19 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Menche was the first American noise artist that I was able to embrace, as his approach to art was not only unique (the first work I heard was him processing the sound of salt rubbed between contact mics), but it also was cliché and pretense free. It was simply the work of a man who loved experimenting with different sounds and ways of generating them. While he has stepped back from his more prolific past, the works that he has been releasing are more fully fleshed out and rich, and these two albums are no exception. With Vilké building upon drums, guitar, and wolf howls, and Marriage of Metals focusing exclusively gamelan, the two are vastly different in approach, but the same in quality and structure.

Sige/Editions Mego

The four track, double LP of Vilké is perhaps the most traditionally musical work I have heard Menche having his hand in.The A sides of both records emphasize his more recent fascination with percussion and drums as a starting point for noise collage.Part one is an instantaneous percussive oblivion, with non-stop pounding clattering from left to right throughout.Processed howls of wolves rise up early on, mutated resemble a choir of human voices.Midway through some of his harsher noise tendencies shine through, but even with them in place, there is an overall sense of structure and organization to be heard.

The third part focuses on percussion that is somewhat ritualistic in nature, but cut up and shaped into an unnatural, thudding sound and static laden brittle rhythms.An almost synth-like pattern also opens the piece that soon falls apart into noise chaos, but is then pulled back together again by an expansive, but obscured ambient melody.

The fourth part is perhaps the most different from what I am used to with Menche's work, with erratic, reverb heavy guitar opening and staying prominent throughout the piece, giving a certain metal edge overall.Menche has never made his love of heavy metal a secret, but this is the first time I have heard it overtly shine through in his art.Even when heavy effects and layering leads to a more traditionally noise oriented sound, there is still a bit of metal bleakness to be heard.

samples:

• Vilk√© Part One
• Vilk√© Part Three
• Vilk√© Part Four

Marriage of Metals is a bit more understated in comparison, however.His processing of gamelan into a deep, low-end thump and overdriven guitar-like noise layers makes it not even vaguely resemble its underlying source at first.A slowly evolving rhythmic structure stands out, and again it has more of an overall musical quality to it, while still resembling nothing traditional on its surface.

On the flip side, the initial sound is not as removed from traditional gamelan, although filtered into a dense, glassy sound as opposed to its traditional resonating clang.It has a delicate timber overall, somewhere between Indonesian music and church bells with a bass heavy undulation beneath.Compared to much of his previous discography, it is downright subtle and beautiful.

While he has gone through periods where new material appeared monthly, Daniel Menche has seemingly taken his time in putting these two works together, and it shows.Distinctly different from one another both in concept and in overall sound, both bear signs of careful artistry and composition, something many artists filed as noise are often apt to not use.The final pieces on both releases also show a developing sense of true musicianship, albeit skewed and idiosyncratic, but employing a sense of structure that rivals that of the best composers.Both stand out as brilliant releases in a long and extremely impressive discography from one of the true unsung masters of sound art.

samples:

• Marriage of Metals Part One (Excerpt 1)
• Marriage of Metals Part One (Excerpt 2)
• Marriage of Metals Part Two

 

19 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

It is not surprising that Tom Smith and Rat Bastard's TLASILA project would release such a baffling work as this. Three discs, four-plus hours (more if the bonus downloadable material is included) and more than 60 artists reworking their material. However, Smith took it upon himself to mix the contributions into long form DJ sets, making it an odd and difficult release to listen to at times. However, with the slew of diverse artists represented, both well known and not so well known, the challenge and effort is worth the listen.

Monotype Records

The concept behind this release is this massive collection of artists took improvisational recordings from the Noon and Eternity album, as well as isolated tracks from The Cortège and Épuration albums in order to construct their contributions/remixes, which were then sequenced and blended together to create these distinct, disc-long megamixes that are unrelenting in their approach and duration.

