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While you may have heardother tracks from Ukuphambana on the Boston: Not London compilation onthe CFOM label, you most likely haven't. This debut release collectsvarious scraps of recordings kicking around in the vaults for thisproject, orchestrated by Chris Castiglione. Unlike many malicious youngDIY upstarts, Castiglione isn't afraid to play with distortion andpitch changes, tempo shifts and outside sound sources. The collectionranges from sounds and beats and styles making it a true album. To me,when an artist throws together a ton of songs that soundsimilar--style, instrumentation, subject--the end result resembles moreof a 12" single of versions as opposed to a true album in the grandscheme of things. "Gritware Composite" has both quantity and quality.While it can be a tough listen to get through 23 tracks at over 71minutes, it's tough love and well-worth investigating. If this is tobecome a professional release, however, something's got to be doneabout the artwork and CD-R manufacturing. This and the following discscan be obtained through Voidstar's website and probably not your local stores.samples:
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Voidstar's 2nd and 3rd CDreleases are live performances from these New Hampsters liveperformances in the cultural mecca known as Lowell, MA. "Folded Time 1:Ambiagramaphone" was recorded at a performance at RRRecords andfeatures 18 tracks of improvisational-sounding noise mishmosh. Theremay be a certain order to the chaos however, as the pulses and noiseeffects change and develop through each track. In addition to this,each track features one element carried over from the prevoius track.The noises are cool, the music isn't stale but the vocal work is quiteunsettling. I can't make up my mind if it's necessary or I justflat-out hate it. Thankfully it's low enough in the mix that it almostdoesn't matter. While the group definitely has some influences in thebeat department, some of the repetitious loops echo of StevenStapleton's production work on Legendary Pink Dots' "Malachai."
"Folded Time 2" is subtitled, 'Spiritual Music for ExistentialDeviants,' and is mainly pulled from a live performance at radiostation WJUL, a month after the RRRecords performance. The sounds arerelatively the same yet more samples, including silly turntablescratching are abused in cotributing to a more constructional sound.The creepy vocals once again are extremely irritating and repetitious.I'm finding it hard to resist all temptations to hit stop on the disc.The disc is rounded out by a second-half which contains songs eitherreworked by the group or remixed by friends like Ukuphambana and ZipperSpy. While the second half is much more attentive to organized chaosthan the first part of this disc, I'm not thinking this is somethingI'll be pulling from the shelves to listen to very often.samples:
- Equestrian (from part 1)
- In the Clock Mines of Leviathan (from part 1)
- The Sum Of... (remixed by Zipperspy) (from part 2/3)
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In Matador's ongoingquest to bring electronic music to rock fans, they introduce the debutfull-length all new release from Pete Astor, the man who is The Wisdomof Harry. Although the full-lengther "Stars of Super 8" was releasedlast year through Faux-lux, the disc simply collected 7" singlespreviously released through vinyl-only labels including WurlitzerJukebox. With a few vintage drum machines and a host of studio gear,this album cleverly combines low-fi electronica with an indie popmindset. "Coney Island of Your Mind" was the first 7" release from thisdisc and creatively rounds out Astor's guitar work with sugar sweetelectronic percussion. The rest of the disc jumps from dreamlikeshoegazer-influenced bass riffs and slow tempo grooves with delays a laMassive Attack to instrumental b-movie indie film noir score, allresulting from an apparent solitude in a well-packed studio. This sortof autonomy results in an underlying theme of emptiness - a sound notterribly far from a Beck-esque formula crossed with a stark realitysimilar to walking home from a bus stop on a cold and rainy evening.Where it's at - I got two 909s and a microphone.samples:
