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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Originally released back in 1989 on the New Albion label, this landmark celebration of extreme natural reverb has finally received a long-deserved reissue in honor of its thirtieth anniversary. Obviously, production technology has evolved quite a lot since the '80s and site-specific performances have since become a somewhat common occurrence in the experimental music world, so Deep Listening does not feel quite as radical now as it did when it was first released. Nevertheless, it is still quite a strange and magical album, as I cannot think of any other accordionists who have descended into a two million gallon cistern to explore the incredible acoustic possibilities inherent in a 45-second reverb decay. As someone without a deep technical understanding of how reverb works, I found the new liner notes from recording engineer Al Swanson and Peter Ward quite helpful in explaining exactly why these recordings feel so unreal, but such knowledge is not necessary to appreciate this album: I have been able to enjoy the epic and eerie slow-motion beauty of Deep Listening for years without knowing a single goddamn thing about phase integrity or slap-back. While I cannot say I was exactly clamoring to see this album released in the vinyl format, I am absolutely delighted to see it resurrected and back in the public consciousness.
For some reason, my mind has proven extremely resistant to viewing Deep Listening as anything other than a Pauline Oliveros album.Obviously, she is the most famous and influential member of this trio, as well as the artist most closely associated with "deep listening" as a kind of philosophy, but it would be more accurate to view this album as both the birth of Deep Listening Band and the beginning of a long, fruitful creative partnership with composer Stuart Dempster.In fact, it is Dempster's trombone and didgeridoo playing that most prominently sets the tone for the album's two most memorable pieces: the bookends "Lear" and "Nike."To some degree, that suggests "shallow listening" on my part, as Oliveros's subtly shifting bed of lingering accordion tones is crucial in shaping the subtly hallucinatory and harmonically rich backdrop in "Lear."Nevertheless, it is the deep, roiling drone of the didgeridoo that gives the piece its heft and it is the slow, majestic trombone melody that evokes its distinctively timeless and somber feel.That melancholy and vaguely medieval-sounding aesthetic is apt, as "Lear" was incorporated into Lee Breuer's production of King Lear (though I do not know if it was originally composed with that in mind)."Nike," on the other hand, is a bit more abstract and inventive, as it gradually takes shape from a ghostly miasma of voices, clattering metal pipes, and breathy conch shell drones.Admittedly, it takes a little while to fully come together, but it is a quite a bizarre and compelling piece nonetheless, resembling an angelic choir in a desolate factory that gradually curdles into an infernal-sounding crescendo that calls to mind an ancient battlefield littered with corpses (or at least a banshee caught in a thunderstorm).  
Between those two poles, there are a pair of more subtle and nuanced pieces: "Suiren" and "Ione."For the most part, "Ione" is kind of a beatific and meditative inversion of the palette employed for "Lear," as the didgeridoo and accordion converge into a languorously undulating bed of shifting harmonies.More importantly, Dempster's trombone melodies are not at all portentous and blood-soaked, instead lazily unfurling like smoke in something approximating a major key.It is not a bad piece by any means, but "Suiren" is considerably more compelling and is arguably the one piece that most fully captures the transformative alchemy of the cistern's unique acoustics. Aside from an unconventionally employed garden hose, Oliveros, Dempster, and Peter Ward completely abandoned their formidable arsenal of instruments, seashells, and metal pipes to see what they could achieve solely with the sound of their voices.As it turns out, they could achieve quite a lot, as "Suiren" unfolds as a phantasmagoric fog that lies somewhere between Gregorian chant and time-stretched Tuvan throat-singing.It is quite a hauntingly lovely piece and also a comparatively quiet one, which makes it the arguably the one that benefits the most from deep listening (there are no dramatic motifs to steal the focus away from its nuances).It is also very effective illustration of one of Ward's observations about the acoustic character of the space: aside from the long decay, the smooth and pure nature of the cistern's reverb "makes it impossible to tell where the performer stops and the reverberation takes over."