Perhaps it is just my own attempt to make sense of this work, but the three mixes seem to have some sort of genre-associated cohesion to them, albeit in the loosest sense.Disc one, My Finger Was Hooked, seems a bit heavier on the harsh noise end of the spectrum.Opening first with RM74's brittle digital noise of "Bones, Beers and Muscles" and immediately followed up with Howard Stelzer's untitled work of fuzzy tape collages, it takes on a noise vibe right away.With the likes of Carlos Giffoni, Aaron Dilloway and 16 Bitch Pileup appearing, it is some heavy players in the world of noise, even if the mixing makes it occasionally hard to tell who is contributing what.For example, I think Dilloway's contribution of "In Memory of Phil Anselmo" is the one full of cut up Thin Lizzy samples with TLASILA material, but I could be completely wrong.Plus, there are some more music moments around, such as the techno stomp and helium voices of Otto Von Schirach's "Cream Pie 2" keeping things weird.

I Offer Syrup embraces more of the conventional world of electronic music as a whole, from Sickboy Milkplus' "TLASILA THAF Remix" sputtering out with canned drum machine rhythms and stuttering breakbeats to Richard Devine’s microsound laden "V2 Mix".To keep things from being overly similar though, both Dave Philips and Rudolf Eb.er appear in this mix to represent the Schimpfluch scene, as does Thee Majesty, who supplies an abstract ritualistic electronic collage.

Finally, I Offal and I Stumble puts a bit more emphasis on the drone artists, with the likes of William Fowler Collins, C. Spencer Yeh and Kevin Drumm all making their appearances within this disc.Of course it does not stick to some consistent plan, with the likes the random junk cut-ups of Evil Moisture and the harsh noise of Torturing Nurse also rearing their distinct heads.Most surprising, however, is a collage/spoken word appearance by Jared Louche, formerly Hendrickson, of Chemlab (one of my long standing musical guilty pleasures from high school).It is not exceptional really, but his appearance alone made me smile.

While I understand this work from a conceptual standpoint, I would have preferred to have seen these contributions indexed individually, as there are a few pieces I would rather listen to multiple times, and others that, while not especially bad by any means, feel more like filler when placed alongside the more unique artists.It is easy to appreciate and enjoy it as is, but I personally would prefer it as a more traditional compilation album rather than the DJ mix setup that it is.But, given the artist responsible for the project, that sort of rewarding frustration is not surprising in the least.

samples:

• Howard Stelzer - "Untitled (edit)"
• Sickboy Milkplus - "TLASILA THAF Remix"
• Evil Moisture - "BBQ Flavour"

 

06 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Having had a few years elapse since hearing my last Masami Akita record, this seemed like a good time to step back in. The best thing about following this schedule with his work is that the variation and evolution he has shown in his overall sound keep things consistently fresh. Takahe Collage covers both his harsh noise past and his flirtations with rhythm in a way that meshes together perfectly.

Handmade Birds

The first two pieces clock in at around a half hour each, making this album not among the easiest to digest, but Akita excels within these longer frameworks.The title piece launches off immediately, presenting his more recent approach to electronic rhythms, but processed in his own idiosyncratic way.A paring of an blasting drum machine with lurching machinery underscores an erratic barrage of dive-bombing sine waves.

The rhythms continue throughout, evolving and shifting from synth pulses to insistent bulldozer surges to mix both distorted noise and pure, aggressive tones.At times the rhythms lock in and the remainder of the mix becomes more sparse, and a very Information Overload Unit era SPK sensibility bleeds through. Within the closing minutes, however, he goes for the usual balls out Merzbow noise roar.

"Tendenko" is more of a throwback to the mid '90s era of Merzbow (which is where my experience with him began), that goes for the walls of slowly shifting noise that the Incapacitants do so well, with a bit less of Akita's junk metal noise shining through.As old school as it is, there still is a buried, underlying rhythm that nods to his more recent works, covering both classic and modern sounds.

On the shorter (at a paltry 12 minutes) closer "Grand Owl Habitat," once again the rhythms are removed, with an overall dense, complex structure with individual pieces sliding in and out from one another:a rigid, stuttering rhythm with blasts of noise going off all around.It is similar to the title piece, but not quite as diverse, but due to its comparatively shorter duration it is not a problem.

After having burnt myself out on his release schedule in the latter part of the 1990s, my more contemporary experiences with Akita's output have been both more enjoyable and more rewarding.While my self-imposed distance from his always exponentially expanding discography may have improved my appreciation, Takahe Collage feels like more than that: a compelling work that is not just a great Merzbow record, but an exceptional noise album on its own.

samples:

• Takahe Collage
• Tendenko
• Grand Owl Habitat

 

06 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

As only their second performance together, the first consisting of a collaborative live show, the duo of Leslie Low (The Observatory) and Lasse Marhaug (Norway's undisputed king of noise), this improvised performance combines two distinctly different approaches to music and sound, but the combination makes perfect sense and pairs together powerfully.

