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 a stop at Steve Albini's famed Electrical Audio studios during a recent joint tour, the Washington state husband and wife duo recorded this collaboration with Chicago’s noise/metal trio, later mixed by Randall Dunn. The result is a dark, yet captivating set of tracks that brings in bits of drone, black metal, post-rock, and gentle piano passages, bearing the mark of both but sounding entirely unique.
Locrian, the trio of Terence Hannum (synths/vocals), Andre Foisy (guitar) and Steven Hess (drums) are joined here by Mamiffer, the duo of Faith Coloccia and Isis/Greymachine’s Aaron Turner.With both projects working in different, but similarly metal-influenced experimental direction, the collaboration makes perfect sense.
Bless Them That Curse You is bookended by two dramatic, genre spanning pieces that open and go out with a bang."In Fulminic Blaze" opens with bellowing, Tibetan monk vocal drones and squealing abstract noises to harrowing effect, before being uprooted by a duet of acoustic guitar and piano, to which Steven Hess' measured, understated drumming slides in.The noisier material from early on reappears and melds in perfectly, further fleshing out the already complex sound.Towards the end it’s switched over to electric guitar to excellent effect.
The closing piece, the near-20 minute suite of "Metis/Amaranthine/The Emperor" leads off with subtle piano and gentle vocals courtesy of Coloccia, eventually with added guitar and textural keyboard layers.The mood goes from melancholy to bleak and sinister about a third of the way through, with the piano and vocals eventually overtaken by layers of noise and distant, unidentifiable howling.
The darkness hinted at erupts violently when Foisy's rapid, black metal tinged guitar slides in over militaristic drums that seem to herald armies marching toward an imminent apocalypse.Dissolving into pure noise, eventually the drums transform into a more traditional rock structure, with Turner taking over vocals in a violent, guttural outburst, before wrapping the album up with quiet feedback.
Between theses monolithic slabs lies a series of more restrained and moody ambient pieces.The title track goes more of a film score route, with complex layers of drifting ambience and droning synth, pushing in a more restrained, but still drama-laden direction.Both "Corpus Luteum" and "Lechatelierite" bear the Mamiffer sound more so than the others, being primarily lead by Coloccia's piano and accompanied by noisy, dissonant textures.Conversely, "Second Burial" feels more Locrian-esque, with abstract fuzz and digital treatments atop slow, lurching drones.
These two artists were a natural fit, given that they both accompany that gray area between drone, metal and post-rock, and both also work extremely well with sparser, understated sounds.While the opening and closing moments here are bombastic and pummeling at times, between the two lie a lot of hazy, ambiguous spaces that reveal more with each listen.
In an unconventional move in this day and age, Bless Them That Curse You is released on the three major formats, LP, CD and cassette.While each feature the same music, the presentation differs, from the gatefold deluxe double LP to the deluxe digipakCD to the oversized boxed tape, complete with stickers and hand-sewn booklet.Regardless of preferred format, any of them will capture the scope and drama of this work better than any downloadable format, so everyone's covered.
Way back in 1996, the duo of Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig released this singles collection on the revered Chain Reaction label.  Over the ensuing years, it has justifiably been hailed as an inarguable dub techno classic, but it has remained maddeningly out-of-print for quite some time.  Now it is thankfully back again and it still sounds pretty amazing, which is a rather astonishing feat for cutting edge techno from almost two decades ago.  I'm a little disappointed that Type did not try to replicate (or outdo) the original, famously CD-damaging metal packaging though.
This is a fascinating album to try to deconstruct, as it often seems like a very abstract and boldly experimental effort that just happens to occasionally feature thumping four-on-the-floor beats.  I'm a bit conflicted on house beats in this instance, as I generally hate them with a fiery passion.  I definitely found myself annoyed by their blunt prominence in "Port of Call," but they are employed with tactful and ingenious restraint in most other instances.  In fact, the insistent pulsing is actually necessary to make music this uncompromisingly unmusical work.  This is most apparent in "Biokinetics 2," which closely resembles Köner's bleakly alienating and cavernous solo ambient work, but works a bit better due to its deep heart-like throb.  The genius of Biokinetics lies in how the beats sound, which is almost always distant and submerged.  In fact, the whole album sounds like it was recorded in a deep, dark trench in the ocean.  Or perhaps in a bubbling cauldron of molasses.  Those are both heartfelt compliments in this case, of course.