Another illustrative piece is "Balloon Payment," one of the three bonus tracks that Important has added for their reissue: it is nothing more than the sound of a balloon being popped, leaving roughly 45 seconds of rumbling reverberation in its wake.It is admittedly kind of a throwaway piece that only needs to be heard once, but the other two newly added songs ("Phantom" and "Geocentric") are an inspired curatorial inclusion, as they broaden the album's mood palette and end Deep Listening on a considerably brighter note than the war-like intensity of "Nike."Notably, all three new pieces were taken from Deep Listening Band's The Ready Made Boomerang (1991), which was recorded in the same cistern with a somewhat expanded ensemble.I suspect that means Important has no plans to reissue that album and that decision makes sense: the primary appeal of Deep Listening is that it was a cool idea and a fascinating process: trying to unravel the blurry relationships between sounds and their lingering afterimages makes for a very absorbing listen.It was a great experiment and statement of intent, but Dempster and Oliveros did not need to repeatedly collaborate with that same cistern once they learned its acoustic secrets.Moreover, these pieces are far from the best that Dempster and Oliveros have recorded together, as Important's previous Deep Listening Band reissues capture the pair in significantly more sophisticated and refined form.As such, Deep Listening is unquestionably a significant and influential album, but it should be appreciated as the initial creative breakthrough that led to even better things rather than something akin to a stand-alone crown jewel in Oliveros's discography.
The Air Texture series returns, this time inviting Rrose and Silent Servant to curate the seventh release.
The Air Texture compilation series, the core project of our label, asks two producers to collaborate on a combined release. Typically the two are connected in some way through past projects. The only rules are no rules - focus on finding music that isn't just straight-ahead club music. Within this approach, the series has presented a diverse array of music on the edges of experimental and dance - and always unreleased new music.
Rrose is the latest incarnation of Seth Horvitz, an interdisciplinary artist from California (now residing in London) whose 20+ year history weaves in and out of both dance music culture and academic circles.
The work of Seth Horvitz focuses on the limits of perception and the idiosyncrasies of machines, and the Rrose project focuses these ideas into an immersive and noisy, yet highly detailed form of techno meant to move the mind and body in equal measures. On stage, Rrose often stands in the shadows, going by he and she interchangeably (Rrose's name and image allude to Duchamp’s female alter-ego) – an implied interrogation of gender norms and artistry in techno circles.
Currently residing in Los Angeles, Silent Servant's Juan Mendez was instrumental in the reboot of the legendary Sandwell District label and the Jealous God label with Regis and James Ruskin.
His DJ and live sets are another matter of inventiveness. The superfluous eliminated, Silent Servant has, for years, been rewiring the minds and moving the bodies of those seeking the most meaningful and potent energies that electronic music has to offer.
Silent Servant's productions reference warehouse techno, industrial noise and post-punk reworked to form a uniquely modern style - a vitality so controlled and concentrated that it captivates immediately.
Both individuals are old friends and collaborators going back to the 1990s. Juan's early label Cytrax released one of Seth's first records under his Sutekh moniker. In 1998, they went on their first tour of Germany together with other artists from California.
When asking the artists on their process of selection, Rrose states: “"I selected a group of artists that would reflect both the dancefloor and experimental/avant-garde side of my influences. I wanted to see if I could make a compilation that sounded as cohesive as an album, but with contributions from a diverse range of artists. I asked the artists to focus on "sound, space, and drones" over easily identifiable "beats" and "songs" - with the intention of pushing the techno/dancefloor artists out of their comfort zones."
Silent Servant conveys "The choices on this compilation were based on people that I respect on all levels. It's a very mixed bag and I have a personal connection to each one of these people, and they are all people I knew would have something interesting to say. I feel grateful for the opportunity to have brought all of these people's art together for this project."
Featuring unreleased tracks from underground talent including Anthony Child (Surgeon), Ron Morelli, Laurel Halo, Octo Octa, Phase Fatale, Luke Slater, Function, as well as Rrose and Silent Servant and legends Laetitia Sonami and Charlemagne Palestine.
Workaround is the lucidly playful and ambitious solo debut album by rhythm-obsessive musician and DJ, Beatrice Dillon for PAN. It combines her love of UK club music's syncopated suss and Afro-Caribbean influences with a gamely experimental approach to modern composition and stylistic fusion, using inventive sampling and luminous mixing techniques adapted from modern pop to express fresh ideas about groove-driven music and perpetuate its form with timeless, future-proofed clarity.
