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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Behind all the bells and whistles singing and stretching across every second on this album is a beautiful, childlike song. The duo of Jason Frederick Iselin and Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens wrestle with unconventional sound and pop, folk, and classical sensibilities over the duration of Things Past. The tension that plays out between the odd and the familiar opens up a stream of ornate and soft music both catchy and laden with little treasures just waiting to be unearthed.
Not content to rest their abilities on vintage machinery and expensive software, Iselin and Stevens write luscious, full songs brimming over with thick tones, velvet vocals, and tinkering percussion. All of Things Past is soupy, swirling with acoustic guitar and ascending swathes of orchestral electronics. It sounds absolutely amazing; in part because the band knows how to handle all of their instruments, but also because every song on here is almost instantly satisfying. There are enough hooks and sing-songy parts to make even the most ardent fan of pop music swoon. When the band decides to travel into the more abstract territory of pure electronic composition they pepper their doodling with a radiant shimmer that has a lot in common with Boards of Canada. During these moments the music is minimal and hazy, virtually steaming out of the speakers. They handle their love for the unconventional expertly, mixing it seamlessly with their more structured songs.
Stevens' voice only adds to the softness of the entire record. His singing is youthful, care free and almost always reminiscing. On the title track his voice seems to wash away with the oceanic pulse of the timpani-like drones that wander along in the background. On "Filmstrips Fade" his ascending, climatic vocals add a layer of drama to the dark and swarming music that backs him up. Both the music and the vocalist interact with each other, not satisfied with being a mere accompaniment to the other.
The point is that he is both coherent and instrumental, blending in with the music and standing above it as a vocalist. "Her Kleenex Laughter" is a beautiful example of Stevens' ability to move about within the music. His words move expertly through the guitar's melody, reacting rhythmically to the plodding drums that bring this song down to earth and place its power firmly in the movement of feet and the sway of the body. When George and Caplin get down to it, their music is powerfully physical, but without being forceful.
There's a whole world of compliments and small details I could deal this record, but ultimately the best thing about Things Past is just how lively and gorgeous it is. There is little doubt that it will stay in my rotation for a long time; all of the melodies and sumptuous instrumentals are resilient enough to withstand the most rigorous replay regimen. Not only will the songs stick in my head for days at a time, but the other, more abstract facets of the album compel multiple listens and open up an inviting space that promises complete unpredictability. Things Past is pretty on the surface, but exhibits a stunning profundity as well and for that reason it is a magnificently satisfying listen that absolutely should not be missed.
Embracing true digital designs, Loscil harnesses the internet-as-merchant age and offers a new album for free download called Stases. Though Scott Morgan has never eschewed album leitmotifs, he employs one here which is more nebulous than his previous explorations in the submarine, the geographic, and the thermodynamic.
The common thread of Stases is that most of these tracks have been the fundamental drones for his songs on previous albums for the Kranky label. The song titles still extol the basic dichotomy which Loscil enjoys contemplating: the sky versus the ocean. As you might expect, though, the product here is more restrained, more somber, and heavier. There are very few flourishes on top of these subatomic blueprints.
On previous albums, Loscil accompanied his deep drones with distant and ephemeral melodies, often heard as if they were incubating in another room insulated with bad sound-proofing which let the melodies bleed through the walls just enough to infect the drones. Not so here. Instead, we have states, or fixed positions, or beds. The image of beds is apt not only for the music which used to sit or lie on top of them, but for the obvious narcotic quality to the music. Songs float seamlessly into each other, often fluttering and oscillating at the same frequency so that drone X drifts into drone Y and quite possibly creates some Frankenstein hybrid of drone XY in the listener's ear.
The transition between "Biced" and "Still Upon the Ocean Floor" is sub-aural and indiscernible, for instance. "Resurgence" is all windswept landscape and it's hard to say whether we're talking ocean floor topography or good old-fashioned post-apocalyptic earthen wasteland. What is certain is that there is no hint of anything actually resurging from this song unless it's a stiff breeze and some radiated flora.
