11 March 2007

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The old saying about books and covers come to mind when I look at the sleeve of this album. Instead of austere, minimalist electronica; Per Henrik Svalastog serves up some gorgeously vibrant electronic(ish) music that uses the warm tones of traditional Norwegian instruments where normally glitches and icy synthesisers would be the first port of call. Solidly produced and performed, Woodwork is a marvelous album well worth investigating.

 

Rune Grammofon
 
Much like everything else on the Rune Grammofon label, Svalastog's Woodwork is a thing of elegant, minimal beauty. Eschewing the cool electronic medium that he has previously worked in, this album sees Svalastog instead pursuing a warmer acoustic path. Granted there is a lot of computer manipulation going on but the character of the acoustic instruments he is using is well preserved. He uses a selection of very old Norwegian folk instruments including a ram's horn and the harpeleik (a type of zither harp). Each of these has quite a unique sounding tone to start with and with the added effects and editing; the album develops a foreign and otherworldly atmosphere.

Many of the pieces are built out of small segments of Svalastog picking away at an instrument and layering counter rhythms over it, before being fleshing out the sound with all sorts of weird and wonderful melodies and noises. "The Wood Metal Friction" is a fitting example of this approach; it begins with a few simple refrains that do not seem to fit together particularly well until a strong bass kicks in. Then all of the elements suddenly merge with the rhythm to make a majestic and regal sounding piece. Svalastog more or less sticks to this formula for the whole album, although the music on Woodwork is anything but formulaic. "Centerline Reminder," for instance, builds up in nearly the exact same way as "The Wood Metal Friction," but sounds completely distinct (as well as being excellent).

Svalastog is obviously comfortable working on his computer as the post-production on the instruments is flawless. It is unclear how much of the sound is completely electronic or played instruments manipulated by computer. In any case, it all sounds amazing. He lets a lot of the original resonances and tones sing through. Most of the time he restrains himself to bog standard techniques like stereo panning to add some space to the pieces. The panning on "Mouse Tracking" towards the end sounds great on headphones, the stringed instrument (whatever it may be) seems to be jumping from one place to another, becoming two sources of sound before collapsing in on itself.

The pieces that make up Woodwork sit together very well on the CD. The pacing of the music is just right, with enough variation to make the album flow without hindrance. It is hard to find fault with it, I am struggling to find something wrong with it in order to make a balanced review but I think I will have to resign myself to having no bad words to say about it. Woodwork is a captivating and rewarding listen.

samples:

• The Wood Metal Friction
• Mouse Tracking
• White Oak White Pine

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

The third full length release from Scott "Wino" Weinrich's current band is a concept album but don't hold that against it. It is a fine collection of retro-sounding metal. Granted the songs can get a little samey—any of them could be switched around and I would be hard pressed to notice—but there is not a bad song in sight. Unfortunately, listening to them all in one go is an unrewarding experience as there is not enough variety to make this work as an album.

 

Southern Lord
 
The concept behind the album is the life of a mixed-race American during the frontier days. However, the conceptual side of the album falls quickly by the wayside because at the end of the day the story is not that gripping. The music is more like something that would be associated with Birmingham 1970 than with early America. Most of the songs are pretty good; energetic and no-nonsense rock being the order of the day. Although apart from the opener, "Purple Neon Dream," they all blend into one another far too easily. That being said, the songs are pretty solid and hit hard and fast.

Songs like "Dark Horizons" and "The Lesson" just about stick out above the rest. There is not much to set them apart but the performance on these songs pack a little more oomph. The album closes with "Slow Rain," which finishes off things neatly with a few easy on the ear solos. The main drawback here is that there is not enough variation on The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote, although this is expected from Wino as not much has changed in his output since Saint Vitus were knocking about. He could have easily written many of these songs 20 years ago.

While it is nice to hear some old school metal, with The Hidden Hand there is always a feeling of "been there, done that." There is not a lot here to separate what Wino has done with any of his previous bands (and even in the beginning the music was far from forward-thinking). That is not to say that the music is bad, it is very, very good but I have already got a shelf full of albums that sound pretty much the same.

samples:

• Purple Neon Dream
• The Lesson
• The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

This two tracker (one 15 minute studio thrashing and one 20 minute live and liquifying boiler) feels a lot more organic than their debut, relying less on electrics and letting the group dynamic push further. Again featuring Giffoni on electrics (albeit on subdued form), man of the moment Chris Corsano and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police) as a duo of drummers and Brian Sullivan (Mouthus) on Guitar, this is the sound of an irreverent collective throwing grenades into Sonic Youth's tour van.

