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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Little doubt can be cast upon the fact that nursery rhymes are of a rather Grimm history. As innocent as they may sound, the most unusual of subjects find their way into these couplets and tales of misguided, punished, or otherwise confused youth. Andrew Liles, with the help of Lord Bath and Thighpaulsandra collaborator Sion Orgon, has recorded the audible equivalent of that awkward and dark thread that plays inside the mind of every child's sleeping head.
Lord Bath is, so far as I can tell, an English essayist, painter, poet, and intellect of aristocratic background. His work covers everything from Kama Sutra and religion to speeches on the importance of art to essays on world government, warfare, and punishment. As such, his willingness to work with Andrew Liles makes a lot of sense. Both artists exhibit a body of work as widely varied as it is perverse and alluring. Mother Goose's Melody... is Liles' extension into the realm of nursery rhymes. Using Lord Bath's background as a poet and speaker, Liles employs him to perform various rhymes after which an accompanying piece of music plays out the details of that rhyme. The result is a little unsettling, exaggerating, or perhaps highlighting, the drama and terror that some nursery rhymes keep hidden in their simple machinations. Though Lord Bath and Liles may not employ any of these rhymes directly (such as "ashes, ashes, we all fall down"), the line that they draw between the words in the poetry and the music is too direct to ignore. Though the music is often peaceful, Liles' now familiar and twisted perspective often lurks just below the sweet melodies and synthetic dances. No matter how appeasing the music may seem, there's always a sixth sense informing me that a Victorian terror lay somewhere just below the surface.
Liles' familiarity with the ignored is more evident than ever on this release. A interest in ventriloquism, animal surgery or testing, plant life, and prosthetics all make their way into the song titles. More often than not, the titles add a dimension of strangeness to the already odd compositions and revel in the unusual synthesis generated. "Cannula Tubes as Fine as Straw" is a lovely guitar piece that strolls lazily through a hillside during the spring. The name of the song and the rhyme that accompanies it, however, places a farmhouse in the distance with a dark shed where animals stand, cannula sticking out of them in bizarre arrangements. The trickle of water and the tearing sounds that appear in the song then become appalling and the entire piece changes itself from a meditative work into a song about pain or perhaps a song about a very confused maid. The possibilities are endless as Liles has managed to paint sounds more expertly than ever on this release. His compositions reflect eras, places, ideas, and nightmares more keenly than on any of his other releases. Perhaps it is the topic of this album that has made that possible; the deeply ingrained memories of childhood mixing with Liles' love for the absurd, the repulsive, and the unexplainable might be more inspirational than any historical, theoretical, or geographic origin that Liles' has played with before.
This album is far more listenable than Liles' last solo effort, the labyrinthine New York Doll. The music is far more akin to the melodic and often emotional My Long Accumulating Discontent. Where New York Doll harnessed its energy in the fractured essence of its many samples and locations, Mother Goose's Melody... finds all the power it needs in the atmospheres and songs Liles has crafted. With that in mind, this recording has deepened a split in Liles' output. On one hand there is the Andrew Liles that works intimately with drone and natural instruments. He combines the two, uses them to recall old places, forgotten ideas, and possibly to reveal a disturbing underworld of subconscious desires and bottled up evil. On the other hand, there is the Liles who plays with sounds and draws them all together with a concept laid out before hand. New York Doll and Aural Anagram/Anal Aura Gram fit this bill with the bulk of their sound being drawn from some concept, instead of the other way around. What makes Mother Goose's Melody... such a solid album is that Liles has allowed his influences to flow both ways. That is to say, there isn't just a concept informing his music here, the music is also informing the concept, perhaps simultaneously. That not only strengthens the album's music, but it feeds the ideas behind the recordings and makes them more intimate with the material everyone hears. It makes drawing connections easier and more fun. In turn, the record is more fun to listen to and twice as effective at convincing anybody that this sound world is real and directly related to the one we live in.
This self titled debut is possibly one of the worst records that I’ve heard in a long time. Everything about this album is hackneyed and unoriginal. There is nothing redeeming to be found on any track. I don’t normally dismiss an artist outright based on one release but I’m quite happy to do so in this case.
