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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On first blush, it's tempting to characterize Ascent as, for all intents, a brand new Comets on Fire record, or more specifically, as Ben Chasny fronting a Comets jam session. All the Comets guys are backing Chasny here, and the album was recorded live in the studio, like a true collaborative effort. But on further listening, it becomes clear that Ascent is Chasny's baby.
Ascent has a spontaneous, organic quality that reminds me of some of the best live rock albums of decades past—Live Rust, Europe '72, and so forth. There's an ebb and flow to the sequencing that is key to its enjoyability, each track flowing into the next with common lyrical threads. Still, this is far from a Comets reunion: Chasny penned all the music and words himself (save for "Even If You Knew," which goes back roughly a decade to his membership in the Comets line-up). Chasny also takes care of all the lead guitar playing, while the backing instrumentation provides a foundation for him to unhinge and explore musically. (At least half of these tunes simply involve Comets setting up a groove while Chasny lays solo after blistering solo over the top, like an improvised live performance.) Opener "Waswasa" sets the tone early: it is both Ascent's heaviest song, nearly Sabbath-ian in its muscle, and its most propulsive. It doesn't quite unhinge into a sprawling, oscillating wash of sound like Comets' Field Recordings from the Sun, but I get the sense this is by design: less pure chaos, more musical variance, and flat-out better songs.
Musically, the lion's share of Ascent is the antithesis of last year's pastoral, mostly acoustic Asleep on the Floodplain, which is to say, psych guitar heaven—a glorious head trip through Chasny's fiery, unhinged playing. Two of the best songs are actually electric reconfigurations of Six Organs songs that appeared on a couple of Chasny's Holy Mountain records nearly a decade ago, which he has played live in various configurations over the years. "One Thousand Birds" originally closed 2002's Dark Noontide as an Eastern-tinged folk song, complete with its own face-melting guitar solo. On Ascent, the acoustic guitar riff at the song's core is picked up by a bass guitar, its tempo slowed; Chasny's soloing is more patient than in his youth, less a pistol duel than a pummeling 12 rounds in the ring. The real stunner, though, is "Close to the Sky," from 2003's Compathía, which shifts from pure acoustic to full-on psych guitar freakout, with Chasny meditatively intoning, "I never knew anything could exist without you," before his playing rockets into the stratosphere for a breathless five minutes of bliss.
Themes of outer space run through the album lyrically: every song mentions a variance of Earth, sky, sun, wind, dust, storms, blackness, deep space, or the void. Beneath the space analogies, Ascent seems to meditate frequently on loss or death, Chasny's voice passing through filters, reverb and echo, as if beamed in from Jupiter. There is one exception where Chasny and his backing band flip off their amplifiers: "Your Ghost" is his most yearning tune in some years, and one of his most straightforward musically. Chasny's acoustic picking is unadorned, less complex and Eastern-tinged than most anything from Asleep on the Floodplain, and leaves plenty of space for his words to make a gut-punch impression: "I was your voice, I was your light, I was your ghost," he reflects plaintively, repeating varinces on the phrase a few times, building its impact. Ultimately, "Your Ghost" is a three-minute reprieve before the fuzzed-out baseline of "Even If You Knew" charges onto the scene, and just like that, Ascent reverts back to distorted rock 'n' roll bliss.
Holy Other has been more or less in constant rotation for me since 2010's perfect We Over single, which makes it kind of surprising that the mysterious Manchester producer is just now getting around to releasing an actual full-length album.  I was a little worried that his very narrow aesthetic (drugged, deteriorated, slow-motion sex music?) would make a longer release drag a bit, but my fears were mostly unfounded. While I do not think the comparatively dark and minimal Held quite hits the heights of some of Holy Other's categorically stellar earlier work, it is still pretty damn good and likely to play an indirect role in many pregnancies.
Holy Other, along with Balam Acab, has always been one of the most compelling and representative examples of the "Tri-Angle Records aesthetic" (despite their best attempts to diversify): melancholy downtempo electronica with a healthy predilection towards both innovation and hookiness.  Holy Other stands a bit apart though, finding a sexy and sensuous niche a bit more abstract than intermittently excellent label mate How to Dress Well, who veers much closer to "song" territory and actually has lyrics and choruses.  Despite eschewing all such "pop" trappings, Holy Other's vision has always been a surprisingly catchy one: achingly slow, minimal beats beneath thickly throbbing synths and cut-up R&B vocal snatches.  While that is admittedly a fairly trendy thing to be doing right now, Holy Other is large part of the reason that the trend exists in the first place and he executes it much, much better than most (or perhaps he is simply one of the most vicious self-editors around, which would explain his trickling output).
