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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Some 27 years into their notorious career, Whitehouse deserves credit for trying new things. However, don't be mislead by cover artwork: the difference between this and their last album is so small that this one could have probably been called Asceticists 2007.
Being a Whitehouse "fan" can make for strange bedfellows. In the realms of the avant garde, this admission can cause some people to pass judgment immediately, as they have always been a very polarizing band, most either love or hate them. As one who does like them and has been a fan for a while, I would actually say that they have been on an upwards trend since Quality Time, each album growing a bit greater in depth and variety, and moving past the sophomoric lyrics of "I'm Coming Up Your Ass" that seemed to go so well with cheesy pornography and sticky peep booth floors. The trend towards more psychoanalytic lyrics mixed alongside digital noise (not just the same old mangled Wasp synth from the '80s) have made each new album something I'd look forward to. Which is why, in many ways, Racket is a let-down.
Coming only one year after the previous disc, Asceticists 2006, might have something to do with it. There is no major jump thematically or stylistically between the two albums, and considering the sub 30 minute duration of both discs, it feels like a full length CD being sold as two separate works. The most offensive musical link between the two is "Dumping More Fucking Rubbish," which is a simple re-recording of "Dumping The Fucking Rubbish" from Asceticists with a few extra lines. It's not quite as blatant as rehashing "A Cunt Like You" for both Mummy and Daddy and Cruise, but it comes close.
Factoring that out, there are two compelling instrumental tracks. The sustained siren horns of "Fairground Muscle Twitcher" open the disc just somewhere between ambience and noise. It's not as ear-shredding as most of their work, but it's not going to be heard in a new age shop anytime soon. "The Avalanche" is much more subtle though, almost gentle bell like tones and crystalline rattles that is very out of the norm for this band. The ending instrumental, "Bia Mintatu" amps the noise up a bit more, but not to chaotic levels: bassy horn sounds over African percussion, with a bit of the old power electronics squeal towards the end. William Bennett's fascination with Africa, beginning with the rumored self-created Extreme Music from Africa compilation is in full swing here.
This leaves three remaining tracks of "good ol'" Whitehouse, namely Philip Best and Bennett rambling over a harsh backing track. Best takes center stage on the vocals for the most part, which is more effective in my opinion. His angry rambling always seems to convey a better mood than Bennett's crazy cat lady caterwauling. "Dyad" makes for the best example of this: digitally manipulated djembe rhythms with both tag teaming the vocals with the best rage they could muster.
Racket is not a bad disc by any means; it just seems to follow too closely in its predecessor's footsteps to make it as instantly memorable as prior recent albums have been. I suppose there is no easy way to balance this, because either there is more material released for the listeners that is not as individually notable, or there are long waiting periods between discs. It most likely won't be nominated for any prestigious electronic arts awards this year, but it is still enjoyable, and does show their continuing mediating trend towards more conventional sounds. A "conventional" Whitehouse album sounds absurd, but it may happen in our lifetimes.
Daniel Menche is one of the most prolific and diverse noise artists currently active in the United States. Never being one to stick with a single theme or style, he has always been apt to try new instrumentation or approaches, and the output can either be scorchingly violent explosions, or subtle, meditative works. Kevin Drumm may not be quite as notorious, but has been steadily carving out his own niche in avant and improvisational circles, often based around his unique playing style on tabletop guitar. So the concept of these two working together is a daunting, yet satisfying one.
Drumm is credited with "guitar and noise" while Menche gets the honor of "organ and noise." And, of course, "noise" is the key word here. Over the span of the single 29 minute track, the two abuse whtever distortion boxes they happened to have handy, but go beyond just the expected "wall of sound" and instead create work that has its own subtle nuances. Within the first 10 minutes there is a fuzzed out wall of guitar noise that rivals the middle part of "You Made Me Realise" or the entire discography of Skullflower!, yet a closer listen reveals a subtle, almost hidden percussive element deep in the mix before Menche’s heavily processed organ makes its presence known.
Two thirds of the way through the wall of guitar noise is gone, replaced by hypnotic, psychedelic tones that may be organ, may be guitar, or may be any other noise creation device these two were using. The disc closes on a crunchy old school industrial/power electronics vibe, undulating distorted rhythmic loops and just a hint of musicality.
As a whole, Gauntlet comes on harsh and never lets up for the ride, yet shows the subtleties and nuances often associated with a more compositional type work. Sure, it can probably damage speakers and shoo small rodents out of any building, but slapping on the headphones leads to an entirely different, even more pleasurable experience.
