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 Sub Rosa compilation brings together five artists working withelectroacoustic drone and is perhaps chiefly notable as the firstreappearance of the hibernating Main in quite some time, but all fivetracks will quite likely appeal to fans of Robert Hampson's laterrecordings such as the "Hertz" and "Firmament" series. Hampson's soundsignature is unmistakable, although he's recently shifted the focus ofhis source material from guitar noise to environmental recordings anddeeper electroacoustic influences. 'Hysteresis' opens with a bigechoing clunk. Meticulously deployed gurgles, ringings and rustles allcompliment each other, looming violently, rising to crescendos andfading eerily. It's a much faster evolving track than his latter"Firmament" installments and makes the compilation essential! Inventor of the tri-phonic turntable Janek Schaefer has recently beencollaborating with Robert in Comae, and his opening track shifts down agear from his dense "Above Buildings" album for Fat Cat. 'LithosphericShifts' slowly fades in with a rumble like muffled motors buried inconcrete, and soon the concrete starts to crack. Christophe Charles is a French sound artist living in Tokyo who helpedMarkus Popp make Oval's "Dok". His 'Undirected Float' seems very warmand womblike after the spikier soundscapes of the Londoners. Voices aremuffled by the protective blood and fat of dreamlike ambience. Similarsounds appear to those on his Yoshihiro Hanno remix, so maybe this is akind of companion piece? Former Ultra Vivid Scene lynchpin Kurt Ralske closes the disc withperhaps the easiest going track, a beautiful sunrise tide of smoothwaves of processed singing and guitar washing in and out that's a niceway to drift away. Nam June Paik collaborator Stephen Vitiello's 'Salty Lemonade forFalling Water' might be considered literally womblike, includingrecordings of his daughter's prenatal vital signs, but it's perhaps themost disorientating recording here. Oddly dislocated traffic noise andmachine clatter merge into a nightmarish grey drone sliced by bottletop twisting tones, but then again maybe that's what it sounds like insome wombs? These recordings were made at the Whitney Museum in the oldWorld Trade Center, which adds an unintended grim twist to the title ofthe compilation - a floating foundation on which the Imperial Hotelstood was given by it's architect as the reason it didn't topple in a1922 earthquake. The compiler's intention was to use this as a metaphorfor 'decompartmentalisation of genre' in music and sound art. Thisseems to be a slightly pretentious, but educational, way of saying thatthey made an effort to put together a compilation that hangs togetherwell!
There are some soundtracks that stand on their own. Isaac Hayes'soundtrack for "Shaft," Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly," and, morerecently, even David Holmes' soundtracks for "Ocean's Eleven" and "OutOf Sight" were fairly independent from the film, even though thesoundtracks did contain snippets of dialogue from the film interspersedthroughout. A great soundtrack doesn't need the film in front of you tobe an enjoyable experience. Piero Piccioni, "Italian soundtrackmaestro" according to the back of the CD, scored many films in thesixties and seventies, many of which never had a soundtrack releaseduntil years later. "Puppet On A Chain" is such a soundtrack, seeing thelight of day finally in 2001. Having not seen the whole film—the boatchase is legendary, but the rest is utterly forgettable—I must saylistening to the soundtrack did nothing for me. Especially since themajority of the tracks have the same part played again and again: thesame bassline, Hammond organ chords, and phat drum beat, withoccasional augmentation with guitar, horns, or both. The man who playedwith Ennio Morricone on "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" has realscoring talent, mind you, but I have no real interest in seeing thisfilm after hearing the soundtrack, even though I'm quite certain thatit would work much better with the film than on its own. But, asseventies film soundtracks go, this fits the mold: most tracks areunder two and a half minutes, the track titles are named after whichscene in the movie they are used ("Night Club," "Chase," and"Mystery/The Discotheque," for example), and, as is pointed out in "I'mGonna Git You Sucka," the hero does have his theme music, as thisrelease plays out repeatedly. As I said, I don't think it stands on itsown, but it probably fits the film just fine.