The trick with drone artists which I never understood (and still don't) is when to call it a day: when to end a sustained drone or to indulge in further floating. Is the cessation of these songs arbitrary or is there some formula? Loscil's songs are often captivating enough that I have no problem with the more indulgent types like "Micro Hydro," "Windless," and "Stratus," but I also appreciate the succinct beauty of a song like "B15-A," whose four and a half minutes seem almost allotted by the fates themselves.
The truest embodiment of Loscil's motif is "Windless," a song which remains static for nearly nine minutes and whose virtue is based on whether the listener shares the desire for such inertia. There is actually a subtle epiphany within the nine minutes, but patience is the only path to it and the song is not for those who demand love, death, rebirth, sin, beauty, and enlightenment to be contained only within a two-minute Ramones song. The shimmering echo and quiver from the nubilose "Stratus" is a perfect finale for the album. The song lifts us up from the ocean into the ether but doesn't let us forget the source of the clouds on which we are conveyed.
The material on Music for a Spaghetti Westernwas recorded backin 1985-86 but not released until about 10 years later. ThankfullyKlanggalerie are keeping it from the tragedy of being lost to the ages,for now at least.
The four tracks (presented here as "scenes" and without real titles)are largely abstract tapestries with heavy repetition of samplesthroughout tightly woven layers of sound. A common sound of blurry echolinks the various samples together in a seamless flowing fabric.
Only "Scene 1" has any discernible vocals, and that also makes ittheonly track to give any indication when it was created. The repeatingsamples of Ronald Reagan would have been a lot more timely andprovocative back in the mid-80s, but they've held up remarkablywell. The rest of the album is quite strong and despite thetimely samples, sounds fresh enough and could easily havebeen newly created when it was released as a long-lost recording.
The second, third, and fourth "scenes" more clearly show the origins ofthe album's title; though rather than a soundtrack to some old Eastwoodflick, sounds reminiscent of those films (possibly direct samples, it'shard to say) appear throughout, if heavily blurred and muffled.Stereotypical "Indians on the warpath" whoops surface on "Scene 2" and"Scene 4," and I think I hear a bit of the famous theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Uglyat the beginning of "Scene 3." Not so obviously tied to the Westerntheme are voices on "Scene 2" heavily distorted to the point ofsounding like whale songs and echoing chimes later in that same track.
Overall this is a solid piece of accessible and hypnotic sound and truly a gem worth digging out of the vaults.
In the wake of 2004’s Your Blues, Destroyer’s Rubies seems to bea stark 180 turn from the former's MIDI and synth drenched sound. Thesound on this record is lush and organic, recalling early '70s artrockers like Bowie, T. Rex and Roxy Music. And while Daniel Bejar andhis band provide the songs with a solid musical, he takes a page fromthe post-modernism handbook, imbuing his songs with a grand sense ofpurpose, yet inserting word games and nonsensical imagery as a counterpoint.
On the epic leadoff track “Rubies,” Bejar declares “Oh, it’s just yourprecious American Underground, and it is born of wealth. With not awriter in the lot.” While this may seem to be a cheap potshot on hisneighbors to the south, the line is emblematic for much of therecord. This is a writer’s record, filled with all the obtusewordplay andveiled metaphors one would expect. That Bejar delivers these oftenobtuse lines in a Dylan-esque croon only reinforces this fact. Andwhile I’m loathe to break out the Dylan connection, “Your Blood”bounces along to a honky-tonk piano, bluesy guitar, and seeminglystream of conscious lyrics, sounding an awful lot like a lost song fromBlonde on Blonde.
Just as important as the instrumentation or lyricshere is Bejar’s captivating and charismatic vocals. He allows his voiceto jump along, unrestrained by the structures of his song. While thistendency often becomes boring or, worse still, annoying in othervocalists (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, anyone?), Bejar’s vocals workwonderfully here. “Painter in Your Pocket,” perhaps the strongest songhere, floats along warm organ drones and subdued guitar playing, slowlybuilding into a bouncy sing-along.
