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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Now complete, Dunn's sprawling and epic "The Cohesive Redundancies" series takes the composer's love of massive statements to its logical extreme (and perhaps even beyond it).  Spanning four albums of wildly varying lengths, Dunn's sustained examination of "futility and beauty" feels somewhat reminiscent of The Caretaker's "Everywhere at the End of Time" series, as each section feels like a deeper stage of deterioration and mutation than the previous one. Given that, the first installment of the series is the one that will most appeal to fans of Dunn's usual distinctive ambient/drone fare, but listeners amenable to more radical sound art will find the rest of the series to be quite a fascinating (and oft-challenging) rabbit hole to explore as well. In fact, it is even a challenge to determine which album is the most dramatic outlier in Dunn's oeuvre, as the series alternately delves into tender piano elegy (TCR: Deuxième), an extended deconstruction and reworking of a single piece ("Fantasia on a Theme of Affection") from TCR-P1 with collaborator Simon Stader (TCR III), and an '80s Italian noise tape and Giallo-inspired cannibalization by Thomas A. Brust (TCR IV). That said, Brust's contribution is quite something indeed, clocking in at a confrontationally monolithic four-hour tour de force of cold and blackened industrial-damaged drones.
For the sake of simplicity, it is useful to divide this overwhelming opus into two categories: the melodic/expected side of Kyle Bobby Dunn and the radical deconstruction of Kyle Bobby Dunn (I am surprised that the latter has not been an album title yet). It is still quite a challenge to make any general statements about this series, however, as even the first two installment are wildly different from one another, but listeners merely hoping for Dunn’s usual brand of sublime ambient will not want to venture any further than the first installment (reviewed separately here). It is admittedly a bit more "durational" than some of the composer's previous fare (the album's drifting and dreamlike centerpiece clocks in at nearly an hour), but it is a strong stand-alone album that checks nearly every box of my personal "classic KBD drone" checklist: an elegantly minimal processed guitar theme lazily winding across a stark and somewhat cool backdrop of lingering haze, tape hiss, room tone, and enigmatic buried sounds (it is no coincidence that Dunn lists "mic placement" among his instrumental credits). The "redundancy" bit of "The Cohesive Redundancies" starts to sneakily manifest itself with the surprisingly brief Deuxième, which Dunn describes as a "somber piano epic for the late and lovely Joni Sadler" (a fellow Montreal artist in the Constellation milieu). "Threnody for Joni" is an unusual piece for Dunn, as it calls to mind a version of Harold Budd that is stretched and dissolved into a semi-ambient haze. While I have no idea if "Threnody" literally blossomed forth from one of the pieces on TCR P-1, it at least feels like an expansion and evolution of the Budd-like passages in "Pavane for the Internal Monologue."
When the colder, industrial-tinged thrum of the third installment's "Hamstrung at Heathrow Airport Horn Suite" arrives, however, things veer decisively into more unexpected and unusual territory and only get darker and more gnarled from there.As Dunn puts it, Stader's transformations examine "sadness and suffering in more brutal detail" and "take variants from the previous sessions to create new works."In more concrete terms, it is an unrepentantly challenging album that demands almost superhuman patience from listeners, as TCR III's four pieces are chilled, aggressively minimal, and glacial in pace, but they can also be quite beautiful in a bleak way.My favorite piece is "Complex Illumination on a Theme (variante automnale)," which my notes alternately describe as "grainy dreamlike billowing with a bit of sizzle," "slow-motion breaking waves," and "fluttering and flickering ghosts trapped inside a single frayed and dissolving drone." Other pieces call to mind a slowly burning incense stick, a shimmering fog rolling across a windswept prairie, or the slow/durational cinema of James Benning.Admittedly, it takes some time to adapt to the near-geologic time scale, but acquired tastes can offer deeper pleasures than lower hanging fruit and I would say that is true of TCR III: someone, somewhere will likely emerge from the album with a blown or at least permanently reconfigured mind.Dunn, of course, did not stop decide to stop with that dark horse contender for best album in the series though.Consequently, we also have the certain-to-be-polarizing TCR IV.
