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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Jérôme Chassagnard is one half of French electronic/ambient act Ab Ovo, along with Régis Baillet. As a solo act, though, he has released two previous albums on Ant-Zen, 2005's Empreintes and last year's Mouvements. His latest, (f)light, highlights his eclectic mix of styles and influences, from ambient to electronica, and from hip-hop to drum n bass. This third album, this time on the German Hymen label, underscores Chassagnard's ability to blend all these disparate styles together into one seamless and effortlessly soaring whole.
Bringing together such a wide range of influences successfully requires some doing, however, the Frenchman possesses a sure and deft touch. There’s nothing obtrusive on show, everything just flows, naturally, silkily and smoothly. Each of the pieces grows organically, as if just a simple seed has been nourished and left to see what it eventually produces. In fact, there is more than a trace of The Future Sound of London’s Lifeforms album about it (as well as FSOL’s side-project Amorphous Androgynous), simply in terms of how musical ideas are explored, and how they spark off yet new ones. From all these ideas come new forms, each eager to show themselves off. A good example of this approach is track three, “Circle of Memories.” Starting off in a quite abstract ambient manner, the piece segues into flowing keyboard chords, before a simple rhythmic figure coalesces to form a backbone and glue the elements together. The tune keeps on building, the percussion assuming more of a solid skeleton on which to hang things, adding strength and structure along the way. Despite being tinged with a slight melancholic sadness, “Circle of Memories” is nevertheless uplifting, projecting a distinct sense of hope.
Another good example comes a few tracks later in the form of “Alternate Reality.” Yet again, this particular piece demonstrates the power of constructing an apparently complexly-layered track from simple beginnings. Once more rhythm emerges from abstraction, on which is laid a simple but memorable keyboard riff. The track takes off when the beat hits its stride, imparting a similar feeling to the one elicited by “Circle of Memories”—the difference here though is that this one lifts off into the stratosphere. I distinctly got the feeling that I was wafting on breezes and floating in a clear azure sky listening to this one. Uplifting indeed.
“Snowflake” creates a different mood altogether, the abstractly ambient staying for most of its duration. Furthermore, this is the polar opposite of uplifting, with an unsettling frisson thrilling through it. Ice-cold keyboard sweeps dance around staccato icicle guitar, while distant choir-like voices peek through the glaciation. These voices float in and out of the consciousness, appearing like the occasional glimpse of something welcoming through the sheeting blizzard. Similar feelings of psychic disturbance prevail in “Resonance,” but here the song is injected with a rhythmic urgency helping to propel it along. Percussive and vocal breaks here and there highlight the feeling of psychological fracture-lines opening up, adding significantly to the discomfort.
My personal fave track is the one that closes the album, simply called “Light.” Indeed this is a prismatic gem of a piece, the synthesized bell-tones raining cascade-like around one’s head and ears. The best way I can describe it is like a frozen garden emerging butterfly-like from its chrysalis of ice. The tiny crackles and cracks as the ice melts are perfectly encapsulated in those ringing tones. After the various moods on display on the rest of the album, this closes proceedings down nicely, and is an excellently judged piece, simultaneously being a beautiful way to end the album as well as leaving us on an uplifting note.
This album is quite astonishing in its breadth, in both style and mood. Chassagnard is something of a sonic alchemist, taking an element from here and an element from there, and completely transforming them in the process. The results are ten nuggets of glittering gold, whose multi-faceted surfaces and depths sparkle and reflect brilliantly in the light. I just let myself sit back and bathe in the warmth of that reflected light.
Usually I’d imagine something coming out on the Hanson label to be a bit more obtuse and rough than what is presented on this album. Instead of leaning to the noiser end of the spectrum, the two side-long tracks here instead define themselves via classic analog synth drone that is so thick and sustained that it almost becomes tangible, yet never mundane.
The dramatic synths that open “Magic” do retain a certain prog rock quality to them, but rather than being all noodling, they instead stretch out far into the horizon. Long, sustained square wave notes matched with an occasional deep pulse. Sort of like Rick Wakeman collapsing onto his rig after a massive coke binge, the notes go on and on without pause. The layers continue washing on like waves and occasionally rescinding to allow different element of the mix to come forth. The track eventually becomes dominated by a noisier, buzzing synth tone that infringe on the territory of the noise scene, but never in a way meant to inflict pain.