For the most part, Destroyer’sRubies is a remarkably sophisticated and assured record. While thereare a few points where Bejar’s lyrics fall flat and the instrumentationbecomes a bit clunky, such as on “A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point,”Destroyer’s Rubies is a record that at once feels ancient andcontemporary.
Peoplehave grown so accustomed to Kieran Hebden's work as Four Tet that theyhave probably almost completely forgotten what his role as amusician/composer was in Fridge and the directions the trio werebeginning to pursue on their last full-length release, Happiness.The people who are aware and welcoming to more loose sounds will be themore receptive audience for this brand new project, as Hebden hasteamed up with Steve Reid, a seasoned drummer known for his work insoul and jazz circles.
While I thoroughly enjoy volume 1 of The Exchange Session, Ican see how some Four Tet fans will clearly miss the point. For years,Kieran Hebden has built an audience through the popularity of hisability to mix samples of jazz records together, grabbing compatibletiny melodies and forming intricate instrumental pop tunes. Sure, hehas been known to inject some more freer approaches, stretching thingsout for singles like "Glasshead"/"Calamine" and "As Serious As YourLife," but when it comes to the masses, most people know him for the3-5 minute long pop tunes.
Hebden and Reid met through mutual acquaintences and the two had amutual appreciation for each other's work. Reid, after years of playingwith seasoned veterans for decades, was most likely afraid of becomingone himself, perhaps growing tired of working in the confines of what'sexpected from mainstays, and looking to play with more people who wereinto experimenting. Hebden, who, like a fairytale princess is alwaysseeking something more, was (and still probably is) searching for theultimate sounds, the ultimate experiences, challenging himself everyday to find it or recreate it.
What they've done on this recording is find a way to harness thepower between each: Reid's pulses and Hebden's sounds marry to make anew type of free jazz duo, where a drummer can exploit rhythmic phrasesand an electronic composer can loop samples and themes. They're notplaying within the confines of a song or melodic theme, however, butReid somewhat remains in the driver's seat, moving the songs throughwith evolving beats. Instead of the screechy wails of a horn section,expect samples of the horns, munged into a digital squelch andreturning to the purer sounds on cue.
Volume 1 begins with the more subtle "Morning Prayer," a song that immediately triggered a nostalgia for the opening of Fridge's Happiness,as it's a very warm-up kind of affair where each contributor stronglyestablishes their roles and doesn't get into an out-muscle-each othercontest. The following "Soul Oscillations" is a 14+ minute long jamwhere the focuses shift back and forth between Hebden and Reid, asthey're each showing off their finest chops from cacophonous to calm and collected. The final song,"Electricity and Drum Will Change Your Mind" is actually where therhythms get more sturdy and solid, things build up and chill out, heat up again, and by the timethey're cooling down, I'm anxious to see whatturn comes next and suddenly the tape stops!
So I look forward to Volume 2, due later this year, picking upexactly where this session dropped us all off, but it will be probablymore interesting to see how studio recordings may develop after themulti-continental touring that Hebden and Reid will embark on this year.
The fourth, and final, in this spaced-out series is the perfect bookend to Cope’s explorations in the dichotomous world cosmological and Earth Mother minded rock. Consisting of the rediscovered first effort and the last ever track recorded for his Rite sequence, Cope shows little sign of doing anything less than 23 minutes when it comes to playing for purely meditational purposes.
The sometimes hit-and-miss Cope has been consistently kicking arse lately with primitive, pumped and propheteering live shows and two recent riffed out LPs (Dark Orgasm and Citizen Cain’d). Rite Bastard looks both ways as it attempts to wrap up the warped extended threads of his playing.
The first of the two tracks "So Tough," the newer of the two recordings, is a big band funk furrow. It keeps the basic rhythm loop for most of the piece with different instrumentation taking the spotlight, but the guitar always wins out. The guitar work continues to wring out pyrotechnical high end fretwork that keeps up almost for the full track. As horns drop in and out, the beat deepens and keyboards get down, dirty and medieval. There’s a full-blown ending to contend with after this barrage too: the fug of hidden vocals, flutes and power tools herald rain storms and a choir backed under a mini-monolith as the storm wades into the distance.