Held does not take many liberties with Holy Other's very successful formula, but it still take more than I would have expected.  In general, it is a bit more restrained and meditative than its predecessor, the With U EP (which was a "break-up album" of sorts).  Part of that may be due to his recent fascination with Gregorian chants (there is a curiously somber, sacred feel to some passages), but I suspect it is more attributable to both an evolution towards subtlety and the demands of sustaining a mood for 35 minutes rather than just writing a killer single or two.  There are some killer singles to be found, of course, as the languorously swelling "W(here)" and the ghostly coda of "U Now" are appropriately infectious, but the emphasis seems to have been much more on creating a brooding and sensuous whole rather than a collection of "hits."
Uncharacteristically, this is one of the rare times where I actually prefer catchy singles to depth and maturity, but only a little–I would unhesitatingly steer anybody unfamiliar Holy Other towards With U over this (unless they are resourceful enough to track down the out-of-print We Over 7").  That is not to say that Held is a disappointment–it is not.  Far from it.  It admittedly lacks some of the immediacy of its predecessors, but there is not weak song in the bunch and Holy Other is at the top of his game with his vocal sample manipulations ("Nothing Here" being pretty much a clinic on how to use cut-up and pitch-shifted vocals movingly).  Of course, addressing the details and subtle changes in style misses the elephant in the room here: Held contains nine solid new songs by a consistently excellent and distinctive artist that had previously only formally released six songs to date.  For me, that constitutes a legitimate event and it was worth the wait.
A perfect pairing, Every Hidden Color is Argentina's Federico Durand and the US' Nicholas Szczepanik, both relatively young purveyors of dreamlike ambient music. There are not really any surprises on this two track LP, which is a good thing: it is a carefully constructed work that mixes beautiful, formless tonal drift with rich melodies of subtle construction.
While Szczepanik has been rather prolific in short, diverse pieces (such as his Ante Algo Azul series of 12 3" cds), Durand has stuck mostly to the album length format, on works for Spekk and Own Records.The two side-long pieces that make up Luz then seems to be a perfect middle ground for the two artists to work within.
The introduction to the A side of this work is really the only time that things are harsh:a combination of fuzzy, almost abrasive noises and field recordings, creating a sense of tense urban chaos, which is soon counteracted by the appearance of delicate melodies.These repeating tonal structures weave in and out, becoming the center of attention and enveloping the field recordings into a rich, powerful piece of music.Slowly, almost imperceptibly throughout, these individual notes begin to blend together into a shimmering, amorphous drone that conveys the same lush beauty, but in a less structured manner.Oddly enough, it is on a colder, isolated, almost creepy note that the side ends.
On the other side, more pastoral field recordings are mixed with looped, abstract textures to fascinating effect.Atop this, slightly treated guitar is placed, mostly just delayed, so it retains the instrument’s natural sound.The combination of conventional sounding guitar and processed, textural ambience works well together, and eventually the whole thing is bolstered by what sounds like layers of droning synthesizers, ending the album on a drifting, billowy passage.
Throughout Luz, a sense of delicate, but powerful beauty emanates from the layers of electronic sound and cautious melodies.An unending stream of tone flows like a slow river, carrying glorious textures with it.While there is an admirable simplicity to the way the album is constructed, it is by no means sparse or skeletal, it has just enough going on to be captivating, while still remaining meditative and calm.Durand and Szczepanik compliment each other perfectly, and the result is a beautiful piece of sonic experimentation.
Camera is a young trio which has been stamped with the approval of veterans Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius. With Radiate they expand the abandon and spontaneity of their live performance which have been dubbed "Krautrock Guerilla."
The Berlin-based group has a reputation which, up until now, has been based upon their gate-crashing gigs in gentlemen's toilets, subway stations, underpasses, and at award shows. Such appearances are made possible by the speedy set up of a couple of amps, guitars and synthesizer, and a minimal drum kit of snare, floor tom, cymbals, and headless tambourines. Appearances with the aforementioned (pioneering members of Neu, Cluster, and Harmonia) Moebius and Rother hasn't done them any harm either.