The most weird and dance-unfriendly of those pieces is probably "Biokinetics 1," which warps a synth bass line into a sick slow-motion burbling, dispenses with any kind of beat, and augments it only with a something that resembles a clanking, forlorn, pitch-shifted xylophone.  Then, later on the album, the duo spend two entire songs toying with a prominent rhythmic loop that constantly drifts in and out of phase with the very straightforward underlying beat: "Port of Nuba" sounds like a spirited ping-pong match unfolding over an otherwise bland, unremarkable bit of house music, then "Nautical Nuba" sounds like the exact same thing, but somehow underwater.
It is impossible to be unimpressed by the vision and singularity of Biokinetics, but it is a very difficult album to warm to or love in a non-cerebral way.  Its appeal lies primarily in how deftly and uniquely it uses minimalist repetition and studio technique to weave something wonderful out of the sparsest musical content.  "Nautical Dub" is brilliant, but none of the other pieces are quite on that level.  Some of them are pretty unusual, inventive, or ingeniously produced, but that is not quite the same thing as being great.
Also, there is an enormous amount of repetition here.  Within songs, I understand that that is largely the point: Köner and Mellwig were using obsessive repetition in service of achieving a cumulative slow-burning intensity.  Unfortunately, such intensity was not always the end result and some pieces drag a bit.  More significantly, however, Biokinetics is largely composed of song pairings: for example, "Port Gentil" and "Nautical Zone" are essentially two versions of the exact same piece of music (and make up 25 minutes of the album).  It is certainly neat and enlightening to hear how the duo transform their base materials, but it also means that Biokinetics only contains five or six real songs.  That said, it was never intended as a coherent album, so it is a bit unfair to find fault with that (even though that is how I experienced it)–the important thing is that Biokinetics compiles some truly innovative and inspired work that turned out to be far more timeless than anyone could have anticipated.
Great rock 'n' roll bands can be deceptively hard to find. There's too often an empty gap between the dime-a-dozen bands playing to alt-rock radio, punk/hardcore traditionalism, and the toothless, blog-hyped indie scene. Thankfully, The Men exist outside all of those spheres as one of the finest rock bands around.
When I think about the music I anticipate, enjoy, and latch onto in terms of categorization, good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll often gets a raw deal. In 2012 alone, the past few months, I've spent a good deal of time spinning Eyvind Kang's modern classical suite, The Narrow Garden; Oren Ambarchi's abstract monument, Audience of One; Lindstrøm's flawed but enjoyable (and danceable) Six Cups of Rebel; and Windy and Carl's immersive We Will Always Be. Bands I enjoy that perform with "rock" instruments are usually after something more sophisticated than adrenaline, raw energy, and righteous emotion, like Earth's cello-augmented drone, Alcest's shoegaze-meets-black-metal wall of bliss, or Bardo Pond's long-form psych improvisations. It's a rarity when I come across a traditional rock band that is more than the sum of its influences, able to hold my attention for longer than a catchy single or two. Right now, The Men are that band.
Last year's Leave Home is essentially, for myself and many listeners, The Men's first full-length album (2010's vinyl-only Immaculada was slept on). It ended up perhaps the year's best rock album—a noisy ball of energy, as much guitar scrape and scrawl as actual songcraft that succeeded primarily on account of capturing their rapturous live approach on record. Open Your Heart is their second album for Brookyln's finely curated Sacred Bones label. It is far more accessible than their past work, though not on a broadly commercial level (like, say, Madonna's 1986 number-one single of the same name). As a step forward, with greater emphasis on songwriting, melody, and sheer genre-hopping variety, it succeeds admirably.
