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Psych-folk chanteuse Josephine Foster has always been a reliably unusual and singular artist, but her dissonant, artier tendencies have sometimes detracted from the beauty of her lilting, world-weary voice. With this release, a song-cycle based upon the poetry of Emily Dickinson, that experimental impulse is confined entirely to structure and concept. The result is one of her most ambitious, listenable, and mesmerizing albums, as Foster's gorgeously baroque vocals are finally allowed to swoop and quaver around comparatively simple and traditional melodies.
Graphic as a Star was conceived last winter while Foster was living in an isolated village in the mountains of Spain. She didn't bring many books with her, but one of the few that made the trip was a volume of Dickinson’s poetry, which understandably resonated deeply with Josephine, given her geographic and social isolation (Emily didn’t get out too much either). Inspiration struck and this song-cycle cohered in matter of mere weeks. Although Dickinson's poetry has been interpreted by some classical composers in the past, Foster sought to present it in a manner much more harmonious with the quiet intimacy of the source material. She was quite successful, as the naked elegance of these pieces perfectly suits the lonely lyricism of Emily's words. In general, the poems make an entirely seamless transition into song, but their varying lengths (and lack of a repeating chorus) do not particularly lend themselves to a traditional pop format: the 26 pieces collected here range in length from 30 seconds to five minutes. Consequently, nothing ever overstays its welcome, but sometimes the best moments are a bit too ephemeral.
It doesn’t seem like Foster brought many instruments with her to Spain either, as most of the songs feature only a lazily strummed acoustic guitar. Occasionally, a brief interlude of Dylan-esque harmonica playing will add a splash of color, but there are also quite a few songs that contain no instrumentation at all (unless chirping birds count). Given the fragile sadness of the material, that sparseness was a thematically appropriate artistic decision. However, it makes the songs pretty difficult to differentiate until they’ve been heard enough for the lyrics to sink in. There’s not much point in differentiating them though, as Graphic as a Star works most effectively as an album-sized dose. That said, there are a still few tracks that could work as singles, most notably the gently wistful “My Life Had Stood-A Loaded Gun” or the breezily swinging “I Could Bring You Jewels-Had I a Mind To.”
There are absolutely no freakfolk or psychedelic moments on Graphic as a Star at all, but it is a strange and anachronistic album anyway. There is certainly some superficial similarity to '60s folkies like Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, or Shirley Collins, but Foster’s vocals are much more idiosyncratic. In fact, Josephine often sounds like a slumming classical vocalist, but one that has internalized a great deal of sultriness and looseness from early jazz and torch songs. Also, the songs themselves have a very timeless and traditional feel, like they could be hundreds of years old. Naturally, that feel is most evident on the a cappella pieces like the eyebrow-raisingly titled “Wild Nights-Wild Nights!” and “What Shall I do-It Whimpers So,” but even Foster’s guitar playing is simple enough to avoid alluding to any specific era. On a related note, it has been a long time since I have read any Dickinson, so I had forgotten about her sometimes-comic overuse of exclamation points (another charming example is “Heart! We Will Forget Him!”). Emily’s occasional melodrama, thankfully, is lost in the transition to song. In fact, there is almost nothing to find fault with at all. This is a warm, beguiling, and unexpectedly accessible album. I’m not sure if it is Foster’s best or not, but I think it will age extremely well.
Samples:
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This split 12” was one of the best musical surprises I’ve had this year, turning up unexpected as it did in my mailbox at the radio station where I do a weekly program. Usually people don’t send vinyl to me at the station (though it is encouraged) just CDRs of mostly forgettable music, hence my happiness in receiving a release that some serious effort went into. When I finally got around to listening to the record I was immediately impressed: the epic drone of Scott Cortez’s side shows him reaching out into the gorgeous expanses of space with masterfully layered guitar manipulation, while Language of Light presents a more animated and alchemical journey.