Recorded over 2017-19 between studios in London, Berlin and New York, Workaround renders a hypnotic series of polymetric permutations at a fixed 150bpm tempo. Mixing meticulous FM synthesis and harmonics with crisply edited acoustic samples from a wide range of guests including UK Bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra (tabla); Pharoah Sanders Band's Jonny Lam (pedal steel guitar); techno innovators Laurel Halo (synth/vocal) and Batu (samples); Senegalese Griot Kadialy Kouyaté (Kora), Hemlock's Untold and new music specialist Lucy Railton (cello); amongst others, Dillon deftly absorbs their distinct instrumental colours and melody into 14 bright and spacious computerized frameworks that suggest immersive, nuanced options for dancers, DJs and domestic play.
Workaround evolves Dillon's notions in a coolly unfolding manner that speaks directly to the album’s literary and visual inspirations, ranging from James P. Carse's book "Finite And Infinite Games" to the abstract drawings of Tomma Abts or Jorinde Voigt as well as painter Bridget Riley’s essays on grids and colour. Operating inside this rooted but mutable theoretical wireframe, Dillon's ideas come to life as interrelated, efficient patterns in a self-sufficient system.
With a naturally fractal-not-fractional logic, Dillon's rhythms unfold between unresolved 5/4 tresillo patterns, complex tabla strokes and spark-jumping tics in a fluid, tactile dance of dynamic contrasts between strong/light, sudden/restrained, and bound/free made in reference to the notational instructions of choreographer Rudolf Laban. Working in and around the beat and philosophy, the album’s freehand physics contract and expand between the lissom rolls of Bhamra's tabla in the first, to a harmonious balance of hard drum angles and swooping FM synth cadence featuring additional synth and vocal from Laurel Halo in "Workaround Two," while the extruded strings of Lucy Railton create a sublime tension at the album’s palate-cleansing denouement, triggering a scintillating run of technoid pieces that riff on the kind of swung physics found in Artwork's seminal "Basic G," or Rian Treanor's disruptive flux with a singularly tight yet loose motion and infectious joy.
Crucially, the album sees Dillon focus on dub music's pliable emptiness, rather than the moody dematerialization of reverb and echo. The substance of her music is rematerialized in supple, concise emotional curves and soberly freed to enact its ideas in balletic plies, rugged parries and sweeping, capoeira-like floor action. Applying deeply canny insight drawn from her years of practice as sound designer, musician and hugely knowledgable/intuitive DJ, Workaround can be heard as Dillon's ingenious solution or key to unlocking to perceptions of stiffness, darkness or grid-locked rigidity in electronic music. And as such it speaks to an ideal of rhythm-based and experimental music ranging from the hypnotic Senegalese mbalax of Mark Ernestus's Ndagga Rhythm Force, through SND and, more currently, the hard drum torque of DJ Plead; to adroitly exert the sensation of weightlessness and freedom in the dance and personal headspace.
Die Stadt presents the follow up to last year’s critically acclaimed album HERBSTSONNE (Die Stadt / DS119), SILENCE IN THAT TIME (DS123) is a direct offshoot of the former album, adding more sounds to the overall sound palette. Recorded at RMS Studios South London in 2019, the single 42 min. long track stands as another distinctively beautiful and haunting work in the artist’s discography.
Release date February 9, 2020, limited to 300 copies.
Eighteen months on from his last solo release, Vancouver-based singer/composer Ian William Craig returns with a brilliant and powerfully emotive new album. His first for a long while to be centered around the piano - and also one of his most pared back - the record was made through an intense period of personal loss and environmental catastrophe.
Red Sun Through Smoke was recorded over two cataclysmic weeks in August 2018 in Kelowna, whilst the city was encircled by the forest fires which, under a warming climate, now regularly rage through British Columbia in summertime. With smoke engulfing the landscape, Ian describes how "the houses across the road couldn’t be seen save for a brief white on white outline. The sun was dull red on grey. The air was becoming steadily dangerous. There was nowhere to go that was not this way; all the space filled up with worry." Having committed to recording that August, Ian sought a supposedly calmer retreat in which to work. Carrying his gear across the province to set up a temporary studio space, the album was recorded from start to finish in the living room of a small house owned by his grandfather who was now residing in a care facility across the street, having been afflicted with dementia for the past decade. The morning after Ian arrived, his parents unexpectedly phoned to say that they would be flying in too, as Grampa had been moved into palliative care, his lungs filled with fluid as a result of the smoke. Despite this shocking turn of events, Ian's parents convinced him to keep recording, with the process ultimately becoming a document of the difficult place in which they found themselves.
