Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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Utterly riveting modernist composition by NWW’s Andrew Liles, twisting influence from original ‘50s and ‘60s avant garde pioneers into a conceptual suite concerned with “the impotence of the masses living in the shadow of military, economic and political institutions”, and suitably sleeved in pictures of Tony and Cherie Blair before make-up (or after the mob gets ‘em).
Using a range of sonic signifiers for power, oppression and gloom such as church bells, blackened minor key baroque themes and deflated, limpid choral discord, each diffused and smeared across the stern field in a toxic miasma, Liles conjures a feeling of deep, pensive unease that strongly resonates with his conceptual intent in The Power Elite.
In typical NWW or Liles fashion, the suite proceeds seamlessly thru the gloom with scarcely any handrails to guide the way, and the ones that do appear tend to dissolve with warning, leaving his spectrally diaphanous, morphing projections as the only source of light to cling onto.
With discomfiting effect, he queasily emulates a state of submission and helplessness, allowing sounds to wash over the listener in a stilted, curdling flow of disjointed information, perhaps requiring the listener to act as non-passive impedance or resistance in order to properly process his aesthetic as rhetoric.
-via Boomkat
More information about Andrew Liles can be found here.
5th LP of mind expansion and electric truth from Stephen O'Malley (Sunn0))), KTL), Daniel O'Sullivan (Ulver, This is Not This Heat, Grumbling Fur, etc), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), Steve Noble (Brotzmann Trio, N.E.W.).
Hazel is the 5th record from this group of eclectic travelers, who bring their considerable pedigrees together in unexpected and original ways. Looking at the people involved, it would be reasonable to expect a massive blowout of sound, but everyone plays with remarkable and effective restraint. The music is atmospheric and layered, with bits and pieces of identifiable rock moves peeking out from under a thick blanket of hard-to-identify drift. Based on live recordings made on a lengthy tour of Italy in 2010, the recordings have been extensively edited and supplemented, but without losing the elemental sound of a group playing live together. While there’s plenty of weird ambient sound to be heard, this isn’t a sound-effects/”pedalboard” record. Like the preceding En Form for Blaalbum, Noble’s drums anchor the music. The drumming is spare and considered, sometimes lashing out with abstract punctuation, and other times laying out a Can-like groove. O’Malley’s guitar is also restrained, providing a bed for O'Sullivan's constantly morphing Rhodes, synths and electronic effects. Kristoffer Rygg contributes a rousing vocal incantation to “Ermanna” and peppers the mix with ghostly modular details. Like their other records, this is not really like anything else out there right now.
Considering Rasengan! is a documentation of the first performance this pan-European free jazz quartet ever had together, the balance of unity and chaos here is exceptionally well done. The two pieces that make up this 36 minute performance drift between what sounds like perfect synergy between the players to some all out messes of sound, both of which I have always felt is essential for this style of music. Which, of course, means this is a very impressive record.
The four performers on this record come from all parts of Europe:Portuguese trumpet player Susana Santos Silva (Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos and Coreto Porta-Jazz), French pianist Christine Wodrascka works in a multitude of styles and projects, bassist Christan Meaas Svendsen hails from Norway and collaborates with a multitude of performers (and is a member of Large Unit), and finally percussionist Håkon Berre now resides in Denmark and has collaborated with the likes of Peter Brötzmann.
Rasengan! is a performance comprised of two lengthy pieces, the lengthy "Sweatshirt" and the slightly more succinct (and more bizarre) "Death by Candiru".Of the two, "Sweatshirt" is the more conventional, but that is only relatively speaking.Immediately Meaas Svendsen and Berre create an odd rhythmic foundation via bent strings and clacking sticks, neither of which sounds obviously like the instruments the two are actually playing.Soon Santos Silva's horn and Wodrascka's piano skitter in, initially loose and chaotic.The two take turns becoming the focus, either in the form of overt, tense piano or pained, raw trumpet.A bit less than half way through the piece's 25 minute duration a bit of calm appears, with just the piano leaving a lingering tension.The sound eventually builds back up, the horn and piano sprawling all over in ebbs and floes of chaos and calm.The performance finally builds to an appropriately dramatic, loud conclusion.