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This split 12” was one of the best musical surprises I’ve had this year, turning up unexpected as it did in my mailbox at the radio station where I do a weekly program. Usually people don’t send vinyl to me at the station (though it is encouraged) just CDRs of mostly forgettable music, hence my happiness in receiving a release that some serious effort went into. When I finally got around to listening to the record I was immediately impressed: the epic drone of Scott Cortez’s side shows him reaching out into the gorgeous expanses of space with masterfully layered guitar manipulation, while Language of Light presents a more animated and alchemical journey.
With “White Tiger Phantoms” Scott Cortez (of Lovesliescrushing) has created a blissful dreamscape that begs to be listened to repeatedly. It’s the kind of music that I love to listen to when I need to unwind, the kind of song that unknots kinks in the neck and allows the mind to drift awhile, seemingly freed from the confines of physical space. Harmonic arcs and hums emerge gradually as more quivering lines are added to the simple hovering note, alternately descending and rising back up, that makes the songs opening. As the work progresses, like a slow sheet of ice expanding across a lake, vibrant overtones crystallize on the surface creating a feeling of idle suspension. The air in the room takes on a vibrant shine as the gossamer threads of Scott’s delicate guitar issue out of the speakers. It is representative of a type of minimalism that (deceptively) contains more than the sum of its parts. This is easily the best bit of drone work I’ve heard all year, and brings to mind the lush ambience heard on Aloof Proof’s 1994 masterpiece album “Piano Text.”
“Double Helixes Up To Heaven” on the Language of Light side is just as brilliant. It mines a different area while still being part of the same claim. Sweeping synthesizers placidly slip and glide around a gently picked guitar, spiraling like the DNA hinted at in the songs title. The combination of synth and guitar guide each other easily through the three demarcations the song is sectioned into: Prima Materia, Distillation and Sublimation, and Escape from the Retort. The first part begins with a slowly played melody as hints of distorted guitar fall in and out of focus. I can see why this part is called the Prima Materia or First Matter, because it has a very stellar quality, perfect music for stargazing or contemplating the origins of the universe. The middle continues in the same vein, but the stress is on the synthesizer’s blustering icy syncopations and dissonant rhythms. The last part provides the perfect denouement. The lilted guitar picking is again matched by a second slightly distorted guitar whose fragrant incensed breath is like warm fire. The piece ends with a flute-like loop receding into infinity. It is clearly a good thing that Rebecca Loftiss (of The Gray Field Recordings) and Frank Suchomel (Inalonelyplace) have started collaborating together.
The music on this split is wonderfully beautiful and I hope it sees a broader release than the initial run of 300 limited copies. That being said the personnel at Anticlock Records have done very well in bringing out this stunning release.
samples:
- White Tiger Phantoms
- Double Helixes Up To Heaven (Prima Materia)
- Double Helixes Up To Heaven (Escape from the Retort)
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Hot on the heels of Cosmarama, this time Nick Saloman ventures across the Atlantic to focus on '60s garage rock from the United States. Saloman leaves no stone unturned in bringing these tracks to CD for the first time, making for another remarkably entertaining compilation.
The blues are a big influence on the music of this time, a connection made explicit by the inclusion of several blues covers. While Group Axis obviously don't have Howling Wolf or Hubert Sumlin in their band, it's amusing to listen to them try to make up for it with swagger and ferocious keyboard and guitar solos on their version of "Smokestack Lightning." Bobby Comstock's cocky version of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" is also pretty good, though no match for the original. Bobby Simms & the Simmers seemingly adapt Big Mama Thornton's "They Call Me Big Mama" on their cut "Big Mama," changing the focus of the opening lines from the singer to the singer's girlfriend, but the similarity ends there as the lyrics go in a different direction altogether.