Neal Campbell continues his strong run of releases as Astral Social Club. This album should satisfy fans of his impressive back catalogue, but the music here is good enough to deserve separate treatment and should not be caged in by references to the past.
"Tripel Foment" begins similarly to Campbell's other experiments in ambient beatscapes. A bassy, four-on-the-floor techno pluse pushes the track along pleasantly. But the track becomes compelling when he ditches that rhythm and lets his sounds fly untethered. The song keeps its momentum as scraps of sound detritrus float over the mix like luminous insects. At 12 minutes, the pitch bends up sharply as the song hits its crescendo. A looped guitar riff breaks in while a tremeloed static whirls in the foreground, carrying the beat for a few more minutes till a sudden and jolting rest ends the song.
The rest of the album lacks the percussive backbone which holds up "Tripel Foment," but they hold their own unhurried vitality. The title track meanders for more half its length before finding critical mass. Reversed chime swells and subdued guitar picking float lazily into a thicket of resonate beeps and flanged bellowing. The signal processing fights against this dense buildup, diluting the racket until it becomes a limp mass, percolating into gradual silence. "Big Spree" has the same meditative pacing, being built around a cloudy snyth drone peppered with icy, ringing tones that build into a snow storm of radiant sound particulate.
As detailed as each composition on this record is, they are certainly not fast paced. No song here is under 12 minutes, but Campbell is not the kind of musician that mistakes subtlety for monotony. Stale sounds are gently taken away from the mix or processed into something entirely different. The basic components are very simple: a three note guitar figure; pieces of static; some bells and chimes. Isolated from the whole they would sound thin and artificial, but within the tightly wound arrangements of this album they take on a cosmic immensity.
This is a decent, if standard, double-A side 7" of noise. Neither side is particularly interesting but there is nothing inherently wrong with Axe Magnitude/Altered Beast. While I wouldn't call it recommended listening for the general public, it might be worth checking out for those with an ear for harsh sounds and an eye for nice screen printed sleeves.
The noise is as aesthetically pleasing as most noise gets but there is no real substance to the two tracks on this single. Nodolby never hit the mind expanding assault of John Wiese nor is it rhythmic enough to pick up on the "Noise is the new rock" approach of Wolf Eyes. Instead it is too directionless, a mess of sound with no real purpose or feeling beyond an attempt to deafen the listener and failing in the attempt.
"Altered Beast" is the better of the two tracks, occasionally during its brief existence there is a flicker of life and an element of danger but mostly it just spits and growls its way to the end of the groove. Nodolby have the right intentions but do not fare well on this release.
Vogel Musik is the sort of album you prepare for listening to instead of being in the mood for. It is a challenging listen: the entire album, from the dense and dramatic music right down to the elegant sleeve (painted by Christoph Heemann), is an amazing piece of work that is full of wonderful and intriguing sounds.
In conveying the essence of birds, Fuchs is like a cubist painter in that there are elements of the familiar present but arranged in a way that is contrary to "normal" perception or interpretation. With the title of the opening piece, "Das grosse Huhn," the music makes perfect sense as an audio caricature of a big hen. Although, taken on its own it could be anything. This is not a criticism of the piece but rather shows how Fuchs can make such otherworldly music and leave enough clues for the listener to then ground themselves back in reality.
After two feminine and delicate pieces dedicated to hens there comes a bruiser of a piece in honor of the rooster. "Der Hahn" is full of aggressive drums and baritone saxophone, Fuchs and her companion Christoph Reiserer sound cock sure of themselves after the relatively gentle pieces that preceded this one. It is a strange piece (and that is saying something considering how strange all of this album is), while it fits with the rest of the music on Vogel Musik there is also something about it that sets it apart from the other tracks. I am not entirely sure I like it but I want to keep listening to find out.
The album revolves around its longest piece, "Fliegen." Flying is an obvious choice of subject matter for an album about birds but it is an odd concept to put in with music about chickens (not a bird renowned for its aerial distance). It is also a concept that has been interpreted musically for aeons, to the point where few artists can capture the magic of soaring through the air. However, Fuchs approaches it from a different angle to most. Instead of an epic score symbolising the power and freedom of flight, she plums for an isolationist view of flying. The stark nature of this piece conjures up feelings of icy winds to glide on through lonely skies. "Fliegen" further highlights Fuchs' way of taking a familiar idea and turning it on its head.