One benefit of recording at his grandad's lay in gaining access to his piano, which became the record's anchoring point. Beyond this, the only other instrumentation consisted of Ian’s voice, a shortwave radio set, several modified tape decks and a bunch of tape loops. Ian notes how events helped force the shape of the record and a tendency toward a less layered, more spartan expression. "Everything felt raw, I didn't want there to be anywhere to hide in this record. My parents and I were cramped together in a small house while my grandfather slowly died across the street in a world filled with smoke, after all. So, in this record, more than most, there exist a great many things straight to tape without any effects because there really was no space."
Forged in trauma and an intense, bewildering slew of mixed emotions, Ian William Craig has created an album of incredible beauty, sadness and depth. Red Sun Through Smoke is a profoundly moving album, a standout record in a prolific body of work that shows no sign of faltering.
Second volume in a trilogy exploring the teenage tape experimentation of Warren Defever aka His Name Is Alive. Echo-drenched guitar instrumentals, field recordings and gorgeous ambient tones pulsate through the analogue murk, also taking in dalliances with greyscale industrial drone, musique concrète and even a burst of 4-track noise pop reminiscent of the early work of The Jesus And Mary Chain.
TJ and I recorded these songs in her backyard studio in February of 2018. We've been friends and occasional collaborators for years, crossing paths and sharing stages and the timing was right to capture a certain moment. I was on my way back from Mexico, not quite ready to return to the grey skies of the Pacific Northwest, and to me these songs capture a bit of lazy California winter, crossing paths with a trusted friend, playing guitars and singing old songs. – Marisa Anderson
Cole Porter and Gene Clark are among my favorite songsmiths and rendering their music during that warm midwinter of wildfires and aftermaths was perfect. Marisa and i have had an adventurous collaborative friendship, playing sonics and playing standards. The songs on this 7 inch are a cool continuation of our shared journey. – tjo
I always love scavenging the internet for interesting end-of-year lists every December, as I invariably find a handful of great albums and films that I slept on like a fool. In fact, a lot of those belated finds wind up being among my favorites, as the albums I miss tend to be inspired and refreshing departures from the labels and scenes that I usually follow. This unusual debut album from LA's Ana Roxanne was one such find from last year, as it surfaced back in March and I probably dismissed it instantly as a vinyl reissue of some private press New Age obscurity (if I noticed it at all). Given both the look of the album and Roxanne's aesthetic, that is not a terribly outlandish conclusion to make, but a closer listen reveals that ~~~ is considerably more compelling and distinctive than it first appears. For example, Roxanne checks two boxes that have historically been strong indicators of a radical compositional approach: she both studied Hindustani singing in India and attended the fabled Mills College. As a result, Roxanne has an unusually sophisticated understanding of harmony and avant-garde compositional techniques for this stylistic milieu. Such a path would normally steer an artist towards an Eastern drone/La Monte Young vein, yet Roxanne deftly sidesteps anything resembling a predictable path, as ~~~ can best be described as what might result if a mermaid studied with Eliane Radigue: drone-based minimalism that evokes a soft-focus idyll of lapping waves and floating, angelic voices.
For all intents and purposes, ~~~ admittedly does sound a hell of a lot like it could have been the work of some gifted, synth-wielding yoga hermit from the '80s. The fact that it is not, however, is noteworthy: there is nothing about this album or Roxanne's background to suggest that she had any interest in undertaking any sort of homage to that era. More likely, she just independently wound up in a similar place simply by virtue of her similarly meditative and autodidactic bent.In fact, it seems like Roxanne's biggest single influence was probably her own life (with a particular emphasis on her early love of R&B and all the time that she spent in church choirs growing up). That, in essence, is what I most love about this album, as it is all-too-rare these days to encounter art in such a pure, unselfconscious form. At its best, ~~~ sounds like the work of a composer who wants nothing more than to transform her lived experiences into something intimate, poetic, and beautiful. Moreover, Roxanne achieves that in an inventive way that feels both timeless and effortless. She arguably only threatens that perfect, idyllic spell on the rare occasions when the synths blossom into something more prominent and melodic than mere drones. To Roxanne's credit, however, those sparing psych flourishes are almost always effective enough to justify such an out-of-character nod to recognizably "cool" influences.