Utech

The paring alone makes for an odd proposition, with Low's looped and processed guitar and voice intonations resulting in rich, warm melodies and drones, while Marhaug's brittle, but expertly manipulated electronic noises covering two very different sonic spectrums.The resulting songs are made all the better with this clash of sounds, and actually do sound very song-like in their consistency and structure.

"Silver Needle, Silver Dragon" begins with Marhaug's overdriven, waxy noise passages skittering above a morose passage of melody, resulting in a dark but not oppressive sound.The noise making for an appropriate accompaniment to the dirgey tones, not a drastic shift or distraction that it could be."Each Bay Its Own Wind" has a similar structure, mixing ghostly guitars and sputtering, electronic pulses that become a bit more harsh and jumpy as the piece goes on.

Some of the performances seem to lean more into Marhaug's world of dissonance than Low's melodicism:"Fleas Were The Ancestors of Mankind" keeps with the chirpy noises, pushed into shrill and brittle realms, but never getting too raw or abrasive.The throbbing, low register notes and crunchy noises of "Eggs and Emptiness" also only hint at melody but instead make for more of a showcase of the harsher electronic noises.

Both "Let the Old Philosopher Use You" and "Elixir of Death" go a bit further out into space.The former mostly reduces the traditional instrumentation to ghostly winds, focusing instead on fragmented outbursts and some bizarrely organic, monstrous cries."Elixir of Death" keeps the guitar mostly unprocessed, but with a more bleak, almost metal tone to it.The electronics are wetter and nastier, and the whole thing takes on some oddly structured electroacoustic tone before falling apart into a world of sputtering noise.

I am more familiar with Lasse Marhaug's overall body of work, and here he once again shows his unparalleled brilliance in controlling harsh and ugly noises and shaping them into rich and complex compositions.His contributions here are distinctly him, but compliment Leslie Low's more refined, traditionally musical elements quite well, making for a stark, yet fitting contrast.What could come across as simply feedback mixed with someone else's musical tracks instead makes for a taut, conceptually fleshed out collaboration that is brilliantly moody and diverse in its sound and structure.

samples:

• Silver Needle, Silver Dragon
• Each Bay Its Own Wind
• Elixir of Death

 

05 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The fundamental elements of singing and vocalizing are easy to miss in most music. All singers, even the very worst, unconsciously coordinate the various processes required to sing musically, so that respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation collapse into sung phrases or wordless melodies. Phil Minton and Audrey Chen work to undo that coordination. They break their voices down, emphasizing the dental clicks, nasal hums, and various fleshy noises typically masked by melodies and lyrics. Many of the sounds they produce as part of this quintet—which features two basses, percussion, and cello—are the kind most singers would try to play down. By giving them the spotlight, Phil and Audrey are forced to express themselves in the same way instruments do.

Sub Rosa

Four Instruments Two Voices is one of two Audrey Chen and Phil Minton albums released this year by Sub Rosa, both of which focus on extended vocal techniques. This one matches their voices with Guy Segers' electric bass, Peter Jacquemyn's double bass, and Teun Verbruggen's percussion. As might be expected from instrumentalists who have worked with the likes of Peter Brötzmann, John Butcher, and William Parker, the music is improvised and mostly chaotic. But because Chen and Minton's vocal contortions lead the group, and because there isn't another wind instrument around, much of the record has a loose and open feel. All the vocal frying and plosive noises they make with their mouths come through loud and clear, from the spit-filled vibrations of their lips to the raspy hiss of their closed windpipes.

Such physical noises make for tense music. When Chen and Minton choke sounds out, my body involuntarily seizes up, and their moans have a way of drawing my shoulders up against my neck. When the band reacts to them in sympathy, the effect is darkly atmospheric and unsettling, as on "Eight" and "Nine." But not everything is quite so serious. On "Three," Minton and Chen's gaseous vocalizations are paired with a squealing cello and a wobbly rhythm section that sounds absolutely lost. It's hard not to laugh at how ridiculous it all seems, and at times I think it sounds like the musical version of a slapstick comedy.