Vogel Musik may be too theatrical and fussy for some tastes but for those willing to put a little effort into listening, it is worth setting time aside for. It was difficult for the first couple of times I played it but with a little perseverance Vogel Musik revealed itself to be an album rich in texture and detail, I imagine there will always be something new to it every time I put it on.
artist: Charalambides title: Likeness catalog #: krank113 formats available: CD release date: october 29, 2007
content: Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of "The Good Life", which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after 'record' was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing, and a malfunctioning space echo over the course of the next few months. Lyrical content largely derives from public domain American popular song from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, edited, rearranged, and largely deconstructed by Christina into abstract 'protest' songs for the century at hand. Musically, the album departs from the warm psych of A Vintage Burden in favor of the lush and layered vocal strata of Christina's later solo works, and a chillier, more abrasive guitar sound that favors the Velvets over the Byrds. Though containing much of the compositional concision that gave A Vintage Burden much of its appeal, the sound here just as frequently turns the corner into the abstract echoing spaces that characterise the more discordant sounds of Charalambides at the dawn of their kranky residency.
context: Charalambides has been recording and performing live in various configurations since 1991. Originally a duo comprised of Tom and Christina Carter, Charalambides released a cassette called Our Bed Is Green on their own Wholly Other label in 1992. The two Carters showed a firm grasp on the haunting nature of American blues and country, as well as a mastery of tape manipulation, a disregard for genre boundaries, and a tendency towards vertically stacked guitar drone. Charalambides has released nearly two dozen albums in various lineups since then, and in late 2003 returned to concentrating on their duo work, fusing introspective, open-ended, and often spacious song structures with blasts of feedback and explosive sound often startling to fans familiar only with the band's deceptively low-key reputation. track listing: 1. Uncloudy Day 2. Do You See? 3. Figs and Oranges 4. Memory Takes Hold 5. The Good Life 6. Saddle Up My Pony 7. Feather In the Air 8. Walking Through the Graveyard 9. What You Do For Money
quotes: "This far into their musical careers, Tom and Christina Carter still sound as if they are still peeling back the layers of their souls, never completely defining who they are, which is good, as the music is still fresh and vital, not the sound of rehashed obsolescence." - Urban Pollution
"It would surely be possible to name check a few other rural space progenitors, but the references would be so arcane as to be ridiculous." - The Wire
"Charalambides are not suited for everyman’s record collection, but the netherworld they forge is a musical feast, a field of music that explodes finely, like the sparklers you burn in the heart of a summer night." - Stop Smiling
"With a sound that seems at once both spacious and intimate, Tom and Christina Carter showcase their seemingly innate ability to lock into a shared orbit across the darkening sky, their luminous drift scaled down to its essential, irreducible core." - Pitchfork
artist: To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie title: The Patron catalog #: krank112 formats available: CD release date: october 15, 2007
content: The Patron is the debut full length release by To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie. The songs center around an underlying love story between two merging corporations that manage to capture the raw sentiment of isolation, profound discovery, and morbid betrayal. The Patron is about the corruption of an idea that is at first welcomed and later destroyed.
The recording process typically began with a basic vocal and guitar structure which was then slowy developed by adding electronics and manipulating sounds, until the orignal outline is blurred yet still identifiable. The steady passing of sounds and samples are most important to TKAPB’s recording process, and they rely heavily on the loss of translation between each pass.
But the importance of the technical details of any sound recording should be considered infinitesimally small when measured against the end result. Many sound artists have read both the pop and noise manifestoes and tried to join the two seemingly opposed theories into a cohesive whole, yet few have succeeded. Invariably, the artist makes a conscious or subconscious decision to stand firmly in the one camp where their beliefs truly lie and to occasionally tip the cap to the other to remind both themselves and the listener of their original intent. What TKAPB have produced however, is a near perfect storm of structure and chaos, melody and noise, the precise and the random, fused into their own unified musical theory of everything that at times soothes while simultaneously grabbing your throat.
context: To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie consists of Jehna Wilhelm, guitar and vocals, and Mark McGee, electronics and sound manipulation. Originally from Richmond, VA, the duo has been involved with this project for 4 years and has been supported by an ever-changing cast of players and musicians. They now reside in Minneapolis, MN where they run their own label, The Riley Bushman Recordings & Archives, which they use as an outlet to release various projects and collaborations.
track listing: 1. The Patron 2. The Man With The Shovel, Is The Man I’m Going To Marry 3. Lovers & Liars 4. Long Arms 5. Dedicated Secretary, Liaison, Passionate Mother 6. I Box Twenty 7. You Guys Talk, We’ll Spill Our Guts 8. With Brass Songs They’ll Descend 9. Very Lovely 10. Window Shopping
artist: White Rainbow title: Prism of Eternal Now catalog#: krank110 formats available: CD release date: october 1, 2007
content: After years of outer space exploration in Yume Bitsu and Surface of Eceyon, as well as stints as a hired gun for a multitude of artists including Dirty Projectors, Jackie-O Motherfucker and Devendra Banhart, Adam Forkner decided to turn his focus inward and began to record solo material. And focus he did, working at a dizzying pace that culminated in the production of the 5CD/1DVD White Rainbow Box (2006 Marriage Records). The remarkable thing about that album was not that it was 4.5 hours long, but that the overwhelming majority of it was of extraordinary quality and not mere filler.