 

Important

Beginning with a deceptively straight free jazz drumming passage, Tremaine and Corsano bounce off each other's half-rhythms. The much underrated Tremaine holding own against minor deity Corsano until the half gnarly guitar bursts through with the acid reflux oscillations forcing them off the autobahn. Squirreling notes are sieved through burnt-to-crisp solder wired Butthole Surfers vinyl, the guitar and its buzzing cousin groove through repetitive dial motions. The drums mixed up high to sound like barrels tipped down mountainsides taking out malls and home improvement centres.

For the live track it appears that Dominic 'Prurient' Fernow's artwork sharpened teeth typography and metal diagram may have seeped through the plastic into the music. The bellows of beasts and a black guitar's swirl of doom drag the piece cellarwards until precision cymbals appear like a cluster of insect proboscises feeling out the air. There's little to set apart the live and the studio tracks, Death Unit continue to explode on record regardless of the setting, a couple of more mellow pieces wouldn't go amiss next time though. There's ample proof that the collective can kick in speakers, but can they stop short of the brink as well as charge off it?

samples:

• One
• Two

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

In 2002 Steve Silverstein and Nick Forte released an album on Kranky that challenged the fractured guitars and distorted compositions of many popular and respected musicians, all of whom received far more attention for fewer reasons than I care to think about. Not to be deterred, Christmas Decorations have returned with an even more impressive record this year, their fragmented guitars and willingness to take chances in tow.

 

Community Library
 
There's no question that Christmas Decorations write songs. All the distortion, oddball vocal deliveries, and sideways compositions in the world couldn't hide that fact on Model 91 and the same is true of Communal Rust. Although the band is stranger than they were before, their music more broken up and unusual, there's a recognizable and elegant melody on each one of the album's nine tracks. For every shuttering string and heavily processed bit of sound there's an equal emphasis on structure and narrative. When a sound dissolves or evolves into something new on the record, the progression seems logical, even if it is unexpected. The number of elemental parts to be found on this record is fairly astonishing, too. I can hear everything from bells and whistles to the wheezing of a harmonica and an acoustic guitar in these songs: there's no shortage of things into which these sounds and instruments can transform.

All of this isn't especially captivating in and of itself: plenty of bands maximize their sound palette and many do a fine job of riding the line between musical and noisy. Christmas Decorations has something extra, though, a special and delicate attention that they pay to detail that breathes life into their songs. These aren't detached experimental compositions meant to demonstrate the versatility of the electric guitar, they are songs with a whole range of emotional utterances. Where Fennesz might stretch his guitars in unexpected or clever ways, Christmas Decorations manipulate their instruments in just the right ways, allowing the song to dictate their timbre, not vice versa. The band has thankfully eschewed any obvious vocal elements from this album, as well, further condensing and concentrating their presentation.

Silverstein and Forte's extra "something" special comes from their focus, at least in part. What is unnecessary is left out, what is effective and powerful is kept in and emphasized, as on "Browning Out." The song begins with the warm hum of amplifiers powering up, but slowly evolves into a soundscape piece full of distorted highlights. The shaking power of that hum could've easily been the focal point for this song, the plain character of the whole thing excused away in the name of experimenting. Christmas Decorations, however, focus brilliantly on the minutiae that slowly grow out of the song. They do this all over the record, in fact. There isn't a single minute of music that isn't possessed by some moment of ingenuity and careful consideration. Cut up bits of cello or violin performance find their way into crystalline pops of feedback and drone, as though all these various parts were meant to be next to each other the second electricity made such music possible. When all of these elements come together, it's difficult not to think that Christmas Decorations had some kind of Hitchcock-ian story board planned out second by second because Christmas Decorations not only hold all the right cards, they know how to play them very well.

samples:

• Upstage the Drips
• Clay Margins
• Mirrored Mold

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

Beaming in from the limited edition cold, this tweaked-out compilation of Astral Social Club's early volumes is both an excellent introduction and a fresh perspective on the project. These eleven tracks, pulled from the first seven self-released CD-Rs releases by the head of the VHF label, weave in and out of conventional consciousness, worked into each other by the Club's sole member, Neil Campbell (now ex-Vibracathedral Orchestra).