I personally still have no idea what to make of the series' massive final installment, as I certainly enjoy its grimy and lurid Italian inspirations, yet generally enjoying an aesthetic and wanting an overwhelming four-hour dose of said aesthetic are different things altogether.Then again, maybe they are not, as TCR IV features two or three pieces that unexpectedly transform into something quite good after 10, 20, or sometimes even 30 minutes of noisily droning near-statis.It almost feels like Brust decided to willfully alienate every last weak-willed or impatient listener before unveiling all the cool shit (an endearing move, if true).Do the extreme durations make the payoffs more satisfying?I honestly have no idea, but pieces like "In the Dead of Night Thru the Vast St. Mary" definitely get somewhere compelling if I am willing to stick around long enough.Beyond that, TRC IV will hold a lot of appeal for anyone craving the sounds of a KBD album being bulldozed by a harsh noise set.I cannot say I was craving that myself, yet there are plenty of rewarding moments that call to mind a contact mic’d biplane smashing into the ground in extreme slow motion, a dub remix of an earthquake, or someone tenaciously adjusting the tracking on a VCR in hopes that a more melodic piece will emerge.Regardless of how much I will ultimately warm to the unrecognizably ravaged mutations of the third and fourth installments, "The Cohesive Redundancies" is one hell of an admirable achievement.It is probably is not the series of albums that anyone knew they wanted, but that is how great art works: something novel smacks me in the face and I am then forced to reevaluate what I thought I knew and liked.This series may be an exhausting and prickly artistic statement, but it is also a wildly ambitious, bold, and mostly successful one as well.
Soleilmoon Recordings The Legendary Pink Dots' horn player Niels Van Hoorn and Mark Spybey ofDead Voices On Air have been collaborating for a few years now. Neilshas contributed to DVOA live sets, the 'Frankie Pett' album and theSpybey / Mick Harris disc 'Bad Roads, Young Drivers' disc. But thisproject, created while Spybey was a resident of the Van Hoorn householdin The Netherlands, puts the focus almost entirely upon Niels - hishorn playing as well as the various sounds to be found and made amongstthe pastoral riverside setting he calls home. All of this is, ofcourse, thoroughly digitally processed by Spybey, so much so that halfof the 54 minutes passes before a sound typical of a horn is heard. Butthe atypical is just as welcome here as the possibilities of the hornplaying are explored. After a few listens, I've become as fascinated asSpybey is with the sounds he has gathered and shaped. In the extensiveliner notes he explains the process involved for each track, howexactly he recorded Niels or what exactly we're hearing, such as micescurrying about the barn, a power generator, Niels welding, riverboats, distorted raindrops, an old jazz record, etc. Most of the trackssimply, slowly, quietly flow - presumably like the nearby river Waal -the music being something pleasantly in-between melodic and abstract."South Side Style", "Empress of the Blues" and "Stockyard Strut" arelittle more than beautifully melancholy flute, tenor and baritone saxphrases, respectively. A couple of tracks are a bit more mischievous."Jelly Lord" is a backwards, overdriven horn anthem for the Land ofClover, darkly underpinned by nearing thunderstorms. And "Scrapper Boy"erupts into a buzzing machine drone akin to Mika Vainio's solo work.Spybey and Van Hoorn have created not only a souvenir of a time andplace of their friendship, but a really lovely soundtrack for others toshare in. 'Klaverland' might just end up on my best of 2002 list.
Soleilmoon Recordings The Silverman is keyboardist Phil Knight, a founding and current memberof The Legendary Pink Dots. This is his third solo album following upon 1995's 'Dream Cell' for Terminal Kaleidoscope and 1998's'Silvermandalas', also for Soleilmoon. Like the latter, this disc issimply comprised of numbered parts, in this case six interconnectedtracks ranging from two to nearly 13 minutes in length. The title isperfect as the album was motivated by the death of his father and theplaces Knight lived and visited while working upon it. Each setting isunique and incorporates found as well as synthesized sounds. Part onefeatures ghostly metallic bell tones amidst a dense, shifting fog. Twomoves into a more electronic territory as a sequence of synth notes,waves and background bass bumps plays out. Three glistens as a dulcimerand subdued electronics dance with an elegant array of winter soundssuch as crumpled snow, cracked ice and water. It's really something howit gracefully slips in and out of consciousness. Four and five arebrief interludes of mechanical whirrings, swooping tones, more bells,rain (or maybe fire) and birdsong. And six is the requiem itself.Steady synth voices become masked by wind and the sounds of trains,evoking cross country movement as well as sorrow. Much like DavidTibet's homage to his departed father, Current 93's 'Sleep Has HisHouse', The Silverman has respectfully paid tribute to his own fatherwith a very lovely album, his best yet.