Some of the fierce, hypnotic flavor of these non-concert hall shows can easily be viewed on the web and it would be terrific to get off a train or go for a pee and happen upon one of them in real life. Yet, as exciting and intriguing as the web-based clips seem, the sound quality is lacking and I find the sonic mix a little too "democratic," or somewhat cluttered by the percussion. As the saying goes: a little tambourine goes a long way.
The eight pieces on Radiate benefit from the studio setting and show a great improvement in both structure and audio quality. Apparently, after some planning, the group approached these sessions very much like a live performance. The hypnotic elements are not lost and neither is the feeling of improvised surfing on a flow of cosmic sound. As expected, the album is blend of spaciness and propulsion as Camera create both languid atmospheres as on "Villon" and bristling passages laden with fuzzed-out guitar and synth, such as "E-go." All this perhaps coalesces best on "Utopia Is," which includes some wordless voices. There is also some speaking on "Rfid." The track "Soldat," which translates as "Soldier," has a more brutal, depressed, mechanical rhythm in contrast with the lighter piece "Morgen."
The original wave of Krautrock represented an outburst of creative expression derived from the desire of young Germans to be free of the sins of the past and in the process shed the received limits of both national history and musical structure. Camera fits right in with that ethos. Their approach also results in music of a similar tone to that of the somewhat neglected UK band Appliance—another good thing.
Collecting most of the 12" tracks from the past 3 years, Rhythm &Sound's s/t CD is the first since 98's Burial Mix collection"Showcase". Unlike that disc, which featured the vocals of Tikimanthroughout, this disc is primarily instrumental save for 1 track.Rhythm & Sound are part of the Berlin based contingent of minimalelectronic music makers, their specialty being lazy dub in varyingdegrees of fuzziness. Repetition is key as a limited palette ofbass/beats are treated with an equally limited palette of dub effectsfrom 6 to 17 minutes apiece. One thing's for sure - you need to be afan of the sound to be able to sit through the entire 80 minutes.Fortunately, the tempos and arrangements are varied enough to maintainmy interest. "Smile" features the heavily accented spoken words ofSavage which is fine but not as engrossing as Tikiman's more melodicsinging. "Mango Drive" and "Outward" are the most likely ones toconvince you to get up off the couch and move a little while the restare better suited for a ganja coma. Good stuff, but I prefer Rhythm& Sound's sound as a vehicle for Jamaican vocalists.
Regular visitors to the Brainwashed message board might be familiarwith the name of industrial prog fiend Tim Jones. Now his cover's blownbecause The Brain can reveal that not only is he the one and moanlyPendro, but also a collaborator in noise with Triclops and productionassistant for the aural hauntings of Berkowitz, Lake & Dahmer. LikeBLD, Pendro releases have so far been CD-R's on Fflint Central, thelabel that Tim founded with longtime friend from Fflint Barry Williams."Peninsula" is particularly notable for including a good chunk of ahead on collision of roaring analogue synth and minidisc loops duringwhich Pendro almost blew the roof off at a Rotations night inManchester. Pendro's mind crumbling thick drones and piercing whistlesare bolstered to eye popping effect by some choice recordings ofbuddhist monks' gutteral chanting and what sounds like black waterswirling down the satanic plughole. This is my favourite noise fromFflint Central yet! The thick choking smog of this epic 'MasonicIncinerator' is preceded by what sounds like the looped distress callof an animated bagpipe beast called 'Flip' and followed by four moretruncated chunks of looping and loping Pendroism which inflitrate thedark camouflaged corridors of Faculty X and leave a trail of dancingmonkey droppings whilst the disembodied organ grinder grunts inectoplasmic fury. Whilst there is much wrongness in the unsettled beatsof Pendro, the closing 'Breizh Da Virviken' washes out the oddity insome eerie but calm cavernous ambient loop pools.
samples:
The entire CD-R can also be heard online via Fflint Central.
