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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Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer originally created the bulk of their latestmanic loop noise excursion as a credit card shaped CD full of MP3versions of some mostly fairly short tracks. This was sold only viaAquarius Records of San Francisco who have been longtime admirers ofthe Fflinty Ones. Now they've plonk the bulk of those MP3's onto aregular music CD-R with six mostly longer and dronier extra tracks,adorned in a sleeve featuring a grinning Bob of the Church of theSubgenius lookalike that could be a homage to the fifties spoofcollages of Winston Smith's Alternative Tentacles sleeves.It's anotherdose of unsettled noisescaping that would sit well on the soundtracksfor old horror or sci-fi films. 'Cyan Krilp Vipers' entangle and bite apoor Japanese singer causing her voice to sink much lower. 'ThroatCorrosives' has near silent spells cut dead by sudden bursts of synthgloom and distant mumbling choking voices. 'Graphic Tranquiliser' dragsa rapidfire loop through squalling feedback before submerging it in afragment of a jazz trumpet radio broadcast. 'Blighted Sump' is as big anasty oily engine noise drone as the title suggests. 'Kelpies' could bea short recording of the funny little creatures that sing a highpitched drowning song when the Fflint Central toilet cistern fills up.'Fracas at the Hotel Gargoyle' loops fading photos of fairground organas machinery rattles malevalently. 'Occident Bowl' shrouds a ramblingguitar solo in gut rumbling gurgles. The clattering 'Skinned Teeth'sounded great coming over the radio on the John Peel show one eveningand caught me by surprise as I didn't recognise it and at firstexpected it to morph into a Position Chrome type drum'n'bass track.Later longer tracks 'Cirrhosis of the Cormorant', 'Tones Unread' and'Rubber Glove Stirfry' are mostly based around thick ectoplasmicsynthtone drones and suggest that the Fflinty Ones' propensity forridiculous song titles is not about to run dry. 'Four Minute Symphony'spins the radio dial again, with an etherial orchestra submerged inrandom synth squeakings. The final track 'Unseen' bubbles swampily as amystery voice proclaims that, "People are afraid of what they don'tknow." -
Death Cab For Cutie was at first the brainchild of Ben Gibbard, hisstab at a solo project. After early success, however, he recruited aband, a strong and tight group of players who could bring across hisbrand of post-punk pop with fervor and skill."The Photo Album," DeathCab's third full-length, shows a lot of the strengths of their previousreleases with a solid set of new songs, but also begins to show signsof weakness. It's an appropriate title, as the release is the slice oflife type, stories told by the band on the road and pictures of theirpast. "Styrofoam Plates" is dripping with imagery of a life without afather figure, and "A Movie Script Ending" is a fine piece oftoe-tapping indie rock with fluid guitar work and solid drumming. Asalways, Gibbard's voice is clear, distinct, and inescapably endearing,especially when he reaches for notes you swear he won't hit. Theaddition of harmonies here and there, notably on "Blacking Out TheFriction," is a nice change, adding a nice dimension to theproceedings. The music is all fresh, full of energy, and well executed.It's in the lyrics where the weakness lies. On "We Laugh Indoors,"Gibbard says "I loved you Guinevere" about eight times too many. And"Why You'd Want To Live Here," while a solid rock song, is full ofimages of Los Angeles that are trite and over-done. We all know it'ssmoggy and hard to breathe there, and the line "Is this the city ofangels or demons?" almost made me want to gag. Still, it's a goodrecord, and the band's most accomplished work, as well as their hardestrock record yet. I just hope Gibbard's lyric writing doesn't continueon its downward spiral too long, becoming a parody of every indie rockband, or of itself. But, as Gibbard puts it, quoting a billboard butinadvertently summarizing Death Cab's efforts "We are not perfect, butwe sure try." Indeed. Catch them on tour with the Dismemberment Planand Cex starting in February. -