 

VHF

Everything's untitled here, so it's a little difficult for anal retentives to source tracks back to the original volume tracks. It gets even harder when Campbell starts flaying tracks together as on the opening piece here, making the pair seem like they were always meant to be together, the colliding and then syncing bleeps spinning like cross section peeks at planetary rings. What Astral Social Club's music excels at where others fail is the creation of a kind of musical electric ooze, collected sounds being propelled as one mass on breathless electronic steam huffing bursts. This squelch and squeeze effect of digital and analogue has an almost physical presence, Campbell's blessed mind/body drifting through various worlds carrying particles back home with him.

This mix is probably best expressed through the fuzzy smothered bagpipe of "Four" and its shifting sleepy gaze that seems caught up in the digital eddies. It’s either great fortune or great acuity, but all of the songs here contain chimerical unintentional melodies, the matching of these two tissue types sounding distinctly hands on. Despite the inner thread of beauty right the way through, this music never settles into mere ambience or any form of mild listening, the sinister churns of Campbell's flickering panicked vocals keep slipping through. He's no stranger to beats either with analogue and digital percussion clicking, cutting and stomping throughout, sometimes lifting off like Can’s rhythm section gone off-the-rails. The percussive buckle of Tirath Nirmala Singh's reworking of "Three" proves the most if-focus beat, setting off firecrackers in an exploding never-ending loop. Sounding like a bootleg of LX Paterson finally losing his mind during his most wrecked collage session, bursts of bass drained dub melody percolate through.

Regardless of a few missed classics from the early runs of the volumes, this is still an tremendous round-up of the early material. It's like being reintroduced to the first seven releases in one full-size rush, leaving me thirsty for the next dose.

samples:

• One
• Five
• Eleven

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

When I first heard about these four HEAVYbreathing volumes of erotic music, I wondered what more they could possibly contribute to this already oversaturated kitsch niche. Somewhat different from others like it is that these volumes are further subdivided into themes. The series is subtitled "The Sounds of Sex," and that's pretty much what this disc is, for better or for worse.

 

Normal

Dating from the second half of the 20th century, these tracks are from a variety of countries and musical styles. The songs are arranged for impact rather than chronologically, which makes this more than a mere archival project. But while ambitious in scope, it does have a couple of debilitating limitations.

The biggest stumbling block for me is that almost every track features the sound of a woman's orgasm. Not only are these obviously faked and about as erotic as an anatomical chart, but the explicitness leaves little to the imagination. The novelty gets old fast. This is a shame because there's actually a lot of good music underneath these moans that becomes secondary as a result. This disc is obviously aimed at a heterosexual audience, presumably lonely bachelor fans of Austin Powers.

The highlight for me is the section starting with Suzie Seacell's "Me and My Vibrator," followed by the always entertaining Screamin' Jaw Hawkins and his track "Bite It," The Groovers' "Groovy," and John & Jackie's "Little Girl." This sequence strikes the perfect balance of humor and raunch and would be just as likable no matter the context. There are a few other notable curiosities, like Jean Seberg's "Hiasmina" or Joy Bamgbola's strangely alluring a capella "Wet Lips," but it's hard to listen to this compilation straight through. One thing this collection does especially well is documenting the origin of these tracks. Even when the liner notes tend to be more anecdotal than informative, they're still enjoyable to read.

Timed to exactly 69 minutes, it's obvious that a lot of work went into this volume, which makes it unfortunate that the overall results aren't that stimulating.

samples:

• Suzie Seacell - Me and My Vibrator
• John & Jackie - Little Girl
• Joy Bamgbola - Wet Lips

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11 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

Little Esther Phillips breathes new life into this series when she notes the time in Pete "Guitar" Lewis' "Ooh Midnight." Weary, deflated horns wheeze in the background of this raunchy teaser, recorded on a sly summer’s night in 1951. It's ultra-slow and unavoidable, starting this disc with a bang.