Robert Henke's Monolake delivers the second full length album within ayear. "Cinemascope" couples 5 previously released vinyl tracks with 5others for a 66 minute continuation of Monolake's modus operandi:majestic, minimized, computerized groove. A glacial serenity isever-present, more so in terms of atmosphere than emotion, as soundsalchemically mix and tracks unfold and evolve. The shorter ones, overhalf the album, are very rhythmic and dance floor ready. "Ping" and"Cut" in particular neatly toss about bass and beats as though in ametallic tumbler. I'm duly impressed. But it's the lengthier andmellower, more environmental epics that are most impressive. "Bicom"binds dry iced hiccups to a mildly hip hop loop. "Ionized" isadequately named, gradually gaining and losing electrons of chargedsound over 11+ minutes. "Alpenrausch", commissioned for Switzerland'scultural symposium Migros Kulturprozent, cuts and pastes sampledvocalizations with glass bells. Monolake albums usually end with agorgeous ambient minded finale and "Indigo" is no exception as deepblue liquid drips and gathers amongst gently percolating bass. Verynice. Another new album is apparently due out early next year.
Cock ESP are very silly. The core duo of Emil Hagstrom and Matt Baconhave earned themselves some small reknown by donning fancy dress anddelivering very short random noise sets which usually end in some kindof violent chaos. After thrilling to the sound of Cuban screamer ElysePerez shrieking whilst cracking the bald skulls of drunken beach bumswith a gnarled stick of driftwood, they asked her to join them. Thetheme of this album appears to be the comedy of pain, as most trackssport corrupted cheesy song titles with one word obliterated by theword 'pain'. During the twenty minutes of quick choking noise burststhere is also a little violin, although you'd hardly know it, andFlying Luttenbacher Weasal Walter blows some honking clarinet blastsover six lucky maelstroms. If anyone out there is still mad enough tobe a V/Vm completist then you're going to need this, as the Edgelymasher does a mix up on the longest track, and brings his ownsaxalicious stamp of hacked pompous poptone plunder to the din of thescreaming Cock. Rushing through 18 splurges of ridiculous riot noise,Cock ESP kick up a racket that never sticks around long enough toirritate and after the first few tracks shows the kind of irreverentillogic that only a man in a donkey suit could really deliver. Withoutthe live show shenanigens, the Cock ESP experience is of courseincomplete, but there is a lovely collection of on stage snapshots onthe insert to help your earmagination along. If that's just not enoughthey'll be touring the US and Europe early next year. There are stillmore pictures and on the Cock ESP websitewhere you can also find three full short bursts of noise from thisrelease and a selection from their many other spewings. There they alsodisplay their various accolades with pride having been described asidiot noise, performance-noise wackos and a bunch of sad twats.
You might recognize the name Brad Laner from Medicine, Savage Republicor possibly the 300 albums he has allegedly played on. As ElectricCompany, his first notable release surfaced in 1997 as part of theKahanek Incident series on the now defunct Trance Syndicate label,backed/with Furry Things. Receiving the attention of (the now alsodead) Supreme Recordings (remember that division of Island that had RedHouse Painters for an album?), his debut full-lengther, "Studio City"was issued in 1998. Since then, there's been a mess of releases on (thealso pretty-much dead) Vinyl Communications, Planet-Mu and Tigerbeat6.The most recent bonafide full length album, 'Slow Food,' was releasedearlier this year on Mike Paradinas' Planet-Mu in the UK.
'62-56' was first to surface after that, materializing from Tigerbeat6in July. While it's billed as an Extended Play single, the disc haseleven tracks and totals over 45 minutes. What does separate it frommost album characteristics is the whole array of different styles Lanerchooses to let loose with, rather than limit himself to a coherenttheme. Here, Laner's unafraid to play with beautiful melodies,Kraftwerkian/Mousey punchy beat-friendly tracks, glitchy cutups andeven toy with the power of suggestion with the spoken vocals on thedisc's closer. There's even a rather interesting 15+ minute improvbetween Brad and other noteworthy local laptop owners Blectum fromBlechdom, Lesser and Kid 606 which would easily please anyexperimental-Stockhausen worshipping musique concrete fan.
(new), on the other hand is Laner's contribution to Fällt's 'InvalidObjects' 3" CD series. If I've learned anything from Raster-Noton, it'sthat I never need to buy all the albums in a series ever again.Especially with 'Invalid Objects' where the series consists of 24releases, all priced over $10 here in the USA. Only 250 of each discwas pressed, however, and the series includes the usual gang of idiotslike Pita, Scanner, Kim Cascone, and Richard Chartier. This timearound, I only bought the three I cared about (this one, V/Vm andPimmon) instead of wasting my money on piles of crapola like the 20' to2000 disappointment. Laner's contribution consists of 14 one-minutelong tracks, ranging from low sub-frequencies, frighteningly loudabrasions, live drums, tone bursts, electronic twitters, playgroundrecordings and orchestral samples. It's entertaining and no lessendearing as his other releases, as with each track running right intoeach other, completing the whole more like one intricate 14-minute longtrack. At the end of the day, however, it's not something I'd pull forfrom the shelves frequently.