While "Sweatshirt" may not sound like the most conventional work at first, it is the more dissonant turn that the quartet take on the jovially titled "Death by Candiru" that make it seem like the lighter work.At first subtle, eventually the rhythm section of bass and drum construct a slow, uncomfortable rhythm complete with weird animalistic scratching noises with piano peppered throughout.Bits of what sound like compressed air and non-instrument like noises appear, making for a more bizarre yet extremely cinematic feel.As before, the trumpet and piano trade off taking the focus, but here in a more chaotic and off-kilter form.In a great contrast to the conclusion of "Sweatshirt", here the performance seems to fall apart in a brilliant way, rather than coming to an epic, bombastic close.
There is a definite looseness throughout Rasengan! that may be fully intentional or a function of the four performers improvising together for the first time ever, but that adds to the record, rather than detracts from it.They clearly work well together and play off of each other wonderfully, but those moments where the sound becomes a bit disjointed and chaotic are some of the best parts of the record.I usually prefer jazz-based music when things get weird and dissonant, and this band does that extremely well.
Following their recent split release with legends Controlled Bleeding, this newest work from Sparkle in Grey retains the band’s improvisational flexibility, but lightens the mood somewhat. Brahim Izdag takes a lot of directions, from complex post-rock excursions to traditional folk sounds and much in between, but somehow the band still manages to make it sound like a cohesive and unified, if somewhat sprawling record.
The three songs that lead off Brahim Izdag do an exceptional job of encapsulating the feel of the record as a whole."Samba Lombarda" is at first late night field recordings, complete with crickets, barking dogs, and what may even be gunfire courtesy of Matteo Uggeri's electronics, but soon transitions into rattling cymbals and distorted guitar from Simone Riva and Alberto Carozzi (respectively).The guitar and bass (by Cristiano Lupo) combination takes on an anxious, but funky sound reminiscent of the late 70s post punk scene.However on the following "Iurop is a Madness (Attempts)", the band shifts into spoken word from Zacaharia Diatta and a weird, unique reggae sound.
Then, "Iurop is a Madness (Refuse)" is all sputtering percussion samples and Eastern European pop viola by Franz Krostopovic, making for an odd balance of the peculiar and the familiar.Sparkle mix these elements throughout the album, such as melding dubby bass, Middle Eastern percussion, and noisy guitar on "Gobbastan Pt 2 (Unwelcome)", which again makes sense even with all these contrasting elements being used."Grey Riot" reprises the European strings, but placed with cheap Casio synth beats, and eventually transitioning into what sounds like a thrashed up traditional folk song at the end (and still barely resembles the Clash song it is constructed from, partially because it is sung in Chinese).
While these border-crossing excursions are all excellent, the more experimental and abstract songs were the ones that stuck with me most."Gobbastan (Pt 1) (Arrival)" utilizes processed found sounds, synthetic percussion, and noisy guitar coming together as some sort of prog rock outburst, but never fully settling down into a specific groove.The longer "Song for Clair Patterson" ends up a mish-mash of horns and metallic tinged percussion along side field recordings.Somehow even with this unconventional arrangement the overall composition is very cohesive, and subtly jazzy and funky without being trite."Brahim Izdag (Pt 2) (Fall and Rise)" also features the band creating some open, relaxed sounds but via a more traditional arrangement of synths and guitars.The instrumentation may be traditional, but the sound overall is entirely unique.
One of the biggest strengths of Brahim Izdag is how well Sparkle in Grey manage to jump from style to style, from deconstructed musique concrete compositions into traditional European folk music, but still make the pieces make sense when placed alongside each other.It is a quirky and fun record that may not take itself too seriously, but the band themselves are consummate professionals as far as their performance and production is concerned.