Most of these songs are fixated on themes typical to early rock and roll, especially romantic problems. The Bay Ridge's "Without You," The Outcasts' "You Do Me Wrong," The Outsiders' "Haunted by Your Love," and Jack Eden's "It's Only a Dream" all lament the loss of a woman, while unrequited love is common to Bobby Saint Clair's "Fool That I Am" and Dee Jay & the Runaways' "He's Not Your Friend." Other acts are more concerned with asserting themselves, like the aforementioned Bobby Comstock, Kevin Coughlin's title track, and the zany "Get It On/Wilde Childe Freakout" by Dick "Wilde Childe" Kemp, a DJ in Cleveland who cashed in on his popularity with this one-off single.
That Saloman can continue to mine the '60s and find so many obscure tracks of high quality is testament not only to his curatorial abilities but also to that decade's ability to produce great music. For fans of vintage rock, I Gotta Be Me proves that there's still plenty of fantastic music from that era remaining to be heard.
samples:
- Group Axis - Smokestack Lightning
- Jack Eden - It's Only a Dream
- Dick "Wilde Childe" Kemp - Get It On/Wilde Childe Freakout
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The fifth installment of Sub Rosa's series dedicated to the works of Henri Pousseur highlights the composer's efforts to experiment with different serialist techniques and tonal systems. The compositions presented on this disc span decades and feature a variety of musicians, including a rare performance from Pousseur himself.
Admittedly, this can be a dry listen at times. Pousseur's experiments here reflect play with tonal systems that may be of more value to listeners with interest in academic music theory rather than those hoping for a more immediate visceral impact. Anyone hoping to hear electronic pieces resembling his blistering work "Scambi" may be disappointed to find that the only electronics found on this disc are live manipulations of a piece commissioned and performed by oboist Evert van Tright called "Ex Dei in Machinam Memora." Delayed and superimposed over Tright's oboe playing, the result is an enjoyable if sluggishly paced chamber piece.
No doubt, some of these pieces would be better appreciated in a live setting. "Prospection," Pousseur's "first and only rigorous serialist work" as he describes it in the liner notes, is a composition written for three pianos tuned one-sixth-tone apart. Heard blindly, the interaction between the performers is difficult to decipher without visual cues, and the piece loses a bit of its import in the process. A little more engaging is "Racine Dix-Neuvieme de Huit-Quarts" for solo cello in which Pousseur divides octaves into 19 parts, halfway between the 12-tone system and the 31-tone system Christian Huyghens developed in the 17th century. His 19-tone system creates atypical intervals and sounds unusual, if not exotic, and wholly unpredictable.
Pousseur's piece "At Moonlight, Dowland's Shadow Passes Along Ginkaku-Ji" was composed for a Japanese trio and performed at the Europalia festival in Brussels in 1989. Written for shamisen, koto, and shakuhachi, its 12-tone system in a Japanese mode was the composer's attempt to bring the two cultures together in a piece of music. Its glissandi and tremoli bring the piece to life marvelously and set it apart from the other tracks on this disc. Also unusual is the piece Pousseur performed himself, "Figures Enlacées," on an ancient organ that had recently been restored. Tuned to mesotonic temperament, the organ features three rows of major thirds laid out in just fifths. This piece contains both a purposeful harshness and an elegant purity, easily the disc's most dynamic track.
These works reflect Pousseur's restlessly inquisitive nature, one that challenges preconceptions about the construction and utilization of tonal systems and temperament. While important to the composer's development of both his own techniques and musical language itself, these compositions, for the most part, are more satisfying to the intellect than the ears.
samples:
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Although the sound of the Master Musicians has varied little throughout the years, this album presents their music like few have before. Clean and unadulterated by studio effects, the instruments are equally balanced in the mix and possess a fantastic tonal depth that makes their music more appealing-and mesmeric-than ever. The drums on "Joal Fibladijoal" are pummeling and insistent though brief, while the Musicians reach for ecstatic communion on "Boujeloud Dancing with Kandisha." A melodic flute with backing drones encompasses the first half of "Double Medahey" before various drums and rhythms make the hypnosis complete. If the album has a centerpiece, it would be the 19-minute epic "Allah Allah Habibi Galouja," one of the few songs here to feature singing as well as bowed and plucked instruments alongside the usual flutes and drums.