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My introduction to (theband known as) Donna Regina comes from a track which appeared on aHeavenly Voices compilation a number of years ago. Years later, I'm(somewhat) past my ethereal siren-mania days, so I may have beenslightly hesitant to listen to a disc like this. 'A Quiet Week In theHouse' came to me almost too highly recommended, so I decided to giveit the benefit of the doubt. Luckily I was not disappointed. Havingmuch more fully developed their style in the years since theirappearance on the compilation, the members of Donna Regina emerge withan album which is a giant step away from the monotony which permeatesthe music of many of the other Heavenly Voices bands. 'A Quiet Week'blends understated electronic beats with eerie, twangy guitar work(frankensushi, anyone?), and the sweet, dreamy melodies are lent anexoticism via Regina Janssen's accented vocals. Despite its pop-drivenovertones, the album is pervaded by a moodiness that comes across ascool and swanky as opposed to melancholic. In brief: delicately groovyand subtly catchy.samples:
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Bubblecore might be mostknown for their release which tiptoe around the term "post-rock" buthave a strong heavy jazz, improvisational dub feel which find their wayinto indie rock fan markets most successfully. Some releases howeverstep into the realm of spacious, beat-less sonic super structures,whether that be by means of electronics or organics. Angus Maclaurin'sdebut full-lengther on Bubblecore shouldn't come as a surprise givenwhat I just said, but it has arrived as a very pleasant and welcomedsurprise for me. Maclaurin was a local boy to the Port Chester, NYscene (home to Bubblecore) who traded in his local rock stature andmoved north to a quiet place in Maine. There in his basement laboratoryhe came up with 'Glass Music' which was constructed from layers andloops of recordings of finely tuned glasses. It starts off dark andeerie but over the course of nine tracks, it blossoms into a beautifulaural display of shimmering glistening bliss. The sounds of glassimitate gongs, chimes and bells, all of which resonate with varyingdegrees of depth. According to sources, there were no delays involved,and that the sounds appear to delay and echo due to the usage of fivedifferent reel-to-reel tape machines. Look for Angus touring with DylanGroup sometime in the next year.samples:
- Fugue
- What
- Sea Shanti (ranphoryncus remix)
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Known in English-speaking countries as 'Fantastic Planet,' the sountrack from this highly acclaimed cult-classic cartoon film from 1973 is finally available. For any fan of the film, this is a -must have- as the music is spectacularly anthemic and seemingly timeless. As I was browsing aorund the Twisted Village here in Cambridge, I saw the recently arrive disc sitting on the counter, priced up and ready to hit the shelves. My jaw dropped and I had to walk away with it. Minutes later in Other Music, the crew found it fit for in-store play and I was in heaven.
 
The music is a futuristic look which is dated by the early 70s, with a rich brass and string orchestra playing alongside various electronic guitars, analogue keyboards, drums and slappy bass. From the first few notes, chills run down my spine as I think back to when I watched this first on late night television at around 15 years old. Immediately the main themes are burned deep into my skull. The sound pulls me in like the pied piper led the mice and I end up whistling the themes all day long. My only complaint is that at 37 minutes, it's far too short.
 
samples:
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The Montreal-based collective Molasses has released its second discthrough Alien8 Recordings' associated label, Fancy. Like the first one,the packaging is exquisite (a triple-gatefold sleeve with embossedwriting and stickers) and the music is limited to only a few songs(three if you don't count the untitled first track of church bells).Each song tears at the gut strings from a seemlingly tired heartbrokensoul from a cold, bleak and desolate area, north of the border.Molasses is led by singer/songwriter Scott Chernoff and featuresgodspeed members Thierry (bass) and Norsola (cello) as well as ShalabiEffect leader Sam Shalabi on guitar. This time around, the collectivesound has matured, with the production sounding far more professionalbut not losing that human feel. Included is a 14-minute version ofAmazing Grace, and while this old standard pops up almost seemingly toooften, the Molasses version contained herein fits in perfectly with therest of the disc.samples:
