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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This is the second La STPO release to surface on Portland's Beta-LactamRing Records, the new home for this strangest of French prog-rockensembles. La STPO, whose name translates literally as "Shy Society atthe Bird Parade," were discovered by legendary French experimentalistsDDAA (Defecit Des Annees Anterieurs—"The Deficit of Former Years"), whoreleased the band's first EP on their own Illusion Productions back in1986.
With a name only slightly less stupid than German contemporariesHNAS (Hirsche Nichts Aufs Sofa—"Moose Without A Sofa"), and an eclecticsensibility only slightly less whacked-out and surrealistic, La STPOhave trudged on in near-total obscurity for two decades, with arevolving door membership that has included more than 30 musicians overthe years. BLR's '86-'90 reissued the hard to find Illusion EP, together with an equally impossible-to-find LP from 1990. Le Combat Occultedoesn't reissue anything, but instead collects a generous amount ofunreleased, alternate, rare and live tracks drawn from the band'sentire history. La STPO records are always scattershot, rapidlychanging, almost pathologically eclectic affairs, and this one evenmore so, as most of these tracks were not even conceived in eachother's presence. In a strange way, this increased randomnesscontributes to the kind of Dada pranksterism that the band appear to beaiming for, the majority of their songs senselessly shifting musicalgears in ways that only make sense within the post-RIO experimentalprog milieu in which they are generally considered. For all of theirdeliberate goofiness, however, there is very competent musicianship atthe heart of La STPO, and only a talented band could pull off thesebreathlessly dynamic rock gymnastics, switching from histrionicstop-start prog-rock virtuosity to Neanderthal free jazz skronk, toSpike Jones-style cartoon wackiness, to percussive breakdowns onmallets and sheet metal, to tuneful psychedelic ballads and austerechamber music, often within the span of a few minutes. The sillinesscan be downright exhausting at times, but it certainly keeps thingsmoving; I challenge anyone to be bored by the music found on this disc.With their opaque lyrical aesthetic and sleeve designs, the bandclearly align themselves with a long tradition of Europeanavant-gardism of the kind exemplified by Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst,but they also invoke Russian Suprematism in tracks like "TechniquesExplositionnistes," giving shoutouts to Malevich and Kandinsky. Unlikeother bands such as Nurse With Wound or HNAS that traffic in thesekinds of kitchen-sink compositions, La STPO actually have the musicalchops to pull off these death defying leaps of musical illogic withoutresorting to tape-splicing or plunderphonia. There is a lot more thatcould be said about music as chock full of complexity, eccentricity andobscurity as that made by La STPO, but it's best to just be jerkedalong by these intelligently insane and spectacularly talentedmusicians, and just see where the journey leads.
Noise, even more so than metal, shares a strange relation withviolence, death, sex, drugs, and any combination thereof. In fact itseems as though bands like Merzbow, Masonna, Whitehouse, et al.represent the extreme edge of violence and sexuality in their artwork,titles, influences, and lyrical output. I sometimes question just howmuch this fact determines the popularity of such acts seeing how manyof their releases just don't impress me. Troniks/PACrec
The Rita, it would seem,follow in the footsteps of these vulgar giants. Two tracks make up this60+ minute record of almost pure white noise, feedback, suffocatedscreams, and unrelenting brutality. The first and most obvious facet ofsuch an approach to noise is obvious: there isn't much variation and onmost releases that makes it too easy for me to get bored. The secondand maybe most ear-catching facet is that when The Rita decide to allowvocal samples and odd sounds bleed through their curtain of damagedequipment, they sound exciting and fresh. I think the image must beholding these fellows down. I'll be the last to say there's an image touphold here, but when one song is titled "Naked Girl Found Dead in thePark" and the artwork depicts what must be a rather brutal rape, themusic inside is likely to exaggerate its real intensity for the sake ofconsistency. It's a shame, too, because while violence can be anattractive and creative event, it seems like most eyes are focused onthe less perverse and more boring, pornographic stuff that shows nosigns of creativity or understanding, whatsoever. At one point on "ViceWears Black Hose," the noise congeals for a moment into the sounds ofwhat might be a sample from a Dario Argento film soundtrack, butinstead of letting such an unsettling transition play its role, TheRita shot things back into a confused and overdriven death fest.Extremes can be interesting at times, but this is one that has beenplayed out one too many times. There are far better explorations of sexand violence out there if that sort of thing seems evenly remotelyinteresting, but the disappointing part is that The Rita show a lot ofpromise on this record and then let me down by trying to drown theirwork in the sort of noise that eventually comes to sound tame and sillybecause of its nonstop intensity. In the end it sounds normal and notat all threatening, almost as though it's become its opposite andobtained a trance-like, subdued state in the pursuit of nonstop,attention-grabbing assault. - Lucas Schleicher
