22 April 2007

Matthew Amundsen

Albums and Singles

The second release from this Kawabata Makoto-less Acid Mothers splinter group consists of three fairly similar instrumental blues tracks. While not a huge departure from their last album, here the band comes across as more focused and succinct in their songwriting.

 

Fractal

Each of the tracks embodies a different aspect of the mountain wolf of the title. The first, "Ramble," wouldn't sound out of place coming from the open door of a northern Mississippi juke joint just as the sun begins to rise over the horizon. It's an enjoyable if unexceptional song. "Anger" is the one most reminiscent of the main Acid Mothers group with its bewildering guitar sprawling all over the place, sometimes erupting into squalls of feedback. The third track favors the drums in its mix while the rhythm guitar shimmers in the background and the lead calmly skirts the edges. The blues this trio plays is mostly reverent and, apart from an occasional wailing guitar, doesn't add a whole lot new to this established genre. Still, the songs are pleasurable enough and at just under 20 minutes' running time, they don't overstay their welcome.

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22 April 2007

Mike Barrett

Albums and Singles

If you're a Western Mass townie, its likely that you've experienced more of Thurston Moore's side projects than you've ever thought possible.  Of all his recent non-Sonic Youth outings this little piece of analog realy exciting.

 

Bonescraper

As far as double cassettes go, this is succinct and to the point. Two 24 minute tapes are just enough to showcase Northampton Wool's plinking, lo-fi, scuzzed out guitar noise. Moore needs no introduction.The other collaberator, Bill Nace, is no stranger in the Pioneer Valley experimental music scene. He can be found scraping out caverns of sound with Chris Corsano in Vampire Bellt, Chris Cooper (Fat Worm of Error) in Buddies, or with his long running band XO4. In Noho Wools, we get to see these two axe masters furiously battle it out, and fuse thier weapons into one chaotic, molten mess. This recording is as much of a send up to Dead C as it is to Thurston's unabashed love of Wolf Eyes and Hair Police. It has all the energy and punk attitude, and the chops and skill to back it up.  Those who successfully seek out this little jem will be rewarded.

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22 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

For his umpteenth album, Bill Callahan drops his Smog/(Smog) band designation and now goes by his given name, if only to distance himself from the gloom, misogyny, and misery of his previous incarnation and start fresh. Although his subject matter is indeed sunnier and his songs more polished, he thankfully retains his sense of humor and knack for wordplay.

 

Drag City

His maturation isn't unexpected considering the trajectory of his last couple of albums, but here Callahan is in full bloom. No longer hiding his dark impulses behind a fabricated band name, he now steps naked and confident into the light. The title obviously reflects this change, as does the cover with its garish bright colors and smiling characters.

Light and salvation in the abstract sense inform the themes of "Honeymoon Child" and "Day," so it's not too difficult to think that Callahan has at last found some sort of happiness, or at least some comfort in his own skin. He also invokes water as life on the opening song "From the Rivers to the Ocean," which he has done before, but it's a progression from the past in that now he embraces the fluidity and the changes, realizing that they can sometimes be uplifting rather than defeating. However, this positivity shouldn't be mistaken for blandness as can be the case with other artists. A song title like "A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to be a Man" proves that his tongue is as firmly in cheek as ever.

Yet the most striking element of the album is the music itself. The instrumentation and arrangements are more diverse and accomplished than most anything Callahan has achieved previously, and much of this is indebted to Neil Michael Hagerty. Although I’m not a fan of his recent solo work, Hagerty's masterful touch on this album is impressive. The album's stand out track is easily "Diamond Dancer," also its first single. It's a relentless, disco-driven song and the violin, anxious acoustic guitar, and subtle electric guitar give it just enough edge to balance some of the album's softer elements.

Changing from embittered to embracing isn't easy, especially in front of an audience accustomed to if not expecting a certain degree of moroseness, and perhaps it's this reason alone that compelled Callahan to make a change. No matter the reason, he has made one of his richest albums yet.

samples:

• Diamond Dancer
• Honeymoon Child
• Day

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I remember hearing a supposed "recording from hell" on Art Bell's Coast to Coast radio program years ago and upon hearing the latest project from Honey Owens (Jackie-O Motherfucker, Nudge), I was immediately reminded of those apparently satanic vibrations. Blood is Clean isn't particularly vicious, tormented, or evil in character, but Owens' ghostly voice and hazy songs on this record are uniquely haunting.

 

Kranky
 
The sixth of April is associated with a number of events throughout history: the earliest recorded solar eclipse in 648 BC is attributed to this day, Petrarch's first vision of Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon also occurred on April the sixth, it was the day that the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, and it happens to be the day that Robert Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole. "April 6" is Valet's introduction to the world and it's probably helpful to think of each of these events as analogues of a sort to this record. Honey Owens is at her best on her Kranky debut, ushering alien and mystical sounds out of her mind and into the air, converting submerged rhythms into occult ritual, and turning out songs bathed in unquiet isolation and immutable violence. The supernatural are at work, conforming Owens' hands to a position reserved for an afterlife blues and shaping her lips into coded messages for the dead and the devils.

