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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I suppose I have been probably been aware of Rrose since the project first appeared back in 2011, but the electronic music scene is teeming with hot new trends and hip new producers that come and go all the time and I lack the time and will to keep up with them all. If someone is doing something genuinely interesting, I tend to find out about it eventually and I can live with being a little late to the party. That said, there were obviously some signs that Rrose was different right from the start (the mysterious alter ego, the nod to Marcel Duchamp, etc.). It was not until she recorded a James Tenney piece, however, that I realized that this project was something considerably weirder and more ambitious than I would ever have expected. Happily, Rrose's trajectory has only gotten more unpredictable and intriguing since, arguably culminating in a recent collaboration with Charlemagne Palestine. It was her series of collaborations with Lucy (as The Lotus Eaters and otherwise) that ultimately drew me fully into Rrose's fitfully stellar discography though. Much to my delight, thisdebut solo full-length (after nearly a decade of EPs and collaborations) is roughly in the same vein as those Lucy collaborations, as Rrose continues to perfect her potent mix of deep bass, heavy rhythms, and warped, hallucinatory electronics.
For the most part, however, nearly all of the strongest pieces occur in rapid succession on the album's first half.The sole significant exception to that trend is the mercilessly thumping "Dissolve," which slowly blossoms into a heady maelstrom of gurgling textures, electronic chirps, and ping-pong percussion.It is a hell of a piece, but it is separated from the early album hot streak by the grinding and simmering "Saliva," which is understated enough to feel like an interlude rather than a fully formed piece.Before that brief lull in intensity, however, Rrose follows the lead-off "Mine" with two more gems in the form of "Bandage" and "Columns."On "Bandage," a woozily swaying and sickly synth pulse smears and undulates as a gnarled groove stealthily gathers force in the depths.Eventually, it blossoms into a wonderfully panning, skittering, and off-kilter percussion work-out, which is roughly the inverse trajectory of its predecessor ("Mine").The following "Columns," on the other hand, comes right out of the gate with a heavy, almost Latin-sounding rhythm and steadily burrows deeper and deeper into an intensifying miasma of trash can percussion, whirring machines, and still more diabolically dissonant music box melodies.
That feeling of relentlessly tunneling into an increasingly warped and hallucinatory state is what keeps bringing me back to Rrose's work, as I cannot think of anyone else who so skillfully blurs the lines between experimental music and the dancefloor.It is quite rare for an artist to be so comfortably at home in both of those worlds, as most producers who ride that line tend to skew heavily to one side or the other.As much as I dig Rrose's aesthetic, however, it is truly the masterful execution that sets this project apart: the rhythms are propulsive and visceral, the tension simmers beautifully, and the textures are vivid and imaginative.Moreover, the slow-burning mindfuckery always feels weirdly natural, as if reality just happens to be slowly dissolving around the ceaseless and unchanging forward motion of the deep, throbbing bass lines.Of course, there are a lot of moving parts that need to be patiently and subtly manipulated to create such an appealing illusion and that lightness of touch is where Rrose shines brightest.In fact, one of my only real critiques of Hymn to Moisture is that some songs are a bit too understated to fully catch fire.The flipside to that, however, is that Rrose never makes a clumsy or false move, nor does she ever seem at all susceptible to current tropes and trends.Aside from that, my only other quibble is that I am not sure why Hymn to Moisture needed to be a full-length: Rrose has had quite a killer run of EPs thus far and this album could have been grist for two or three more.Instead, Hymn feels a bit overstretched, even if it is a coherent and thoughtfully sequenced statement.Fortunately, I think most humans are able to enjoy music without a constant critical narrative running through their heads, so a more sane and healthy take on this release is probably "Wait-there are four great new Rrose songs on just one release?Brilliant."As such, I suppose Hymn To Moisture is a solid place to start for curious listeners, even if it is less of a culmination than it is yet another smattering of gems in a career synonymous with inventive, forward-thinking dance mutations.