Just when techno so desperately needs a good shot in the arm (orperhaps, the mouth or ass) from one of its biggest and most respectedstars, it is instead subjected to another installment of "When GoodArtists Go Crap." The Cloud Making Machineis the musical equivalent of an American liberal arts student dickingaround Europe for a semester, largely meandering without so much as aspeck of the intended or desired resulting enlightenment. Mute / F-Communications
Lacking eventhe occasional sonic spasm evocative of Garnier's true worth or talent,these ten truly dreadful pseudo-cinematic tracks are as mind-numbinglyboring as 99% of the pretentious scores to even more pretentiousdramatic films. It embodies everything that I didn't like from 2000'scritically acclaimed Unreasonable Behavior packed into oneoutrageously unfocused crapfest, dipping into too many genres for itsown good. Between the fluttery yet dull flamenco flourishes on "HuisClos" to the falls-flat-on-its-face IDM meets neo-classical fusion of"Act 1 Minotaure Ex," I am almost tempted to believe that this albumwas intended as a goof, a tongue-in-cheek snipe at the self-indulgentcompositions and obligatory radio-singles comprising movie soundtracks(not to mention an unusually cruel joke on Garnier's worldwidefanbase). The hallucinatory dreamstate spoken and shouted word of"First Reaction (v2)" attempts to make some kind of bold politicalstatement amidst Garnier's cacophonous free jazz fuckery, yetultimately says surprisingly little. The lowest point of the albumarguably comes when Garnier foolishly fumbles with rock n roll on "(IWanna Be) Waiting for my Plane" with its bland looped guitar riff andlazy mindess lyrics. The AFX-esque "9.01-9:06" and the DJ friendlytribal house cut "Controlling the House Pt. 2" would potentiallysalvage this album if the rest of the material here wasn't so awful,but even these two are marred by unoriginality and lukewarm tedium. AmI being unnecessarily harsh? Am I perhaps too immature to understandthe intricate complexities of The Cloud Making Machine? Am I sostubbornly unwilling to excuse this radical departure that I'm unableto offer a fair, evenhanded analysis of the album? No. It's a boringpiece of shit that is, at times, excruciating to sit through andthoroughly impossible to stomach. Avoid as if Vincent Gallo himself hadrecorded it.
With the recent RIAA bust of Mondo Kim's in NYC and the news of Apple'smove to Pentium D chips embedded with copyright-protection lockdownsystems, it's pretty clear that the recording industry and Hollywoodaren't planning on slowing down their draconian Gestapo tactics anytimesoon. That's why Negativland's new album No Business could not have arrived at a better time. No Businessis far more than an album: it's a multimedia essay and meditation onthe concepts of public domain, fair use, copyright law and theramifications of digital media filesharing on the music business as ithas existed for the past several decades. Seeland
In addition to advertised"EIGHT TRACKS of AUDIO on a ROUND CD," this generous package fromSeeland also contains a 18-page essay entitled "Two relationships to acultural public domain," a hilarious Quicktime video and a whoopeecushion toy emblazoned with the "circle c" copyright symbol. The essayitself is perhaps the best thing about the album, as it touches on manyissues and possible trajectories for the current war between themainstream music business and the internet-savvy consumer. Negativlandmake several modest proposals about the future of the music business inlight of the digital revolution, some of which involve the very realpossibility that making music may no longer be a viable way to makemountains of cash. This is not necessarily the end of popular music;but it may very mean the end of corporate music. As Negativland pointout in their essay, they themselves have never made any kind ofreasonable living off of their music, but they continue making itanyway, because they have a sincere desire to make music. Having beenat the receiving end of several well-publicized lawsuits because oftheir plunderphonic audio collaging, which frequently took jabs atcorporate-label music such as U2 and Michael Jackson, Negativlandclearly know of whence they speak, and this makes for an engaging read,one of the best and most level-headed essays I have read on the topic.The accompanying CD may be the weakest link of the package, whichthough it does have several very amusing moments, is not nearly asstrong as their last album, the fantastic Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak,an unsung masterpiece of noise. This CD is something of a first forNegativland, as it is entirely constructed from plunders and samples,with no additional voicework over top, as is the usual case for thealbums derived from their Over the Edge radio broadcasts.Instead, it's a series of People Like Us and Evolution ControlCommittee-style gags, resplicing Ethel Merman until she's singinglyrics like: "There's no business like stealing/It's so appealing."Also in the audio blender are The Beatles, the soundtrack to Disney's The Little Mermaid,an RIAA spokesman's speech at the Grammy Awards, a vintage radio dramaand other sources too various to mention. The oversized wallet thathouses the album and essay is filled with so much corporate iconographyand mythological characters, it looks like the dual wet dream of JosephCampbell and Marshall McLuhan. All told it's an absolutely fantasticpackage from Negativland, and I'd suggest getting your hands on itbefore the RIAA shuts down its sale on account of all those peskyunauthorized samples.