For better or worse, Marielle Jakobsons’ first solo album for Thrill Jockey continues her evolution away from her darker and heavier early work into more mellow, gently psychedelic territory more in line with her Date Palms project.  On the one hand, that makes sense, as Date Palms is probably the most popular of Jakobsons' many endeavors and quasi-New Age revivalism is still more or less in vogue.  On the other hand, I tend to loathe just about anything that resembles toothless pastoral burbling, regardless of who is making it.  Consequently, this direction is not for me much of the time.  While there are admittedly a few faint traces of the Jakobsons’ more distinctive and compelling past scattered throughout Star Core, this album is mostly significant for continuing the ambitious expansion of her palette and for being the first time that Marielle sings on record (as far as I know, anyway).  Also, the album's closing two pieces are sublimely mesmerizing.
The opening "White Sparks" begins quite deceptively with some ominously dissonant low drones that set my heart a-flutter, but both the piece and the entire album quickly settle into a languorous, radiant, and twinkling haze. Curiously, Jakobsons' violin is reduced to a mere droning shimmer or an occasional swell of color here, as she seems quite intent on becoming a one-woman psych rock band, albeit one with no guitars or percussion.  Instead, Jakobsons lays down a stoned and sleepy bassline, some pleasantly chiming and rippling synth melodies, and takes the mic for some vaporous, reverb-swathed vocals.  Closely scrutinized, "White Sparks" is actually a complexly layered and harmonically rich piece, but that is undercut by the fact that the piece is so drifting and hazy that it barely feels like a song.  It almost seems like Jakobsons' intent was to leave as little an impression as possible, a feat she seems to replicate repeatedly throughout Star Core.  Unfortunately, ego death is a much better goal in spirituality than it is in music.  Occasionally, however, there are some prominent and forceful motifs, such as the vaguely Eastern "desert rock" violin melody on the title piece, but mostly Jakobsons is content to just allow her synthesizers to amiably drone and twinkle.  Also, it is perplexing how little Marielle's decision to finally sing actually matters, as her vocals are little more than a bleary haze or a repeating wordless chant.  She might be singing, but she is very much fading into the background rather than stepping forward.
Thankfully, there are parts of Star Core that depart a bit from the otherwise pervasive "lounging on a hammock under the palm trees at a commune" vibe. The first time my ears perked up was "The Beginning is the End," which is built upon a beautiful and vaguely mysterious flute melody.  While there are certainly plenty of analog synth tones to be found, they remain mostly understated and the flutes do a fine job of cutting through the artificiality to make the piece feel comparatively earthy and real.  It is a perverse irony that such an event can seem surprising, given how visceral and unrepentantly organic much of Jakobsons'work has been on previous albums like Fire Star, Ore, and Improvisations for Strings and Electronics.  Elsewhere, "Undone" stands as the best example of Jakobsons' "slow-motion psychedelia" aesthetic, as her diffuse and drifting groove is enhanced with heavy buzzing and throbbing synths, some hallucinatory flanging that resembles Tuvan throat singing, an effective dynamic arc, and some thick minor key flutes.  To my ears, "Undone" is Star Core's unquestionable zenith, exchanging benevolent serenity for an unexpectedly sultry and smeared foray into deep stoner rock. The closing "The Sinking of the Sky," however, attempts to make lightning strike twice and arguably succeeds, despite being even more glacial and bleary than "Undone."  Thankfully, it boasts some impressively haunting and emotionally resonant flute and violin themes to compensate for its extended length and Quaalude pace.  In fact, I probably would not have minded if it had been twice as long, as Jakobsons hits upon a gorgeous sort of slow-motion trance nirvana.  That aesthetic seems to be the way forward and I hope Jakobsons sticks with it.  Weirdly, Star Core seems to be at its heaviest and most compelling only when Jakobsons picks up her flute, though her talents as a sound designer seem to play as much a role in that as her talents as a flautist, as the texture and layering seems more evocative than the actual melodies.