While Smith certainly has a fondness for structural minimalism, he is not averse to occasionally expanding into lush chord progressions.The achingly lovely "Fourgan" is one such piece, as two chords languorously seesaw beneath a harmonically rich and sensuously undulating mass of smeared organ-like tones.As it unfolds, it quietly builds in power to a glimmering, phantasmagoric intensity that feels akin to watching a cold, starry night sky slowly melt and change color.Needless to say, that sets an impossibly high bar for the rest of the album and the remaining four pieces never quite scale the same heights.They are, however, all quite likable and add up to quite an absorbing, thoughtfully constructed, and varied whole (albeit within a very deliberately focused and constrained overarching vision).The dreamy, quivering radiance of "Incline," for example, sounds like a more stable and understated variation on the oceanic bliss of "Prologue," while "DA3" transforms Smith's drones into a gnarled and roiling series of rhythmic waves.On the closing "Chinook," however, Smith stretches out of his droning comfort zone once more, as a forlorn-sounding melodic loop insistently repeats over an intensifying hollow drone that seethes with cosmic dread. It sounds like what might result if Abul Mogard was commissioned to soundtrack a deeply atmospheric and psychologically disturbing science fiction film, which is very appealing terrain indeed.
For me, the fact that this album was recorded on an extremely rare synthesizer is mostly just an interesting bit of trivia and a good hook for generating interest.The primary appeal for Shasta Cults is mostly that it is an especially strong synth album that evokes and sustains a heady, psychotropic atmosphere akin to a dispatch from a haunted and glimmering future: this is the kind of music that an improbably soulful replicant might make in the world of Blade Runner.At its heart, however, Shasta Cults actually feels like something more unique and fascinating than that, which is why this album resonates with me more than a lot of ostensibly similar fare: these songs could have only been birthed from this specific combination of machine and man.That is not to say that Smith achieves some kind of grand stylistic breakthrough here, but it genuinely feels like he has an intuitive genius for bringing out the essence and personality of each mass of knobs and wires that he spends a significant amount of time with.After hearing Shasta Cults, it is very tempting to over-romanticize Smith as some kind of "synth whisperer" or "analog empath" and I will (grudgingly) resist the urge to do that.However, Smith's intimate and nuanced understanding of oscillators, waves, and signal processing is very real and it often yields very compelling results.
After being blown away by a few tunes – probably just as you will be after listening to this - Samy Ben Redjeb traveled to the infamous capital city of Somalia in November of 2016, making Analog Africa the first music label to set foot in Mogadishu. On his arrival in Somalia, Samy began rifling through piles of cassettes and listening to reel-to-reel tapes in the dusty archives of Radio Mogadishu, looking for music that "swam against the current."
The stars were aligned: an uncovered and unmarked pile of discarded recordings was discovered in a cluttered corner of the building. Colonel Abshir - the senior employee and protector of Radio Mogadishu's archives - clarified that the pile consisted mostly of music nobody had manage to identify, or music he described as being "mainly instrumental and strange music." At the words "strange music," Samy was hooked, the return flight to Tunisia was cancelled.
The pile turned out to be a cornucopia of different sounds: radio jingles, background music, interludes for radio programs, television shows and theater plays. There were also a good number of disco tunes, some had been stripped of their lyrics, the interesting parts had been recorded multiple times then cut, taped together and spliced into a long groovy instrumental loop. Over the next three weeks, often in watermelon, grapefruit juice and shisha-fuelled night-time sessions behind the fortified walls of Radio Mogadishu, Samy and the archive staff put together Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu, 1974–1991.
Like everywhere in Africa during the 1970s, both men and women sported huge afros, bell-bottom trousers and platform shoes. James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations' funk were the talk of the town.
In 1977, Iftin Band were invited to perform at the Festac festival in Lagos where they represented Somalia at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. Not only did they come back with an award but they also returned with Afrobeat. While Fela Kuti's "Shakara" had taken over the continent and was spreading like wildfire throughout Latin America, it was the track "Lady" that would become the hit in Mogadishu.
At the same time, Bob Marley was busy kick-starting reggae-mania in Somalia, which became such a phenomenon that even the police and military bands began playing it. Some say that it was adopted so quickly because of the strong similarities with the traditional beat from the western region of Somalia, called Dhaanto.
But then suddenly the trousers got tighter as the disco tsunami hit the country. Michael Jackson appeared with a new sound that would revolutionize Somalia's live music scene. You couldn't walk the streets of Mogadishu without seeing kids trying to moonwalk.
"Somalia had several nightclubs and although most use DJs to play records, some hotels like Jubba, Al-Uruba and Al Jazeera showcased live bands such as Iftin and Shareero" - so ran a quote from a 1981 article about the explosion of Mogadishu's live music scene. The venues mentioned in that article were the luxury hotels that had been built to cover the growing demands of the tourist industry. The state-of-the-art hotel Al-Uruba, with its oriental ornaments and white plastered walls, was a wonder of modern architecture. All of Mogadishu's top bands performed there at some point or another, and many of the songs presented in this compilation were created in such venues.