The other half of the album, “The Quaking Mess,” is not a world away from the first half, instead following a similar structure and palette of the first, leading off with a bed of synths. This time, there’s more of a 1980s science fiction bent to the sound: think old episodes of Nova or Mr. Wizard and it’s a similar vibe. The analog cricket chirps and high end stabs are eventually paired with guitar work that, though noticeably effected and treated, remains subtle and restrained even through the delays and processing. Again, as the track ends, the synths become more predominant and harsh in the mix. The sound is thick and heavy, but not pummeling or violent.
As a first full-length album (after a slew of CDR and cassette releases), Emeralds have created a solid, fully realized work that due to its innate complexity stands up to multiple spins. In a scene crowded with many other electronic drone projects, this one stands out as a well-conceived album as opposed to just a random mix of sounds piled on top of one another.
The content of this CD was a surprise. From the sleeve art, the record label and the picture of the band on the back, I was expecting harsh noise. Instead my ears were greeted with the most wonderful electronic murmurs. The two pieces here set my mind adrift on an ocean of warm synthesiser undercurrents and waves of gentle guitar. The feelings this music elicits bring to mind the sheer beauty of Stars of the Lid but with a stronger, denser sound.
“Magic” lives up to its title; the shifting pulses shimmering in stereo, the sounds moving at different speeds with dizzying effect. The piece is reminiscent of Coil’s Time Machines, the drones almost stalling time and provide a platform for vivid daydreaming one second (if a second still had meaning) before utterly capturing my attention the next. Although only 12 minutes long, “Magic” stretches out time to the point where the concept of minutes and seconds means nothing. The piece’s very existence makes the need for time unnecessary. However, having said that, 12 minutes is really not enough.
The second of the two pieces, “The Quaking Mess,” is a slightly busier piece. Like the previous piece, there are sustained tones and drones that flow through the piece but unlike the previous track, there are pulsing and twinkling sounds (the guitar is more prominent here than before) that make it more obvious to the listener. I can still get lost between the sounds but the feeling of reality dissolving around me is not as strong. Instead reality seems to expand, becoming larger than life.
Both of these pieces are immensely satisfying, Emeralds tap into the sounds masterfully and it is hard to believe that three men on synths and a guitar made this beautiful music. It sounds like it was plucked from the cosmos, filtered from the ether or decanted from heaven (take your pick of supernatural metaphor). It will be interesting to see where Emeralds go from here. Solar Bridge is more than just promising.
Usually I’d imagine something coming out on the Hanson label to be a bit more obtuse and rough than what is presented on this album. Instead of leaning to the noiser end of the spectrum, the two side-long tracks here instead define themselves via classic analog synth drone that is so thick and sustained that it almost becomes tangible, yet never mundane.
Atlanta-based Deerhunter are set to release Microcastle, the follow-up to 2006’s Cryptograms on October 28, 2008. Microcastle will be released simultaneously on CD and LP via Kranky in North America and 4AD for the rest of the world.
Microcastle was recorded over the course of a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, New York with Nicolas Verhes. The album was recorded as a four-piece consisting of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver, and Moses Archuleta.
"Saved by Old Times" features a vocal collage by Cole Alexander of the Black Lips. The album also features two songs with lead vocals by guitarist Lockett Pundt: "Agoraphobia," and "Neither of Us, Uncertainly."
The first single “Nothing Ever Happened b/w “:Little Kids (demo) will be issued as limited edition 7” vinyl and precede the album.
Deerhunter are also confirmed to support Nine Inch Nails at arenas from coast-to-coast.. Expect more touring in late October and November in support of the new album. Tracklist and tour dates below.