NYC multi-instrumentalist Adam Pierce's Obrigado Saudadewas one of my favorite discs of last year; a most splendid mixture ofpop, jazz and Brazilian-inspired musics crafted with catchy hooks,memorable melodies and cool beats of various time signatures. What waseven more impressive was that Pierce hadn't relied on many guests topull off this recording, yet the performances are totally tight fromstart to finish. Bubble Core Records
\With Bem-Vinda Vontade, the latest release onhis own Bubble Core Records label, Pierce has employed a full band onabout half of the disc's nine tracks, including HiM bandleader andfellow drummer, Doug Scharin. Having seen Mice Parade in liveperformance just as this disc was being released, I can totallyunderstand the appeal of inviting the live group to record on some ofthis disc; master-skilled classical and Flamenco guitars (though Piercehim is a great player), multi-faceted keyboards that more than fill inthe gap of a non-existent bass player, and Scharin's sleek andpolyrhythmic drumming. "Nights Wave" beautifully rings withnylon-stringed guitar chords and vibes over slinky beats which set thefoundation for a heartfelt vocal exchange of loss between Pierce andM�m's Kristin Anna Valtysd�ttir, who also lends her accordion chops.This one still has me hitting the repeat button. The novelly titled"The Days Before Fiction" starts from a wall of plucked guitars, keysand vibes driven by turnaround beats only to transform into traditionalTropicallia for a spell and shift back again without disturbing a hairof the groove. Distorted, upper-register guitar chugs away againstValtysd�ttir's vocals and the bombastic, yet laid-back drums on "TheBoat Room" which gradually becomes complimented with intertwiningvibraphone. One of those discs where you hear something new with eachlisten, Bem-Vida Vontade has far too many salient points todescribe in one review. One noteworthy element about this disc isPierce and company incorporating vocals on a good chunk of this disc.With these new zealous compositions, Mice Parade appears to be leaningmore towards an edgier style of the experimental pop music that cameabout in the late 1960s, but without any pressure to defy themainstream.
Everything on this record screams of biological energy; the music casts a shadow over the room the second it begins and, as it continues, strange flora begins to bloom from it left and right. Lee Norris' work in Metamatics has little to do with this more abstract moniker and it's of little surprise that the Lampse label has decided to make Septs Vents its inaugural release.
First and foremost, it's a beautiful album crawling with night life; fire flies, crickets, owls, and the ominous crunch of dead limbs and old leaves populate every corner of each of these 11 tracks and though it is inviting at times, the majority of this nocturnal beast overflows with an ambient horror. When the hissing and ephemeral life becomes to dense, like a plague of locusts or any insect buzzing over a continent mindlessly, Norris loosens his approach up and allows some sunlight to creep through the dark curtains his monumental sounds can cast. Guitars of near-Spanish descent part the canopy and wooden percussion stroll along underneath creating small oases of comfort and liquid relief. Listened to as background music, Sept Vents acquires a strange flow that twists and turns uncomfortably; it's never allowed me to keep my attention elsewhere for very long and often the shifts in tempo and demeanor will draw me away from my books or from my computer. Close listens bring out a strange logic of indiscernible organic samples and immediately recognizable electronic pulses; the album doesn't exactly play itself out as a strictly electronic album, but it doesn't revel in the realm of field recording, either. The sounds are heavily processed, but remain identifiable enough to feel wholesome, frightening, familiar, or alien (sometimes simultaneously). Lampse may be another label to watch closely, if this record is any indication of its musical platform and commitment to good music, then it's likely that there will be plenty more strange worlds coming from this camp.