With the release of …Eternal Now, White Rainbow has surpassed typical solo project territory and is now a virtual elemental force. At a somewhat brief 71 minutes, his kranky debut pulses and flows with mantric chants, clattering percussions, sighing sustains and guitar leads unashamed of their scorching transcendence. He breathes new life into archaic sub-genres such as progrock, new age, and hippie folk incantations, while never stooping to the negative aspects of any of them, and at the same time remaining a step ahead of the technologically crippled and virtuosuo-less looper pedal scene. Prism of Eternal Now leaves behind the bounds of gravity for a free floating meditational headtrip of inner space exploration.
Note: the vinyl edition of ‘Prism..” is available via Marriage Records
context: White Rainbow is the solo moniker of Adam Forkner. He runs the Yarnlazer cd-r label with Honey Owens [Valet]. He works, lives and plays in Portland, Oregon, a small rural village near the bustling metropolis of Astoria.
track listing: 1. Pulses 2. Middle 3. For Terry 4. Mystic Prism 5. April 25th 11:14PM 6. Warm Clicked Fruit 7. Guitars 8. Waves 9. Awakening
quotes: "The real treasure in Adam Forkner's work is his innate ability to capture the perfect tone of sounds, whether it be a flanged guitar or an ancient drum machine." indieworkshop
"Warm synths and reverbed-out layers of guitar pave a solid foundation for drum loops, vocal tracks, and various other instruments to weave in and out of at their own pace. Tinymixtapes
"Each movement of ambient sound and melodic drone becomes impossible to dissect. It becomes a part of your memories." Tinymixtapes Read More
content: The first Cloudland Canyon release for kranky was recorded in Brooklyn, Germany and Memphis. It follows on the heels of the well received "Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004" album released on the Tee Pee label.
Silver Tongued Sisyphus is a secular call to prayer with humming, looping and loping ambient passages interspersed with bursting rhythmic energy and agitated guitar lines. Recent live shows have sounded like an unauthorized soundtrack to netherworld versions of The Swimmer or The Scorceror.
Pulling influences from the foggy ether of generations past, Cloudland Canyon has staked their claim to the shadows of cult musical culture of the late 1960's and early 1970's German underground scene.
context: Kip Uhlhorn and Simon Wojan began collaborating under the moniker Cloudland Canyon in 2000. Both have toiled in various music scenes (hardcore, psych and punk) since the last century. Recent collaborations with kranky artiste Lichens and others have taken the duo into transcendental musical territories. Cloudland Canyon has toured throughout the United States and Europe. The group is in the final stages of mixing a new full length release to be made available early in 2008 on kranky.
quotes for the debut album: "...a stunning neo-psychedelic experience where the musical spirits of This Heat, Ash Ra Temple and The Mahavishnu Orchestra are evoked, celebrated and absorbed inside Uhlhorn and Wojan´s shifting cloud formations of sound." The Wire
"The group´s debut album Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004 is a starry-eyed psych rock opus with mystical aspirations and a Ph.D in minimalist-drone composition. It´s as if they have read the world´s great religious tomes and studied drones under mastery minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley." Alternative Press
"Bolstered into a deep mystical vein of sonic poetry and rare melodic beauty they make most freak folkies sound like fey daisy-pickers." The Stranger Read More
My biggest criticism of this duo's first CD for the considerably waning NovaMute sublabel was its lack of cohesion as an album, an all-too common pitfall that techno artists fall into when signed based on their dancefloor prowess. Upon receiving this in my mailbox, I had hoped that Mr. No and Bryan Black would use their second shot on plastic to accomplish something better, to learn from their influences instead of just impersonating them. I should have known better.