 

Normal

That track's followed by more strong material like Tina and Ike's feverish "Doin' It" and the heavy funk of Chakachas' "Jungle Fever." Things go a little awry when Grace Jones' angular "Feel Up" shifts the mood, and from here, things get more explicit. Hexstatic Rewind's "The Horn" hits a nice stride, but the disc peaks perhaps a bit prematurely with Kool Keith's brief sex session, "Lick My Ass." More hip hop follows, N.E.R.D.'s Prince-impersonating "Stay Together" and an uninspired cut from De La Soul and Shell Council that at least ends with a surprising radio collage. At the center of the disc is Lil' Kim's "Custom Made (Give It to You)." It's a great song by itself, but hijacks the mood as much of the Grace Jones track does a few songs earlier.

The album is immediately reclaimed afterwards by James Rivers' "Thrill Me," a slow cooker reminiscent of the opener with its sultry singer and bright saxophone. The Sisters Love dim the lights and get busy with their "Give Me Your Whisper" before the disc heads to the Caribbean for the next few tracks, which are all fine but not particularly outstanding. DJ Qbert's abstract "Aphrodisiskratch" is a strange counterpoint on which to end, which more or less sums up how I feel about this disc. The songs selected are a pretty strong group but so different from each other that they don't always work so well together.

Despite those flaws, however, there are several pockets of great music on here, and I have to say that the music on this volume is a big improvement over the first one. A lot of these songs rise above the obvious theme, and the compilation is all the better for it.

samples:

• Pete "Guitar" Lewis feat. Little Esther Phillips - Ooh Midnight
• Hexstatic Rewind - The Horn
• Lil’ Kim - Custom Made (Give It to You)

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10 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

Imagine if Miles Davis, Sepultura and Karlheinz Stockhausen had the opportunity to work their magic on the phenomenon of Drum’n’Bass.  It could well have sounded like “Compressor” by TERMINAL SOUND SYSTEM.

Imagine if Miles Davis, Sepultura and Karlheinz Stockhausen had the opportunity to work their magic on the phenomenon of Drum’n’Bass.  It could well have sounded like “Compressor” by TERMINAL SOUND SYSTEM.

Davis often absorbed new styles of music and made them his own.  That’s exactly what Australian artist Skye Klein, under the guise of TERMINAL SOUND SYSTEM, has achieved with “Compressor”.

“The thing I love about Drum’n’Bass is the sounds,” explains Skye.  “I wanted to escape from the formula that has made the music so predictable”.  There is no doubt that he has achieved that with “Compressor”.

Drum’n’Bass is most obviously about the drums but the bass is also a feature.  “Compressor” has a rich sonic texture that does justice to the genre and also acknowledges Squarepusher with reverence.

Skye obviously likes more than just the sounds of Drum’n’Bass. He grew up playing in metal bands and gained his ‘metal credentials’ in the acclaimed group HALO, a hybrid doom metal band that wasn’t afraid to bring the noise!  So, it’s not surprising that the occasional metal power chord riff finds its way into the mix.

“Compressor” is a creative and confident album that rewrites the possibilities for Drum’n’Bass and playfully shows off its musical influences. It’s experimental, it’s dynamic and it declares that Skye has carved out a new sound to repeat his previous success. TERMINAL SOUND SYSTEM has arrived.

Release Date: 8 May 07

EXTREME         This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.xtr.com

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09 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: Andrew Pekler
title: Cue
catalog#: krank109
formats available: CD
CD UPC code: 7 96441 81092 5
release date: may 21, 2007