"April 6" opens with her spectral voice moaning wordless sounds into the air and is closely followed by ceremonial drums and tumbling winds. The sound of errata blow about in this storm of sound slowly closes the track, leaving an uneasy feeling in my belly and arousing suspicions about what might follow. Owens could've led the record down a predictably bombastic path at this point, rendering "April 6" nothing more than a prolonged tease in anticipation of some outward explosion. Instead, "Blood is Clean" converts all the stock piled tension into an internal hemorrhage, a whirlpool of fuzzed out guitars and rumbling bass. Her lyrics bring to mind no immediate ideas, but rather vague hallucinations of symbols and emotions that seem equally inviting and disconcerting. The guitar solo on "Blood is Clean" is perhaps one of the most phenomenal things I've heard all year. It tumbles out of the mix and practically destroys the rest of the song and pictures of war-torn landscapes or fire-scarred cities slowly evolve out of the music. It's a moment of musical and sonic brilliance, setting the tone for the rest of the record and completely erasing whatever preconceptions I might have had concerning Owens' music.

The whole of the album isn't quite as structured as "Blood is Clean;" songs like "Burmajuana" and "Tame All the Lions" sound less like songs and more like slowly evolving pictures that never quite acquire enough definition to become recognizable. Even when Owens sings, her voice is so removed and cold that it's hard to imagine it as an intentional part of the recording. It mixes well with the music, but instead of providing any order to the songs, it increases their apparitional qualities and further distances them from reality. They're elegant songs that evolve patiently, even if they don't immediately bring to mind traditional song structures. That is, perhaps, the stroke of artistry that sets Blood is Clean apart from the pack. So often artists will pretend to play with the idea of the song, stretching it beyond its classical limits either by destruction or some lesser form of decay. Owens' own approach maintains the artistry of song-craft and simultaneously expands its horizons.

By fluctuating between abstract and concrete music she creates a bizarre tension that's both enjoyable to the mind and entertaining in general. "My Volcano" combines these two approaches almost perfectly, mimicking the sometimes wandering nature of the otherwise well-defined and structured blues and inserting the more free-form nature of modern guitar performance into that style. It's my favorite piece on the album and perhaps the best thing Owens has ever written. "North" closes the album with a blur of washed out sound, a sound that brought to mind blizzards and the harsh landscape of the planet's polar regions. In a way it's a cleansing piece of music, washing away whatever relations to the world the rest of the album established by way of metaphor. In another way it calls to mind the strange and supernatural spirit of gothic America, immersing me, along with the rest of the album, in a frame of mind partially familiar, nightmarish, and wholly intriguing.

samples:

• April 6
• Mystic Flood
• North

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16 April 2007

Albums and Singles

Here is sound art created from recordings made in Marfa, Texas, on and around the Donald Judd installations in 2002. It is solidly in the camp of those who consider elements of weather and the environment to be musical, and silence to be something much rarer than gold.

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Here is sound art created from recordings made in Marfa, Texas, on and around the Donald Judd installations in 2002. It is solidly in the camp of those who consider elements of weather and the environment to be musical, and silence to be something much rarer than gold.

 

Sub Rosa  

This Sub Rosa release explores electronic hum and crackle and low level environmental buzz. Vitiello has to put in the hours to capture the raw material and then make decisions about which to process in the studio, and to what extent. His preferred method of tweaking is using older analog equipment which may account for the fact that this seems warmer and more organic than much installation music. Getting the most out of Listening to Donald Judd arguably relies on a familiarity with the art works in question. Without that, it probably comes across as an outtake from the Paris, Texas soundtrack.

Judd was an engineer in the military, studied philosophy and wrote art criticism. He declared that painting was "finished" and argued that objects should not represent anything, but merely exist. He refused the term minimalist when applied to his own work and had maximum talent for acquiring financial backing from the Dia Art Foundation to purchase much of Marfa. To put it simply, Judd's work revealed designers and engineers to be artists by exposing the architectural and industrial essence of buildings. He utilized the entire natural area as a huge gallery. It's not exactly Land Art in the strictest sense but somewhat similar in breadth. Judd impressively shed the shackles of gallery and frame. Though as a merging of art and nature, to be honest I prefer the naturalistic, transitory, beauty, created and filmed by Andy Goldsworthy. (Maybe someone will record one of Goldsworthy's ice sculptures or his amazing leaf or water based works.)