Such a splendid performance coupled with superb recording quality makes this an exceptional album. A fitting tribute to Bowles, Live Volume 1 is also the debut release on a new label owned and operated by the Master Musicians themselves, hopefully the first of many more to come.
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Murmer
What Are The Roots That Clutch
Helen Scarsdale : HMS022 : CD
release date: July 3, 2012
It was a cavernous tone that broadcast from a ventilator duct that inspired Patrick McGinley to begin collecting field recordings and working them into his slow-arc compositions. At the time when he heard that particular tone in that particular city at that particular time, he had no gear to recording device on hand. Over the next fifteen years (and counting) McGinley has eased into a peripatetic lifestyle, wandering the European countryside and forests (but never straying too far from the thrum and spark of civilization) in search of the same epiphany with his head rattled to the sound of a cavernous air duct.
Around 1996, McGinley adopted the moniker Murmer for his compositional work; and though his work often steps into the quieter realm of sound construction, much of his field recordings and resultant compositions privilege interference and disturbances that occur within any given sound ecology. Those sounds could be the elusive tone from that ventilator, the polyrhythmic chorus of chirping frogs, the abstracted roar from an Arctic wind tearing across the Black Sea, or the metallic skree from a bowed antenna perched atop a Soviet-era observatory. What Are The Roots That Clutch marks McGinley's first full album in nearly 5 years, but it marks an elegant continuation of his previous album We Share A Shadow. The five chapters of this album can't easily be associated with any specific location; instead McGinley overlaps and crosshatches his field recordings and abstractions into acousmatic passages with ghostly, half-melodic qualities. Even the two unprocessed recordings of the album are impossibly complex in their accretions of sound. McGinley's composed pieces embrace lithe, mysterious drones whose mossy, damp atmosphere perfectly situate with tactile crunches, tactile events, and signal noise generation. Eels and leaches would not be out of place in such an environment; but the subaquatic murk snaps into a hallowed manifestation of ritualized minimalism at the album's finale/ -- one that LaMonte Young and Angus Maclise might have conjured in 1968 with clattering percussive elements and a hypnotic blur of harmonic drone.
What Are The Roots That Clutch is limited to 400 copies and comes housed with letterpress artwork.
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www.helenscarsdale.com
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HMS021: Jim Haynes The Decline Effect 2LP
HMS020: BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa Big Shadow Montana LP
HMS019: RV Paintings Samoa Highway LP
HMS017: Spiracle Ananta 2CD
HMS016: irr. app. (ext.) Kreiselwelle CD
HMS015: Matt Shoemaker Erosion of the Analogous Eye CD
HMS014: Loren Chasse & Michael Northam The Otolith CD
HMS013: BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa Passing Out CD
HMS012: Omit Interceptor 2CD
HMS011: Murmer We Share a Shadow CD
HMS010: Matt Shoemaker Spots in the Sun CD
HMS008: BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna CD
HMS007: Waldron / Stapleton / Sigmarsson / Haynes / Faulhaber The Sleeping Moustache CD
HMS006: Spoonbender 1.1.1 Stereo Telepathy Academy CD
HMS005: Omit Tracer 2CD
HMS004: BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa Vikinga Brennivin CD
HMS002: irr. app. (ext.) Ozeanische Gefühle CD
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The first studio material recorded by KK Null and Seijiro Murayama in almost 20 years achieves a sonic symbiosis that’s both riveting and incendiary. While there are plenty of noisy electronics involved, they entertain rather than alienate on this chaotic yet warm recording.
In a lot of ways, the percussion is the backbone of this album, providing a structural backdrop against which to better appreciate KK Null’s textural bag of tricks. Hums, drones, sci-fi sound effects, blistering roars, grinding machines, and haunted voices all erupt at different times and from different places in the audio spectrum.
