10 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

As one of the major triumvirate of Italian power electronics (alongside Atrax Morgue/Marco Corbelli and Mauthausen Orchestra/Pierpaolo Zoppo), Moreno Daldosso has not released any new material in over a decade, and Der Totenkopf may be his final recording. With his two peers no longer with us, this record serves as an epitaph for this distinct group of artists, and it fits right in amongst the best of those albums.

Menstrual Recordings

The three aforementioned artists are essentially the antecedents of Maurizio Bianchi's first period of activity, albeit with different aesthetics.This subgenre has always heavily utilized serial murder, necrophilia, and Third Reich, making for an essentially perfect mirror image to Italy’s contribution to international cult film:giallo, zombie, and Naziploitation.In an appropriate parallel to the films, however, the use seemed to be to invoke horror rather than political ideology.

Der Totenkopf is no different, and Daldosso makes no attempt to hide the theme based on the cover art alone.Unlike Atrax Morgue or Mauthausen Orchestra, however, the two pieces that make up this album are not heavily steeped in harsh analog synthesizers, but instead hollow, cavernous layers of minimalist noise.The undeniable sense of gloom and depression (which can be traced back to Bianchi's earliest experiments) does pervade this record though, another hallmark of the Italian school of harsh electronics.

On the A side, bits of the German marching music that acts as the primary source material slips through in shards, echoes and delays stretching the only recognizable sounds out into the murky, muddy expanse of sound.The flip side showcases the source material more, with obvious fragments of horn fanfare stretching out from a hollow, reverberating electronic din.Throughout the gray monochromatic ambience, what sounds like the stomping of boots create some rough semblance of rhythm via loops and delay that always stays just a bit uncomfortable and off kilter.

Rather than the harsher sound I expected, Murder Corporation emphasizes menace and restraint in his bleakness.The moroseness of this record cannot be understated, just like the best records from this roughly defined scene.It might not be a record I will play every day, but when the mood strikes, Der Totenkopf hits all the right buttons.

samples:

• Side A
• Side B (Excerpt 1)
• Side B (Excerpt 2)

 

10 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

Much to my delight, Medical Records has recently reissued two of the arguable jewels of the Severed Heads' discography: 1983's Since the Accident and this effort from 1985.  Both hail from the transitional period between the messy, contrarian experimentalism of the band's early years and Tom Ellard's later forays into more conventional electronic pop.  While City Slab Horror lacks anything like a hit single (Accident had "Dead Eyes Opened"), it is actually the more listenable of the two releases, finding a fine balance between Ellard's more perverse and absurdist tendencies and actual beats and hooks.  Naturally, the primitive technology employed sounds rather dated thirty years later, but Ellard's distinctive eccentricity remains as charming as ever.

Medical

Notably, Severed Heads was still sort of an actual band rather than a one-man show during the recording of City Slab Horror, as the album was primarily a fraught collaboration between Ellard and new member Paul Deering.  Admittedly, Deering was a surprising choice as a bandmate, as he was more interested in making crunching industrial music, while Ellard was intent on taking the band in a more "skewed electronic pop" direction.  Also, the name "Severed Heads" was originally chosen as a joke, as Ellard and some of his former bandmates thought it would be hilarious if people thought a bunch of Australian weirdos from the coastal suburbs were scary industrial provocateurs.  While these sessions unsurprisingly ended in a screaming match and Deering moving away, Paul's influence on the album is pleasantly evident in the thudding, obsessive drum machine rhythms of pieces like "Ayoompteyempt" and the swaying, sea-sick menace of "Spitoon Thud" and "Voices of the Dead."  Despite that unsustainable situation, the band's two wildly disparate directions actually do not sound all that schizophrenic at all here and actually make for an intriguingly varied and unpredictable album.

Of course, the most memorable pieces are still Ellard's fledgling stabs at something resembling pop, the best of which is probably the buoyant and upbeat "4.W.D.," which is seemingly the only song that Ellard himself sings on the album.  Though it boasts a propulsive enough beat, pleasant sing-song melody, and charmingly clunky synth hook, the true appeal lies in how wrong it sounds when compared to the sophisticated synthpop that folks like Human League and O.M.D. had already been putting out for years.  Somehow "4.W.D." manages to seem naively childlike, effortlessly aberrant, and gleefully self-sabotaging at the same time, as if Ellard was completely unaware that his contemporaries were miles ahead of him in both technology and songcraft and believed that his own ramshackle, primitive, and surreal pop song about a jeep ripping through his chest was perfectly relevant and marketable.  Of course, he was aware and just did not care, though his later albums would show a definite move towards more conventional sounds (even if his core sensibility largely remained completely out of step with the rest of the world).