Interestingly, the critical response to this album elsewhere has been hugely favorable, which makes me wonder if I am either deaf, stupid, or terminally cranky, as I only liked about half of it.  I suspect part of my problem is my personal expectations, as I am coming at this album as a huge Marielle Jakobsons fan.  In one sense, that certainly makes me predisposed to love her work, but the more significant bias is that it makes me hugely exasperated to hear a once-formidable artist become gradually less and less distinctive and more and more serene.  The fact that Star Core is "cosmic" or that it calls to mind Terry Riley is not a selling point for me at all: there is already one Terry Riley, so I would much rather have a Marielle Jakobsons who sounds like only Marielle Jakobsons can sound.  When Star Core does not work, it is not necessarily bad so much as puzzling and forgettable–like a cross between 1.) a Liz Harris that found God, bought a synth, and became a yoga instructor, and 2.) Led Zeppelin’s "Kashmir" on a near-lethal dose of horse tranquilizers (I promise that imaginary combination is not nearly as compelling as it might sound).  I am tempted to say that I hope Marielle throws her synthesizer in a lake, but that is not fair: the synths work just fine when relegated to a textural role.  It is mostly just a question of finding a suitable balance between shimmering serenity and something a bit more substantial and forward-thinking.  On the final two pieces at least, Jakobsons nails it.  I suspect that Date Palms fans will probably love the entire album though, as will anyone enamored of the softer side of Kranky.
Tom Carter and Loren Connors are a pairing so obvious, it’s a mystery how it took this long to happen. Each has traversed the American underground on their own unique path. Carter co-founded acid-folk improvisers Charalambides in 1991 and Connors has been redefining his singular vision of the blues since the late 1970s.
On this debut non-titled LP, these guitar masters conjure a stunning, and at times labyrinthine, six-string tableau. Carter’s high-contrast spiral melodies sear through Connors’ expanding canvas of blacks and molten reds. It’s a startling and new language of psychedelic and avant blues that is a next step in Carter and Connor’s ongoing exploration of the guitar.
Art Sex Music is the autobiography of a musician who, as a founding member of the avant-garde group Throbbing Gristle and electronic pioneers Chris & Cosey, has consistently challenged the boundaries of music over the past four decades.
It is the account of an artist who, as part of COUM Transmissions, represented Britain at the IXth Biennale de Paris, whose "Prostitution" show at the ICA in 1976 caused the Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn to declare her, COUM and Throbbing Gristle "Wreckers of Civilization"… shortly before he was arrested for indecent exposure, and whose work continues to be held at the vanguard of contemporary art, some of which resides as part of the Tate permanent collection.
And it is the story of her work as a pornographic model and striptease artiste which challenged assumptions about morality, pornography and art.
Art Sex Music is the wise, shocking and elegant autobiography of Cosey Fanni Tutti.
Art Sex Music will be published by Faber & Faber on April 7th, 2017.
Infinite Floor may be his first solo record proper, but Austin's Dylan Cameron has honed his craft as a producer and engineer in that scene for a number of years now. That technical expertise shines through on the eight songs that comprise this record, a suite of songs that ooze with rhythm, yet also a depth and complexity that rivals the most nuanced of electronic artists. Strong rhythms, infectious melodies, and amazing production all come together as an excellent record.
Some of Cameron's background does not necessarily shine though directly in the sound of Infinite Floor, having spent time both as a hip-hop producer and metal drummer, but that sense of diversity and variety does come across in the diversity of production and composition here.Album opener "Nebula" is a great example of this:sweeping noises and crackling textures scream old school musique concrete electronic experiments, yet skittering high-hat and jungle drum loops push the piece more to the club than the opening minutes would have hinted at.
Cameron works with similar abstraction on "Forest Drone", where he pairs sheets of white noise with slightly mournful beats and synths.There is a distinct rhythm, but parts of it are clearly the product of synth bits or found sounds rather than trite samples or drum machines."Human Condition" is also similar in its method, with ambient sweeps and open passages eventually blended with massive handclaps and bass heavy beats.Concluding the piece on a field recording of some sort, Cameron goes in many different places during the piece’s sub-four minute duration but never does it feel unfocused.