Do you think Mick Harris, aka Scorn, ever regrets supporting all theguys that try to make music that sounds a hell of a lot like his? The'dark hop' category - beats, bass and deep ambient atmospheres - isfull of imitators and occasional innovators. Here's three more discs toadd to the pile.
Ocosi is Paul Molyneux with former member Simon Smerdon (aka Mothboy)also present on the title track of this limited edition of 100 CD-Rsfrom Manifold. Divided up into 7 tracks totaling 44 minutes, "Guided"is exactly how I like this sort of music: gritty, dark and aggressive.The beats are raw, the bass is booming, the drift is eerie, the pace isslow and everything just jells the way it should. Though the rhythmsare like locked grooves there are occasional staggers, change ups andbreaks to help keep it all interesting. Except maybe "Go Away" whichlanguishes in a cymbal like loop. The tense, near 15 minute finale "AtEnds" is perhaps the most intriguing, strangely enough considering it'ssimply a slowly revolving industrial soundscape devoid of beats.
For this 62-minute disc, Ocosi team up with 'dark ambient soundscape'artist Horchata (Mike Palace) and leave the production up to him for acleaner, more digital take on the sound. And, ultimately, a much morelaid back and boring sound. The 11 tracks are comprised of the usualbeats, bass and backing recipe, but are really lacking in grit and thusflavor. The sounds are pretty dull, the programming rather drab and theatmospheres more faint than they are dark. And 3 tracks are far toolong at 7 to 9 minutes apiece. In this batch "Transfiguration" is likethe cookie that somehow got all of the chocolate chips. It hasglimmering metallic bells, a funky groove, a pretty melody viaHorchata's own arp-01 midi file generating software and impressiveinterplay between bass/beats and backdrop. At least I can savor thatone. A second volume of Horchata / Ocosi is planned, also via Zero 1Media.
NOS is Swiss duo Giuseppe Di Benedetto and Jean-Claude Codoni and thisis their self titled debut for Economy Records, a sub division ofManifold. Nine tracks make up 53 minutes of murkiness. And I don't meanthat as a compliment. The mix is awful. Every sound is consumed by abass heavy, atmospheric gunk. That, combined with the wimpy anddownright dull rhythm programming, makes for music with very littleedge. "Unknown" starts off promising but doesn't know where to go fromthere. "Ultimatum" tries to get nasty but ends up being a big mess ofpercussion. Yuck. Forget this one. -
Yes, more Anthony Rother. This one is not as good as Little Computer People, but it's still good.It suffers, however, because it's only a single, and seven remixes of even the greatest song gets a little old. Biomechanik is taken from an earlier album by Rother, "Simulationszeitalter." Seven mixes are included on the disc as well as a pretty cool video, which I'll get into later. The music is standard Rother electro fare - which isn't a disparaging description - but a few of the tracks get pretty old. The Larry McCormick mix and Rother's own mix are the standouts in my opinion, but what makes this disc a "must buy" is the Biomechanik video included - a classy production that is sadly a bit short (less than three minutes) but what it lacks in length it makes up for in style. Mechanical imagery and two women lying naked on operating tables while white-clothed nurses/doctors (?) operate on them - bio-mechanics. That is what Rother is about. A worthy purchase, but look for something else if you're just starting out with Rother. -
Initial disclaimer: I'm not really a big fan of electro music (i.e. Drexciya, Bunker, Adult, etc. .. not the EBM stylings of Metropolis Records). Most of it just really bores me, and the "gimmicks" that seem to be found often within them (oldschool/retro sounds, vocoder vox, etc.) never really grab me. UNLESS, however, we're talking about Anthony Rother, the mastermind behind Little Computer People (and Psi Performer, and maybe some others). Mr. Rother uses the same set of tactics and gimmicks that I harbor disdain for, but for some reason, if Rother is at the controls, I LOVE the music. Such is the case with "Electro Pop," which is probably the catchiest album I've ever heard. All of the tracks are clearly heavily influenced by Kraftwerk (Little Computer People was actually a Commodore 64 game, I believe) and most of them feature ultra-catchy heavily-vocoded computer vocals. The lyrics are pretty cheesy Euro-English, but for some reason, I love them, and whenever I listen to the disc, I find myself chanting along: "TREAT ME LIKE A COMPUTER... SEX WITH THE COMPUTER... I AM A COMPUTER..." Sad, but true. Really a brilliant album and highly recommended. -