City Slab Horror offers up a few other attempts at pop and dance as well, with varying degrees of success.  My favorite of the bunch is the thumping, Garry Bradbury-sung "Now, An Explosive New Movie," which still sounds like a sure-fire floor-filler at an industrial dance night (despite its dated fake-horn stabs).  The album's single "Goodbye Tonsils" is another delightful song, embellishing a somewhat rudimentary synth melody with all kinds of skittering, stuttering chaos and movie samples (and some more help from former member Bradbury).  "We have Come to Bless This House" treads quite similar territory, but does so in a more cheerily plodding way that can best be described as "gloriously '80s."  The surprisingly aggressive industrial dance of "Cyflea, Rated R" is yet another classic of sorts, though it actually sounds much more like Skinny Puppy or something than like Severed Heads, despite the chopped-up, gibbering samples.

There are also a handful of songs that do not sound like either low-budget, garage synthpop or industrial soundscapes and those odd experiments are what elevate the album into something special for me. In particular, I like "The Bladders of a Thousand Bedouin," which is a squelching, clattering, and obsessively repetitive tape-loop (or sampler) experiment.  Another minor gem is "Guests," which weaves a sublime spell with floating, ghostly swells of choral samples.

That said, City Slab Horror does not actually boast a single song that I love, just a disproportionate number of songs that I like.  That is part of what makes this album so unique in Ellard's discography, as I have always found him to be a very hit-or-miss artist, just as capable of being absolutely brilliant as he is of being absolutely annoying.  As a result, there are very few Severed Heads albums that I enjoy in their entirety–probably just this one, Cuisine, and perhaps Since The Accident.  In any case, City Slab Horror is a memorably bizarre and unique album that documents a particularly fertile, adventurous, and messy period in Ellard's evolution in which he was still heroically deviant and inventive, yet hugely limited by the gear available to him and still figuring out where he wanted to take the project.  Extreme limitations seem to yield remarkable results sometimes and this is one of those instances: while it certainly sounds both primitive and dated in 2014, City Slab Horror also sounds dramatically more distinctive, deranged, vibrant, and memorable than anything released by most of Ellard’s better-known contemporaries.  It is not seamless and it is not pretty, but it is certainly still compelling.

(Note: previous versions of this album feature some bonus tracks from Blubberknife.  They are a likable addition, but do not strike me as particularly essential.)

• 4.W.D.
• Now, An Explosive New Movie
• Guests

 

10 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

I hate to use the phrase "return to form" to describe this album, as I have enjoyed most of Lawrence English's divergent recent efforts quite a bit, but Wilderness of Mirrors reminds me favorably of the darker, heavier albums that brought him to my attention in the first place (such as Kiri No Oto and It's Up To Us To Live).  Characteristically, English also offers an intriguing concept on Wilderness, but the primary appeal is simply that it is wonderful to finally get another substantial offering of what he does best.  That said, this effort does offer a few surprises, as Lawrence has picked up a few neat tricks from folks like My Bloody Valentine and Swans since he last surfaced in heavy drone mode.

Room40

Wilderness of Mirrors borrows its name from a line from T.S. Eliot's darkly ruminative "Gerontion," but in sort of a second-generation way, as the phrase was re-purposed during the Cold War to describe campaigns of deliberate misinformation.  That second use is what inspired the structural aesthetic of Wilderness, as each piece features a buried motif that has been fed back into itself to the point of unrecognizability.  That said, neither those endlessly mirrored loops nor English's increased appreciation for the power of volume and density were particularly conspicuous or revelatory parts of my actual listening experience, except in the case of the crushing and ominous "Another Body," which sounds like the slow-motion collapse of a mountain or a city.  For the first few minutes, I could not believe that such seismic ruin could be coming from a Lawrence English album, but "Body" gradually becomes more traditionally English-esque as it progresses and the rest of the album does not depart all that much from Lawrence's previous work (though it is noticeably scarier in places than I would have expected).

Of course, I still enjoy that traditional "Lawrence English aesthetic" very much, so I was not disappointed that the remaining surprises were comparatively minor.  That is not to say that English has not evolved noticeably–rather, bluntness just is not a Lawrence English trait, so the enhanced sizzle and frequency-saturation of pieces like the wonderful "Forgiving Noir" are probably only apparent to those of us actively looking to notice such things.  In most other respects, Wilderness is simply an enjoyable return to the rich vein of previous excellent Lawrence English drone albums, offering up a heavy, slightly distorted thrum that vibrantly pans and undulates and never sinks into dull stasis or straightforwardness.  To his everlasting credit, English is never content with simple oceanic, immersive density: there is always something deeper happening melodically, harmonically, or texturally.  A prime example of English's mastery in this regard is the opening "The Liquid Casket," which evolves from ominous feedback to a restrained shoegaze roar that gradually fills with uneasy dissonances and harsher metallic sounds, evoking a pile of rusty knives being dragged by a slow-motion tidal wave of molasses (or especially viscous blood).