Electric President are painful to listen to. They are one of those annoying bands that ape an already mediocre artist (in this case it is mainly the likes of Beck or The Eels that get the class A turd dropped on them). Electric President sounds like a run of the mill busker being given a few thousand dollars and a studio full of toys to play with. Any effect or drum loop that can be used, will be used. The songs change rhythm and direction more often than Superman changes his clothes. Most of the time the music seems to change just for the sake of it or because the manual says “insert middle eight here.” Granted the production is clean and clear, it sounds like the producer at least knew what he was doing but couldn’t control the whims of the artist. A good production is useless when the material is this weak. Before the first track “Good Morning, Hypocrite” finishes I am ready to turn the CD off as the chuck everything at the song and see if it sticks approach fails miserably.
A record like this can be saved with good lyrics and a talented vocalist. Electric President is miles from salvation. The lyrics are clichéd, contrived and awkward. On “Grand Machine No. 12,” Ben Cooper sings: “We’re all just part of someone’s elaborate plan/Just pieces of some grandiose scheme/But we’ll do our jobs til we break down and fall;” which flows about as efficiently as a concrete river. Cooper’s voice is whiny and his singing is horrendously paced, full of breathy pauses that accent his nasal vocals even more, he can’t get through a line without some weird inflections yet on some of the tracks he does these bizarre rapid fire deliveries without stopping for air. What is worse is that most songs multitrack his singing so that there is this terrible noise doing harmonies with itself. I just know that Electric President sat around listening to Beach Boys records all day before recording and then tried to emulate their style of harmonies and off kilter instrumentation. The only thing they’ve emulated is a mess.
Electric President have made an appalling album. Not only would I be very surprised to hear a worse album this year but I’d be quite frightened to think that such a thing could exist.
In re-releasing the Washington, DC band's single full-length effort,Polyvinyl brings back a morsel of guitar-laden goodness that's stilltasty 10 years later. I for one am damn glad they did.
Corm swings back and forth between punkish churning guitars overlaidwith shouted vocals and contemplative instrumentals. This album isguitar rock through and through, but the contrast between muscular("Architecture") and chiming, shimmery guitars ("Then I Built My Own Violin") and the band's crypticlyrics keeps the music teetering on the far side of predictable. Theymanage to capture attitude and anger along with a terse kind of beautythat reminds me of one-time college radio darlings the Toadies. As withthat band, Corm's rough-edged sound adds to the music rather thanmaking it feel unfinished.
Though their influences seem to be many—I hear echoes of Soundgarden,Alice in Chains, and maybe the Offspring, among others—but they put it alltogether in their own way and forge their own sound.
This collection of the Leeds, England band's Rough Trade singles andmore showcases a hard-edged and unique sound that's more thanworth digging out of out-of-print oblivion.
Delta 5's singular sound comes from the band's two (!) bass players andthe three female members' angular and often accusing and mockingvocals. They sing over and against each other, in many songscalling and answering in a caustic conversation, and elbowing throughthe heavy bass and drums. The songs are hard, fast, and pulsing withurgency. It's an exhilarating or exhausting listen, depending on thelistener's mood and disposition. No matter the personality though,there's no way to not get caught up into the pain and glee of storiesof rejection and disdain ("Mind Your Own Business"), lost lovers ("NowThat You've Gone"), happily discarded lovers ("You"), and theunderlying menace of Leeds at that time ("Shadow").
In addition to the three singles, this collection includes BBC radiosessions (including two with the legendary John Peel) and a handful ofraucous unreleased live tracks recorded in Berkeley in 1980. Thematerial covers the entire lifespan of the band; three years isn't along time, but Delta 5 made their mark on the post-punk scene then andwill hopefully make a mark on listeners discovering them for the firsttime now.
Whenthe previously obscure scores were widely released on CD by MotelRecords and Crippled Dick Hot Wax in 1995 as the compilation Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party,its newfound popularity was in large part responsible for thesubsequent wealth of ‘60s and ‘70s European B-movie soundtracks to bereissued.
The films for which Huebler and Schwab wrote and conducted the music in1969 (performed by “The Vampire Sound Incorporation”) are a diversetrio of genre movies, all directed by Jesus Franco. The mostfamous, Vampyros Lesbos,is a mind-bending, disjointed tale of blood-sucking countess in Turkeywho moonlights as an avant-garde nightclub performer. Lesserknown are She Killed In Ecstasy, about a woman who takes sexy revenge on the people who drove her husband to suicide, and The Devil Came From Akasava,a rather dubious spy thriller based on a novel by EdgarWallace. Aside from having the soundtrack composers and themaverick Spanish director in common, the three films also share thelegendary actress Soledad Miranda, who tragically passed away in anauto accident shortly after completing them.