Other moments may be a bit less challenging of course, but even during the more conventional songs, Cameron is sure to give them a distinct edge in his performance."Misted Road" more heavily features conventional sounding house synth stabs and lead, but the overall structure and composition is loose and far less repetitive than most music of this style."Difficult Floor" leans a bit more into the world of dance floors with its standard techno throb and sampled female vocals, but is still drenched in Cameron's idiosyncrasy.
As I mentioned before, one of the biggest assets to Infinite Floor is Cameron's experience and ability as a producer and engineer.Not to take anything at all away from his ability to construct beats and melodies (which is exceptional), but where this album stands out most is in its production and sound design.There is a depth and complexity that is extremely impressive throughout this album.Synths and samples are obvious at times, but Cameron blends and shapes them into different elements entirely.The finished product is both memorable and compelling in its nuanced and unique style.
The cover for Stop Time is meant to convey the nature of the tool used to compose it, an invention of Robin Hayward’s called the Hayward Tuning Vine. The idea behind it is to spatialize (and colorize) the relationship between just intervals played, in this case, on a baritone saxophone, a cello, and a microtonal tuba. At the performance from which this album is drawn, each instrumentalist was illuminated in a color corresponding to the pitch he played on the Vine. If the pitch shifted, so did the color. Those pitches were in turn fed to a surround-sound system and projected into different parts of the performance space. In the move to recorded medium, the spatial-visual element is partially flattened, making the slow accrual of rhythm, texture, and harmony the music’s driving feature.
Robin Hayward is a member of Catherine Christer Hennix’s Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage ensemble, and he’s collaborated with composers like Alvin Lucier, Eliane Radigue, and Christian Wolff. For anyone familiar with Hennix or Radigue, their work makes for a convenient point of reference. Hayward uses few materials—just three instruments, a handful of tones, and a series of sustained pulses. The variety and beauty they create is derived from how they interact within their circular framework.
Throughout the album’s half-hour duration, cello, sax, and tuba revolve around an invisible center, conveying distance and intensity. They stand out in the stereo for a time, solo on a single note (repeated or held), then fall back into an underlying drone. The mix makes good use of stereo to position the instruments too. They seem to trade places, rocking left-to-right and back-and-forth on a smooth, glassy curve; a parallel, maybe, to the ratios of whole numbers used for representing just intonation. By the end, the overall effect escapes into an extra dimension. It’s like listening to someone breathe, or like watching small waves lap against one another in slow motion. The CD may not be able to replicate the visual effects of the live performance, but Hayward’s music relates visual information of its own, both color and light, and the cloudy images from the no-space of dreams.
High-volume, high-velocity, whiplash-inducing noise torn screaming from the guts of a haywire machine. As the Pilgrim Talk website notes, Ian M. Fraser programs his computer to make noise. Once finished, circuitry and code do the rest, no human interaction required. The result is so quick-moving and chaotic that absorbing it in the first four or five listens is about as likely as a windshield absorbing a brick in a hurricane.
Fraser’s work produces sounds that are thick, gnarled, and biting, as sharp as they are chunky. There’s processed white noise, sizzling distortion, squealing tones, and the kind of chewed up electronic clamor that only a computer could make, like the sound of a million insects eating a screaming animal inside a gasoline-powered wood chipper. And it’s sustained for 15-minutes: one passage after another (it has to be around a hundred in total) separated by sudden shifts in texture and rhythm, all of it rushing by as if set in motion by three megatons of dynamite. The variety (and channel-jumping structure) is impressive; the after effect, relieving. On a Tuesday afternoon when Hillary Clinton courted Henry Kissinger’s approval and Neil deGrasse Tyson defended his dystopian nightmare state of the future, this hornet’s nest of igneous jetsam made everything a hundred times better. Turn Harlem Electronics way up and dig deep into the grain of an electronic furnace.