If Wilderness has a flaw, it is that it moves a long a bit too quickly for my taste, as there are several 2- or 3-minute pieces amidst these 8 songs.  For example, the title piece feels like just a brief extension of "The Liquid Casket" and the following "Guillotines and Kingmakers" is a mere 2-minute interlude of dark ambient atmosphere.  While the segue between "Guillotines" and "Another Body" is admittedly quite a deft and striking one, it still basically feels like Wilderness goes right from the opening piece to already being halfway over, barreling through two transitional pieces before I even realize that they are happening.  While I do think English did a fine job with the sequencing, I also feel like Wilderness is basically just three (or so) great, fully formed pieces and a whole lot of transitional, incidental music and falling action.  As a result, Wilderness feels more like a stretched EP than a truly solid album, so it does not quite stand with English's best work as a whole.  When taken on a song-by-song basis, however, Mirrors boasts some of the most powerful and distinctive individual pieces of Lawrence's career.

• The Liquid Casket
• Another Body
• Forgiving Noir

 

09 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

The first new full-length Godflesh album in 13 years will be released on Justin Broadrick's own Avalanche Recordings label on October 7, 2014.

More information will eventually be posted here.

A new song ("New Dark Ages") can be heard here.

05 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

Jason Kahn
Noema
(2014)
Editions 003 Double LP

http://jasonkahn.net/editions

Edition of 250
Heavy weight 180 gram vinyl
Hand-painted covers on thick gray cardboard

Source material recorded July to October 2012 in Kyoto.

Pieces composed January 2013 to March 2014 in Zürich.

Mastering, liner notes and LP artwork Jason Kahn.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Noema is a collection of 37 short pieces composed from
source material I recorded in and around Kyoto during a
three-month stay there with my family in 2012.

The over-arching theme of the record is the idea of exploring
social space through everyday sound – and especially in the
case of Kyoto, not just focusing on what we've come to know
the city for (temples, shrines, etc. – though some of these are
in there as well).

The pieces also deal with the idea of memory, much as the
famous "episode of the madeline" in Marcel Proust's Remembrance
of Things Past, in which the taste of the madeline dipped in tea
triggers a flood of involuntary memories. For me, many of the
sounds used in these pieces work the same way.

The word noema is often used in philosophical discourse to describe
the object of thought – and in the case of this record, the sounds
themselves and the structures they contribute to in the
production of social space.

More information here.

04 August 2014

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Albums and Singles

Beautiful Noise is the first-ever documentary about one of the most influential, underground music movements of the late 20th century.

Featuring members of: Cocteau Twins, The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, Lush, Curve, Pale Saints, Seefeel, and more.

Created by filmmakers Eric Green (Writer/Director) & Sarah Ogletree (Producer/Editor) and their production company HypFilms, Beautiful Noise is a DIY, indie film and passion project inspired by a deep appreciation of the music and the desire to see it documented in musical history.

The genesis of the project began with the principals Green in April of 2005 and Ogletree and evolved over the course of many years and with the help of a great many people who believed in the project and donated their time, equipment, knowledge, and even money to see this film released.

Following a  successfull Kickstarter campaign and a protracted licensing phase, the filmmakers were able to complete the film.

Beautiful Noise Premiered May 31, 2014 at the Seattle International Film Festival and Internationally June 8, 2014 at the Sheffield International Film Festival.  Currently it continues to screen in festivals and will next be released on Home Video (date to be announced soon).

More information can be found here.

27 July 2014

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Albums and Singles

There may be some throwback elements on Ars Phoenix's most recent album, but for the most part it makes for great contemporary synth pop. Retaining a darker, and occasionally harsh, edge, the eight songs that comprise it work beyond just their mood, but as memorable, well-written songs as well.

Etxe Records

There is a distinctly bleak, gothic vibe pervading these songs, evident from the opening moments of "Chlorophyll".A rudimentary, stiff rhythm and strong guitar parts lead the song while the duet vocals from Jon Glover and Catlin Ollinger mesh wonderfully with understated keyboard progressions.On "Amethyst" the trio (plus guitarist Paige Fowler) follow a similar template, focusing on guitar and synth flourishes as it builds to a tighter, more forceful conclusion.The goth and synth pop elements are undeniable, but never are they cliché or exploited.