The opening "Immortality" captures Roxanne in her purest, most undiluted form, as it is essentially just her voice (alternately singing and speaking) over a warm, gently quivering, and blurry bed of drones. It is quite a gorgeous piece, as Roxanne's harmonizing vocals have an angelic quality that calls to mind Julee Cruise's work with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch (minus all the creepy and seductive overtones and undercurrents). The next two pieces only deepen that sense of dissolving into a quietly rapturous dreamscape, as Roxanne subtly expands her palette in an increasingly layered, immersive, and reality-bending direction."Slowness" is the most "composed" piece on the album, as it lies somewhere between a meditation tape, an exercise in tape-loop experimentation, and a bittersweetly lovely organ piece. The lazily intertwining melodies and warm harmonies of the latter are the best part, but the way that all of the disparate elements come together is quite effective as well (I especially like the ghostly, steadily pulsing synth loop that functions as the piece's backbone). The following "It's a Rainy Day on the Cosmic Shore" is even better still, though it admittedly takes a little while before it fully coheres. Once it does, however, it is an absolutely sublime piece of music, as crashing waves, swelling drones, and fluttering synth melodies combine to evoke a heavenly, hallucinatory beach or magical undersea grotto. Elsewhere, "Nocturne" then returns to the minimalism and swooningly lovely Siren-esque vocals of "Immortality," while "I'm Every Sparkly Woman" approximates a curious collision of deconstructed R&B and radiant, rippling New Age bliss. The album then winds to a close with a remarkably good sound collage that blends together a church chorus, a singing toddler, lapping waves, strains of pop music from a radio, wind chimes, and a group of cheerfully bantering women.
While that final piece ("In a Small Valley") is not my favorite piece on the album, it is a beautiful illustration of one key element makes Roxanne's aesthetic so special and unique: her incredibly effective and intuitively organic use of field recordings.Obviously, using field recordings for texture or surrealist mindfuckery is quite common in contemporary experimental music circles these days, yet Roxanne seems to use them only to vividly evoke specific scenes and all of those scenes seem personally meaningful. As such,~~~ has an abstractly diaristic feel that suggests a languorous, impressionistic flow of poignant memories and allusions to significant moments. That unerring instinct for simple, uncluttered artistic honesty is evident in other ways too, as Roxanne's elegantly blurred and beautiful voice is the true heart of her art, so she is wise to limit her musical accompaniment to little more than subdued drones and looping melody fragments (even if the more fleshed out "Slowness" is a highlight). It is a tricky balance to get just right, which probably explains why ~~~ is such an unusually brief album (it clocks in at under half an hour): Roxanne could have easily padded out the release with some additional drone or synth-driven pieces, but that would have diluted the power and simple beauty of her statement. This is not a unique and beguiling album because Roxanne has an especially bold experimental vision or a knack for killer synth patches—it is a unique and beguiling album because such things are relegated to a mere supporting role as she strives for something deeper, more intimate, and more elusive. When those experimental or hook-sculpting tendencies surface, they are certainly welcome, but the true brilliance of ~~~ is that it captures self-expression in its most distilled and sincere form. This is a hell of a debut.
It is difficult for me to imagine Analog Africa ever releasing a predictable or uninspired compilation, as Samy Ben Redjeb seems fundamentally incapable of ever focusing his attention on a scene or place that has already been anthologized by his crate-digging peers. Mogadisco is predictable in one regard though, as Redjeb makes his return to the African continent after Jambú e Os Míticos Sons Da Amazônia's surprise detour into Brazil. Characteristically, however, Redjeb swims against the tide, as he decided to go digging in one of the world's most dangerous and tourist-unfriendly places after seeing a video about the Radio Mogadishu archives. A less driven person would have been immediately put off by the need to have an armed escort every single time he went outside, but that is the difference between Redjeb and everyone else: if he heard that there was a killer record hidden at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, he would either find a way to get to it or die trying. As usual, Redjeb's efforts yielded some genuinely wonderful finds, though this latest batch of long-forgotten and obscure gems is not quite as rhythmically unique as those on other Analog Africa collections. Fortunately, most of these artists managed to achieve a distinctive character in other ways. Analog Africa's hot streak remains unbroken.