Crippled Dick Hot Wax does great justice to these soundtracks, not onlyby way of reissuing bonus tracks on the CD, but with an excellentremastering job which makes this once nearly lost work sound betterthan ever. The liner notes from 1995 by cult film expert Tim Lucas arereproduced here, as well as a brief bio of star Soledad Miranda, whoselovely image graces the cover and numerous photos in the booklet. TheCD in its entirety is dedicated to her memory. Newly added is a shortessay on Franco’s work.
Musically, there is something unifying in the three scores, despite therange of films for which they were created. The overall sound isso well integrated that the compilation seems as if it could be acomplete album unto itself. All 15 tracks (including three bonus cutsnot found on the Motel Records edition) on this recent reissue fromCrippled Dick Hot Wax could easily be lumped into a “lounge music”category for their combination of danceable funk, exoticinstrumentation, and full-on acid-drenched weirdness. Fuzzyguitars and a bright horn section commingle with growled, murmured andsqueaked vocals. Playful harpsichord and winsome xylophone areseamlessly matched with sultry sitar and tight percussion. Butrather than being just another example of this genre, this album setsthe standard by which all other such music can be measured.
One of the inevitabilities of putting together best-of year-end listsis that there’s always one or two albums that don’t make it on theresimply because it didn’t surface until it was too late. Volcano!, ayoung band from Chicago, make music akin to a nervous fit of rage andare a perfect example of such an unfortunate circumstance. Leaf
Beautiful Seizure, the trio’s debut for the decidedly non-rock Leaf label is a welcome breath of fresh air and a wonderful surprise forthose who thought 2005 was solely dominated by new weird America andcoke snorting hipsters from Brooklyn. Time-bomb ticks and nervousvocals over livewire guitar playing push for room with startlinglybeautiful passages of atmospheric ambience and quiet folk. The resultis a disarmingly genuine and honest record.
Album standout “Fire Fire”begins with contemplative guitar chords and the free jazz inspireddrumming of Sam Scranton. Guitarist/vocalist Aaron With, who bears morethan a passing resemblance to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, allows his voiceto quaver and shake, slowly building along with the rest of the band.Elsewhere, the band delves into long passages of seemingly randomsamples, which serves to add to the sound of the album as a whole, suchas on “$40,000 Plus Interest.” It would be easily to classify Volcano!as simply post-rock, and while they do share many common traits withthe genre, there is a streak of restlessness that prevents that tagfrom sticking. Like the best rock music, Volcano! take from a varietyof sources–the ambitious scope of post-rock, the anthemic thrust ofOK Computer-era Radiohead, and the flailing desperation ofpost-hardcore, to come up with something startlingly original yetinstantly familiar. “Red and White Bells” is perhaps the bestarticulation of what I’m talking about. At nearly nine and a halfminutes, the song see’s the band veer from all possible styles and is aperfect encapsulation of their varying tendencies.
What makes BeautifulSeizure so enjoyable and good is the confidence with which Volcano!attack their material. Few bands sound this confident first time out,and an album like this only makes me more excited to hear what the bandwill churn out next.
Minotaur Shock’s second album (third if you count the compilation of previous EPs and related tracks) is an above average album that slips into self indulgence a little too often. Luckily the album is redeemed by having a strong smile inducing effect thanks to a lot of cheery and buoyant tracks.
The first couple of minutes of the opening track “Muesli” were not at all promising. The clarinet (which I didn’t like on any of three tracks it appears on) and percussion do nothing for me; the arrangement is far too fussy. Only in the last thirty seconds or so of the song does it gel together when the accordion kicks in. This problem of finicky arrangement thankfully doesn’t continue throughout the record. The tracks fall into one of two groups: the “really laid back and enjoyable” group and the “trying to be imaginative and innovative but failing miserably” group. An example from the first group being “Hilly,” which is good but slips too much into Aphex Twin patented blips, beeps and washes of synth. The second group is mercifully the smaller of the two with the aforementioned “Muesli” being the worst offender.