The spirit of the early days of synth pop pervades the album, but thematically "Who Is Watching the Neighborhood Watchmen?" makes for an update of that classic theme of early industrial:paranoia.As Cabaret Voltaire built some of their legendary albums on the consequences of CCTV surveillance, Ars Phoenix updates it to drones and social media with a subtle nod to the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case in its title.

As a whole, Violent Rain is rather slow and laconic, but at times the tempo is knocked a little higher, contrasting the more depressive moments.Ars Phoenix snaps along with a punky thrash on "Elegant Vapor," with noisier synths and a strong, memorable melody."WHTY?" is another uptempo one, with its stiff drum machine, noisy saw tooth keyboards and lots of random noises that still manages to build into a catchy chorus.

Locrian member Terence Hannum adds a bit of overdriven guitar to "Shudder at the Sound," and its oddly paired distorted drum machine and electronic noises, making its dirge a bit more varied than it could be.The most drastic departure is on the closing title song, the lengthiest on here.Depressive sawtooth synths and clattering rhythms set the stage; with the focus being spoken word narrative of Ollinger.The sound is more diverse here, with a brilliant death rock guitar heavy conclusion, although I feel the vocals are emphasized just a bit too much throughout.

Unlike many in the industrial/synth pop revivalist movement, Ars Phoenix makes no attempt to sound like they are tied specifically to the early 1980s.Their use of drum machines and synths might be in line with those days, but their overall approach is far more contemporary.It balances the familiar and fresh expertly, and results for some extremely catchy songs, the type of record that draws me in over and over again.

samples:

• Chlorophyll
• WHTY?
• Violent Rain

 

27 July 2014

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Albums and Singles

Five years ago, this San Francisco DJ/producer released quite a massive, remarkable, and distinctive ambient epic called White Clouds Drift On and On, his first album under his own name.  Home is its follow-up and I have no idea quite what to make of it.  In some ways, it surpasses its wonderful predecessor in its lush, melancholy grandeur.  In other ways, however, its extreme length (almost 3 hours) coupled with its narrow, unwavering aesthetic serve to exaggerate its charms to the point of caricature or folly.  There are still some wonderful songs here, of course, but too much of a good thing yields rapidly diminishing returns.

Echospace

I seem to be covering a lot of albums lately that can be completely summarized in just one sentence, a trend which Home does not disrupt at all.  In this case, that sentence is "billowing and warmly hissing swells of oceanic bliss."  There are a couple of things that set Von Wey apart from artists treading similar territory though.  The main one is probably scale, as Brock's "ambient" works sound absolutely symphonic in their complexity (and in their length).  If I wanted to be unfairly reductive, I would say that most of Home sounds like one of the more beautiful instrumental passages from The Cure’s Disintegration layered and expanded into near-infinity, as it certainly has a similar narcotic feel and Romantic sadness.  In reality, however, these pieces are far from unchanging loops–they just evolve from movement to movement so slowly as to be near-imperceptible.

The other trait that sets Brock apart from other ambient artists in this vein is that he is coming from a techno background rather than a drone one.  That manifests itself most obviously in the ghostly loops of soulful vocal hooks that pervade the album, but also results in an occasional bass thump or dub-like flourish.  Those elements are most effective in "Empty Houses Seen From Above" and "A Heart of Darkness," particularly the latter, which makes excellent use of obsessively looping female vocal snippets.  The overall effect is quite an unusual one in Van Wey's hands, as he seems to be operating on a completely different timescale than other humans (for better or worse).  The best summation I can provide is this: Holy Other sounds like sexy R&B blurred and slowed into a drugged haze-–Home sounds like Holy Other sucked into a black hole and spat out the other side in an almost unrecognizably stretched and slowed form.

While that is admittedly a very cool and inventive feat, I have a few issues that prevent me from quite falling in love with this album, most of which are highly subjective.  For one, its predecessor was more unusual, as it incorporated chopped-up and digitally mangled snatches of non-English vocals that favorably recalled Peter Christopherson's The Threshold Houseboys Choir.  I liked that.  Of course, switching to exclusively using more conventional soul/dance vocal snippets is probably more "honest," given Brock's background, so I will give him a pass on that.  Another issue is that listening to Home feels uncomfortable voyeuristic, like I am eavesdropping on another man's cathartic tour de force of sadness, though that would not have bothered me as much in my younger years (in fact, I probably would have loved it).  Finally, Home is just absolutely monolithic in its aesthetic and scope, which is a double-edged sword: for me, a casual fan, this is simply way too much of the same thing.  For someone more unambiguously enthusiastic about Brock's vision, however, this is probably an absolute godsend (it certainly sounds like he spent several years crafting it).  In any case, Home certainly feels like a hugely impressive achievement, albeit quite a highly personal, obsessive, and narrowly focused one.