This compilation, Analog Africa's first major overview of Somalian music, is primarily the result of a trip Redjeb made to Mogadishu back in November of 2016.Naturally, the aforementioned archives were the focal point of Redjeb's brief residency in the city.That was probably for the best, as the environment did not sound at all conducive for digging around flea markets or seeking out like-minded record dealers.The fact that the hunt was mostly limited to just one building did not necessarily make it any easier than usual though, as being confronted with a collection of "roughly 20,000" undigitized tapes in a foreign country would be daunting for anyone.Also, it is safe to say that Redjeb (as a perpetual outsider) is almost never looking for the sorts of albums that people would expect him to be hunting for, as he tends to be exclusively drawn to long-forgotten eras and stylistic outliers.
Fortunately, Redjeb did have a few reference points in mind beforehand, as he was a big fan of Iftin Band and Dur-Dur Band (he has previously anthologized the latter with a two-volume set).That certainly helped the archive staff to focus their search a bit.And, of course, there were a few welcome surprises both within the archive and beyond its walls.Regarding the latter, Redjeb managed to locate a cassette warehouse, so he was able to put his hours to good use while awaiting updates from the archive staff.In fact, his days of drinking coffee and digitizing boxes of warehouse tapes in his room actually wound up yielding a number of this album's better finds.Redjeb's other bit of serendipity was the discovery of a box in the archive described as both "music nobody had managed to identify" and "mainly instrumental and strange music."Two of the best pieces on the album actually emerged from that pile and both certainly fit quite comfortably in that latter category.Both are by Iftin Band.
My favorite of the two is "Ii Ooy Aniga (Cry For Me)," a bittersweetly lovely instrumental carried along by a propulsive, high-hat-heavy disco groove.Elsewhere, Iftin Band's other piece ("Sirmaqabe (No Secrets)") is the most surprising one on the album, as its surf-inspired guitars and organ melodies make it sound like an escapee from Sublime Frequencies' Shadow Music of Thailand compilation.I guess some albums by The Shadows must have made it to Somalia too, though Redjeb's interview with Iftin Band's percussionist Salah Hariri mentions that they were in demand primarily because they could play funky music like Michael Jackson and James Brown better than other bands.That may very well have been true at the time, but Mukhtar Ramadan Iidi easily steals the show as the funkiest artist on Mogadisco, as "Check Up Your Head" sounds like the work of someone who fully grasped and embodied the music's sexy and soulful intent.Notably, Iidi sings in English, which causes him to be remembered as a "Western artist," but he also did time in the scene-dominating Shareero Band and later found even greater fame as an actor.
Unsurprisingly, Mogadisco also features a handful of solid songs from Redjeb favorite Dur-Dur Band, but that band's earlier, more bizarre incarnation as Bakaka Band turns up too and they are quite a unique entity: they were backed by the Ministry of The Interior and the Aboow Liberation Front and wrote songs designed to inspire the troops fighting at the Ethiopian border.Musically, they were no less of an anomaly, as their "Gobonimada Jira (Choose Freedom)" is a remarkably effective collision of proto-rap, soul, reggae, and a goddamn marching band.Somewhat less effective (yet no less interesting) is "Geesiyada Halgamayow (Brave Fighters)," which bizarrely bounces back and forth between an insanely funky and fiery disco groove and something that resembles a football half-time show.I wish they had just stuck to the disco groove, but those moments are great enough to win me over despite my deep misgivings about the piece's perplexingly seesawing structure.
Characteristically, the liner notes are one of the most delightful aspects of this album, as Dur-Dur Band's history as government-backed funk propagandists is just the tip of a very weird and colorful iceberg.In fact, Dur-Dur Band alone could probably be grist for quite a compelling book, as they were all arrested once because they accidentally chose a band name (Gor-Gor) shared by an anti-government revolutionary sect.Beyond that, their singer was electrocuted to death while checking a microphone (and people thought he was dancing).Also, the entire band once had to be smuggled out of Ethiopia by a fan after being entrapped by a sinister businessman.For the most part, however, the story of these bands is mostly just that of a small, incestuous group of talented musicians eagerly assimilating eclectic new trends in hopes of landing a residency at one of Mogadishu’s hottest nightspots.As a result, even the same band can sound quite different from song to song, which is a large part of Mogadisco's appeal: almost every song sounds like a several disparate stylistic puzzle pieces were somehow mashed together into a coherent shape.For the most part, all of the songs Redjeb collected are unified by the grounding of a tight, funk-minded rhythm section, but it is rare for the finished product to quite resemble anything as straightforward as "funk," as there is always a winding organ motif, a traditional-sounding vocal melody, a twangy surf guitar, or a skanking, reggae-esque pulse thrown in to muddy the waters.These songs do feel like they all belong together though.I am a bit surprised that Redjeb limited this compilation to just twelve songs, but I suppose he wanted to stay stylistically focused in order to leave room for future collections.And Mogadisco is a strong batch of songs, so diluting it with any added material would likely have been detrimental (unless it was great).While I cannot say I love everything here, the misses are impressively infrequent and a few songs have instantly entered my personal pantheon of all-time Analog Africa favorites.Which, of course, is exactly what I was hoping for.
