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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Within less than a year since their previous album Dan Matz and Jason McNeely return with Giving up the Ghost. Not dissimilar to 2004’s We Fight til Death,their latest album keeps to the typical gentle but pulsing rock sound.
Guitars and drums (both real and programmed) are backed up by a varietyof other instruments like harmonica, accordion and xylophone. Thelyrics sometimes feel clumsy, especially on the track “Empathy forPeople Unknown.” Once the song gets going the vocals do start to fitin, Matz’s thin, soft voice sits comfortably in the mix. Matz andMcNeely have always done repetition well and on Giving up the Ghostthey build up beautiful trance-like moods, despite the songs being muchshorter than usual. This more economic approach to songwritinggreatly improves the listening experience. On earlier albums the longersongswould end up making me reach for the skip button once they hadoutstayed their welcome. Instead of leaving me gagging for more, theyallowthe songs to breathe properly here. “The Front” is a goodexample of how the shorter length makes the song sound sweeter. Itis an instrumental track that builds up gently with acoustic guitar andfades out with half a minute or so of tinkering on a delay unit. Alonger length would have killed the song but as it stands it isterrific. Following straight afterwards is the album’s longest andweakest track: “Giving Up” is just boring, sounding like a jam that ismore entertaining for theperformer then the listener. At times Windsor for the Derby are likea multitude of bands at once: this album touches base with JoyDivision, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. Windsor never pushespast what these bands have done but most of the time they do not bringdisgrace to those who went before. “Praise” could havebeen accidentally discarded by Kevin Shields while “Gathering” could besomething from Joy Division’s demo days but with better lyrics.The faster-paced songs on Giving up the Ghost are what make itworth listening to. “The Light is on” along with the aforementioned“Praise” are possibly the two of the best bits of the album, both stompalong (well as much as Windsor for the Derby can ever be said to stomp)and show the band at their best. The female backing vocals at the endof “The Light is on” are blissful. The album closes with “Every WordYou Ever Said,” a delicate and moving song that finishes off the discperfectly. It reminds me of Dan Matz at his prime (the stunning CD hedid with Michael Gira). Giving up the Ghost may not be the bestalbum this year but it does provide 35 minutes of examples of whatmainstream rock should sound like if there was any justice.
Vertonen is the work of Blake Edwards, owner and proprietor ofChicago's C.I.P. label, which has released work by variousexperimental, primarily electronic projects including Z'ev, The HaflerTrio, Howard Steltzer/Jason Talbot and Nautical Almanac.
As Vertonen,Edwards produces lengthy pieces in which the subtle harmonics andsonorities of slowly shifting drones are of utmost primacy. Orchid Collidercontains six tracks in which drones overlap and communicate, discovertheir innate harmonious natures and then dissolve as throbbing machinerhythms and deafening walls of noise gradually encroach. At times,individual tracks sound like a series of complementary solos by variousassemblages of electronic devices, each given their spotlight tocommunicate their own unique voice. At other times, the sound evokesthe hypnotic interstices of the non-local quantum experience: theendless clinical white hallways of Ketamine space. It's a lonely,plasticated atmosphere haunted by the abandonment of identity and thedim echoes of something artificially resembling nature, such as theuncannily unreal crickets of "Our Sterile Years, Resumed," a trackwhich runs off its own spool and fades away in a clamor of junk metalnoises. There doesn't seem to be a concept linking the pieces on Orchid Collider,instead each track seems to exist on its own terms, each a separate andhermetic narrative formed out of various strands of hypnotic machinedrone. Standout tracks include the all-too-brief "ForgivenessPrecipice," which locates some of the most intensely renderedmind-cleansing frequencies I've enjoyed this side of a headphonehearing test. "Failure (Graywater Terminal)" begins with some very AlanSplet-ish atmospheres, lonely haunted drones bubbling up from thebottom of the rusty pipeworks and abandoned smokestacks of some futureindustrial wasteland. Somewhere in the distance a lonely, miserablecreature wails in utter darkness and solitude, providing a chillingmoment of Lustmord-ian horror that stayed with me long after the trackhad veered into more benign territory. According to the liner notes, Orchid Colliderwas made with the support of a Community Arts Assistance Program grantby the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, which I can'timagine is a situation in which most purveyors of abstract electronicdrone music find themselves. It's a credit to whoever in Chicago ishanding out the arts grants, however, as the album is an exemplarywork, a satisfying drone album that goes beyond the usual elegiachypnosis to locate some truly spine-tingling moments of abstract,haunting loveliness.
