome tendencies.

Important

Kawabata's greatest strengths have always been spontaneity, enthusiasm, imagination, and his very free, "anything goes" approach to his music, so it is no surprise that Golden Tree's three pieces sound like improvisations rather than compositions.  Thankfully, he and à qui avec Gabriel seem to have quite a comfortable chemistry, even if it sometimes veers into somewhat risky and puzzling territory as the album unfolds.  The two certainly have no misgivings about lingering in the precariously no-man's land between "self-indulgent" and "boldly innovative."

The album's first piece, "A Sacred Tree at Nemi," however, plays things relatively straight, embellishing the abstract moans and shimmering drones of Makoto's guitar with sustained accordion swells and à qui avec Gabriel's ghostly, ritualistic-sounding vocals.  It is an excellent piece, but it does not stray terribly far from the established drone template, aside from its subtly uncomfortable dissonance.

The proceedings get significantly weirder during the epic, 35-minute centerpiece, "Solid Torus," which starts off in pointillist, lurching fashion before plunging into its long, strange trajectory in earnest.  Even after several listens, I still do not know quite what to make of it.  I can definitely say that it is bloated, schizophrenic, and meandering though.  And that Makoto and his foil sometimes seem to be playing two very different songs.  As unpromising as that might sound, however, it ends up being perversely compelling and definitely seems deliberate rather than accidental.

For her part, à avec qui Gabriel's playing is often surprisingly straightforward and melodic, but it sounds tense and unnerving when coupled with Kawabata's subtly ugly and shrill bed of dissonantly clashing drones.  The overall effect is like a somewhat unhappy accordionist grudgingly attempting to serenade young lovers outside a Parisian cafe, but being nearly drowned out by someone blasting a Birchville Cat Motel record next door.  I can honestly say that I have not experienced anything quite like that before, so the piece is ultimately successful despite its flaws.

The duo save their most unqualified triumph for last, however.  The evocatively titled "A Priest of Nothingness Under the Moon" is deceptively simple, yet remarkably effective.  It is essentially built upon a very minimal, fragile, and endlessly repeating plucked guitar motif and not much else, but its nagging insistence holds the piece together beautifully amidst the unfolding melancholy accordion improvisations and anguished guitar moans and howls.  I have no idea how Makoto managed to get some of these sounds, as he is only credited with guitar and it sometimes sounds like someone viciously bowing a distorted cello–it gets pretty visceral.  Also, à avec qui Gabriel's intermittent angelic vocals are harshly distorted in a very appealing way.

Ending the album on such a focused, cathartic, and emotionally resonant note necessarily makes the other pieces seem comparatively a bit baggy and wandering, but such a crescendo makes for a very satisfying album sequence-wise.  Also, there is no way "Priest" would have had the same impact if the preceding 45-minutes had been similarly raw, so I have to conclude that Kawabata and his mysterious accordionist friend knew exactly what they were doing, even if they took a sometimes puzzling route getting to their destination.  Golden Tree occasionally seems to overstay its welcome or have trouble finding its way at various points, but it ultimately coheres into quite a fine and unusual whole.

Samples:

• A Sacred Tree at Nemi
• Solid Torus
• A Priest of Nothingness Under the Moon

 

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29 July 2012

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Albums and Singles

A collaboration between G. Stuart Dahlquist (formally of Burning Witch) and prolific French composer Philippe Petit is sure to elicit some dark, disturbing imagery, and on that front, Empires Should Burn definitely does not disappoint. With guest vocals from Edward Ka-Spel, Jarboe, and Bryan Lewis Saunders, the resulting album is a dark, though not impenetrable slab of metal hued experimental sound collage.

Small Doses/Basses Frequences

"Vocalists" is a designation used loosely in terms of this album, since all three artists' contributions are most closely aligned with spoken word performances, with each artist supplying their own texts.Ka-Spel's "And Empires Will Burn" is the most engaging in my opinion:comprising almost half of the disc's duration, the 23 minute performance melds clanging gamelan-like metal percussion and grimy noise textures that slowly creep along.The backing track makes slow, cautious changes throughout to keep variation, but not detract from the narration.