Mogadisco was not Analog Africa's easiest project. Tracking down the musicians - often in exile in the diaspora - to interview them and gather anecdotes of golden-era Mogadishu has been an undertaking that took three years. Tales of Dur-Dur Band's kidnapping, movie soundtracks recorded in the basements of hotels, musicians getting electrocuted on stage, others jumping from one band to another under dramatic circumstances, and soul singers competing against each other, are all stories included in the massive booklet that accompanies the compilation - adorned with no less then 18 pictures from the '70s and '80s.
As Colonel Abshir Hashi Ali, chief don at the Radio Mogadishu archive - someone who once wrestled a bomber wielding an unpinned hand-grenade to the floor - put it: "I have dedicated my life to this place. I'm doing this so it can get to the next generation; so that the culture, the heritage and the songs of Somalia don't disappear."
For Patrick Flegel, Cindy Lee is more than just a recording music project. It is the culmination of a lifelong exploration of art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. "Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life," explains Flegel, "and also provided the soundtrack to the best times."
Following the dissolution of Canadian experimental indie band Women, Flegel would delve deeper into songwriting that bends further toward high atmospherics and bracing melodies – a unique space where splendor naturally collides with experimentation. Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder.
What's Tonight To Eternity, Cindy Lee's fifth long-form offering, showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs. Recorded at Flegel's Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide.
Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer / drummer's early recordings as well as her look and style. "I found a deep interest and comfort in Karen's story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age and being a misfit looking for connection. The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her has to do with what is hidden, what is unknown."
What's Tonight To Eternity remains a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs. Closing with the song "Heavy Metal" (dedicated to the memory of former Women bandmate Chris Reimer) and adorned by Andrea Lukic's Journal of Smack artwork, the album continues the bold and rewarding path on which Cindy Lee has embarked.
The aural illustration of a year of bliss, sorrow, and stasis, NYC bedroom-ambient wanderer Viul follows last spring's Bright Decline (Disques d'Honoré, 2019) with thirteen new pieces weaving delicate hints of vocals, synthesizer, tape texture and field recording into his foundational guitar loops. On Outside the Dream World, his debut full-length for emerging ambient curator Past Inside the Present, Viul quickly coaxes unlikely melodies to the fore: "Sur Canadian TV" builds ominously from the residue of orchestral tune-up collage "Spring Mash," while the gauze of the title track momentarily disguises a sinewy pop arrangement before ceding to the frigid, expansive "Sewn." The record's second side hosts a study in contrasts embodied by the dense swirl of "Spacefuck Symmetry Endpoint" against the near-motionless finale "Shroud." Mastered at Black Knoll Studio by Rafael Anton Irisarri and featuring cover photography by Benoît Pioulard, Outside the Dream World is a vivid addition to PITP's growing catalogue of ambient serenity.
The prolific Kink Gong (aka Laurent Jeanneau) returns in a unique duet with one of the most prominent artists of the Chinese avantgardist scene Li Daiguo. Kink Gong and Li Daiguo first met in Chengdu (capital of Sichuan Province, China) while playing the same night at the Jahbar music venue.
A few months later, as they become neighbors in Cai Cun, a village near the old town of Dali (Yunnan), Kink Gong begins recording Daiguo playing Pipa, Cello and Zheng. He then proceeded to deconstruct these recordings while adding voices that he mainly recorded in Yunnan Province. This fantastic combination of field recordings, experimental folk melodies and electronic treatment leads us to a fourth underground universe reminiscent of Jon Hassell's finest hours.
Future Predictions is a set of ensemble pieces made with tape loops, from digital and acoustic instruments, field recordings and foley sounds. With a focus on introspection and imagination, each piece begins with all layers playing, with minimal additional long-term structural development in order to maintain a state. Each piece of music is accompanied by photos, and text written with a shifting tense.
As a follow-up to 2018's Memory Repetitions which was based on memory and the interpretation of it over time, Future Predictions is instead based on the idea of future situations, and should be seen as a meditation on future events.
All music was recorded with high-quality recycled reel-to-reel tape. It has been mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung, and designed by Rutger Zuydervelt.
Limited edition, custom-made clamshell box, 4xCDs in pocket sleeves, and 16-page booklet. Digital version includes PDF booklet.
The first LP from Scorn since 2010's Refuse; Start Fires, Cafe Mor is Mick Harris in his happy place. Which just happens to be in studio, demolishing all standards and rules for electronic bass music, and embodying the darkest, deepest sound in dub. Cafe Mor takes risks outside of the conventional Scorn apparatus and with these risks come substantial rewards.