So, Marfa is now a somewhat unusual remote small town with ultra-modern galleries, a fancy restaurant, and the Chinati Foundation which showcases Judd and a few other artists, engineers, or whatever they choose to call themselves. Despite that, it obviously remains very quiet, and yet anyone, who finds everyday life to be ripe with portent, meaning, and the romance of ordinary mortality, will find these recordings attractive or maybe even moving. The droning quality of some sections is fitting since Judd's favorite instrument was bagpipes.

Vitiello has captured the sonic capacity of Judd's sculpture, an action that, amongst other things, again poses the question of where objects end, and examines their relationship to nature. The results are cleverly edited to make clear that this work is concerned, as Vitiello has made clear elsewhere, with space rather than time. I am reminded of a piece by Dallas artist Denise Brown; a memorial rendition of her father's hand sculpted from a block of wood and placed in her garden. Over time, the hand will absorb the environment as surely as it has changed the view of that corner of her garden. Vitiello inhabits an artistic terrain which would have us hear such an interaction. The hand may disintegrate completely (not all things are as durable as fired clay). I suppose that Judd would not have favored her representation, but surely there is an element of reproduction in even the most austere design. Where the back and forth transformation will end, I'm not sure. I like to think it won't.

Vitiello may be best known for both World Trade Center Recordings: Winds After Hurricane Floyd, derived from the placement, in 1999, of contact microphones on the 91st floor of Tower One, and also his co-production of a couple of From The Kitchen Archives releases. The six pieces here, crackle, drip, squeak, throb, and hum with life and its absence. This flow is punctuated by the relative excitement of a passing train. I recommend listening to them all fairly loud, but that may be sacrilege. The audio snippets I can provide offer scant insight into how the record deserves to be appreciated or despised in it's entirety. 

Consider leafing through a copy of Judd's Complete Writings while hearing this document of a snapshot in space, rather than time.

 Somebody once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. How many people would dance to Listening to Donald Judd is unclear, but I am reminded to finish refining a choreographed ode to the Norman doorway of Tutbury Church.

samples:

• track 4
• track 5
• track 6  

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The title of Wrong Meeting should be taken as a fair warning, and a very apt title, for those expecting business as usual for Keith Tenniswood and Andrew Weatherall. On first listen it certainly feels like someone's replaced this TLS album with the wrong record. Despite these initial doubts this record quickly becomes one of the duo's finest efforts to date, without sounding like any of their previous records. Anyone expecting the bumpy electro of their Emissions era or the low end basement sleazy jams of From the Double Gone Chapel, will be sorely disappointed and needs to start keeping up with Weatherall's total lack of continuity.

 

Rotters Golf Club

There are still small particles of dub and electro in the mix, but this record presents an almost conventional band sound for the duo. Weatherall's sneering vocals are now the main element of the songs where once bass ruled. Oddly enough for me, considering my own love of TLS as an electronic outfit, it's the straight rockabilly of "Evangeline" and the rock 'n roll of "Work at Night" that stand head and shoulders above the rest of the album. The Clash and PiL influences that can be found scattered throughout their interviews finally make their presence felt in the sounds, not just the attitude. The grumbling bassy pub rock of the opener, "Patient Saints" isn’t the best way to open the album, but this is just the perverse side of TLS poking through. They've refused to make this album an easily accepted transition.

After a few handfuls of listens, and after the initial what-the-fuck has worn off, Wrong Meeting is just another in a long line of superb TLS albums; it's just not what was expected. There's no point in resenting Weatherall for keeping on the move musically, it was always part of the appeal.

samples:

• Evangeline
• Puritan Fist
• Work at Night

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The fifth LP from the Swedish producer is a significant expansion on its early vinyl only incarnation, with a massive bonus track added.  It's a dark, yet comfortably fascinating journey through the wilds of Sweden.

 

Shitkatapult  

There isn't a more specific description for this album other than "electronic," as it doesn't fit into any single style or genre.  Mixed as a massive, uninterrupted piece, the disc is intended to be an audio document of the town of Ludwijka but its variety and depth go far beyond geographic boundaries.  Having never been to Sweden, I can only assume how well this approximates the environments and ambience of the region.

The first third of the album is the most dance-floor friendly, overflowing with organic textures, analog synths, and fragments of speech, matched with thumping electronic beats.  Even though they are superficially more conventional, a more in-depth listen reveals a world of textures and patterns that are almost impossible to discern.  A little bit of everything can be heard throughout this entire album:  piano, standard synths, recordings from Ilar's childhood, and even his cat.  

The next three tracks are a bit minimal in comparison: basic digital IDM click rhythms, minor synth and piano chords, glacial tones, and a lot of reverb.  The geography in this album is clearly evident, from the earlier tracks' urban industrial sprawl, teeming with rhythms and bits of missed conversations, followed by the midpoint's frigid snowfield ambience, and ending with the native percussion and bird sounds of the final two pieces.  The sound of the birds flocking in the country side actually gives an almost tropical feeling to the ending of this journey, even though I highly doubt there are rainforests in Sweden.