"Metacompound G2A" is like the revving of some cumbersome machinery to warm its engine before launching into space. Halfway through the track, outer space is reached while disembodied voices offer constricted exhalations. Laser beams and loops arise to swamp the background, ending with echo blasts into a vast canyon. The drums come out more quickly in "Metacompound JK," grounding the track while a drone vacillates between two tones in a simulacrum of harmony and other electronics scramble for footing. A third of the way through the track, the drums collapse and deconstruct into a haphazard rhythm. The whole song is reduced to a minimal state momentarily before the percussion returns with a vengeance, pushing the electronics to the back while assuming the fore. Then the floor drops out suddenly to reveal broken glass and an echo chime effect. This is quickly overrun by a scrap heap loop that clears the way for the percussion to return yet again. The third and final track finds the drums gaining an even greater prominence. Aided by electronic percussion, they build a head of steam and run for the horizon, eventually stopping in favor of explosions.
Considering how many unexpected textures and rhythms pop up in the span of a single track, it’s hard not to like this album. The duo carves out a sonic palette that’s as electric and captivating as an approaching thunderstorm.
samples:
 
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Uzeda uses razor wire guitar, bass that frequently takes the lead, and merciless drums to mold the perfect foundation from which to launch their unrelenting vocal attack. Restless and turbulent, the band thrives in a constant state of eruption.
The guitar and vocals in particular separate the band from their influences. Giovanna Cacciola has a voice suited for these songs, whether lightly singing in the earlier sections of “Time Below Zero” or raising the volume with throaty howls on “Gold.” The guitar has a striking acidic tone as it explores frenzied dissonance or emphasizes the rhythm. It rarely functions as a melodic lead, instead providing a rhythmic counterpoint or an articulation of mood. The rhythm section deserves their fair share of the credit as well. For instance, their steadiness on “This Heat” provides the other band members with the freedom to wander on top of the music regardless of meter, a juxtaposition that goes a long way toward fueling the band’s vitality. Similarly, they smolder on “From the Book of Skies” and “Camillo,” allowing Cacciola to build the drama and then unleash herself in cathartic endings.
The only flaw, albeit a minor one, is that Steve Albini’s handling of the material immediately places them alongside any number of similar bands he’s recorded. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either, because the production is gorgeous, but it does place them into a certain category right away that makes comparisons difficult to resist. Yet the band holds up favorably even if such comparisons are made. Their songs are dynamic and varied, and the singer’s powerful voice keeps the album consistently engaging. Building tension with a rare expertise, they are always ready to explode.
samples:
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After the Asian volume a few years back, Ididn’t expect further investigation of Eastern psych currents, but I’m happy tobe proved wrong by the series’ tireless curator, Thomas Hartlage, who’sproduced another absolutely solid collection of lost psych brilliance. QDK Media
This is number nine in the ongoing and continually astoundingcompilation series, after last year’s African volume, Turkish likewise confirms the presence of another fertilepsychedelic scene lost to international obscurity. Several tracks, including a couple of my favorites by thestill-active master Erkin Koray and truly unclassifiable Moğollar, come frombands already included in the Asian volume but welcome here alongsidelesser-known and just as compelling artists. Like all of the Asian pysch I’ve heard, the Turkish variety is mostcompelling in the way the Western psychedelic rock archetype gets filteredthrough Eastern interpretation and augmented by local tradition.
Unlike Southeast Asian and Pacific Rim psych, which tends toeither ape Western styles to amusingly warped degrees or let the music run overinto the manic redirections of local pop music, Turkish psych achieves a leanercombination of styles. Almost everytrack here (save three or four) favors the clipped, driving psych sound of thepopular West, with elements of Turkish folk (türkü) entering only with thevocal or the leading melodic line, usually guitar or traditional stringedinstruments (saz, sitar, bouzouki).