That being said there were many tracks that engaged me. “Vigo Bay”is a quirky, fun, and uplifting piece. It doesn’t rewrite the rules ofmusic but it bops along delightfully. The track that follows it, “SixFoolish Fishermen,” continues this feelgood vibe. The music soundsbouncy, like something that would be played in a cartoon about sailingaround exotic places having adventures with an animal sidekick(whatever animal that may be).
The biggest problem with Maritime that, when listening to the album in one go, many of the tracks don’t sound that distinct. In smaller doses the little idiosyncratic moments become more noticeable. Unfortunately they are normally hidden under the similar synths and beats that populate all the tracks on the album. As a mood enhancing album this works a charm, the January gloom is lightened considerably whenever I play Maritime.
With the exception of his 2001 collaboration with Noto and a 12" in 2003, the otherwise prolific Mika Vainio has kept his most respected moniker all but dormant for roughly eight years. Yet 2005 served as a year of resurrection for Ø, with a vinyl reissue of the classic Metri and this curious collection of material recorded during the interim.
Well, the end of 2005 came and went and we unfortunately couldn't coordinate a big hoopla this year for the Brainwashed Year-End Readers' Poll. However, with the new system, we've organized what has been the most popular articles from our site to arrange some kind of a list. Of course, it will differ from everybody else's, but then again, we gotta be us!
Keep in mind, this is the Readers' Poll, this isn't what the staff list as their faves of 2005. (If you want to see that, see the Meet The Staff section and find out more there!) In fact it might not even be what the readers think is the best, but was the most popular reviews they read this year. Kinda lame but it's something....
Nudge And Strategy, 12" Singles On Community Library
The Hafler Trio, "Being A Firefighter Isn't Just About Squirting Water"
The Juan Maclean, "I Robot/Less Than Human"
Top 5 Compilations of 2005:
Love, Peace & Poetry: Turkish Psychedelic Music
The Free Design: The Now Sound Redesigned
Camping 1 & 2 (BPC Compilations)
But Then Again
4 Women No Cry
Top 10 Reissues/Old Things of 2005:
AFX, "Hangable Auto Bulb"
Comus, "Song to Comus: The Complete Collection"
Bill Fay, "Bill Fay" and "Time of the Last Persecution"
The Hafler Trio, "An Utterance of the Supreme Ventriloquist"
Erik Satie, "Vexations"
Múm, "Yesterday was Dramatic, Today is OK"
Gina X Performance, "Nice Mover" and "X-Traordinaire"
Burning Star Core, "Mes Soldats Stupides '96-'04"
Galaxie 500, "Peel Sessions"
Asmus Tietchens, "Formen Letzter Hausmusik"
Top New Artist of 2005:
Akron/Family
Lifetime Achievement Recognition: This category was chosen by the Brainwashed Staff and not the readers. Each year we collectively agree on who to recognize for their devotion to innovative music and this year, once again, we chose to honor a person who's not known for the music he's released but the mark he's left on the world of music. Unfortunately, this year's honoree is also no longer with us to see our appreciation but we know those close to him will.
Bob Moog
A lot of names were tossed around in the discussion of this year's Lifetime Achievement recognition, and nobody on our lists came as close to truly defining what it means to have a lifetime of achievement as Bob did. Some of our dear friends were very close to him, and we are all very sad at the world's loss, however, much more important we feel is the world's gain. Bob Moog has effected nearly all the music we geeks listen, mostly indirectly but often directly.
NormallyI'd be suspicious of something like the Lady Sovereign phenomenon—thehype machine, the registered trademark, the inevitable references tothe name that's on everyone's lips (M.I.A.)—it all feels like a setup, and it probably is. But something about "the white midget" justmakes me want to get stupid and bounce, and I think that's clearly thepoint.
Lady Sovereign (or "The S-O-V" as she likes to proclaim) is ridinga wave of interest in capable and possibly eccentric female MCs thataren't following in the Mary J. Blige mold but are playing squarely inthe sausagefest of alternative hip hop. In other parts of the world,they'd probably call this "grime," but the one nice thing about theAmerican tendancy to ignore or pretend to ignore culture from aroundthe world is that the notion of grime just doesn't mean much ofanything to anyone here. Without falling into a trap of second guessingwho Lady Sov's audience is supposed to be, it's a lot more fun to justput on her record and get drunk on her quirky, silly vibe.