"Too Stone" is unearthed from way back in 1990 and has the hallmarks of that time as well as the boot print of Cope’s future. This Fender/Casio loose groove has all the rattle of that period’s hybrid mentality but has a menace few others ever captured. Eddies of FX, a sine wave drone that came before drones were ‘back’ and flickers of noisiness make this bare bones piece one the best pieces of Rite ever. The occasional move from single bass note to a higher pitched almost bass line brings flashes of melody to the too stoned track. Those now in mourning for the Rite series need not fear, the liner notes claim the series will allegedly continue under the name DO U WANT THIS?. As one blazed-out chapter closes another opens.
Paranoia runs rampant all over this disc, a sense of voyeurism and danger with it, slowly escalating with every cautious movement. The technology we've built up all around us is slowly evaporating, wearing away with rain and wind. Nobody is sure what's beneath everything, what's grown since we buried ourselves beneath steel towers and miles of wire, but Echran is observing and recording the entire event.
There's a scene in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream where Clint Mansell's grating soundtrack chronicles the end for just about everyone. It's the longest damn denouement in film history and Mansell's strings and electronic hissing go a long way in making the pain on screen seem very real. Davide del Col and Fabio Volpi must've watched that scene about three hundred times more than is healthy for a normally functioning human. Their music executes that same tense energy that Mansell's soundtrack did. It is dark, cloudy, and organic... and composed of nothing but computers. Echran is a strange project, a blend of many human thoughts and ideas synthesized from cold machines, colder atmospheres, and a sense that the end is very near for everyone.
Paranoia is in this disc's blood and so is apathy. With every dismal wash of machine sound and buzzing meters there is a sense that whatever world Echran is occupying, it is beyond the reach of hope and happiness. Every track moves sensuously, but only through the interaction of steam, pistons, and electricity. Everything has been reduced to a mathematically exact operation, efficient and smooth. But instead of relishing the mechanical perfection on the surface, Echran leave behind little hints of sounds and voices that make the whole operation seem murderous, like something is trapped in all those pipes and still alive.
There are a few other bands that have played up the mechanical or computer age and painted a picture of man as being taken over by machine entirely, too cold and comfortable in logic and reasoning to see beyond the prison of skin. It's a very pessimistic view, but one that this duo does not take. Echran do have that Cyclotimian element in their compositions, but more importantly they've left behind some human flesh and blood to be gnawed on with all the grim, dystopian imagery. So, instead of writing a mechanical album, they've written a distinctly human piece of music to the extent that their mechanical style will allow them. There are rhythms, melodies, hints of warmth in the bass tones and, simultaneously, there are clattering pops, the sound of electricity flowing through wires, the hiss and squeal of old steel shaking rust lose. Together they sound unique and breed a palpable suspense.
For some bands this might lead to some resolution, to the false belief that there is a synthesis of good compromise at the end of the tunnel. But Echran are smarter than that and their music simply leads to the end of the album where the listener is held aloft and expected to make his or her way down alone. Once they've built their music to unbelievably high levels and made everyone wonder what'll happen next, they simply leave it there and look on it in wonder. What happens when everyone wakes up, disconnects, realizes they're trapped, being watched, studied, observed beneath the glass of dollar signs and new and better products is not revealed. Echran make it obvious, however, that this is the state of the world. Their music can be reminiscent of nothing else: it is disturbing to hear and also breath-taking.
Texan Rick Reed is a true multi-instrumentalist ofexperimental traditions. His primarycompositions, for sine wave, short-wave and Moog, represent mastery of thetexturally-intense, sculptural minimalism nowadays crunched down from the Powerbooktable.