Ka-Spel's calm, dramatic delivery of his performance adds to the creepiness of both his words and the sound surrounding it.The two are in perfect harmony, where the words never overshadow the music nor vice versa.The narrative is absent for around the final third of the piece, where the sound takes the focus, increasing the amount of change and variation to be heard.

"The Star Implodes" pairs Jarboe's understated readings with clattering guitars and found sounds to excellent effect.Compared to many of the pieces on here, there is a greater sense of light and space to be heard, even if it is only hinted out."A Vision"'s reading by Lewis Saunders has an intentionally stilted, uncomfortable cadence to his whispered voice that just heaps on the discomfort.

There are two instrumental pieces included as well, which meld in perfectly with the overall fell of the album."Sweet Dreams Asshole" takes distant chiming bells and a creepy layer of noise, both of which could be cliché but instead come across quite effective in channeling a dark, sinister mood that is only exacerbated by Dahlquist's seemingly wordless snarls."Apocryphatic_Ally" follows Jarboe's performance to close the album, and plunges it again into darkness with cautious restraint; electronic tinged noises abound but never lose a natural, uncomfortable organic feel.

I am usually not one fond of spoken word performances, as I feel too often they come across not only as pretentious, but also tend to overshadow any musical accompaniment they might have.On Empires Should Burn, they feel less like that traditional style, but more like a collection of ghost stories with sonic accompaniment.The fact that both the words and music are captivating is no easy task, and I can’t think of any time it worked so well other than Velvet Underground's "The Gift" or Wire's "The Other Window."

samples:

• And Empires Will Burn
• Sweet Dreams Asshole
• The Star Implodes

 

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29 July 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Fabrika is a new label based out of Athens, Greece, for exclusively vinyl-only limited editions focusing on obscure and up-and-coming minimal synth groups. Their first release, limited to 500 copies, is a sampler of analog synth acts, primarily from Europe, a few of who have since released full-length LPs through Fabrika Records as well. This collection ranges from the complex, pulsating cold wave ambience of NY-based Led Er Est to the bopping "electrobilly" of Berlin-based Jemek Jemowit. Over half of the tracks are from Germany and the general feel of the record is bleak, robotic and danceable with serrated edges.  It is essentially a dance compilation for the disaffected contemporary nihilist.  I envision futuristic sci-fi dancefloor party scenes with a looming, omnipresent antagonist while some of the characters might be overdosing yet no one seems to care.

Fabrika

Commencing the compilation on Side A is Led Er Est's "Doctor Green," a complex and eerie track that gives me the feeling of a psychological thriller with medical experiments.Lebanon Hanover is a UK/Berlin-based duo and their "Kunst" is one of the standout tracks: icy synths & blighted beats manage to be both soothing and alienating, providing a foundation for the English and German vocals.Gertrud Stein, a one-woman electro-punk act, repeats "I can't dance (in a place like this!)" abrasively and robotically, as if she's trapped in a nightmarish nightclub, anxious to get out.Dolina present a pleasant yet dead-pan vocal delivery and lend themselves to a darker side of synthpop danceability, while Martial Canterel—aka Sean McBride, who is one-half of NY synth forerunners Xeno & Oaklander—uses analogue-only array of electronic instrumentation to "douse the dancefloor with petrol" again conjuring imagery like we're dancing our way through the apocalypse.  Closing Side A are two retro-minimal DIY duos from Athens, Selofan (the label owners' project) and Human Puppets, veterans of the European synth scene for over a decade. Selofan's "The Passion of Chris" builds in intensity evoking anxiety then fading seamlessly into "Things Change Fast," filled with seemingly hallucinatory suspense by Human Puppets, who have recently released an album thru Kernkrach in Germany.