Open Your Heart stands as an enjoyable record for a few reasons. First, its songwriting—with duties spread between all four members—has tightened up considerably. The title track is a fine example; to my ears, it's their catchiest and finest four minutes to date. The band's free-form noise and hardcore influences have been dialed back a fair amount, and the sequencing augments their transition into genre-hopping experiments. "Turn It Around" and "Animal" kick off the album with two barnstorming punk blasts before The Men dip their guitars into everything from instrumental, acid-fried country ("Country Song"—who'd have guessed it?) to Krautrock-influenced grooves ("Oscillation") to acoustic rock with steel-guitar accents ("Candy," which is just begging for radio play in between Neil Young and the Rolling Stones' "Angie").
If anything, Open Your Heart reminds me of Hüsker Dü's late '80s mindset, in which the band hopped between any and every genre in their record collection with disregard for punk traditionalism. The same no-rulebook approach guides The Men today, as they sequence the above-cited "Candy" into "Cube," a two-minute blast through fast-tempo drumming and shouting, then "Presence," which switches into Spacemen 3 tribute mode as the album's lengthiest song. By the time "Ex-Dreams" punctuates the record with three chords and an SST-worthy vocal melody, I'm spent, ready to take a break—just long enough to catch my breath before the next spin.
the new studio album 'Golden Rhtyhm/Ink Music' has been released by Rune Grammofon. it's available on CD and LP (w/free download link). it's currently only available from Rune Grammofon in Norway: http://www.runegrammofon.com/artists/volcano-the-bear/ but we will have copies for sale on our forthcoming tour. it will be released worldwide sometime in april and we will have copies for sale directly from us in the uk and the usa once we return from tour.
a bootleg recording of our concert last year in Hannover has been released on Tom Smith's (To Live And Shave In LA) label KSV. a misunderstanding between Tom Smith and VTB led to him releasing the recording in an extremely limited edition without our consent. However, we do have a very small amount of these bootleg cdr's. please contact us for details.
Daniel Padden
Padden has recently released a superb album called 'Ship Chop'. here's some details about it.
Ship Chop is a celebratory cut-up of far-flung musics. Edited, collaged and re-arranged by Daniel Padden from original vinyl sources to create impossible collaborations between musical ghosts. It is both reverential and sacrilegious, giving the music its full praise whilst also subjecting it to playful subversion. Some of the editing is obvious and transparent, but some of it much less so, where sounds from different recordings and continents overlap into an unlikely whole.
speaking of the www. VTB will have a new website up very soon. in the meantime find us on facebook for instant vtbnews http://www.facebook.com/volcanothebear
Last year, I was pleasantly surprised by how much better Guider was than its predecessor.  Now Disappears has surprised me again, greatly toning down their signature Neu!-worship in favor of something that sounds like a hell of a lot like GVSB-worship (or perhaps merely a deep fascination with Mark E. Smith).  Fortunately, I thought Girls Against Boys were pretty awesome in their prime and The Fall aren't so bad either.  More importantly, this quizzical shift in direction coincides with a fairly massive leap forward in the band's songwriting, making this the punchiest, hookiest, leanest, and most immediately gratifying album that the band has made yet.
While comparisons to other bands are pretty unavoidable when discussing Pre Language, it isn't nearly as derivative of an album as it seems at first listen.  In fact, only Brian Case's laconic and syllabically enhanced vocals stand out as especially indebted to Smith and GVSB (kind of a shouted mumble in which every last word ends with a drawled -ah or -uh).  The issue is simply that Case's vocals tend to be the focal point.  Still, it is hard to deny the appeal of such cool disaffection, even if Case is not darkly sexual or cantankerously deranged as his predecessors.  He probably should work on concealing his influences a little better, but at least he has pretty unerring taste in choosing them.
Vocals aside, Disappears has become much better and more distinctive at what they do in all other respects.  Part of that increased focus and emphasis on structure is probably due to the addition of Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley as the band's full-time drummer, as previous drummer Graeme Gibson always seemed like one of the band's driving creative forces.  However, the drumming itself is not wildly different–both drummers are clearly in love with motorik beats (Shelley having recently toured as a member of Michael Rother's Hallogallo).  The key difference seems to be that the groove is no longer the primary objective.  Rather than locking into a cool beat and vamping on it until the song is done, Pre Language finds the band stripping away much of the bloat and improvisation in place of tight riffing and coherent songs.  Rhythmic repetition is certainly still a central component of the Disappears' aesthetic, but it has become a tool rather than an end.  Also, these songs are a lot less busy than their predecessors and the added space allows for punchier and more dynamic riffing and some welcome increased emphasis on bass lines.