The final track, exclusive to this CD reissue, is about 15 minutes long and actually feels like the journey through Ludwijka in reverse:  starting with the crows and birds from the final two tracks and going from there into a long form drift of textures and chill out sounds back to the beginning.  It's a sort of "mega mix" and its placement on the disc doesn't detract from the overall conceptual feeling of the disc.

Anders Ilar has created an audio journey through the wilds of Sweden, and while it is not well suited for the club or the DJ set, it is great for simply sitting down and absorbing.  Dark, but warm and familiar, it's a damn compelling work.

samples:

• i
• v
• vii  

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

A note for note cover of any Atari Teenage Riot song is a silly idea but that is what D-Trash Records have offered up with The Virus has been Spread. Nearly every track here is a straight-up cover lacking in any imagination, vision, or sense of danger. As such, The Virus has been Spread is a limp and impotent attempt at a tribute. It is most likely a way for this label to get its acts some spotlight; it has bitten them in the tail because after listening to this CD I do not want to hear any of these artists again.

 

D-Trash Records 

What made Atari Teenage Riot special was not the music nor the lyrics but the attitude. The music got fairly mundane quite quickly and the lyrics were always a bit suspect. However, the conviction in the delivery of the songs was always enough to make Atari Teenage Riot live up to their name. Unfortunately, every single artist on this compilation has missed this integral part of the equation. The only times when I felt any element of chaos or danger were when the artist making the cover has sampled from the original version of the song. This again overlooks an important part of what made Atari Teenage Riot more than another techno-cum-metal band: all their samples were home made and not lazily borrowed from someone else's music. It is especially depressing when the Atari Teenage Riot samples are followed by pure garbage like DHC Meinhof's "Revolution Action."

While I am impressed that many of the bands here have managed to replicate some of the frenzied feedback featured on the original tracks with high fidelity, their pedestrian plod through the songs is less than inspiring. Rabbit Junk's "Start the Riot" sounds more suitable for a bingo hall and regrettably it opens the album; hardly an encouraging start. By far the most heinous of bad covers on this compilation is Howard Roark's take on "No Remorse (I Wanna Die)" as it is not only an insult to Atari Teenage Riot but to the one good song that Slayer have done since 1990 (the original being a collaboration between the two). The one decent attempt comes from Hansel with their version of "Ghostchase," instead of trying to out-Digital Hardcore the kings and queens of Digital Hardcore they remove nearly all the metal aspects of the music and replace them with orchestral instrumentation and silences. It is not a particularly great cover but compared to the rest of The Virus has been Spread it is leagues ahead.

If I sound harsh, it is only because Atari Teenage Riot are close to my heart and it pains me to hear so many mediocre versions of their songs used in a crass attempt of self-promotion. I have only managed to sit through all of this a couple of times, I keep getting the urge to put on 60 Second Wipe Out at obscene volumes instead. The Virus has been Spread intrigued me as D-Trash have had a long history with Digital Hardcore Recordings so I hoped it might be a competent attempt at paying tribute to an often overlooked but great band but I was sadly deceived.

samples:

• Rabbit Junk - Start the Riot
• Hansel - Ghostchase
• DHC Meinhof - Revolution Action

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16 April 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This project takes a unique approach to music: rather than instrumentation, it is based around the sound of writing and drawing. It makes for some original textures but it lacks a coherent feeling and compositional structure that would have made it more compelling.

 

Hydrahead

The audial byproduct of a pencil or pen scraping against paper is often ignored as the necessary and forgetable side effect of a different artistic project entirely. Craig Dongoski (aided by Aaron Turner of Isis with numerous album covers to his credit) chooses to focus on this subtle element and make it the basis of an experimental work.

Samples of writing and drawing are processed and utilized throughout, sometimes very clearly and overt ("Scattered Shavings," "A Choir Speaks") while in other cases are stretched to a different texture entirely ("Mask," "Being Born Broken").  Other samples are utilized such as female voice fragments on "Mask" and Turner himself contributing some highly effected guitar, most notable on "Shrine of Wreckless Illumination." The sounds vary widely from track to track: both of the "Being Born Broken" tracks are based upon lo-fi samples, rhythmic synth sounds and loops of digitally processed noise while "Scattered Shavings" has the recognizable sounds of drawing paired with segments of disembodied voices, rough field recordings, and digitized rain sounds.

Taken as a whole, the disc features some rather exceptional textures and sounds, especially given their source.  However, the weakness of the disc is that it feels more like a pastiche of sounds rather than a specific composition.  It lacks the sense of structure and development that the bigger names in the avant garde field tend to build upon.  Given the unique approach to the work, I think it is something Dongoski can build upon and refine with future work.

samples:

• The Shrine of Wreckless Illumination  
• Mask  
• A Choir Speaks  

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