For "Six" their growls and wordless interjections are recast as part of a quiet drama filled with bird-like whistling, ominous bass melodies, and flitting percussive sounds. The band's muted performance fosters a calmer atmosphere, and Phil and Audrey both sound more subdued throughout, but it's hard to tell whether the band is responsible for controlling the mood or if they're following the vocalists' lead. Later in the album Segers plays several naked melodies, and I think those color the way I'm hearing the voices. Either way, though the techniques are unconventional "Six" is a relatively pretty song. It's a solid example of how extended vocal techniques can be used to produce musically pleasant and expressive results without relying on a singer's vocal quality or resorting to familiar melodic techniques.

In the liner notes Minton writes, "This music is first a matter of extra-lingustic expression, the idea of going beyond the word's meaning, an exploration that doesn't stop at letters... but extends to all in-between-sounds made possible by the tongue/oral cavity/breath configuration." I don't know if Phil or Audrey's performances go beyond words, but their fragmented noises and stripped down vocal utterances do get at feelings and expressions differently than conventional singing does. Rather than going beyond anything, I get the sense that they're digging down, drilling into the voice and looking for meaning and expressiveness where most would hear nonsense. Whatever the theoretical framework is, the content is unique and varied—the kind of music that encourages lateral thinking and hearing ostensibly familiar sounds anew.

 

samples:

• Three
• Six
• Eight

 

05 May 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I have long felt that the best possible thing that could happen for Bryn Jones' legacy would be for someone to brutally pare down his out-of-control discography to just the essentials, but I am tragically powerless to stop the tide of fresh dispatches from his seemingly infinite backlog of unreleased material.  This latest pair of albums in Staalplaat's archive series are predictably a mixed bag, but the album of almost entirely unheard material (Al Jar Zia Audio) is dramatically better than the previously released (but hard-to-get) Satyajit Eye.  That is both tantalizing and exasperating, as it guarantees that there will be many more albums to come and that Muslimgauze fans will be sifting through them in (financially ruinous) search of scattered gems for years.

Staalplaat

Satyajit Eye was originally released back in 1993, but under very bizarre circumstances: it was free, but it could only be obtained by cutting out part of the insert from Hamas Arc and mailing it to Staalplaat with a blank DAT.  Consequently, I sincerely doubt very many people ever got to hear it until very recently, when it finally surfaced as a bootleg.  That is presumably why Staalplaat is releasing this now, though I think they could have safely let this one slip through the cracks.  In theory, I like the idea of a secret, special album that is only available through symbolic sacrifice.  In reality, however, I intensely dislike the idea of defacing album art to get a dire collection of studio scraps in an annoying format, so I am glad I missed out the first time around (and again with the bootleg).

This "expanded" reissue (on CD, thankfully) is quite a bit different than the original release, but it is no less staggeringly inessential.  For one, roughly half of the album's more substantial pieces ("Zion Poison," "Taureg," and "Satyajit Eye") are already available in slightly different form on the better and much easier to procure Vote Hezbollah album.  Secondly, the three "new" tracks added to this reissue, all titled "Remix from Vote Hezbollah," are fairly ridiculous: they are all basically the same clattering percussion loop regurgitated in 5-minute, 9-minute, and 18-second variations (the duration being the only perceptible variation).  Finally, I am confounded as to why the opening "Amritsar" was shortened from 14:54 to 0:26.  I have not heard the original version, but the new, streamlined version is essentially a dull, artless snippet of someone speaking in Arabic (presumably).  I would have shortened it even further by completely deleting it from the album.

Aside from the unique circumstances of its release, the sole other noteworthy thing about Satyajit Eye is that it is apparently one of the first recorded instances of Jones' incorporation of Indian music.  While that is mildly interesting historically, there are plenty of more successful experiments in this direction on future releases and I would prefer to listen to them.  Otherwise, the lone justification for this album's existence seems to be the presence of "Dhobi" and "Caste," which do not seem to be available elsewhere, unless there are cannibalized versions lurking around under different names (not unlikely).  Both are admittedly likable, but both would be fairly forgettable pieces within the context of a "real" Muslimgauze album.  Ultimately, Satyajit Eye is not just for completists only–it is solely for only the most indiscriminate completists.