Touch Philip Jeck always seems to surprise and surpass expectation every timeI hear him perform. I've heard him spin out haunting loops for avantgarde dancers to strut about to in art spaces. I've heard him spinstickered platters alongside guitarist Vergil Sharkya and fractalvideographer Gerd Willschvetz in an underground car park in Liverpool.I've heard his scaffolded ranks of old car boot turntables mash upcrackly memory traces from worn needles bumping into wires and stickersin a London gallery. I've heard him go walkabout at a festival opening,cutting up dictaphone recordings with the pause button. After hisambitious quartet of lengthily (r)evolving 'Vinyl Codas' released bythe Intermedium label, he returns to Touch with seven shorter liveexcerpts from performances in Liverpool, Manchester, Osaka, Tokyo andVienna. With only a single sample Casio keyboard to aid the junkyardturntables spinning varispeed deteriorating vinyl, he necessarilylimits his options but unlocks endless potentials from abundantalternate histories coded in the grooves. When he loops records at lowspeed, worn old cliches morph into haunting new textures. A phantasmalkeyboard hoot that forms the bedrock of "Pax" sounds like it might'vemorphed slowly from a cheesy old J. Geils Band charity shop hit."Above" cuts scratchy old vinyl into train chug clunks and chickensquawk with some slowed speech narration to explain what exactly isn'tgoing on. "Lambing" is a home recording, soundtracking a film by LucyBaldwyn, and wouldn't sound out of place on his previous Touch CD'Surf,' with groaning ghost vox repeating an eerie refrain over thecrackle'n'drone spin, until slowly a sunrise glow cracks dawn beneaththe locked groove rhythm faultlines. "Vienna Faults" waltz around likea music box in a tumble dryer. There's some crazily mangled sitar"Below," reversing into hollow metal hammering, cut dead by a suddendescending blues guitar riff. "Open" seems to rework familiar noisesfrom 'Surf' into a noisier delayed clatter. "Close" does just that,with some more sitar loops, more meditative but just as playful asbefore. Stray starry plucked fragments drop in at odd angles until aloop locks and deteriorates to a stutter as a single piano note bashesto infinity. A ghost choir of Hamaiian folk singers emerges from thevinyl crackle fog to bid a fond farewell. If you haven't heard PhilipJeck before, this is not his most immediate recording and 'Surf' or the'Vinyl Coda' series might be better ports of entry. He has not yet leftthe building.
Uru Swedish group Pallin has chosen a very difficult path for themselves inthe modern age of Swedish music. A market and genre that usuallyincludes fairly horrible bands with grating pop sensibilities has nouse for Pallin, who create guitar-and-strings-based simple compositionsthat are perfect background music for your Saturday afternoon fishingtrip. "A One Bedroom Apartment," then, is a decidedly quiet affair, butnot without moments of jarring efficiency. The first release I've heardby the band, this collection is assured, playful, yet not entirelystunning. The only thing I felt throughout my listening to this CD thattroubled me was the overwhelming feeling that I'd heard it all before,just by some other band. Some tracks were reminiscent of EricBachmann's work with Crooked Fingers and Barry Black, others soundedvaguely like structures on a gybe! record. But if you're going toremind people of other bands, you can't go wrong with those two. AndPallin rarely goes wrong. This music is soothing without pretense,gorgeous without effort, and memorable without complete originality. Itis a "yawner" in areas: the first moments of the title track left meclose to the longest sleep since Rip Van Winkle, and most tracks dotake a few moments to build to their true happy hunting ground.However, the musicians are confident in their abilities, and do holdcommand over their instruments. I haven't heard twang like this on mostcountry records of recent memory, and that's precisely where it shouldbe found. I could have done without the few moments of field recording,but, ultimately, it doesn't really matter by the final track, which isjust plain lovely while entirely too short. Easily my pick of the week.