All of that ultimately means that everything great about Disappears (propulsive beats, cool minimal riffs, a certain restrained bad-assness) is still there: it's just sharper and better presented than I was expecting.  Some fans may be a bit disappointed that there are no lengthy, barreling epics of repetition in the vein of Guider's "Revisiting," but it seems unlikely: there are just too many things to like here (the Fugazi-esque stabbing riff of "Joa," the rumbling tom beat of "Hibernation Sickness," the swagger and hookiness of the title piece, etc.).  I still maintain that Disappears are a band best enjoyed in single-song doses rather than an entire album, but Pre Language boasts a very high proportion of short, catchy, hard-hitting songs.  My sole other caveat is that I wish this band would get a bit wild and unhinged more often: while the guitars explode a bit at the end of "Hibernation Sickness," they stay a bit too polite, processed, and deep in the mix to be truly biting.  Those are pretty minor quibbles though, as this is pretty solid and enjoyable effort from start to finish (and an impressive evolutionary leap too).
The Unutterable comes as a pleasant surprise, that is; two great new Fall albums in a row. 15 new songs. One of them ("Dr. Bucks Letter") is my fave Fall song right now. "Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun" is really great too, as is "Cyber Insekt". The songs on this disc combine 25 years of Mark E. Smiths experience in a very individual way.Part of Ketamine sun sounds like a cassette poetry reading, while two minutes later the same song has great production and thoroughly modern instrumentation. Mark e. smith has never tried to keep a steady band. The only things he keeps is a steady vision, which he uses players to flesh out. There was such a long period that I considered The Fall to be way past their glory days that I am especially amazed at how great this (and the last) LP sound. In a way Mark E. Smith is like Billy Childish. Their musical visions are in no way the same, but both have remained very much in touch though out their 25 year careers. The title track of this CD is a one minute spoken piece that made me think of the comparison. The song after that track ("Pumpkin Soup and Mashed Potatoes") is pretty different too. It has warped brass and flute in it that remind me of the Boston 'orchestra' Jumbo which provided an outlet for many Boston musicians to play instrumentals they played in High School bands instead of the usual Rn'R instruments they play each night. "Hands Up Billy" is strange too because it has someone singing lead vocal instead of Mark E. Smith. In fact out of the 8 people in the Fall, 3 are created solely with vocals: Mark E. Smith, Steve Evets, and Kazuko Hohki. "Devolute" makes great effect of the multi-vocalists and is on of my 5 fave tracks on the disc as well, along with the aforementioned "Dr. Bucks Letter", "Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun", "Cyber Insekt", & "Serum."
The second various artist release from Source Research featurescontributions from Andrew Poppy, Leif Elggren, Coil, Cyclobe and COH.The problem with acquiring a lot of music is finding the time and placeto sit back and really absorb an album. Unfortunately a car was neitherthe right place nor the right time for my first listen to this. Carefulattention must be payed to this release, much like the RGB discreviewed earlier this year. At first, each of these collections seemlike a simple gathering of electronic pieces by some of the best in thecommunity. After a short while, patterns begin to emerge and a themecomes into view. Deep listening is much more involved than just readingsome liner notes and throwing on a set of headphones. Whereas RGB was acollaborative musical representation of the full color spectrum, thisrelease is basically the antithesis of that, with a focus on darkness,negative energy and the absence of existence in thematerial/tangible/visible world. Artists seem to have worked in theirown space, with very little collaboration or mixing up of the elementsat the end. It's a very cold and dark place, solemn and quiet. Thisdisc would make a great listening party soundtrack if everybody plansto sit in complete darkness and silence.