• Remix from Vote Hezbollah
• Satyajit Eye
• Caste
  
  

While Al Jar Zia Audio is not any kind of lost, career-defining masterpiece, it definitely sounds like one when compared to Satyajit Eye: from the very first seconds of "Ayatollah Dollar," this album seemed to explode from my speakers.  Part of that is due to the simple fact that Audio is mixed quite loudly, but it is also a very dense and vibrantly beat-driven affair from start to finish.  These are clearly songs that Bryn was keen to formally release at some point, as they sound very "finished," sculpted, and visceral.  That makes for a very fun and enjoyable album, as crafting inventive and unusual grooves is where Jones truly shined.

In fact, these 15 pieces made me amusingly think of Jones as a kind post-industrial, proto-Madlib, albeit one curiously obsessed with Middle Eastern politics and culture.  The significant difference, however, is that Madlib's Beat Konducta series wisely tends to limit his beat sketches to just one or two minutes, whereas Bryn had a definite tendency to sometimes overstay his welcome a bit.  Long durations suit Muslimgauze's darker, more dub-influenced pieces like "Najibi" (7:13) nicely, but some of the more hip-hop/breakbeat-themed pieces definitely feel like they are flogging one simple idea to death by the 4-minute mark.  That sounds worse than it is though: there are not many weak ideas here, its just that some strong ideas could have been better presented.  Of course, given that Jones has been deceased for more than a decade, it is hard to fault him much for failing to edit these songs more thoroughly than he did in preparation for this release.

Aside from an unwavering devotion to rhythm, there is not an especially strong theme holding these songs together.  That turns out not to be problematic at all though, as Al Jar Zia just feels like a fine singles collection rather than a thematically coherent whole.  In fact, this is a remarkably filler-free Muslimgauze effort: aside from the brief, abstract interlude of "All I Have is Sand," it is quite easy to imagine nearly all of these songs connecting with someone.  Given my somewhat dub-centric taste, I was especially fond of both the aforementioned "Najibi" and the weirdly clattering and insistent title piece.  My favorite moment of the album, however, is the brilliantly one-dimensional "Lost Iranian Tourist," which offers little more than a lurching, overloaded, and absolutely bludgeoning thump, which is all it needs to be spectacular.

The sole real flaw with Al Jar Zia Audio is that it is little more than a collection of cool beats.  Jones certainly enhances his grooves with all kinds of textural elements like snatches of dialogue, field recordings, and loops of sitars and other Eastern instrumentation, but there is no real development to be found anywhere.  Instead, these pieces all simply lock into their distinctly Muslimgauze-ian grooves and continue in that vein until Bryn decided to stop.  I am definitely used to that by now though and it seems like a reasonable concession to make in exchange for music this unique and propulsive.  Ultimately, this is a surprisingly strong and varied release that exceeds many of Jones' more formal, celebrated efforts.  Given its smorgasbord-like nature, it is probably unlikely to uniformly thrill anyone, but it is hard to imagine any seasoned Muslimgauze fans (or curious, aspiring ones) not finding at least a few songs worth getting excited about.

Samples:

• Taliban Code
• We Have Shafika Habibi on our Bus
• Lost Iranian Tourist

 

29 April 2013

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

Although dormant for a number of years, Paul Douglas has leapt back into activity on this brief, but effective 7" single. With heavy use of electronics and processing, these two pieces are shaped into fully fleshed out and complicated works that bear the mark of an expert.

Touch

"Willow" is heavy on the electronics right from the onset, building from looping, heavy electronics that edge just ever so slightly into the realm of dissonance.Even with that, the slight dissonance gives an engaging grime to the otherwise gentle flow of sound, mixing in textural sensations and just a bit of crunch.The overall performance is bathed in a nice, warm glow of static that does not obscure as much as strengthen the sound.

On the other side, "Morning," Douglas keeps mostly away from the noisier elements and instead works amongst a world of light, ambient sounds.Slowly gliding, string-like passages drift about, propelled along by a low-end swell that never gets out of control, but instead propels the piece to delicately float away into silence as it concludes.

Douglas' work here might not be redefining a genre or breaking any new ground in its over all sound or approach, but it is an example of electronic abstraction done extremely well, presented in a tight, yet fully realized package that keeps things compelling throughout.