Family Vineyard Anytime I read about a band that creates "post-rock soundscapes" thesedays, I tend to cringe. It's a pretty generic term that usually implies"Try this next time you have trouble sleeping." Long, drawn-out,sprawling epics that top the ten minute mark are also not unheard ofwith this description. Nevertheless, sometimes a band slips throughthat fine veil of half mediocrity/half meandering to create somebeautiful music. On previous records, both artists involved on "PassingSong" have created music that suggests they are capable of breakingthrough, but need more time to develop. Working together on thisrelease hasn't helped them one bit: they're still both stuck in thatrealm. This release isworth listening to, but I doubt you'll take anything away from it thatwill change your life. It is what it is: simple song structures with acapable voice attached that ultimately go nowhere new or special. Theydon't touch a nerve. They don't even scratch the surface of the skin.They hang there, in the air, waiting for that defining moment that willseparate the wheat from the chaff. And it never comes. Having saidthat, a few of the tracks do have incredible potential, and I see somegreat things coming from this pairing down the road. The opening track,'Only When You Sleep', smolders in its languid drawl, and the justplain scary 'Snow Sunrise' purports to decimate us all even though itnever manages to. A good set by two powerful creative forces thatdeserve more notice. Maybe with another set like this one, they willget it.
Family Vineyard 'Imagination of Rhythm' and 'Unknown Source of Egoism' are not exactlyfavorable track titles for a band's debut release. And given what themembers of Rope have been through, it almost seems like high time foranother slap in the face to go with their hardships. "Fever" wasrecorded in 2000 in the band's native Poland, after which they sold alltheir belongings and moved to America. Land of opportunity or not,America may not be quite ready for Rope. Slow to build, almostcacaphonous in places, and even a little bit irritating, their music isthat of an unskilled child: unsure, monotonous, repetitive and amateur.It's not altogether unpleasing, though. As first recordings go, "Fever"is pretty good. You can definitely hear the influences on their music,and you can tell that they're searching for that sound of their own.It's all pretty eerie, as each track jars and thumps, but soars withsharp sounds, escalating towards God knows what. 'Liquid Courage' isactually the most complete track, and the most calm for the first 3minutes or so. Then it descends into the same noise that mars the othertracks. Fortunately, there is room for improvement. Since Chris Drazekand Robert Iwanik are now living in Chicago, they'll have plenty tohear that will affect their pallette. I predict the next Rope recordwill sound nothing like this. And I look forward to hearing it. Thisone was just a bit too much for me.
Domizil Steinbrüchel zooms in from Zurich weaving unique cyclical digitalhisscapes. On this 3" CD he repeatedly unwinds a coiled wire ofimmersive hi-tone ambience in exponentially swelling chunks. Betweeneach are short silent gaps which have been given their own track ID.The first track is seconds of silence and each odd numbered track lopsa couple of seconds off its silent spell. Each time round more isrevealed, until track 18 the full eight minute masterpiece unfurls.This might seem a bit of a pointlessly conceptual approach, but itworks brilliantly, as each new track paints in a little more detail.About halfway through it's evolution, a bass drone undertow bolstersthe meticulous circling scatter-glitch'n'sinewave. Steinbrüchel israising the stakes for anyone trying their hand at 21st century ambientcomputer music, and my powers of description seem utterly inadequte toconvey the mysterious alien beauty of 'zwischen.raum.' The shortduration of the 3" disc works in his favour, leaving me curious to hearmore. This CD will probably appeal to those who enjoy the fine honedtones of Fennesz, Thomas Köner, Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio and OrenAmbarchi. Words are not much use here, I've been trying and failing forweeks now to do this CD justice. Just try the sound samples.