This indeed is what it should all be about. Side one has three tracks,two different versions of the title track, "Sign" and another track,"COGWHEEL." As expected from the last release, "Sign" harborsTakemura's love for beauty and the voice, coupled with his ability tohack and chop away at sounds and beats electronically. The realexcitement happens when you flip the record over to side two. Now, Iset my timer to this one as it looked like it was pressed rather tight(the vinyl that is). Experts have claimed that only about 25 minuteswould fit comfortably on one side of a 12" record, played at 33 1/3RPM, right? The improvisational "jam" that takes place on side twofeatures Chicago friends Bundy K. Brown, John McEntire and Doug McCombs(all from Tortoise and related camps) clocks in just over 35 minutes.Right, that's not a typo! The piece is fantastic and might as well beanother one of those songs you always wished would appear on a Tortoiserecord. It starts off with a wonderful showcase of how all fourmusicians have a keen sense of improvisation and incredible talent tocreate cohesive noise with each other. It starts off like a jammingrockish jazzish tune, but then something goes awry, glitchiness ensuesin a dreamy audio bath of laptop fuckery with live instruments... I'mgetting flashbacks and almost begin dreaming that this could honestlybe "Djed 2!" Yes, I'm a fan and I love Tortoise music, but this tracksimply titled only as "Souvenir in Chicago" is a stunning performance,and it's something you knew these guys could do and hoped they woulddo, but never actually heard. This record only comes on vinyl and islimited to 2000 copies. Tortoise fans, Takemura fans shouldn't passthis one by, you'll regret it for years to come! And vinyl sure makesfor a great stocking stuffer!
I think they're actuallya quartet this time around. This disc is without a doubt my favoriteoffering from Mazurek and Taylor as the Chicago Underground. With JeffParker and Noel Kupersmith, the quartet leaves us with 15 well-definedpaintings which are much more matured to the sort of sketchwork soundof the very first releases. Songs are developed, foundations are builtand Parker's guitarwork and Kupersmith's electronics complete thepicture. I'm afraid to think I'm more fond of this because it stepsfurther away from a more traditional jazz sound the other discs havehad. Doesn't change the fact that I can truly say I enjoy listening tothis not only at home, but riding the train to work and even in thecar.
Described on the Bungalow website as "style:lofidubhousediskopunknoise, bigbeat, stomping house, absurd samples,looped dialogues, glamour pop. Framed by the beautiful intro and outroyou are drawn into a different world." The intro and outro they refer toare mock Holiday Inn style lounge act audience introductions that I preferto skip over. This is Bungalows last release of 2000. The website tells us"Bungalow will change its structures and start a new partnership fromnext year on". I wonder just what that means. Bungalow introduced whatthey called 'clubpop' in the mid-90's. The sound was perfected in Japanon labels like Escalator, Readymade, and Trattoria. The 'easy' side ofBungalow found a home in Spain's Siesta Records, and the offbeat popin Spain's Elefant Records. That has left Bungalow in some sort of middleground - a little bit of this, a little bit of that, which I do not believe wasthe labels intention. I remember their early manifesto stating thatBungalow was to be a style as well as a sound; it was to be a gatheringplace for a world community of people who love technology, are notafraid of dance music, think Combustible Edison were way ahead of theirtime innovators, and still thrill to the sound of a good pop song. I'll becurious to see what the 'new structure' they speak of entails... As for thisrecord, nothing on it is as good as their side of the split 7" Bungalowreleased with them and Ursula 1000. Stereo Deluxe's song from that split("Groovy Boy") is not on this debut full length. The second song is theircurrent single "Soul Sauce", a horn infested big beat dance instrumental.There is a second version of the song later in the disc as well. Both arecompetent, but neither offer anything you haven't heard many timesbefore. "Lincoln Continental (feat. Lato)" sounds a bit like Two-Tone skaby The Specials or Fun Boy Three, though not as magical as they are."Riddle Me This" is one of my faves with it's (Batman TV series) Riddlersamples, though they are not used as creatively as even I could imagine.In fact, much of this album to me does not take full advantage of thesource samples they've used. Where I really expected to love this album Ijust find myself thinking that it is O.K. Read More