Explaining why one Celer album is significantly better than another is no simple task, as Will Long is generally an extremely consistent artist who has released a huge volume of warmly lovely, loop-based ambient drone albums. Consequently, it is dangerously easy to take his artistry for granted, as a casual listener would not be crazy for finding a lot of Celer's oeuvre relatively interchangeable. From my perspective, however, Celer can be viewed as Long's tireless and Romantic quest to conjure up fragments of melody so achingly sublime that they can be looped into infinity. In that regard, Long has rarely come closer to realizing that dream than he does on Future Predictions. These four lengthy compositions capture Long at the absolute peak of his powers, resulting in the rarest of achievements: a 2+ hour album that leaves me wanting more and regularly inspires me to start it all over again as soon as it ends.
One aspect of Will Long's artistry that I have always appreciated is his ability to evoke the sense that there is a deep undercurrent of emotion, mystery, and meaning lurking within his work, which is a trick that very few other ambient artists are able to pull off.It certainly does not hurt that Long is also a fitfully brilliant minimalist composer, but there is definitely something larger and more compelling than that happening with this project: Long has amassed a vast body of work that feels like a bittersweetly beautiful, impressionistic, and ever-expanding palace of memories.As befits a release as ambitious as a 4-CD boxed set, Future Predictions is an especially poignant and enigmatic example of that unusually intimate and diaristic approach to art, as Long accompanies the music with a small booklet of poetic writings, travel photos, and some enticingly cryptic other images of elusive meaning (a black and white photo of a forest fire at night, a picture from an early 20th century Antarctic expedition, a grainy image of the Dead Sea).The song titles deepen the mystery still further, as they make reference to cities in Sumatra and Lebanon.Presumably, all have some ties to Long's own travels and personal memories, but that is not made explicit nor should it be considered a given: Long is certainly welcome to craft any poetic fictions he wants while straining to express the ineffable.In fact, all of the accompanying texts and images might be a fiction, as Long describes Future Predictions as "a meditation on future events" and a sort of inversion of 2018's backwards-looking Memory Repetitions retrospective.Still, I would be very surprised if Future Predictions was not largely inspired by real past loves and snatches of beautiful memories.This is a Celer album after all.
Notably, there are allegedly some field recordings buried throughout the album, but they are far too well concealed to provide any further illumination (though I would be very impressed if they were field recordings from the future).In fact, just about all of the source sounds have been blurred and processed into floating, billowing unrecognizability on Future Predictions, as Long's layers of loops mostly resemble an orchestral recording that has been dissolved and stretched into abstraction.For what it's worth, my favorite pieces are the two bookends, though the gulf between them and the other pieces is not a large one.Moreover, all four pieces are unified by their similar structure and tone.Long made a conscious decision to avoid any overt "long-term structural development" within these pieces, so all of them begin and end with the same rich tapestry of collaged motifs in place.The result of that approach is that each piece feels like a sustained dream state that lazily churns with deep drones and swooning, sensuously intertwining, soft-focus melodies.Like a lot of Celer albums, these pieces evoke a mass of thick, slow-moving clouds broken by vibrant streaks of light, but the majestic ascending melodies of a piece like "Merita" suggest the beginnings of a brilliant sunrise as well.In fact, only the more simmering and brooding "No Sleep in Medan" lingers in melancholy, as the remaining three pieces transcend wistful meditation to take a brighter, more hopeful tone.In the wrong hands, such a tone would likely lead in a saccharine direction, but Long has the lightness of touch and intuitive grasp of dynamics and contrast needed to make it work.The closing "Qaraoun" is an especially lovely example of that mastery, as its gorgeous ascending melody has a hallucinatory, shimmering texture that feels like it is echoing around a vast cathedral leaving a trail of quivering, ghostly afterimages in its wake.