Side B of the record is all German-based.Berlin duo Bloodygrave and Die Lust (sprung from their previous band, Rotten Western Kulture) use playful, almost bubbly melodies paired to contrast their emotionless, repetitive and processed vocals on "Frage Der Technik" (translation: "Question of Technique"), which I imagine being delivered in a deadpan, shoe-gaze style.  Sickdoll introduce the first guitar of the compilation with a surfer rock-esque jam with hints of despair—maybe surfing on a bad acid trip—backed with with an underlying an OMD-esque melody, some squiggly, quirky noise elements and complete with brooding vocals declaring "Das Meer Ist Blau" (translation: "The Sea is Blue"—and the singer sounds blue indeed).  Die Selektion is a young Italian/German trio who use thumping beats in a thick wave clearly influenced by the likes of Nitzer Ebb and Grauzone, with horns that go off like sirens amidst a distant alternative world like Blade Runner.Petra Flurr + Modernista's "Medizine" gives off angsty, aggressive vibes with curt vocals, before a track by self-proclaimed "electrobilly" (which may sound like you'd imagine it to) Berlin-via-Poland artist Jemek Jemowit blends humor and his unique, outsider-chic style and makes it work (and who also has a full LP out now as well as a video for the title track, Zemsta).  Alienphobie, deemed "subterranean intergalactic hitchhikers," are playfully kinky in "Überall" (translation: "Everywhere") while Velvet Condom dish out psychedelic robot-noise and singer who sounds concerned, like she's running away from someone while singing.Phoenix Catscratch, the compilation's closing act, reminds me of something along the lines of the Virgin Prunes being represented as an animatronic band in a video game from the future.They have since broken up but their only album was recently released from Fabrika's CD-based sister label, Dead Scarlet, in an edition of 500 copies.

I tend to gravitate towards either other-worldly/psychologically stimulating music or experimental dance/beats and these tracks embody a bit of both elements: a progressive mentality combined with some mindless danceability.  As a whole, recognizing the collection as one entity, it is a glimpse into a mindset that is post-consumer DIY and borderline anarchist electro-punk.  Due to its obscurity, it is a hidden world that must be sought after in order to discover and it is refreshing to have to dig a bit in order to find something worth looking for.  Having partnered up with Berlin's Drop Dead Festival last year, hopefully Dimitri and Joanna from Fabrika will do so again this coming October 2012 and assemble another rare showcase of this underground synth scene that is bubbling up in Berlin and beyond.From this compilation, Jemek Jemowit, Die Selektion, Petra Flurr & Modernista, and Lebanon Hanover have all since released albums on Fabrika, all vinyl limited editions of 300 copies.

Monosynth is limited to 500 copies, available from Fabrika (along with their other releases) or from Dark Entries in the US.

samples:

• Led Er Est - "Doctor Green"
• Lebanon Hanover - "Kunst"
• Bloodygrave & Die Lust - "Frage der Technik"
• Jemek Jemowit - "Laktose"

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29 July 2012

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

While Yasutoshi Yoshida is not nearly as prolific as he was in the early days of Government Alpha, the result has been a "quality over quantity" approach, much like the Incapacitants, and the opposite extreme from the likes of Merzbow and Dissecting Table. This not only makes each new release something I look forward to, but also seems to ensure what he does put out stays of exceptional quality. Exemplified by this single: no shtick, no pretense, just a great 7" from one of the masters.

Amethyst Sunset

In a noise world filled with poorly dubbed but ultra limited tapes and a multitude of sloppy CDRs thrown together almost as an afterthought, there is a nostalgic charm about this single, reminding me of my earliest forays into the genre.Back then an Aube or Pain Jerk 7" was something special.Due to the cost of pressing, it was a release that both the artist and label took very seriously.Altars of Precogs has that same feeling to it, albeit with full color art of Yoshida's collage work rather than those older Xeroxed sleeves.

The wet, sloppy undulating noise of "Flux" has a kinetic feel to it, not going for the stagnant wall noise thing, but at the same time being a bit more consistent than the jumpy quick edits of a Pain Jerk track.Acidic sheets of noise, slowed down dental drills, and cosmic flanged tones cluster together in complex, intermingling layers.

On the flip side, "Purge" sounds like screeching tires and sine wave drones, slowly rising and falling over chirpy noise bursts.It has a relentless push, but has a more stuttering and erratic feeling compared to the expansive waves of "Flux".Towards its end it comes across like an engine that is ready to die at any moment, but continues chugging on a bit longer until it comes to its inevitable end.

This may sound like a backhanded compliment, and by no way do I mean it to, but Altar of Precogs is simply a great noise single, nothing more. It does not need to be anything else.Yoshida continues his streak of making compelling noise that sounds like him, but never becomes lost in a cloud of monotony.Highly recommended for any fan of noise, old school or new…just a solid, respectable slab of harsh noise by one of the best practitioners.

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