Johannes Vester and Ludwig Papenburg, along with with Ludwig's brotherUlrich, formed the group Sand, whose sole album (1974's Golem) is aKrautrock classic, famous for its haunting sparseness as well as the"Artifical Head" stereo mixing method pioneered by producer KlausSchulze.
The album was not successful, and though today amint-condition original pressing can run into the thousands of dollarsat auction, at the time its failure meant that there would be no secondalbum for Sand, and the group disbanded. Johannes and Ludwig remainedfriends, however, and in 1980, they formed the cold-wave electro groupAlu, who in their four-year lifespan released a single, a pair of LPsand a few cassettes. Autismenschen represents an additionalalbum that was recorded in 1981 but was never released until now. I'vestruggled to find the right words to describe Alu, as I have very mixedfeelings about the project. I am a great fan of Vester and Papenburg'swork as Sand, which I first discovered (as I suspect many others did)when it was expanded and reissued on CD by Steven Stapleton and DavidTibet, who released the handsomely packaged Ultrasonic Seraphimon their United Durtro label in 1996. It should be noted that asidefrom some very labored comparisons that David Tibet attempts to drawbetween Sand and Alu in his liner notes for Autismenschen,there is absolutely no similarity between these two projects. Sand'sGolem is spacious and surreal, a visionary folk album which carved outa unique hallucinatory space that has never been repeated before orsince. Alu is very typical of the cold-wave electro sound, typified bymetronomic rhythms, jagged synths, chugging sequencers and barkedvocals awash with paranoia, claustrophobia and technological angst.It's not that Alu are in any way incompetent, but whereas their work asSand was notable for its uniqueness in the Krautrock canon, the work ofAlu is all but indistinguishable from its German new-wave and post-punkcontemporaries. The whole project reeks of a very deliberate bandwagonjump, as evidenced by comparing band photos in the booklet for the Sandand Alu reissues. When they were in Sand, Vester and Papenburg sportedbeards and long hair, and photographed themselves looking wide-eyed andbeatific, heads full of hash and acid, on park benches and inplaygrounds. When they made the transition to Alu, suddenly the beardsand manes were gone, and instead they are photographed in the typicalTuxedomoon uniform of suit and black tie, surrounded by banks ofelectronic gadgets, making tense, worried facial expressions. The lookseems contrived, and so does the music, unfortunately. This is not tosay that there is not much about Alu that will please those who adorethis period of music, but there is nothing about Alu specifically thattakes the music beyond the level of a mildly interesting footnote inthe history of this period. The overlapping chirps, squelches andstaccato rhythms do create a fair amount of intrigue on a track like"Sie Kriegt Alles Was Sie Will," but I can't help but feel but feelthat Alu represents a rather cynical attempt by two talented musiciansto appeal to a younger generation, and it rubs me the wrong way. In thewords of James Murphy of LCD Soundsytem: "I hear you're buying asynthesizer and an arpeggiator and throwing your computer out thewindow because you want to make something real/I hear that you and yourband have sold your guitars and bought turntables/I hear that you andyour band have sold your turntables and bought guitars."
I wish there was a nicer way to say this, but Aidan Baker's newestrelease just isn't very good. It's disappointing because I trulyenjoyed a live set I caught of his in Toronto last year, and his recordwith Mnemosyne as part of last year's Piehead series was pretty solid.