The only arguable caveat with Future Predictions is that it is essentially just four elegantly crafted and layered loops allowed to unfold in floating stasis for roughly half an hour each.That will likely drive some people mad, as there truly is no noticeable development within each piece.I have a hard time relating to such a grievance though, as I would be just as happy if this album were just one of those four repeating motifs extended for two hours.Long's brilliance as a composer lies in the juxtapositions and in the details, so I see no reason for any further transformation to occur when the initial theme is already gorgeous, immersive, and hypnotically meditative.I only find myself wishing something new would happen when I do not find the central motif fully absorbing on its own, which is why I was so fond of the prominent field recordings on Xièxie: they made good songs more rich, more textured, and more interesting.A piece like "Qaraoun," on the other hand, is simple, perfect, and fully realized right from the start so no further embellishment is needed or desired.In fact, that statement applies to just about everything here.I cannot pretend to have a comprehensive recall of Celer's entire catalog, but I cannot think of any other albums that are this consistently strong from start to finish.As I have said about William Basinski in the past, it might seem deceptively easy or lazy to compose a piece from just a few endlessly repeating notes, but achieving the balance of rhythm, small-scale dynamics, and shifting harmonies necessary to cast a sustained and beautiful spell requires an enormous amount of skill and patience.As with Basinski's best work, Future Predictions makes that process seem effortless and organic, but that is precisely because Long is a master illusionist able to produce a distillation so lovely that no traces of the intricate, meticulously shaped scaffolding remain.
Compared to his last release on the SIGE label, the three CD Sleeper, Melting Gravity is a much tighter affair: a single LP with two side-long pieces. Unsurprisingly then, Menche stays more stylistically focused, and surprisingly creates some of the most musical sounding work yet. Most definitely not a full on noise work, but also more varied and dynamic than his more ambient works, it is yet another unique work from one of the most unique artists currently active.
For the most part, Daniel Menche avoids standard noise and distortion altogether for this record.Sure, there are moments in which passages build a bit in intensity, but never to overwhelm, and overall there is much more in the way of tone and timbre here as opposed to just texture.The first side opens with a repeating, almost dubby bass pattern that continues throughout, with chiming bells and electronic pulses layered upon one another slowly, but deliberately.Never does the piece become too overpowering or bogged down, but Daniel is definitely juggling a lot of different sounds at once.
There is a meditative, monastic quality to the sound, like something that could be heard at a Buddhist temple during prayer.However, there’s an odd edge to things.He worked heavily with FM synthesis on this record, so many of the bell or instrument sounds that appear have a deliberately unnatural quality to them.That distinctive metallic clang appears consistently on this record.Because of that, what sounds like ancient, sacred music has an alien, almost digital simulation quality to it.
Eventually, Daniel Menche pulls back some of the layers, allowing the sun to shine through clearly as the bass line rumbles away.Flare-ups of what sounds like over-driven distortion do appear at times, but with a pleasant shimmer to them, making for something pleasant as opposed to abrasive.When the mix is at its most sparse, there is a beautiful ambient quality to the work and, even as things take a turn darker near the side’s conclusion, the more lush elements never go away.
The other side features mostly the same sounds used by Menche, with heavy emphasis on the rhythmic bass passages and metallic, chiming bits.Comparatively though he keeps the sound more spacious.Layers appear and retreat, and it remains a dynamic piece from beginning to end, but there is a bit less movement overall when compared to the first half.Expanding, processed sounds from stringed instruments make a tonal, drone-heavy sounding work here, with lots of room for the elongated tones to take the focus.
One of the aspects of Melting Gravity that grabbed me was the way that, in its own oblique way, it sounds a lot like the early days of Robert Hampson’s Main.The way that, propelled by a dubby bass loop, Menche integrates conventional instrument sounds with unconventional processing was very reminiscent of works such as Motion Pool.Both have the same juxtaposition of organic and unnatural, resulting in music that is as familiar as it is alien.Daniel Menche has been a favorite artist of mine for a while now, but I think this may now sit at the top of the metaphorical pile.