29 April 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Anthony Mangicapra's Hoor-paar-Kraat project has always been rather prolific, but a recent spate of limited new releases has made this even more noticeable, but without any reduction in quality or distinction On these two tapes, he (and associates) balances both tense, carefully constructed pieces with shambolic, improvised sonic rituals.

Robert & Leopold, Black Horizons

On "A Lanoo Alone" (from In Your Absence), he constructs a taut composition of carefully building shrill loops that evolves and develops as time wears on, slowly building momentum like a painfully slow descending elevator into Hell.When that more prominent, forceful sound drops away, it leaves behind a disquieting sense of ambience, with tight passages of feedback shimmering through atop urgent, but obscured undulations before stopping dead unexpectedly.

"I Would Have Made New Teeth for Him" (on Chorea) shows a similar sense of composition, meshing shrill, glassy bits of noise over a simple click rhythm that builds in complexity, building to a more traditional feeling as the feedback and dissonance is miraculously shaped into a more musical framework, coming together as some sort of esoteric, alien approach to traditional composition.

The backing half of each cassette sees Mangicapra going in a different direction, one of a looser, improvised nature rather than the complementing, more rigidly structured works."In Your Absence" puts field recordings with cavernous echoes and massive reverberation, the occasional ghostly apparition or creaking tape loop slipping through."Never Once Did He Complain" involves a wider array of players and sounds, mixing mangled piano and erratic pseudo-rhythms together into a shamanic ritualized jam session.The overall sensibility of the piece is consistent from beginning to end, but a flowing and endearingly sloppy structure.With the looseness and use of toy instruments, it conjures more of a warm, nostalgic feeling than a darker one than I would have expected.

Even with these tapes representing only a part of a recent batch of Mangicapra's work, it continues to stand out as fresh and unique, calling to mind the work of Nurse With Wound or irr. app. (ext.), but with his own sound and approach.His strength and skills at conjuring moods and images via sound is unparalleled, but also extremely complex.Rather than just relying on dark and mysterious, there are far more feelings and themes that arise from moment to moment on these two tapes.

28 April 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I have not been paying much attention to Wolf Eyes for the last several years, but I was inclined to give this album a chance after repeatedly hearing all about how it is both a bold change of direction and a major statement on the state of noise in 2013.  After listening to it a few times, I guess it is arguably both, but it is definitely not some kind of epoch-defining revelation, nor is it a particularly great album (though it certainly has some great moments).  Rather it is merely an uneven, intermittently inspired effort that displays a new penchant for ruined-sounding ultra-minimalism, but offers only a few fully realized, successful examples of it amidst too much filler.

De Stijl

I have to hand it to Wolf Eyes: they certainly subverted my expectations a bit with the opening "Choking Flies," as I expected the future of noise to sound a hell of a lot noisier, or at least more ferocious.  Instead, "Flies" sounds a lot like decayed and deconstructed rock that has been stripped to its barest skeleton, then uglified.  More specifically, it sounds like Nate Young remixed a Girls Against Boys album by removing the guitars, then left the tapes out in the sun to melt together with a Throbbing Gristle album. As dubious as that may sound, the result is still distinctly, wonderfully "Wolf Eyes," as the ugly throbbing bass swells, out-of-sync dual-tracked vocals, hollow thump, clattering electronics, and ugly drifting notes combine to form a masterfully wrong and ill-intentioned whole.  If that momentum had sustained, No Answer: Lower Floors could have been quite a stellar album.

Unfortunately, it did not, as the remaining five songs are a mixed bag both stylistically and quality-wise.  "Born Liar," for example, is a thudding guitar and horn squall that sounds like it could have been made up and recorded on the spot.  That is followed by a very brief interlude of mangled speech and bleeping ("No Answer"), then a piece ("Chattering Lead") that is essentially a meandering, less successful variation on the "Choking Flies" formula, all of which illustrates what is so exasperating about this album: the first two-thirds are over before I even realize what happened and the only truly significant piece is the first one.