Here Baker is tripped up by all of the pitfalls that come from makingsad, psych-tinged guitar tunes. The vocals throughout are the kind ofmonotonous abstract poetry droning that might seem deep in a highschool-notebook kind of way, but fail to be as evocative as they shouldbe. Words like these just blur into the background and make the wholeact of singing superfluous to the music the words are riding on.Unfortunately, even the instrumental passages here don't spark withmuch imagination. Arrangements of drums, bass, and guitar get muddyquickly. While the lo-fi aesthetic can be charming, here it just feelslike some of the instruments are poorly recorded and mixed. When themix includes string tembres, the arrangement just seems too predictableand maudlin to maintain any interest. Baker has infused the tracks witha pervasive backdrop of fuzz and noise and loops that might soundinteresting on their own, but just tend to muck up the relatively cleanand straight-forward melodies. Drums are occassionally sloppy, the bassseems oversaturated, and Baker's slippery post-something guitar playingwanders off a little closer to Pink Floyd territory than Spacemen 3territory for my liking. The trouble here is that I know Baker can dosomething better and richer than this because I've heard it, so witheach successive listen I try to find the moments that I like and I keepcoming up short. By the end of "Flowerskin," a joyless dirge ofnoodling with lines like "I trample flowers into the pores of yourskin / and you slowly change colour and I love you," I'm crossing myfingers for next time.
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Titles like “Sleepless Nights,” “Daze,” and “Nightfall”were dead giveaways to songs that would feature slow moving tempos,ambient electronic structure, and echoed guitar, all swirling into ahazy paste of long winters and short days. After a period of time withBlindfold, I can say my original assessment wasn’t far off. I’velistened to Blindfold’s eponymous debut at least six times in two days,each time remembering less and less of what I’ve heard. And that’s thebasic problem plaguing Blindfold here - nothing stands out. A typicaltrack here will start out with an ambient sound-scape, followed by somemelodic figure played through an echo pedal. On a few of the songs,there are vocals, which makes things slightly more interesting. “Daze”features a genuinely interesting guitar riff, plodding drums, and thelow, nearly mumbled vocals of Birgir Hilmarsson. Blindfold seems tomake the mistake of placing to much emphasis on texture rather thendynamics. While texture is good, it makes for pretty unremarkablesound-scapes here. There aren’t many flat out bad moments on Blindfold,but at the same time it remains a fairly unremarkable experience. Ihope that in the future, Hilmarsson can take the rough ideas sketchedhere and perhaps apply them to a larger, more encompassing canvas.Until then he seems content to just steal a few ideas from hispost-rock heroes and gently lull me to sleep.
Stan Ridgway's solo albums have been getting more relaxed over the years. Whereas his early post-Wall Of Voodoowork sounded heavily structured and painstakingly produced, his recentwork has become looser...the edges are getting rougher, his lyrics andmusic are getting both darker AND sillier (often during the samesong). [self-released]
Drywall—a pet project consisting of Ridway,drummer Rick King and long-time collaborator Pietra Wexstun—takesall these trends to the extremes, but only about half of thetime. The new (and, for some of us, "long-awaited") CD opens witha joyous zydeco romp about a barbeque party populated with thenastiest—yet cuddliest—of all inbred middle America stereotypes. Itcloses with a seamless reconstruction of George Bush speeches thatwould bring happy tears to a culture-jammer's eyes. In between,though, it zig-zags through a playlist of uneven songs about war, thePope, sinking ships, ghosts, and several introspective, soul-searchingmeditations. Half of them feature Wexstun's wonderfully gratingand unorthodox keyboards ("Fortune Cookies," "That Big Weird Thing")along with some truly inspired instrumentation andstream-of-consciousness rants in the best Ridway tradition while theothers are so gosh-darned straight-forward and pedestrian that they'repainfully bland in comparison ("Abandon Ship," "Wargasm 2005"). The album reaches great heights and forgettable depths, and it fails inthe end to give any sort of "average" impression: it's bothwonderful and bad. It's two albums in one! Unfortunatelyyou can't buy one without the other.