Tigerbeat6 released "Greatest Hits" in October, but the cover andpromos were being passed around before September 11th. Unlike any otheralbum which bears the same name, this one features reconstructions by ahost of friends as opposed to collecting old, previously releasedthings. Perhaps it's quite appropriate the cover features a collapsingbuilding, as the "remixes" on this disc are completely reformed piecesfrom the bricks supplied by the Electric Company, himself. (Of course,the back should probably include the new building erected in itsplace.) In addition to the proverbial TB6 posse, re-erectors includePhthalo's Phthalocyanine, Tom Recchion, µ-Ziq, Geoff White and thenotoriously erect Leafcutter John. The erections [you were waiting forme to use that word] aren't a clever display of genre-straddling likethe conventional remix record, but do showcase the reinterpretivestyles of each artist. Like the broken record sounding Pimmon track,the acoustic guitar loops of Electric Company himself. Okay, so it'sreally just a remix album, but it's very nice to listen to.
If at all possible, try to ignore the astonishingly poor name of thisband. Try also to set aside your (certainly justified) misgivings aboutthe album's inaccurate Grateful Dead reference for a title. Now, if itisn't too much to ask after you've done the aforementioned superhumanfeats (and I must congratulate you if your mind remains at all open,but the true test is yet to come, as you'll soon see), please look pastthe fact that the first song on this CD is titled (are you ready?),"Buckle Up Scully, I Believe Chuck Here is About to Take Us on a Rideto the Abnormal". Still there? Goodness gracious. What on earth couldhave prompted this actually-quite-good Greek quartet to make so manyastoundingly poor naming choices is truly beyond my ken. Their albumdeserves better, because it is worth listening to. Titles, after all,are secondary to the music, but one must wonder about why a band wouldwant to represent themselves so. The entirely instrumental group seems to have synthesized elements ofold 4AD records with that slow n'heavy Godspeed You Black Emperor! rockdirge. Even if the drums are played by an actual person (I don't knowif they are or not), they have that flat quality most peculiar to the1980s Cocteau Twins drum machine. The ghosts of Angelo Badalamentescores lurk in the reverb-soaked guitar and heavy Godspeed!-like dramatakes the form of one- or two-chord songs that meander over ten minutestretches for maximum "epic" effect. In fact, this band wears theirinfluences so opaquely that they go beyond being simply derivative, andcome out as... really quite nice. They add a noisy rock element attimes, riding that one chord until it grows louder and louder and feedsback over a steady, simple 4/4 beat. And even though gloomy gothicbombast hangs over all the tunes, it's never off-putting. "What a Long,Strange Journey" is a fine album... but please please tell me, what'sthe Grateful Dead got to do with it? Look for these at their website or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
It's rather difficult to believe Jimmy LaValle of the popular hardcoreoutfits Swing Kids, The Locust and GoGoGo Airheart is the same Jimmy ofTristeza or the elegant and introspective project, The Album Leaf. Inany case, this follow-up to the successful 'An Orchestrated Rise toFall' further focuses the stylistic intentions of its predecessor. 'OneDay I'll Be On Time' captures the haunting yet simple instrumentalbeauty found in much of the work of Brian Eno on 'Another Green World'or 'Before and After Science' (the songs "Wet the Day" and "The Sailor"being distinctively Eno-esque, particularly as regards LaValle'skeyboard work). From sparse, hypnotic electric piano melodies todelicate (but never flowery), ambient guitar pieces like "Storyboard"(not to mention those songs which combine the best of both theseworlds, such as "The MP"), the album is replete with a sincerity thatis so lacking in many otherwise talented artists' work. However,although it is sparse, this is not to say it lacks depth. LaValle'ssongwriting seems crafted with the utmost care. He plays nearly all thevast array of instruments, as well as doing the bulk of the recordinghimself. It is likely that these elements lend 'One Day' its intimacy.In a match that is hardly surprising, The Album Leaf (which featuredLaValle with assistance from fellow members of Tristeza) has justcompleted a recent tour opening for like-minded moody songsters SigurRÑs.