Reed’s droning, crackling, lulling, screeching patchworksbecome as aurally-demanding as a Hecker or a Pita, while projecting also anout-of-the-box bigness and a vaguely psychedelic warmth, or a frayed (as opposedto diced or pixilated) edge that is, to my ears, very unique . The music here is not straight drone, or asuni-directional as that word might imply; it does not creep long, plunge deep,or run up towards abandon. Pure tones,static loops, and granulated washes collect and regress to form a looming massof nearly symphonic austere sound bites, conjuring the spirit of writhing,head-cleaning “noise” music but projecting a cleaner vision, a high-lonesome,spectral conglomerate of disembodied machines.
The sound is spacious and arch-ful, though never fully quiet, as ifthere is continual off-site energy blowing through so that all lost isreplaced, reflected, or refracted through a brilliant sensitivity to textureand pitch. Field recordings, violin, andthe familiar guitar of Keith Rowe avoid becoming focus and instead evolvewithin the mix, rounding out the organism of Reed’s compositions, thehyper-real connectedness of suchshrill and singularly uninviting tones and waves. DarkSkies At Noon is hands-down the best release of any Reed involvement thatI’ve heard, and, in a limited pressing of 328, it is something to be treasured.
This exceptional single track of bliss on lone droner Hardwick’s debut 3" CD-R runs into nearly eighteen minutes of steadily yearning cloud nine emissions. Wrapped in a garish Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label style wallpaper sample, the music is thankfully made with much better taste.
Almost as soon as the song begins there are gossamer sinewy strands of sound that peel away from the song’s main tone. Unlike much music that heads out into ambient space this doesn’t just drift along without any purpose. It moves finely from melodic idea to melodic idea on its dawn-stoned and bleary eyed journey. Its difficult to tell whether the sounds are sourced electronically or whether its born of six strings but ether way (or anyway) they’re as close to transcendence as its possible to be by human means.
A title containing ‘red’ leads the mind to traditional values associated with that colour; this seems more likely to lead to dreams of blue or white. Deep breaths are held tightly and expelled slowly as chord by chord washes away into a comedown spiral and fade out. "I Dream of Red" moves with a naturally evolving and uncoiling evolutionary movement from start to finish.
I've been worried about music without discernable melodies or intriguing concepts lately because I'm finding more and more that they fail me. A host of "difficult" bands have released album after album of strange sounds and subconscious cut and paste tactics, but more often than not there's something musical, fun, or catchy playing side by side with all the insanity. Greg Davis and Steven Hess both reach for that extra something on this disc, but come away with an important piece of the musical puzzle missing.
I used to be fascinated with how bands made records. First some band would process a guitar through eight billion filters and then play it backwards and in the end they'd apply some trick of engineering whimsy and boy wasn't that great. Here's an album made out of nothing but paper being shredded and here's a record that employs African stringed instruments I've never heard of, much less heard. I would listen to these albums for weeks and months at a time, completely ignoring the fact that there wasn't one catchy song or even a recognizable hook anywhere in the music. I was happy with that, music isn't restricted to conventional melody or structure and many of my favorite musicians reflect that belief.
Greg Davis has exemplified that ideal over his last several releases, concentrating on tonal qualities and minimalist structures, using strange instruments in strange ways and immediately grabbing my attention for it. But for all the fancy production techniques and neat sounds there have always been beautiful melodies, a sense of playfulness, and the presence of shining beauty to counteract and interact with Davis' more abstract tendencies.
His work with Steven Hess ignores all of those important elements; the bits and pieces of a recording that make it stand out as being more than just random assembly of noises. Decisions is composed of processed and live percussion. The majority of the songs are mostly quiet, humming bits of time that don't sound unlike an organ slowed down to unreal speeds. When the album is quiet and unremarkable it simply pulsates in the background, requiring little to no attention. The quiet bits of each song require little more than a quiet space to play them in. When the album tries to draw my attention it does so through volume and increased rhythmic intensity, becoming a busy mass of odd pops, hums, and other space station sounds. The gongs, bells, and cymbals used to make some of these songs sound beautiful by themselves, why bother processing them? The best part of this album comes on the fourth track when Davis basically leaves Hess' somber percussive playing alone. The whole track rumbles and hisses perfectly, Davis' edits audible in the form of background ambience.