The majority of NYC duo 310's catalog has been released by the UK'sLeaf label, part of the Post Everything collective, but this disc isthe debut from Manifold sub label Desolat Recordings.Desolat'smanifesto is simple and spot on: "dark > drifting > textures >no beats". The pre title "Short Stories by" is equally apt and, alongwith the unique b/w photo circa the 1950's affixed to every cover,further describes the mysterious character of this particular release.Fifteen untitled tracks, most 3 minutes or less, creepy crawl out ofstrangers' family albums, films and subconscious minds. There issomething to see here in most every piece, though it's often difficultto tell just what it is and when and where it took place exactly. Allsorts of hazy, sampled found sounds - movement, footsteps, churchbells, traffic, rain, crickets, background conversation, occasionalspoken words and utterances, etc. - and (some presumably appropriated)music are mixed with ambient drifts and left to loop. The effect ishighly cinematic, the aftereffect like an out of body experience ... -
New York-based composer David Shea is an exemplar of the old clichethat necessity is the mother of invention.The former pupil of MortonFeldman started merging sounds in a sampler as a means to an end. Hewanted to continue composing but had insufficient funds to hireperformers to play his ideas. This later evolved into the sampling ofmusicians playing hybrids suggested by Shea, which he thenrecontextualised via the hard drive. Since 1992 he's released a regularslew of CD's documenting his mixed up soundworld where a house anthemmight speed head on into a hardcore double kick drum Cantonese militarymarch as keys fly off the piano. Not surprisingly he's turned up onJohn Zorn compositions such as the dark masterpiece 'Elegy' but perhapsmore surprisingly he's also collaborated with Robert Hampson. Shea'sopus "The Tower of Mirrors" would probably be a better place to startif you haven't heard him before, but "Tryptich" offers three snapshotsof tracks he performed live throughout 2000 and shows how his tracksmutate and compress over time. He's been working on a much longersoundtrack to the Hindu epic the Ramayana, but 'Sita's Walk of Fire'documents otherwordly atmospheres before Sita walks through a wall offire after escaping the demon Ravana, and the carnivalesque whirlingcelebration and dancing afterwards. It mashes up sampled Easterninstumentation with nineties hyperdance moves into a heady swirl ofcolour. Although it's a different piece of music the horse dreamfantasy film soundtrack 'One Trick Pony' seems like what might havehappened if "The Tower of Mirrors" had been compressed to ten minuteduration, as Shea relies on similar tricks to suggest dream states - alaugh cutting the scene dead, eerie gongs and chimes and propulsivebeats. There's an Antipodean doing-ping rhythm that keeps everythingmoving and sounds like he might even be able to afford the musicianlyservices of Rolf Harris these days. His soundtrack to ancient Romantwisted tales 'Satyricon' is necessarily fuller as he's squeezed itshour into a third of its former duration, and it also seems slightlysped up. Some of what it gains in density it loses in development, butif you can say the same thing with less words, why not? The closingpercussive dash is even more cinematically frenetic and climactic thanit was before, especially after he's cut its 'Waves' aftermath toalmost nothing. -