content: From Andrew Pekler: Typically, library music albums were not available to the general public but were marketed directly to film, tv and commercial production companies. Judging by the information provided on the record sleeves, these consumers of library music were assumed to have little interest in the identities of the individuals who actually wrote and played the music, the musicians´ names often being relegated to the very small print. Instead, it appears that the functional aspects of the product were of foremost importance; the persistently generic names of the tracks and their descriptions, durations and suggestions for their usage are the ubiquitous features of library album packaging.  At the same time,  the name of the production studio itself is given the kind of front cover top-billing usually reserved for a performer or composer (or to brand names on boxes of corn flakes).
    A picture emerges of near-anonymous composers, musicians and arrangers going to work 9 to 5, producing music according to functional-aesthetic guidelines for a never to be seen customer, further removed than even the session players at Motown or Studio One ever were from the glamour of pop or the pretense of individual artistry. This sort of faceless assembly line production runs counter to the conventional (western) practice of connecting creative works with individuals deemed to be their authors.
    On the other hand, this apparent anonymity and subordination to quasi-utilitarian determinants does have its own liberating potential. Freed of the obligations of personal expression, one can simply work with the material at hand, concentrating on discrete aesthetic objectives without being unduly concerned for the overall "meaning" of the work. To paraphrase John Cage, the artist is free to have nothing to say and to say it.
    With this in mind Andrew Pekler conceived and produced Cue. Starting from short expository phrases setting forth a track's instrumentation, mood and development (reproduced on the back cover), Pekler attempted to construct pieces to fit these specific criteria. During the process of assembly a track would more often than not evolve beyond its prescribed limits (in these cases, the descriptive blurbs have been updated to reflect the changes). This "dog walking man" method turned out to be a fertile middle ground between the micro-managed jazz miniatures of Nocturnes, False Dawns & Breakdowns (2004) and the expansive improvisations of Strings + Feedback (2005) and may help to explain why Cue sounds very little like its predecessors. On the whole it is a vibrant, playful album with the occasional somber passage providing some contrast to the predominantly ebullient tone. Piano and analog synthesizer sounds abound while percussion (when used) is typically reduced to a minimum of tom toms, bells and unidentified noises. Feedback can be heard in almost every track but taking on more subtle textural roles, guitars get the occasional spotlight and men are wearing pastels again this spring.
    It should be noted that Cue is not an attempt to re-create, re-imagine or re-contextualize  library music of past eras. It is not a post-modern exercise in citation, juxtaposition or collage. The attempt to re-create the "style" of library music would be pointless anyway as the music found on library records does not adhere to any distinct stylistic or aesthetic formula. Instead, library music can be defined by the formal constraints pertaining to its mode of production and it is the appropriation and application of these same constraints that have enabled and inspired Andrew Pekler to produce the music for this album.

context: Andrew Pekler has previous releases on Scape and Staubgold, is one third of the Kosmischer Pitch live band, and is part of an as yet unnamed project with Jan Jelenik and Hanno Leichtmann.

track listing: 1. On  2. Roomsound  3. Pensive Boogie  4. Steady State  5. Rockslide  6. Dust Mite
7. Vertical Gardens  8. Dim Star  9. Contact  10. Mote 11. Floating Tone

quote: "...rich, strange and occasionally opressive; chamber music from a chamber that couldn't exist. Lovely." BBC Experimental

ph: 773.539.6270  email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  web: www.kranky.net

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09 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: Strategy
title: Future Rock
catalog #: krank108
formats available: CD   
upc ode: 7 96441 81082 6
release date: May 21, 2007

content: Three years have passed since Drumsolo's Delight, and Strategy finally comes forward with a new full-length. His third album to date, Future Rock focuses Strategy's diverse interests into a single point, while still drawing directly from the dense, shimmering sonic language established on Delight.
 
Based on a refined studio process that incorporates multi-tracked live instrumentation, archaic synthesizer equipment, archived recordings of improvisations and band practices, digital sound design, and sound of non-musical origin, the album is a polyglot solution of genres. Musical quotations, discrete sonic jokes, and skewed musicological impressions are blended into a dream-like, impressionistic musical composite which confounds and compounds music's past, present, and future. A gauzy, vibrating curtain of sound, much like the one that made Drumsolo's so distinctive, ties together all the songs as do the signature Wurlitzer electric piano and old-school spring reverb.

Incorporating compositions that have taken years to develop, a handful of close collaborators (including his cohorts from the band Nudge), and using source material that dates as far back as 2000, Future Rock is easily Strategy's most complex, narrative, ambitious and overtly "pop" record to date; as well, it's practically a thesis statement for his vision of a genre-free musical world. To date you've heard Strategy dabble in everything from headphone-oriented ambient music to house and dub; this is the work that brings it all together.

context: This is Paul Dickow's second full length for kranky and third as Strategy. He is extremely busy running the Community Library label, which will be releasing a 12" version of this album's title track, while also collaborating in the trio Nudge, and recording and performing solo work.
track listing: 1. Can't Roll Back  2. Future Rock  3. Running On Empty  4. Windswept (Interlude) 5. Stops Spinning  6. Phantom Powered  7. Sunfall (Interlude)  8. Red Screen  9. I Have To Do This Thing (Fantastic Planet Mix)

quotes:

'...the unexpected musical aphrodesiac of the year.'  mundane sound

"...as much a delight as it is a cipher.'  all music guide

"humid deep-dub-house-punk-disco jams."  boomkat

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