Minus Habens VOE is the new project of Paul Browse (ex-Clock DVA, T.A.G.C.) withNirto Karsten Fischer, composer and producer of successful commercialfilm scores and modern choreographies. Therefore, it's not toosurprising that the whole album leaves me with the impression of havinglistened to a soundtrack. The songs mostly flow into each other but thename Visions of Excess could be misleading, as the trance,techno-resemblant mood more closely resembles Clock DVA's 'BuriedDreams' phase. The rhythms are updated breakbeats, but the generalfeeling of an urban late night / early morning Metropolis is evoked bymetallic edged electronic sounds with loads of delay, reverb and anoccasional isolated human voice lost in a cyberspace wasteland (aseemingly stylistic trademark unexclusive to Adi Newton). If you'venever been into DVA you might remember the much over-hypeddrum-and-bass act Photek (where is he now?) and his first releases, ifnot try the samples. A special guest featured in three tracks (amongthem, "Transvaluation") is Robert Anton Wilson who met VOE in theirstudio. But sadly only a few snippets appear, not a whole reading likewhen Paul Browse's early 90's project System O1 featured Dr. TimothyLeary. Paul Browse himself takes over vocals successfully on four othertracks including, "The Hibernation Man" most notably. I've got somewhatmixed emotions about this album as I do like the style and the moodhere a lot, but I actually had hoped for something more well-developedand can't get rid of the feeling they're playing more safe thanneccessary.
Queen Elizabeth is Julian Cope and Thighpaulsandra's ongoing "sonic ritual" project. Birthed in 1993, the first album was released in 1994 and the second double album, newly reissued, in 1997. Well over three hours of improvised music is spread over the three discs, the "shortest" of the seven tracks being thirteen minutes. As one might expect from these two space cadets, languid analog ambience (or "Ambulence" as Cope refers to it) via Mellotrons, Moogs and ARPs is the primary mode of space-time travel here, though percussion, guitars and miscellany also play a part.
On the debut, brash quasi-arpeggios make up the bulk of "Superstar" while intentionally distorted piano chords interrupt the knob twiddling drift in "Avebury: The Arranged Marriage of Heaven and Earth". On 'Elizabeth Vagina', "Tal-y-Fan" is a shocker kicking off with bombastic rock drums and bass guitar groove, later settling into extensive modulations. And the tail end of "Temples of Ker" breaks into a charming piano and guitar led ditty, nearly negating the 11 minutes of chugging synths preceding it. It surprises me that with this much meat, there's not that much to really sink my teeth into. That is, instead of being engrossed, I more often than not find myself impatiently waiting for something better to happen. I love ambient minded music but I feel that most of this material is lacking in magick and is, well, rather self-indulgent. And everything here pales in comparison to Thighpaulsandra's later work with Coil and on his own. He took the Queen Elizabeth concept to the next level for his brilliant solo debut 'I, Thighpaulsandra' by fashioning ingenious songs amongst the meandering moments. Even Cope cops to this by admitting in the sleeve notes, in reference to a track on 'I' originally intended for a third Queen Elizabeth release, that it "vastly transcends the breadth of musical vision originally destined for the Queen Elizabeth version".
Staubgold H.S. Ziegler began flooding the German underground scene withself-released home-produced cassettes in the 1980s. Particularlyannoying naive and dada-esque, he used every style and toy instrumenthe could get hold of to develope his ways of expression. Throughout the1990s, he released a wide variety of stuff in nearly any possibleformat on a wide selection of independent labels, teamed up with Blummfor more than 3 CDs and making regular guest appearances on Mouse OnMars releases, starting with 'Iaora Tahiti'. 'Kopf Zahl Bauch' (Head Number Belly) is finally his all-star album,featuring guest collaborators Mouse On Mars on "Toy Tech Two", alongwith Marcus Schmickler, FX Randomiz, Reuber, Blumm, Guido M?bius, andRon Martin (more or less the whole A-Musik crowd with Joseph Suchyco-producing). This is by no means a wild electronica avant-gardecelebrity album, but a collection of alternative pop tunes withcharming harmonies and melodies and the occasional vocal tunes aboutlost loves, daily observations, and vacations in New York. "Urlauber InNew York," for example, from the 'Staubgold 20' compilation, is used asthis album's opener. These songs can get quite emotional but never tothe point of sheer annoyance. Ballads like "Einsam" (Lonely) or "Zwei Wochen Zwei" (Two Weeks Two,again with Joseph Suchy) or just songs like "Schenken" (Give a Gift,with Reuber) get better with each listening. The only track which is abit too drowsy for me is "Lila Regen" (Pink Rain), but otherwise, thisis a very cute and friendly album.