Tracklist SIDE A 1. Cover Me (Slowly) 2. Agoraphobia 3. Never Stops 4. Little Kids 5. Microcastle 6. Calvary Scars 7. Green Jacket 8. Activa
SIDE B 9. Nothing Ever Happened 10. Saved by Old Times 11. Neither of Us, Uncertainly 12. Twilight at Carbon Lake
Tour Dates w/ Nine Inch Nails unless noted The Village Tavern Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina Aug 1 The Boot Norfolk, Virginia Aug 5 Air Canada Centre w/ Nine Inch Nails Toronto, Ontario, Ontario Aug 6 Big Orbit’s Soundlab Buffalo, New York Aug 7 Mohegan Sun Arena w/ Nine Inch Nails Uncasville, Connecticut Aug 8 DCU Center w/ Nine Inch Nails Worcester, Massachusetts Aug 10 Garfield Artworks Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Aug 11 123 Pleasant Street Morgantown, West Virginia Aug 12 Knoxville Civic Coliseum w/ Nine Inch Nails Knoxville, Tennessee Aug 13 Gwinnett Arena w/ Nine Inch Nails Duluth, Georgia Sep 2 Red Rock Pavillion w/ Nine Inch Nails Morrison, Colorado Sep 3 E Center w/ Nine Inch Nails Salt Lake City, Utah Sep 5 Oracle Arena w/ Nine Inch Nails Oakland, California Sep 6 The Forum w/ Nine Inch Nails Read More
G-Force marks a clear transitionary period from the post-industrial sounds of London to the techno sounds of Tricky Disco and GTO. The package includes all the music from both singles "I Don't Need God" and "Utopia" plus the Index EP, various compilation tracks, and music from the Japanese-only VHS tape Video Drug 1, available on CD for the first time ever.
"Dancefloor Surrealists - and that's just the half of it - GTO construct collages of multi-lingual samples and wacked-out noises to cover their technological tracks. G-Force is a cartwheeling combination of Steinski's nimble feet and The Young Gods' operatic gusto, all stitched together by St. Winifred's style choir chanting devil-worship slogans in the middle distance. "Ich Liebe Dich Mein Prinz" energizes ethnic wailing seemingly recorded through a snorkel, and "Black Magic" impales minimalist vocals onto a wiry violin while sevarel Daleks dance themselves dizzy in the studio. Fragments of MC 900 FT Jesus's harsh, dislocated chatter and Front 242's leather-clad New Beat throb abound, with tons of Acidic sparks and dadaist references tossed in for extra momentum. But the weirdest, simplest track here is "Why Do Men Have Nipples?," marrying snatches of American dating-game show dialogue with a toe-tapping tape-loop of numb percussion." - Stephen Dalton, NME
"Greater Than One have clear affinities with the sonic terrorism approach…as well as the grindingly austere "body music" movement flourishing in Europe, but their own work has an edge of with that's definitely their own." – Jonathan Romney, The Guardian
"Greater Than One are yet another group who are popular in Europe. They fit loosely into the new genre of Front Line Assembly, Click Click, and the lesser purveyors of the new beat. But their redeeming quality is that they don't shout over their hybrid of techno sound sculpture. Here they toy with crisp snares, clean beats and the occasional acid bass line. They Sample amusing commentary from American TV shows, and steal one-liners from Peter Sellers. Occasionally, GTO suggest they would be capable of crafting huge soundscapes, alive with delicate textures of noise. On "Learn with Pleasure, Knowledge Is Power," speeding rhythms are mixed with layers of crystalline choral tones. And the simple, schizophrenic collection of beats and breaks connected by vocal outbursts of "I am somebody," on "The Man Who Lived In Books," shows they are not obsessed by overindulgence." - Rob Deacon
London was the introduction of Greater Than One to the blossoming post-industrial culture as spearheaded by Chicago-based WaxTrax! Records. It was released in July of 1989 as a double LP/single CD collection of music recorded from 1987-1988 on Greater Than One's London-based label, K=K Recordings, and includes the entire LP of Dance of the Cowards. The recordings here have been digitally remastered by the legendary Jeff Lipton (Numero Group, Rykodisc, the list goes on forever) of Peerless Mastering and sound stunning. Bonus material includes the music from the Duty + Trust cassette, originally issued in 1991 by ROIR as well as other compilation tracks recorded at the time. Enhanced CD content includes photos, cover images, and an extensive book with articles and press clippings and words from Michael Wells and many others.
A DVD includes the music videos for "I Don't Need God," "Utopia," and "Pure," as well as three lengthy projections from their performances (featuring user-selectable soundtrack) and an "art reel."