On its face, there is nothing wrong with a CD packed with clubby updates of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242. Still, as the electroclash and technowave once touted by DJ Hell's Gigolo label has been completely co-opted by hygiene-deficient hipsters and simultaneously diminished by the boisterous ascent of the far more exciting French wave, electronic body music rehashes like "Drug Punk," the acid washed "20 Volts of Steel," and the previously released "Bleep #1" just don't carry much weight.DJs who still hold tight to the dark machine beats will dig the ghoulish horror house grooves of "Re-Format" and the Daft Punk-foraging title track.Still, there is nothing new here musically when compared to Klunk, their debut released just last year.Perhaps some time away from the studio will give these guys a chance to reevaluate their position, though I think I have learned my lesson enough to pass on whatever might come next from them.To paraphrase our bumbling president, I wont get fooled again.
What makes Unhuman such a bitter pill to swallow is not even Motor's complacency for mere adequacy and emulation, but that Novamute, once among the vanguard of electronic music’s imprints, would continue to nurture such retrograde entertainment.This is the same label that brought Richie Hawtin to international superstardom with several Plastikman albums and three DE9 mixes that raised standards, rewrote rules, and seduced generations.Admittedly, Novamute has put out its share of throwaways, but it is easy to forgive a few missteps when weighing those decisions against classics from Luke Slater, Soul Center, and Speedy J, to name just a few.The latter of these especially had a profound impact on my appreciation for electronic music with A Shocking Hobby, a challenging monolith of a record that shook the foundations with its post-industrial drill n bass and eviscerated techno.Unhuman, another middling collection of Motor's possible singles in lieu of a proper album sullies the legacy of this formerly great sublabel, now more likely to be absorbed into the EMI failure factory and hopefully euthanized out of its misery.
Creating new compositions by sampling from popular music has been going on longer than I have been alive. Yet, this debut, perhaps one of the most important albums ever to appear on Kompakt, showcases the work of an exceptional musician operating in and redefining this proud yet still controversial tradition.
One could claim that Axel Willner, the producer behind The Field moniker, has taken the most blatant of shortcuts, even worse than those undertaken by liberally plunderphonic mash-up artists.After all, even the reviled-or-revered Girl Talk deserves credit for interweaving so many recognizable hits into each of his seamless, genre-defying tracks.Approaching From Here We Go Sublime on its superficial surface, Willner, however, appears to have simply sliced just a few fatty seconds out of some of his favorite tunes, lazily pasted them into sparsely populated loops, and called it a day.Such shortsighted and close-minded presumption closes people off to these wondrously minimal neo-trance sounds that breezing through their speakers.Many electronic music fans have cringed at this new terminology, still recoiling from the rapid explosion and subsequent crude gluttony that turned euphoric crescendos into prepackaged commodities.Yet like his similarly impressive though methodologically opposite labelmate Kaito, Willner resurrects that inexplicable bliss in which so many of us exulted at permissive nightclubs and sweaty warehouses worldwide.
By restricting his sonic palate in the manner that Willner has as The Field, the journey to discover that inexplicable essence of what fills the soul with jubilance and joy becomes more refined than ever.“The Little Heart Beats So Fast” practically lifts me off my feet every time I hear it, wasting little time to introduce its handy little stolen melody, soon letting acidic bass and indecipherable blossoms of uplifting sound raise the blood pressure and dilate the pupils.The smooth retro snares and gurgling breathy stabs that ignite “Everday” make it extraordinary, but the vocal, appearing roughly three minutes in, brings this already gorgeous track and the album itself to a whole new level of grandeur.Yet not every cut here begins with such instant aural gratification.Upon first hearing the monotonous accordion slump and grind of “Silent”, I never imagined the poppy euphony that would soon come and, to my delight, ultimately dwarf all other elements.
Part of the fun of From Here We Go Sublime comes from trainspotting the source material.In a few of the cases, this is downright elementary, while others are much more subtle and even elusive.The closing title track practically bludgeons listeners with its obvious theft and merciless manipulation of The Flamingos’ ghostly 1959 doo-wop cover of “I Only Have Eyes For You.” In contrast, the dreamily Balearic “A Paw Over My Face” delivers its secret as more of a punchline, waiting for the very end of the track to give away those distinct fragments of Lionel Richie’s chart-topping “Hello”.Though I’m only remotely familiar with her catalog to identify the actual track, I strongly suspect that the ten minute epic “The Deal” has taken its ethereal vocals from none other than new age songstress Enya.
Though constantly criticized by message board trolls and curmudgeons, Kompakt has entered into a renaissance in 2008, with From Here We Go Sublime as its first of many testaments to that.Stitching together familiar strains of pop, techno, and ambient music with such fine threads is a task unto itself, but creating a tapestry greater than the sum of its parts is something different altogether.The Field’s plucky debut marks a crucial moment in the history of electronic music, and, though surely divisive among the faithful, will easily rank among one of the best albums of the year.