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Tino Corp has releasedthis special 12" EP to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release ofone of the most important techno releases of the 90s. But why???Truthfully there's really only a couple decent mixes on this record,but none of them are varied even remotely enough as the originalrelease. This doesn't make up for the original House of God (HolophonicSound EP) which was stolen from me, which I can no longer replace. Outof the four mixes, the DHS mix might be my favorite, newer samples giveit a more modern feel, but in all honesty, to me it's rather lukewarmcompared to the trancey, hypnotic original. At first, I'm tempted toguess that the tracklisting on side 2 is incorrect as track 1 soundsmore like a MBM remix with some of the various sounds. However, withfurther listening, those samples used sure seem to yank a ton from MBMback catalogue. Could this be a form of hero worship? MBM'sconrtibution probes more of the deep trancey sounds, without jumpinginto MBM-esque breakbeat we're more familiar with hearing. Well, thanksfor teasing us with this release, but the original EP should truly bemade available again.samples:
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After a four-year hiatus,Mego favorites General Magic return with Rechenkoenig, a brilliantfollow-up to their debut album, Frantz. Ramon Bauer and Andreas Pieper,who comprise General Magic, have a reputation of steering clear of theconventions to which minimal electronic music is often prone. Thetracks on Rechenkoenig are brief in length, and juxtaposed with suchsonic abruptness that the listener is kept constantly on edge, withoutpossibility of repetition-induced boredom. In fact, 'minimal' isprobably the adjective furthest from my mind upon hearing the fragmentsof frantically paced beats, often heavily distorted, scattered amongstdigital twittering, crackling, and outright onslaughts of noise.samples:
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This was originallyreleased as two separate EPs: "Lassie House" being a 10" limited to 250copies through Slaalplaat in 1995; and "Jumble Massive" being an LPlimited to 296 copies through Soleilmoon in 1996. Now, though, they aretogether and released, unlimited, through Cacciocavallo. The materialseems to fit together on one release nicely, with no major differenceinsound between the two EPs. "Lassie House," to some degree, has a moreslapstick humor feel to it, though both conjure rememberence of 18's UKgameshows and sitcoms, as well as children's programs and circus tunes.Vicki Bennett is very clever with how she collages her clips andsamples together, but I feel perhaps that this work centers less onbeing "humourous," per sae, and more and merely being nonsensical. Thetracksare, as one EP's title suggests, a massive jumble of cut up, repeated,morphed, and fucked sound clips from god-knows-where. A favouritehightlight is the last track, which acts as a mock self-help tape,helping "people like us" to cope with such things as sewing machinesand anticipating bowel movements: you need only chant, "Come on, poo!Come on, poo! Poooo, coming! Poooo, coming!" These EPs were nicelyworked fortheir time, but, to be honest, Vicki has since outdone herself withreleases such as the Hate People Like Us remix album and herbrilliant new (but not newest!) release, Thermos Explorer.samples:
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While I'm not claiming tobe an expert in Jazz by any remote means, I highly recommend starting aSun Ra collection with two stellar albums from the mid-60s recentlyremastered and reissued by ESP. Originally recorded in 1965 and 1966,these discs were highly influential to ushering-in new movements inexperimental jazz, soul and funk. Musically there was no true soloistof Sun Ra's Arkestra. This contradicted other popular jazzcontemporaries as the Arkestra as a collective was the focal point atthe center, a fiery mass of color and sound. Decadent and chaotic, withSun Ra 'arkestrating' from beyhind the keyboards and piano, theArkestra was indeed an orchestra consisting of brass, woodwinds,strings, flute and various percussion. 
On a thematic plane, the heliocentric spiritualism was contemporary tothe various programs by the US and Russian governments as earthlingslooks to space as the next conquest. Take into consideration civilrights movements, tie everything together musically and the ground waslaid for George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic afronauts, who werevoyaging with the Mothership for decades to come. Other influences havestretched to include brainwashed groups Meat Beat Manifesto (who shareda bill with Sun Ra's Arkestra in 1996), Nurse with Wound (who I'm surehave sampled 'Nebulae' on Volume 1 in Thunder Perfect Mind) and Coil(who has long been planning a release titled "Sex with Sun Ra.") I'msure there's more planes of existence I haven't even realized withthese discs or the rest of Sun Ra's music, but for now it's a start.Herman Poole 'Sonny' Blount (A.K.A. Sun Ra) died in May of 1993, buthis Arkestra carries on playing in various locations around the US.samples:
- Outer Nothingness (from vol. 1)
- Nebulae (from vol. 1)
- The Sun Myth (from vol. 2)
- Cosmic Chaos (from vol. 2)
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