Vertically Challengedisn't posturing as intelligent or conscious in any way, but that's notto say that Lady Sovereign's lyrics aren't exceptionally clever attimes. She's almost always self-effacing or playing up her ownperceived shortcomings (pun only partially intended,) and so it's hardto hate on lyrics like "J-Lo's got a batty/ Well you can't see mine cusI wear my trousers baggy" for being the good-spirited, self-directedjabs that they are. Even after hearing these songs a dozen or so times,there are still plenty of lines that get a smirk or a laugh becauseSov's bratty false bravado when talking about her height or the failingof UK MCs is just infectiously funny.
The beats arealmost inconsequential here, although an Ad Rock remix of "Little Bitof Shhh" demonstrates that her flow sounds more natural over theminimalist, bass buzzing UK rhythms than anything else. That the songsrarely include more sounds than could be cooked up on a single drummachine and synth isn't important; that they get out of the way so thatLady Sovereign can work her charm is what makes this EP magicallydelicious.
Quite against expectations, and perhapsbetter judgement, I've fallen for the impish MC and it has less to dowith her resemblance to a young Melanie C and more to do with the crazygood hooks of songs like "Ch' Ching" that are simply and smartlyarranged in a way that often only music that refuses to take itselfseriously can be. It looks like Lady Sovereign's already been picked upby Island, and hopefully the major label forces that be won't dull herwit and undermine her charm as they tend to do with so many others.Even if they do, I'll always have Vertically Challenged and a record with this much fun and spark is worth holding on to.
Noise is an acquired taste requiring an open mind and maybe a little background information. I've never known anyone to hear one noise group and instantly fall in love with the genre. Phil Blankenship's noise project is out to make that fact doubly true. Night of the Bloody Tapes is noise for noise extremists. Its fuzzed out, unrelenting, damaged presentation is confrontational and angry. The attack simply never stops on this record.
The Cherry Points work with Yellow Swans was loud as hell, but lacked the confrontational edge Blankenship has molded on his latest full-length. For over forty minutes a steady stream of feedback, white noise, and the sounds of fire turned up to ear-bleeding levels pours through the speakers. It isn't lazy noise, it's noise bound and determined to tear some things to shreds, to remove limbs from bodies, and to generally wreak havoc. The cover art and accompanying stickers suggest Blankenship is trying to fuse some B-movie horror with his noise, but I can't imagine this noise as a soundtrack to anything but an orgy of blood. (A real orgy of blood, not a movie version.) The intensity feels so real and unhinged that I finally got a glimpse of how the most extreme of metal and noise gets compared.
I've seen people dance and head bang at noise shows before. I watched and thought it was supposed to be ironic or sarcastic somehow, a product of the scene's disgust for convention. Only a few times have I ever felt noise move my body and that was usually in a violent manner. The Cherry Point convey a heaviness, though, that makes me want to throw up my hands and bang my head until my neck is sore. The ferocity Blankenship has unearthed in the static and rumble of his machines isn't unlike the blister forming guitar work of the heaviest death metal bands. Gone are the growling vocals, replaced by the sheer sound and a total disregard for listenable melodies or conventional rhythms of any kind. Death metal took sound further away from the norms of rock and pop, but noise has sent it over the edge. A live show like this might inspire head banging; it might also cause bleeding ears, spontaneous violence, and rioting. This does not bode well for Hollywood, Blankenship's base of operation. I find it interesting that some of the most extreme music this side of the Pacific is coming from the land of plastic surgery and generally fake dispositions. Either Blankenship is tapped into the violence that is bubbling just below the surface or he's giving everyone a taste of where that senseless, star-worshipping, shallow approach to everything can go.
That said, I'm surprised by how many times I've hit the play button on this disc. There are plenty of noise records I enjoy listening to about once a month. Night of the Bloody Tapes has found its way into my car, onto my computer's play list, and into my walkman when I go running. I've listened to it three times in the last two days. For all its violent destruction, the constant stream of noise it provides eventually blanks my mind completely. I wouldn't say it puts me in a safe or contemplative place, it just completely zaps my memory and my ability to function. I wouldn't make this my first noise purchase, nor would I heartily recommend it to anyone already listening to noise. This is for the enthusiast, for the noise addict who simply needs something more insane and more intense. Night of the Bloody Tapes is abusively harsh noise and one of the only records of its kind that I've come to enjoy.