Strangely, these songs tend not to drift into the freak-outsor heady textures that I associate with Middle Eastern or South Asian music’spreoccupation with transcendental states. (Perhaps this is more evidence of reactionary tendencies in the scene,or just the fallacy of my Western ear.) Adherence to the Western pop format is, forthe most part, uniform, but this is never a deterrent. Hearing the beautiful Eastern lilts andintervals jostled within the fiery shuffle of Western psych breakdowns isinvigorating for both, creating an urgency and timelessness that is alwaysperfectly recovered on these comps, but really comes screaming out here, as onthe Mexican volume.
Yes, there are always exceptions, and with Love, Peace, & Poetry,they’re oftenthe best parts. On the previous Asianvolume, Moğollar laid down a Durutti Column-esque bliss-out of pluckedguitarand ocean ambience; here they drop the Eastern funk, the dreamy, firmEasternfunk, like Sun City Girls, except sober and enlightened, with a sweatyorgan--brilliant. Moğollar truly has a unique sound, dubbed‘Anadolu Pop’ upon its release and well worth checking out infull-album form,some of which are available through Shadoks and World Psychedelialabels. My favorites from this volume, however, arethe two tracks from Selda: ragged raga jams, over-blasted and tight ashell (strangeto hear these melodies with such makeup), with a female vocalist whosoundslike a combination of Grace Slick and one of today’s throaty,art-damagedpunkers.
samples:
- Magollar - Halicite Gunesin Batisi
- Edip Akbayram - Yakar Incenden Incenden
- Selda - Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar
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The first solo outing of Julian Cope's Head Heritage webmastercould've come with the tinkling of nepotism's alarm bells, but insteadit brought out the ringing drones of doom. Drafting in Brain Donor'sDoggen, SUNN O)))'s Stephen O'Malley and Cope to help out Holy McGrailshows that it takes more than pagan chic and black clothing to craftclassic drone rock.Head Heritage
For the last few years the creeping love affair with krautrock has beeninforming and warping heavy rock roots into a lengthy freeformavalanche of twenty minute songs. Holy McGrail avoids the well-wornobvious paths of evil hymns and straight psych sides adding outer spaceguitar and spacey synth work to his mix.
Beginning with the most obviously rock of all three pieces “LadyHolle,” the record starts out with a simple stand up beat which soontakes on extra twists and hits lifting itself into a sleeker rhythm. Itmay not the typical Cro-Magnon expected primal stomp but itsinstrumental ritetastic vibe keeps it heavy while adding a pop touch;this is white magic metal chugging over rushing ecstasy whistles.There’s a superfuzzmuff wash over the record and a rhythm guitar on theverge of warping under the static that comes off its self immolatingheat and burning organ waves. The glorious epic finish of guitar andsine wave breaks over the omnipresent hum of its own rise and fall.
The second track “'Quake Appeal” (running for an epic 28:51)favors rumbling cloud drones over any perceptible slowly creepingSabbath heaviosity. This central piece haemorrhages a feedback pulselike a bulging fish squeezing itself gulping for air. This inner spaceworld throbs with hesitating shelves of sound which clip and beginanew, a rash of scattering sub-pulses. A brief riff sinks in (possiblyfrom Cope) and drops out as clicks echo and wash quickly away like thelast sinking whispers of bloody fisted feedback.
The more unassuming cosmic closer “Ur-Cow” (at a much too short 19:59)is a glistening stellar wash of burnt out and birthing shooting stars.There are numerous bursts of night sky sounds which zip over theprolonged undertone of sea-like static as Stephen O’Malley performs histurn through the track with a bled dry subtly and moderate touch. Where“'Quake Appeal” is more confidently engaging on the first handful ofpasses, it’s the closer that shows McGrail’s ear for gradients of soundand blissed out white light beauty. It’s definitely a feat in itselfthat he’s managed to utterly sidestep the colossal shadow of Earth andtheir impersonators to create this debut.
samples:
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