Here's a very strange album that resides along a blurry line betweentape collage and electro-acoustic improvised music. Despite the(intended to be helpful, I'm sure) liner notes describing which trackswere live performances (implying that the remaining tracks were studiocreations), I can't tell what's what here, and I'm going to guess thatthis is the intended effect. A track of plastic fumbling and scrapingof unidentified (and unidentifiable) amplified small objects ispluncked down side-by-side with mercilessly rapid cassette-tapepause-button collage. Through the collages, one can discern elementsthat might have started life as improvised amplified-objectperformances. Another piece might be a live performance overlain with ahectic tape cut-up. Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. Heck, I love it whenI have no idea what's going on, so "A Twist for All Pockets" is justthe kind of thing I can listen to over and over. If I have anycomplaint, it's that the sound quality is less than ideal for music soreliant on small movements and nuance. Particularly dense sections canappear muddy, when some crisp production might have shown the music offmore strongly. Adam Bohman is part of the long-running UK ensemble Morphogenesis(which also includes Michael Prime, by the way) and has published twosolo CDs and countless cassettes since the early 1980s. Not confined toany one instrument or method, he has recorded pieces for preparedviolin, amplified objects, tape and spoken voice. His brother Jonathanhas, as far as I am aware, not been published before. www.rossbin.com -
I was living in NYC in 1991 when a co-worker's roommate had asked me togo down to where he worked for something. He was working for MTV andwas on a team putting together a new show called "The Real World" andwanted me to audition. I picked up the entry form, filled it out, butwas kinda revolted and reluctant and turned around and left (with theentry form in hand!) One of the things they asked was to name some ofyour favorite bands. Funny thing is, five years later I would neverhave guessed I'd be hosting web sites for nearly all of them. (Thenagain in 1991, a graphic internet was barely even conceptual anyhow.)Regardless, Meat Beat Manifesto was on that list.
Part of the Intransitive Recordings series of limited edition discs andvinyl, this CD documents a live collaboration between sound artistsHudak and Lescalleet in a chapel in Cambridge, Mass, while a blizzardtook place outside.
Another limited-edition release from Intransitive Recordings, this is acollection of six pieces by Viennese artist Bernhard Gal, each createdfrom Gal's own field recordings. The pieces are all pretty varied, andwith the exception of the first piece, "It's Like...," an irritatingpastiche of American idiom and slang voiced by Mandy Morrison, they areall highly intriguing listens. Two of the pieces are based around thesounds of public transportation: "57A" layers sounds of a train and aconductor in Vienna, and "68th Street" layers turnstiles and subwaystation sounds from New York. In both of these pieces, Gal processesthe recordings just enough to make it apparent that he's manipulatingthem, without covering up the sounds themselves. An unintrusive highpitched drone pervades through "68th Street," giving it an eerienessthat might be familiar to some MTA riders. "Tong-hua Yie-shi" is theonly non-manipulated piece on the disc, a straight field recording thatGal made walking through a Taiwanese market. There are an incrediblenumber of stereos blaring in the market, but Gal's mic is sufficientlydirectional that as he walks, he picks up each song, from theBackstreet Boys to the strangest Taiwanese pop, with the clarity ofchanging the dial on a radio. The most interesting sounds on the disc,though, happen when Gal lets himself completely process the fieldrecordings until he renders them virtually unrecognizable. "Bee Bee" is"based on the humming of the Brooklyn Bridge." It's hard to tell whatthis means or what sounds he took from the bridge - passing cars,maybe? - but he creates a 15 minute ghostly, ambient crescendo thatexpands itself not unlike Ligeti's famous 'Requiem' from the movie 2001(It's interesting but probably unintentional that the two pieces basedin New York have such dark moods). "lv, nv" is the golden track on thedisc: "The sound of money and slot machines as acoustical ghosts of acasino in Las Vegas." The sounds of the casino are barely existent inthis piece, replaced by their own processed resonations. It's hard tobelieve that sounds this relaxing and pleasant can be created from thechaotic din of a gambling house. What really makes the disc as a wholesuch an incredible piece of work is that it's clear from the brief butinformative liner notes that Gal is excited by the naturally occurringworld of sound and music: "The personal discovery of music withinnature as well as within the routines of everyday life keepsfascinating me." His fascination can be infectious, and if you allowyourself to get caught up in Gal's world-as-music, the CD becomes anengaging series of small sonic journeys.