"After two years of drivel about the subversive attitude of sonic piracy, the thrill of robbing and stealing, London illustrates a savage talent lurking behind the collision of styles. This is the end, a new age is coming." - Sam King, Sounds
"London marks the point when the sample band begins to become a genre, new and unique unto itself. Sprawled across two records, we are subjected to, the barrage of modern culture turned into folk music. Disco for the sonic guerilla. Acid house/techno terrorism. Call it what you may, this is a must for the alternative club/radio despite the fact that this is the sound of the mainstream that seeks to drown us. Like Adrian Sherwood and Tom Ellard, Greater Than One chronicle both the valiant fighting the tide and the last breaths of those caught in the undertow." - Rockpool
"Technology, art, ideas, and courage can be combined to create really important, relevant music that affects the way we judge our world, and this compilation is such a work." - Robert Shea, Discotext
This was Greater Than One's first "proper" LP, issued originally in 1987 by Graeme Revell (SPK) and Brian (Lustmord) Williams on their Side Effects Records label. Here it is paired with Trust, their first attempt at the album's recording but released in 1990 on We Never Sleep (LP) and in 1991 by ROIR (CS). While the popular world knows more about Lee Newman and Michael Wells as Technohead, GTO, or Tricky Disco, All The Masters Licked Me is their first fully realized concept of weaving samples into a vivid aural tapestry.
From the original press release: "The music is devised from sampling sounds which are programmed via a computer system to form strong and powerful pieces of aural art: mixing noises from the underground system with ethnic chanting, heavy metal & hip hop beats with military drumming and classical orchestration. The album contains 9 tracks on each side, with pieces referring to rioting 'The Sweet Smell of a Supermarket On Fire' to ' The Rape of Sam the Fox,' a track that evokes gallery slaves, masturbation and physical brutality. Each track is carefully constructed to convey the intentions and meaning contained within the titles."
The album was recorded and digitally mastered by Greater Than One. To make the CD the original betamax studio master tape was baked for 72 hours at a special audio house in the UK. The DAT for Trust was generously donated by Lucas Cooper of ROIR. Enhanced CD content includes MP3s of the entire album, unbroken, photos, cover images, an art book, and an extensive book with articles and press clippings and words from Michael Wells and others.
"1987 was a transitional time and in All The Masters Licked Me, I could hear an eclectic sensibility that I shared and have cherished in my own career. Lee and Michael cast a very wide net in collecting sounds and wove them into an exciting mix. Industrial had become purely dance music, hip-hop was heading off into reduced palettes and electronica was unfocused. Already so many of the interesting artists that had begun working in the late '70s and early '80s had imploded, lost interest or, worse still, had shown they were one-trick ponies, trapped in the same habits as prior groups they had hoped to supercede. Lee and Michael were not going to go there and subsequent releases always vindicated my faith in them. I moved away from England so never got to know them intimately. However I enjoyed watching and listening to their chameleon aliases that often had decent popular success. Side Effects did not have the resources to promote the few select groups we helped out other than a distribution deal, but I am glad that it helped in some small way to get the word out. I am also glad that the Greater Than One record will finally appear on CD." – Graeme Revell
Fluorescent Grey's second full-length creates beat-driven collages out of electronics and found sounds. Each of the nine tracks has a distinct theme and methodology. Yet despite the variety of styles found here, I still found this album to be missing something vital.
The sonic interplay that opens "Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum" lacks the dynamics and grit necessary to make it texturally satisfying, and the beats that eventually infiltrate the song aren't very riveting. Not only do they sound canned, they obfuscate the atmospherics in the background to the song's detriment. Many of the rapid glitch beats found in this song as well as "Molten Ghost" and "Are You Aware of the Pink Light Emanating from Your Navel?" seem to come straight out of the Aphex Twin playbook from ten years ago or longer, and I don't really hear anything new or different on these. However, I did like "Ayhuascaro Empyreal," "Physically Modelled Theme for Children," and "Palette Swap Dub" quite a bit. All have a tighter focus and more fully realized rhythms than the other tracks.
Even so, these three tracks aren't enough to redeem this album's sterility and dependence on its forbears. Gaseous Opal Orbs isn't bad by any means, but there isn't enough here to make it more than ordinary.
Aaron Martin uses a mind-boggling number of instruments and objects both exotic and traditional on his latest album of introspective instrumentals. Because of the vast array of tools at his disposal, no two tracks sound alike. What unites them is the fact that almost every song is made of delicate, airy passages that refuse to be grounded.