It isn't until the end that the record acquires any sort of aesthetic beauty as a whole and by then it is too late; nothing can save this album from the scrap heap of compiled weird sounds. The album does, at times, convey a sense of loneliness that might compound itself after multiple, multiple, multiple listens. However, the time it would take to get there would probably be better spent on other albums, namely ones that Davis has composed. There's absolutely nothing that could bring me back to this album. Davis has nothing but series after series of momentarily interesting edits and warping sounds peppered over nearly every track, but when the sounds are just wild fits of noise and some percussive clattering there's little to become enamored with. If, however, background music that will do little to create distractions sounds enjoyable, Decisions offers it in spades.
I'd champion this as the emo-heavy electronic album of 2006 if it weren't deserving of just slightly more praise than that. Shaw-Han Lien composes ultra-busy synthetic pop songs using the same old four-on-the-floor rhythm tracks and toppling sound banks made popular by disco and techno performers, but he adds his own extra-processed spice to the music, making it almost enjoyable. It is simultaneously bright, sunny, and altogether sickening.
The album art and song titles should've been enough to alert me that something was wrong. I should've figured that I was meant to cry or run in a field of sunflowers to really appreciate this record because that's exactly the mood it exudes in gallons upon gallons of far to happy, way too optimistic synthetic joy. Keyboards, drum machines, various programs, and all manner of heavily edited melodic lines jerk and twitch with an energy that might be appropriate for someone on ecstasy, but for me they radiate a corniness that suggests Shaw-Han isn't paying enough attention. When the songs aren't too happy, they're catchy numbers that last just long enough to make sitting through the next smiling ray of sunshine nearly worth it.
What Shaw-Han does have going for him is an immediately evident familiarity with the instruments and programs he uses. The vibrancy that pours out of his hands are the result of careful study and preparation, a desire to fuse every instrument together into one great instrument capable of taking any influence and running with it. At times, when Shaw-Han lays off the altogether too imposing sense of emotional gushing, his arrangements stand out as being great examples of how technology can really bring together a variety of ideas, places, influences, and thoughts without sacrificing any of the particular qualities inherent in each.
For example, Shaw-Han's music sounds as though it is without geography; it is not distinctly European, nor does it bare any of the familiar qualities of English electronic music popularized by Aphex Twin or Autechre, and it isn't quite crazy enough to bare the seal of the Japanese electronic underground. This is a huge plus, sometimes enough to make sure I only skip a few tracks on the disc. On the songs I enjoy the most I get the feeling that Shaw-Han not only listens to a lot of music, but knows where each bit of music fits in with another. "Save Your Neck, Save Your Brother" features a soft flute part that weaves in and out of horns, strings, and electronic warmth and sounds simultaneously like Eastern spiritual music and gentle, pastoral idleness as envisioned by Four Tet. Its effortless grace gives it a sparkling quality and is among the two or three outstanding songs on the album.
Every time I listen to the entire album, however, I feel less like this album is something I can connect with: its skipping, merry compositions are sometimes far too close to video game music. Much of this could be thrown onto a children's television show and used while the end credits roll; nobody would notice because it is that innocuous. As soon as I feel that disconnect and lose touch with the album, it doesn't matter how talented Shaw-Han is, he's lost me for good. A final complaint comes in the almost monotone delivery of many of these songs. After a little while many of them sound the same because they are all very busy, very rhythmic, very structured tracks that don't ever stretch, breathe, or really live at all. In all the detail Shaw-Han lost sight of the big picture and thus lost me somewhere in all the rubbery bass parts and sparkling chimes.
I suspect I'll be hearing much more of Shaw-Han's work, I only hope that the next time I hear him, I won't immediately thing of large purple dinosaurs, cuddly animals, or cartoons marching side by side with the world's sickest grin on their faces. The Electricity in You House Wants to Sing is currently available through Darla mail-order, but will be more widely available on the 20th of March.