Arc starts things off with 2 tracks recorded live in Toronto - reallywell done, slithery tribal stuff a'la 'Culling'- era 23 Skidoo.Lots ofdrumming and percussive electronics with a soothing, nocturnal feel.Some glitchy electronics rear their head near the end of the firstpiece along with a soothing wash of keyboard harmony, all done toexcellent effect. I could do without the processed vocal but that'sjust my onus to bear. The second offering, 'Friction' has the samenocturnal feel but more somnambulant with echoed guitar, distortedpiano and tones stretched to the breaking point. Parts of this remindedme of the earlier works of Current 93 and then it would shift to almostEno-esque and then again to parts that sounded like Can while stillbeing wholly original. Ashfordaisyak doesn't quite jibe as well in my opinion. The startingtrack 'Refugees' has all the usual clichés; distorted, delayed,clanking, walkie talkie vocals and screams pitch shifting into theupper registers - all told a rather pale Whitehouse imitation althoughthe tune is somewhat redeemed by the inclusion of cheesy electro-styledrums in the middle. The other two tracks don't fare much better - 'I'mPregnant' sounds to me like early sampler and tape loop experiments andthe final track 'Where do Balloons Go When They Die' has a 'pots andpans industrial' feel - lots of tinny metal clanking and ominousvocals. A good effort and some potential here, it just needs refining. All told, the disc is worth the price for the Arc tracks especially forfans of the aforementioned C93, 23 Skidoo or even earlier, instrumentalCoil. Here's hoping we see more from both of these artists. -(Menschenfeind Productions - http://www.menschenfeind.com)
Australian David Thrussell first emerged in 1991 as Snog in the worldof techno pop, and has since released well-reputed albums under thenames Black Lung and Soma.Theoretically, Thrussell should have had aneasy time getting this, or any particular record released. However,this time around it's spoken word. Recorded between 1998-2001, Thrussell dwells deeper into the themesthat are omnipresent in his projects - but this time no groove norsplendid electronica to distract the listeners from the text. Over asupportive soundtrack of creeping electronica blended with jazzyinterludes he speaks about media influences, the state of civilization,mass manipulation and consumer habits with a dark sonorous voice.Obvious Aspects of daily life like plastic, oil, money or electricityare questioned effectively in an astonishing way.Read in the style of an imaginary American radio suspense story, thelyrics gain an ironic value which is not far away from self-parody. Atleast the impression resulting is anything than dead serious.Added for further enlightment besides extensive linernotes are someillustrations by himself and a CD Rom clip of "The Plastic Wars Pt. I". This is a careful skilled concept album which does not sell newinsights or doctrines but cleverly uses available information and setsit in context to encourage THINKING ABOUT IT ALL - including questionslike "Does he really mean this seriously?" and "Is this fact orfiction?" -
Though the V/Vm Test Records press release states this is the solodebut from classically trained Polish musician Jacek Toszek, I can'thelp but wonder if this is just one of the V/Vm lads hiding behind yetanother moniker.Dubious track titles such as "Cirrostratus OverNorman, Oklahoma 1927", "Massive Hornblended Character with DistinctTraceability" and "Consistent Prunes At The Speiss Lavender Trail" seemto support my theory. But regardless of who's responsible, the endresult - 40 minutes of melodious, textural ambiance - is really, reallynice. Much like The Caretaker's "Selected Memories from the HauntedBallroom" album from a few years ago, "cin" is also possessed ofghostly nuances. Many tracks seem to be borrowing music, some possiblyorchestral, then obscuring it in comfy blankets of fuzz, buzz, loopsand drones while others seem to do the same without any sourcematerial. Electronic insects, piano and a children's playground surfacemomentarily. Track 10, "Tartar Emetic", shows the first sign ofunruliness with louder, whooshing currents and minor glitches and,later, "The Atmosphere is Not a Perfume" gets even testier with mildlydistorted waves. Then "Mylonite" calmly wraps things up in staticsparkles and more warm padding. Nice, really nice. I love this softerside of the V/Vm catalog. A new Caretaker full length, "A Stairway ToThe Stars", is due out soon. -