While Martin's skills and arrangements are impressive, many of these songs have so many movements within them that their overall intentions can get lost. Rather than evolving with the same instruments they start with, instead new instruments crossfade into the mix to form different sections and take the song somewhere new. Even though these new sections are often equal to or better than the parts they're replacing, this constant shifting of themes and instrumentation never quite allows the listener to gain a comfortable foothold. A good example of this is "Tire Swing," one of my favorites on the album. The first half starts with a piercing pitch and vibrato strings before morphing into an elegant dirge for the second half. The latter part is much more interesting but the parts are divided so equally that it sounds more like two unrelated sections that are fused together rather than a tension-building intro that leads into the main body. Almost every song does something like this at least once if not more, and the result is a somewhat choppy, disconnected listening experience rather than the meditative one it could have been.
Martin is clearly very talented, and the music here is often captivating and gorgeous. Too much reliance on seemingly arbitrary changes keeps River Water just shy of being a transcendent recording.
The Baltimore-based duo of Jane & Josh came together as Abiku like some unstoppable galactic collision. Their brand of short, sharp, raw, and unpolished explosions of punk noisiness, interspersed with a few longer expositions and more experimental drone-style pieces, is in itself a kind of joyful collision: a place where keyboards, guitars, and rhythm machines smash together faster and more powerfully than sub-atomic particles in an accelerator. Their latest series of detonations, the two-part CD set of Right and Left, showered me with all kinds of radiative shrapnel, at times threatening to melt my ears and at other times soothing the heat inflicted by the wounds.
Together this two part set, released as separate CDs which are yet simultaneously inextricably linked just like a set of twins (hence the reason for being reviewed as a single entity), represents something of a beast, providing 42 tracks over a total combined running time of just over two hours or more. Most of the tracks seem reluctant to extend themselves beyond the two minute mark, blasting themselves out in a veritable white-hot frenzy of mashed-up distortion, poppy/dancey sequenced rhythms and synthetic percussion, and topped off with the weirdly tremulous voice of Josh and/or the harpy screaming of Jane. As rough around the edges as the production inevitably is, the songs are nevertheless hopelessly catchy and melodic in some cases, memorably so in actuality, borne out by the undeniable fact that I have found myself humming some of the vocal lines hours after the CD has left the room—whatever else can be said about this Abiku have a habit of writing songs that burrow their way into the memory and then travel all the way down to the foot, causing it to involuntarily tap in sympathy with the beat.
Apart from Josh’s querulous singing style, the other memorable aspect here is the strange mix of styles present—almost as if on any given day Abiku arbitrarily decide to write something in a particular style and hack away at it and see what comes out at the end of it. Thus for instance we get the aforementioned ejaculatory pop-punk-noise explosions which ultimately dominate the digital grooves, but in between them are the occasional hints of a quieter and more reflective aesthetic, such as on the closer to the Right album “Water Trust,” an expansive, cosmic 14 minute Philip Glass-style keyboard drone epic that can either be viewed as a abrupt change of stylistic course or a species of interlude meant as a breather after the manic breathlessness of the preceding twenty-one tracks. Additionally, there are almost dance-music style episodes. Despite the apparent contradiction implied in the juxtapositioning of the various styles it somehow doesn’t carry with it any incongruity at all—in fact I would go so far as to posit that it works in its own strange way. Of the two, Right has something of a rawer, more jagged, and less polished edge to it than Left, the latter veering more towards the electronic, experimental end of the spectrum (and even containing one or two of those abovementioned extremely danceable tunes), although it too has its fair share of noisiness and hair-stripping fieriness.
In that sense it would also be fair to say that by utilising the two styles Abiku manage to avoid any accusation of being restrained by any stylistic and musical straitjackets of their own making, although having mentioned that I can quite easily see that sitting through the two albums in one sitting could turn into something of a marathon session for some. I found it highly entertaining (and initially pleasingly and highly unpredictable) for my part, as I was waiting to hear what would emerge from the speakers, whether it be another blistering less-than-two-minute shouting and screaming match, or a more exploratory electronic keyboard affair—but for me, even that limited form of ‘interaction’, in conjunction with the often infectious exuberance exhibited by the noisier tracks, was enough to convince that these two albums weren’t half bad and they even managed to give me a moment or two of nostalgia as it brought back memories of my punk-infested youth, where often enthusiasm and sheer energy would win out over musicianship—and that is perhaps the biggest thing that I took from this. Now, if only my bones could stand a two hour session of bouncing and pogoing around without any fear of doing myself any long-term damage...