Cousin Silas is a new addition to the ever more rotund girth of CD-Rlabel Fflint Central. This secretive sci-fi writer broadcastingbackwards from the wilds of darkest Yorkshire fits right in with theFflinty Ones, so if you feel at home with the Fortean soundscapes ofPendro and Cavendish Sanguine then Cousin Silas will bring welcome earfodder. In fact Silas fits in so well that I end up wondering whetherthe sci-fi writer story could be a cover for yet another Jones and/orWilliams noise entity even though they assure me that this is not so.Just take for instance the opening child's toy chime, out of time synthsquelches and closing door slam of 'View from a Room' which could allquite easily be deployed the same way by Pendro. Named in remembranceof a 1975 tube disaster, 'Moorgate' revolves around a wondrously densenoise drone of the kind so loved by Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer,shuffling like steam train shunting. 'Warlock Hill' has a brighterfeel, with an uplifing rising keyboard line and pleasant little goodtrip pings. Even though the title 'Setting the Clinch' is pure FflintCentral, this track moves to a simple dancebeat with distant echoingghost traces of early Non. Much of "Lilliput", especially thedecelerating backwards voices and percussion of the title track, has afading photograph feel, like a partial shadow of half glimpsed memoryof something too shocking to bring to full consciousness. 'Lilliput'itself could actually be 'Setting the Clinch' played in reverse throughsome dirty effects. This is perhaps the spookiest Fflint Centralrelease I've heard. The 'Garden of Pale Children' is a nightmarish walkthrough the dimly lit tangled limbs of tortured miscreants singingtheir unfortunate spirit songs and is a track Coil would be proud of.'Chamber 7 Vat 3' closes the door to Silas' disturbing world with ahorrific rotting futuremachine belch which I could imagine working verywell as background music to the tense scene in 'Aliens' where theydiscover the alien hive. If you are yet to dip your toes into the fetidpool of the FFlinty Ones then this and 'The Oxide Heresies' of Pendroboth make good starters that should leave you wanting to hear more.
At the end of a week in which reviewers for the Brain were accused ofrecommending too much 'gay music', homo-synchronicity struck as a discfeaturing a couple of over the top camp electro songs from the prolificKhan arrived for me to review. These two mixes of the title song to afilm about a small Alabama community are very much in a retro VinceClarke / Erasure mould. I'm much more taken with the reoccurring themesof the emotive instrumentals that Vienna based composer Gammon providesfor the bulk of this half hour soundtrack to a 22 minute filmconcerning everyday life in a quiet quilting community presumablybereft of hard ass power electronics performances. This lilting suitebubbles along in a way which ought to appeal to fans of the lightermore dancefloor orientated beat driven side which those fluffy suited'gay music' troubadours Coil displayed on tunes like "Protection" andthe themes from 'gay film maker' Derek Jarman's "Blue". Much of themelody comes from what I think is a harmonica, but it sounds more likemelodica in the context of Gammon's beats. Even though the closingbackbone mix of Khan's "Stitches" opens up a bass synth rhythm thatinitially sounds like something Wir might've discarded as too obviousin the early nineties, the vocals are just too 'gay' for even someBrain reviewers. Played over this bass line, Kid Congo Powers' briefslide guitar fills also begin to bizarrely recall shapes that nighthave loomed on a Wir "First Letter" out-take, although this track ismuch more linear and mundane. I'd be curious to hear more from Gammon,especially if he was exploring more experimental avenues. In timehonoured Brain tradition I'm left thinking that perhaps this elegantbut less than essential music would sound more poignant in the contextof the film? And hopefully Eigentone are selling it for less than fullprice, as five instrumental variations on a theme and two versions ofthe same track don't really add up to a full album.