They wear silly costumes onstage, are unabashedly sweet and sugary,utilize an arsenal of childish instruments (recorders, xylophones,possibly a Flintstone Phone), and basically make any of their fuzz popforebears look like Mayhem. microindie(US) / Fortuna Pop!(UK)
Bearsuit have a lot stacked against them,so it's surprising that Cat Spectacularmanages to succeed when it is so tempting to simply call them twee-popopportunists and move on. Part of what makes Bearsuit's debut album soenjoyable is easily summed up in the 2:57 of "Cookie Oh Jesus," whereloud, fuzzy guitars and drums take the stage only to be whisked asideby shaky trumpets, insistent tambourines, and the intertwiningmale-female vocals of Iain Ross and Lisa Horton. It's a sugar rush thatdoesn't induce tummy aches or diabetes. Elsewhere, the band let thetempos and the noise slacken, such as on the awkward shuffle of"Cherryade" and "On Your Special Day," a song about life after themachines have turned on their masters that contains the best vocalperformance from Horton who wonders "Why, why are the machines sosad?/Why must they exact such terrible revenge upon the small?" on topof Ross' yearning voice and a bed of gently plucked guitars andrecorders. Bearsuit are not poised to break any new sonic ground to besure, but that hardly matters. They have enthusiasm and charm, andwhile they have a few checks they need to write for Boyracer, Henry'sDress, and Unrest, Cat Spectacular manages to be exactly what it should be for its 29 minute duration: a fun, noisy pop record.
Recorded way back in 1999, Gruntsplatter's Pest Maiden7" and cassette release may not have made much of an impact on thenoise-loving public (perhaps due the limited nature of its release),but it is a fine album deserving of attention. Thus, Troniks/PACrec hasmade the split-up release one monstrous album and Scott E. Candey hasremixed the material especially for the occasion. Troniks/PACrec
The album consists ofthree long pieces and two shorter, these serving more as setupcompositions for the giants that follow them. "Permeating Tissue" is astrange beginning; a vacuous low-end loop cycles over a series ofatmospheric bubbles and gasps for roughly thirteen minutes- the resultisn't boredom, but a strange trance ensues that covers the rest of thealbum in a blackness only a subject like the plague could evoke. Infact, the rest of the album seems to issue a blackness that chokesevery sound Candey decided to use. "The Watchman, The Visited, and TheUnder-Sexton" might have been a medieval chant culled from an oldmonastery still sitting in the mountains of France, but instead issounds like possession, an incendiary demon ripping apart every holysymbol and fracturing the physical body until the soul begins to bleedfrom the bones. Five minutes may not register as much time for anoise-maker to establish such a vivid mood in a piece, but Candey pullsit off with grace. The sounds on the album all feel old, the static andhissing producing the effect of being in a library at times. This couldvery well have been a recording of the plague years, though thefrequent spacious elements used on the record give it a mystical air,as though a Masonic library would be far more appropriate. "FinallySilent" is the 25 minute closer and, true to its name, squelches theprevious four tracks in its size and stature. Screaming, scraping, andabsolutely dying to be released from the terror the album emanates,"Finally Silent" emasculates and devours everything, leaving a tinyquiet place in its wake that feels less like relief and more likedesperate loneliness, a tiny figure waiting to die.