Thankfully, the trio get things back on track again with the epic "Confessions of the Informer," which is both the album's most aggressively minimal piece and its clear highlight.  It is built upon a little more than a slow-motion, repeating throb and stuttering snatches of vocals, coupled with queasy squeals from John Olsen self-made horns and guitar feedback from new member James Baljo...and that is about it.  That proves to be more than enough though–while not much overt evolution occurs over the course of its 12 minutes, it is so mesmerizingly ravaged, limping, and haunted that it could have gone on for twice as long and still been just as great (or better).  I suspect it sounds a lot like wandering nervously through a ruined space station must feel: alone and paranoid in an endless corridor of jagged metal, flickering lights, and eerie creaks and moans.  That is a great niche to stake out.

Naturally, after having delivered something so wonderful, the band felt that the only proper way to close the album was to give their ugliest, most contrarian impulses free-reign, as "Warning Sign" basically feels like a 7-minute locked-groove of grinding, unlistenable, air-raid-siren-style pain.  I suppose that is both amusing and fitting, but another good song would have been nice too.  As it stands, I guess I will have to settle for just two great songs and four not-so-great ones, which probably eliminates this as a strong contender for noise album of the year (even if "Confessions" is admittedly brilliant).  Of course, delivering a perfectly sequenced, uniformly great statement of intent would run counter to Wolf Eyes' whole messy aesthetic of spontaneity, entropy, and primitivism, so I cannot complain much–I knew very much what I was getting into and I got it.  I am very pleased to see that Wolf Eyes are just as capable of greatness and innovation as ever, even if their more frustrating characteristics remain just as evident.

• Choking Flies
• Chattering Lead
• Confession of the Informer

 

28 April 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

To this day, I am utterly baffled as to how The Haxan Cloak managed to become relatively popular at all–it all seems suspiciously Faustian.  Granted, Brian Krlic's profile has certainly benefited from his getting lumped in with the Raime/Demdike Stare pantheon of glacial, black-hearted "dance" artists, but his debut album was still essentially a collection of bleakly dissonant string dirges inspired by death, something that does not generally offer much in the way of mass appeal (or individual appeal for me, for that matter).  Excavation, however, is intermittently amazing, as Krlic's incredible evolution and inspired addition of deep sub-bass have transformed his previously oppressively sad vision into quite a heavy and frightening one.

Tri-Angle

While I did not have especially high expectations going into this album, the first minute of opener "Consumed" was so crushingly awesome that I had to immediately start the song over to hear it again.  At under two minutes, "Consumed" is little more than an introduction, but its transition from ominous, gloomy thrum to massive, evil sub-bass is one of the heaviest things I have ever heard: it sounds like a slow-motion earthquake tearing the ground apart to loose some long-buried and forgotten horror upon the world.  Needless to say, that makes for a tough act to follow, but Krlic gamely does his best, as the remainder of Excavation sounds like a fully formed and gloriously ruined aural dystopia, roiling with nightmarishly decayed, warped, slowed, and pitch-shifted motifs galore.  All of which is right up my alley, of course.

Aside from the atypically warm closing piece ("The Drop"), Krlic does not bother much with melody at all, nor does he bring back much of the organic instrumentation that was so integral to his past work.  In most cases, that would be a step backwards, but Brian succeeds so beautifully at texture, mood, and pulse that Excavation somehow thrives in their absence: most of the elements that I would normally want in a song just simply do not belong here.

In fact, space, emptiness, and a total lack of graspable melody are absolutely integral to maintaining this suite's mystique and looming sense of dread.  Most of Excavation sounds like a dubstep party in hell (ideal location) that is only audible through weirdly time-stretched, muted, and hallucinatory snatches.  While the throbbing, subterranean bass is relatively omnipresent, virtually every other element sounds like it is fighting to break through a barrier of some kind, which is an impressive production feat.  It is not easy to sound simultaneously massive and visceral and spectrally detached, but the best moments of Excavation deliver exactly that.

My sole critique is that Brian's compositional talents are not quite on the same level as his impressive abilities in all other respects.  For example, aside from the bookends, there are not many characteristics that distinguish these pieces from one another.  Also, taken on a song-by-song basis, a few pieces seem overlong or one-dimensional.  Given the nature of the material, however (haunted ambiance and sustained simmering horror), such shortcomings are not nearly as significant as they might be otherwise.  They are definitely enough to prevent Excavation from being a full-on masterpiece, but not enough to stop it from being a great album that definitively catapults Krlic into the upper echelon of dance music's shadowy underground.

• Consumed
• Excavation (Part 2)
• The Drop