The album is comprised of powerful dub excursions, from the deep dark dank of the front two tracks "Elephant" and "The Lower The Middle Our Bit," and gaining steam towards the ultraviolence of "Mugwump Tea Room" to "Never Let It Be Said" to the CRUSHING DEATH KICK of "Who Are They Which One." A quick drive under the lights with a lasered out snare on "Dulse," then we come across the appearance from Sleaford Mods frontman, Jason Williamson, on the standout track on the LP, "Talk Whiff."
Cafe Mor culminates in the all-in-one dub affair "SA70," letting rip all the new mixer and FX techniques of Harris' most recent incarnation of Scorn. The album is the official soundtrack for all smoked-out backroom deals, situations and arrangements, cancelling all small tours, and mongoose rhinocharging the bass to level 24.
"Raime strain at the harness in four cuttingly sharp mutations of Afrobeats, Footwork, and Jungle with scintillating results on the 2nd release on their RR imprint.
Where the London duo’s 2018 EP and RR debut We Can't Be That Far From The Beginning evoked a meditative mood from the info overload of their home city that left acres of space to the imagination, the Planted EP rejoins the dance with four tracks that icily acknowledge strong influence from Latin American and Chicago footwork styles in a classically skooled mutation of hardcore British dance music.
In four fleetingly ambiguous dancefloor workouts they carry on a conceptual theme exploring the digital subconscious with persistently invasive, alien ambient shrapnel - half-heard voices, aleatoric prangs, and tag-covered signposts - woven into and thru their tightly coiled and reflexive drum programming.
Uptown, "Num" flexes tendons and hips like a Leonce riddim that danced all the way from NOLA and ATL to the wintery dawn of a LDN warehouse, while the lip-biting tension of minimalist 160bpm jungle/footwork patterns and jibber-jawed vocals in "Ripli" suggests the Alien film's protagonist lost in a mazy rave space, chased by H.R. Giger-designed face huggers (or gurning energy vampires). Downtown "Kella" then catches them on a grimy dubtech bounce, cocked back and straining at the harness, before "Belly" shuts down the dance with invasive, demonic motifs exploding over dark blue chords and palpitating jungle subs with impeccable darkside style."
On September 12, 2018 Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo and guitarist extraordinaire Jean-Marc Montera joined Maurizio and Roberto Opalio in their hometown Torino, Italy, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the brothers' visionary project My Cat Is An Alien. That evening the stage of Alfa Teatro—a liberty-style, historical theater built in 1928—hosted the live world premiere of this quartet, whose members already collaborated live and on records with each other during the years, yet never all the four together. The quartet live performance followed MCIAA's radical aesthetic of "instantaneous composition," where nothing is defined nor drafted prior to the act of music creation, and every sound and action is shaped around a higher-order scheme dictated by the empathy and synergy of the actual moment of enlightenment. The show was also accompanied by the projection of a brand new cinematic poetry dual film created by Roberto Opalio and previewed on the occasion, whose Super-8 film's relentless flickering and ascending motion worked "ad hoc" to match the music and body gestures of the performance, thus enhancing its transcendental power.
That night Maurizio Opalio (self-made double-bodied wooden string instrument, pedal effects, bell), Roberto Opalio (wordless vocalizations, bodhran, Alientronics, electric guitar, space toys), Jean-Marc Montera (table top guitar, pedals, little gong), and Lee Ranaldo (vocals, electric guitar, bells) moved through still unexplored and unheard music territories.
This music is a pure ecstatic revelation, a unique, powerful and spiritual experience all of its own. Listening to this album we are offered a true epiphany just as uniquely gifted genius improvisers/composers of the past would grace our ears and souls.
Faitiche is delighted to present a new album by Andrew Pekler. Sounds From Phantom Islands brings together ten tracks created over the last three years for the interactive website Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas. With his 2016 album Tristes Tropiques, Pekler created a highly unique cosmos of ethnographic sound speculations. Sounds From Phantom Islands continues and simultaneously expands this concept: finely elaborated chordal motifs float like fog over fictional maritime landscapes. A masterpiece of contemporary Exotica.
Phantom islands are islands that appeared on historical maps but never actually existed. The status of these artefacts of European colonial expansion from the 15th to the 19th century oscillates between cartographic fact and maritime fiction. Sounds From Phantom Islands interprets and presents these imaginations as a quasi-ethnographic catalog of music and synthetic field recordings. The pieces on this album are based on recordings made for Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas, an online interactive map developed with cultural anthropologist Stefanie Kiwi Menrath.