This is the second Beta-Lactam Ring release for the Japanesepsychedelic rock group with possibly the worst band name in modernmusic (outside of emo atrocities like Alongside Magenta and A Month ofSomedays). It might be a good idea for the trio of dead k, T and A tochange their name to something a little more marketable, as the musicisn't bad, really. Beta-Lactam Ring
City Calls Revolution is better recorded and the performances far more energetic and memorable than those on last year's He's Crying 'Look',though the band is still mining the same post-progressive rockterritory, all breathless guitar dynamics, virtuosic drumming andhistrionic, shrieking vocals. Opening track "Concrete City Breakdown"unashamedly begins with a sprinkling of spacey Korg synths and T'sheavily phased Fender Jazz bass, before opening out into aHawkwind-meets-Zappa thing, which continues for perhaps longer than itought to, but is never boring. dead k's broken English squawking isgrating until he really starts bellowing and screaming, and then it's aperfect match for the group's tireless stop-start, adrenaline-pumpedmetal meanderings. Luckily, GMFTPO isn't the sort of progressive bandthat pauses for five-minute solos on bass or drums, so things keepmoving at a breakneck clip, which is good. "OMGS" and "Demagog" [sic]are two shorter tracks sandwiched between the album's behemoth sidelongtracks, and serve as excellent showcases for the group's concise,efficient songwriting efforts, which I actually quite prefer to theirmore long-winded tracks. The trio effortlessly changes key and tempo,barreling through endless corridors of seething rock dynamism, T andA's interplay on "Demagog" at times resembling the stunning openingsequence of Yes' "Heart of the Sunrise." (I admit it, I'm a huge fan ofYes. So sue me.) Ending things off on a post-Floydian note of building,churning splendor is the 38 minutes of "A Day in the Planet Orange,"which creates a cyclical architecture of blistering guitar soloing,intense drumming and complex bass acrobatics. My patience did wear abit thin by the time the group geared up for their final ascent intothe stratosphere, but if I had been on just a little bit of kind bud,I'm sure it would all have seemed a lot more exciting. Not that youneed drugs for GMFTPO's hairy psych-prog showstoppers to make animpression, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt at all. - Jonathan Dean
The first time I put on this CD I turned it off shortly after. Ibelieve I grumbled something along the lines of "Radiohead tributeband." Listening back to it over the last few days I realise I wassorely mistaken, Second Storeyis a lovely piece of work. Bella Union
Art of Fighting may not be breaking newmusical ground but they do know a good melody when they hear one. Theopening track "Along the Run" is a beautiful little song, itsshimmering guitars are very much in tribute to Johnny Marr and OllieBrown's vocals cut through the song clearly and powerfully. Songs like"Break for Me" and "Sing Song" are great examples of a band playing toeach other and adding only what is necessary to the piece. "WhereTrouble Lived" in particular is stunning, Peggy Frew's vocals suitingthe music perfectly to make a song that Low are probably kickingthemselves for not writing it first. If the album could keep this paceI'd be ranting and raving about it but Art of Fighting have an oddhabit of sticking some very weak tracks in between some very nicesongs. The first half of the album is a hodgepodge of good and bad."Your Easy Part" completely destroys the mood that "Along the Run"creates. "Two Rivers" is at first awkward, it fumbles along until allof a sudden it erupts into a thick wall of guitars and Brown's singingsoars. At this point the band seems to have found their feet and therest of the album is solid. Second Storey is a charming album but you have to be prepared for the couple of sore thumbs that mar the first few tracks. - John Kealy
Harsh noise can be fairly boring stuff, but when done properly, thekind of destruction it can unleash (especially live) is impressive,perhaps reaching that apocalyptic level so many reach for. Both RichardRamirez and Skin Crime are seasoned veterans but they've both foundtheir way to the Troniks/PACrec label for this effort in obliterationand, sadly, the results are a bit mixed. Troniks/PACrec
With such a provocative title,I was hoping for something a tad more thematic to come from these two.Some variation is in order here and its still unclear to me what any ofthese songs have to do with the theme presented in the artwork and songtitles. "The Smell of Hospitals" and "Some Sedatives" could've been agreat opportunity to revel in the drugged up hallucinations of hospitalpatients and the perpetual discomfort of visitors, but instead they aresimply two grinding pieces of static and whirlpool noise jammed up therear end of a sick man and left there for maximum evisceration. One isloud, the other is soft, but both feel as though they are composed ofvarious ingredients recorded through the remixing properties of ahousehold blender. The excellently titled "This is the Body I OnceOccupied," on the other hand, wraps up the album on a positive note.While it still sounds as though it was recorded with the help of awashing machine or maybe an industrial wood cutter, there's a bit morespace within the stereo and a little more variation pops up on thistrack than anywhere else on the album. It makes for a more interesting,though slightly less intense listen. Pleasure, Commerce, and Diseaseisn't the most varied record ever, which doesn't surprise me: it's beenmade to chew on flesh and bone, not scatter the mind with any amount ofmental trickery. Whatever shortcomings it has in the way of creativeexploration, it attempts to make up for that in sheer volume and gusto.If having bad hearing for a few days isn't bothersome, then Ramirez andSkin Crime have crafted quite a killer worthy of its overpoweringambition. - Lucas Schleicher