Canadian space rock ensemble Sianspheric have been making music since1994, despite several key line-up changes that might make lesser bandsthrow in the towel. Founding guitarist Paul Sinclair left the group in1996, after their first major tour, and four shows into their touropening for Swervedriver, bassist Steve Peruzzi disappeared. Undaunted,the band continued, and with the return of Sinclair recorded this,their third proper LP. The return of Sinclair has truly rejuvenated theband, as "Sound" is the most cohesive and striking release Sianspherichas ever put to tape. True, if you don't much like space rock, fuzzyguitar, vocals you can hardly hear, lots of delay, or Sianspheric,chances are this release will not floor you. But if you have even amild like of any of those things, this release is definitely for you.Gorgeous melodies abound, like on "To Myself" and"Childrenrunningthroughovergrowntallgrass," and most songs on therecord take what seems like an inordinately long time to reach an apex.Once the track climaxes, though, it's worth it. Sianspheric are alsothe first candidate for my new phrase, "pulling a Mogwai," where on"Tous Les Soirs" ("all the nights") everything starts off quietlyenough before punishing your ears for daring to listen. In fact, thequiet pretty moments are almost in abundance here, more so than on anyother Sianspheric release. It's easy for bands to attempt this soundand fail miserably. Happily, Sianspheric's success in the pastculminates in this roster and album. Another fine release from a bandthat could have imploded but stuck it out.
Part of the Intransitive Recordings series of limited edition discs andvinyl, this CD documents a live collaboration between sound artistsHudak and Lescalleet in a chapel in Cambridge, Mass, while a blizzardtook place outside. The liner notes make it a point to note that thesounds have not been altered or processed after recording: "What youhear is exactly what the audience heard." That's only partially true,as listening to this disc in your bedroom is going to have a muchdifferent effect than it probably had on the audience in the chapel.That being said, the pieces on the disc are all texturally rich, warmthough electronic, and each evolves slowly and resolutely over time outof drones, noise, tape hiss, and the reverberations of the chapel. Ofthe five pieces, the first, "Figure 2.01," is the most hauntinglybeautiful. A low drone builds slowly over the 17 minute piece (mostlikely from Hudak), underneath wind-like washes of sounds that echo thestorm outside. Eventually the washes give way to static and the popsand clicks of Lescalleet's tape machine. "Figure 2.04" is anotherhighlight: a low moan permeates underneath bell-like tape loops untilboth are buried under escalating noise and hiss. Lescalleet workswithin an analog medium, manipulating and amplifying tape noise and thesounds of the chapel itself in real time on reel-to-reel tape. It'snice to see someone utilizing the reel-to-reel; even though it might bea clumsy and awkward tool by today's standards, it's a uniqueinstrument with a long historical track record and in live performanceis much more interesting to watch than the glow of the apple from apowerbook. Though the static and noise that Lescalleet creates wouldn'tbe very interesting without the backing of Hudak's tones and drones,the fact that you can hear Lescalleet working his instrument on the CDmakes this disc a step above most live recordings. Still, it's apparentthat no listen to this disc can duplicate hearing it live in thechapel.
Tarentel have always been an interesting sort. They are another in aline of bands that approaches rock music with an almost orchestraltheory, allowing their compositions to build, adding and subtractinginstruments and voices, building to dynamic crescendoes—or not.Thecrescendoes are often laidback, never reaching a totally satisfyingrelease, but instead subtlely raising eyebrows with an interestingchange. After a series of EPs and a full-length on Temporary Residenceand a full-length on Resonant, Tarentel released this, their thirdproper full-length, on San Francisco's Neurot Recordings. And what isnew? Well, this time, the drums are a lot less present to start with,at least more than they have been in the past. Tarentel never reallysettle on one sound, as experimentation is a major tenet to theirmusical manifesto. More attention is paid to atmospherics on "Order,"which makes for a far more synthetically organic sound, if that makesany sense. The addition of human voices is eerily used, layered on topof a bed of piano, bass, and keyboards. The most frightening part isthe addition of ghostly whispers here and there, with weird noises likecables banging together added for effect. It's Tarentel's scariestrecord yet, but also their seemingly most planned and structuredrelease to date. The more experimental they get, the more need there isfor a definite matrix to play in. Every move here seems calculated,something I never would have expected. And with four compositions overthe 8 minute mark, "Order" is also classic Tarentel, with a few shortertracks thrown in for added flavors. Overall, this release is more ofthe same from Tarentel. But sometimes more of the same is the bestmedicine.