• You Built A Kingdom, But No One Said Its Name
• A Heart Of Darkness
• Than To Have Ever Lived At All

 

27 July 2014

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Albums and Singles

Recorded between California, Texas, and England, Qui Mal y Pense reissues one of Smokey Emery's (Daniel Hipólito) most complex and nuanced works, and the third in his Soundtracks for Invisibility series. Created entirely from hand manipulated open reel tapes, it is a lush, dramatic series of compositions that would work very well as a true soundtrack, but are just fine as stand alone music.

Holodeck

The brief introductory "01" is all sci-fi noises and echoes over a soft ambient passage, but the remainder of the album embraces the latter more than the former, which was a smart decision, as the pseudo '60s electronic sound is overused to say the least.The nearly 31 minute "05" also heavily emphasizes ambient spaciousness, mixing sustained electronics and a buried, ragged melody.It is not all that dynamic, but expands, dense and menacing, with only the most fragmented of melodies slipping out.

Even though this release was constructed mostly from processed magnetic tape, it sounds as if traditional instruments manage to slip through from the original source material, such as the simple guitar melodies on "Afore."Bathed in reverb, Hipólito builds walls of reverb around the guitar, slipping into ugly noise in its closing minutes.A guitar (or sound-alike instrument) also appears on "The Room Falls Away" with tremolo heavy electronic expanses.It is comparatively simple in its construction, but no less captivating.

What sounds like mangled, bowed strings contrast a dour melody on "04," the dissonant and melodic pair conveying sadness on the first half, and then foreboding menace on the second.The paring of the two extremes also helps to define "02," with drifting bassy electronics mixed with spiny, acidic bits of noise to offset them, resulting in a piece of creaking moodiness and heavy reverb.

Even though it was constructed with such a basic strategy, Daniel Hipólito extracts a world of sounds and atmospheres out of those old spools of magnetic tape.What could just be a mundane collection of loops is instead a cinematic expanse of sound, mysterious and oblique in its abstraction.The final product though, befittingly presented on cassette tape, carries just the right amount of mystery to unravel in its gauzy layers.

samples:

• 02
• 04
• 05

 

27 July 2014

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Elden M.'s electro-industrial Avellan Cross project was not only responsible for a few excellent tapes as of late, but also heralded the return of his legendary Allegory Chapel Ltd. guise.  Founded in the mid 1980s and largely going silent a decade later, ACL has lost none of its distinctive, esoteric sound or mood during that hiatus, and still stands out as a singular entity in the world of noise.

Chondritic Sound

ACL was one of the few noise projects in the United States that never succumbed to shock tactics or obnoxious violent imagery in order to convey a sense of extremity.  Even the occasional appearance of Satanic symbolism and titles felt more like an esoteric examination rather than an offshoot of juvenile thrash/death metal.  Extremity was never ACL's goal anyway, which carries over into the sound as well.  The work was never about being as loud or as harsh as possible:  it is about the pure examination of sound.

On a piece such as "Nazca Wormhole," he works rumbling low end with sheets of white noise, constantly shifting the two layers like tectonic plates, getting close to harsh noise territory without ever going all the way.  With brittle synth melodies and low bit rate samples added in, it is a perfect example of masterful subtlety in a style that is defined by anything but.  "Colony Collapse Disorder" is a similar example, where he mixes bass drones and churning, looped noise with jet engine roars.  It is the ACL sense of careful composition that keeps far more compelling than most noise artists ever manage to.

The second half of the tape is a bit more experimental and sees Elden M. working with different styles without losing his uniqueness.  "Lone Wolf Jihad" opens with news samples and rhythmic, wobbling noises in a manner that reminded me of Grey Wolves or Con-Dom in its power electronics style, but far cleaner and better structured than those two projects ever have been.  Hypnotic and meditative, "Creeping Marrow" is more sound collage in nature, layering together disparate layers that work together perfectly.  The whole piece lurches appropriately given its name, and is a bit indebted to Throbbing Gristle's early work (as alluded to in its title).

The noise scene has been a massive state of flux since the last time Elden M. released material as Allegory Chapel Ltd., but now, just as then, his work stands out distinctively.  It is obviously a part of the genre, but Resurrection stands alone, embodying the best of noise while ignoring its shortfalls.  Hypnotic and captivating without being harsh or cliché, it is another high water mark in his impressive catalog.

samples:

• Nazca Wormhole
• Lone Wolf Jihad
• Creeping Marrow