06 November 2010

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Albums and Singles

Despite being a duo, Hototogisu have always had the vibe of a recluse within their music. There‚Äôs always been a distance and privacy in their sound since Matthew Bower (Skullflower / Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards / Zaimph) first teamed up a few records into Hototogisu‚Äôs discography. Within the morass of sounds there‚Äôs always been a huge human element, but it‚Äôs never been a consciously communicative voice. Hototogisu have always been unique in the field of drone rock, pushing competition into either straight up plagiarism or shunting them into reinvention.

Destijl

This is music deeply seated in ritual and purging, a great human heaving of ideas and emotions, but never rooted in structure or the obvious. This Brooklyn / Leeds team-up are charging white horses through crowds of their peers, taking heads nonchalantly as they go. Even their sleeves add to the band‚Äôs mythology, from the cult metal logo and alchemically crafted artwork, there‚Äôs a focus on the darkly gothic, without the bullshit accoutrements. This cover features a big cat skull gripping a steel ball in front of shards of broken glass, a bizarre but oddly elegant image.

Their back catalogue is in good company with this LP, an astoundingly deep sounding record with minimal electronics and a lot of guitar action. Chim√§rend√§mmerung takes the guitar from its obvious forefront position and splits it open like a patient mid-operation. Using its tactility and historical connections to emotional peaks this pair wreck what a guitar is supposed to be for. While the song still squirms, they ride it between ceremonial blasts of drone and lost-in-the-wilderness sandstorm prayers. Bower and Bassett don‚Äôt just blow minds for a living; they do it on their weekends too. With Chim√§rend√§mmerung they avoid both the piebald wacky instrumentation and shambolic anything-goes of many acts that seem to have been pulled into their wake. There is a very substantial something made here from screaming feedback and patterns from other unidentifiable instruments. This is most clearly heard on the second untitled piece as it layers up a melody under nineteen minutes of high-energy feathered drone. This leaves cataracts of ravaged almost solos sitting happily alongside a snaking echoing alleyway whistle. Everything here sounds organic and alive; this is an album that demands immersion. Within Hototogisu‚Äôs flattened tones and squalls of scrap metal there‚Äôs an unsettling world underneath, whispering beneath the mess. Even still Hototogisu manage to summon up a cacophony of bell-like waterfalls of noise, but one that‚Äôs tempered with hope.

The record‚Äôs human heart comes through Bassett and Bower‚Äôs obsessive input, the constructed conflict between their instruments and white lightning sheets of energy and. For all the darkness associated with the drones of the band, they never slip into dredging the sounds of senescence and death. Hototogisu skilfully use a dab of metal‚Äôs grandeur and mood without all the pomposity (Hello there, Sunn O))))), pitching it into a rootless maelstrom. The three central pieces on the LP are shifting series of explosions of noises book ended by two shorter tracks (all untitled); the programming has each track brickwalling into the next with no gaps. The song‚Äôs layers of rise and fall hum and loops of melody work better upon close inspection. The record‚Äôs higher tones seem to congregate on the later parts of the record, the buzzing of a thousand corpse flies failing to obscure the scraping viola saws for too long. The prima facie view of something as deceptively rich as Bower/Bassett‚Äôs work is often one of a mere onslaught of noise. This pair didn‚Äôt build their reps from just sitting back and blasting people rigid in their seats, although they undoubtedly could.

Taking a wider look back at the Hototogisu back catalogue, this is as easily digestible a peak as they‚Äôve ever reached. Bassett and Bower have settled, if you can use that word in association with something so deeply driven, into a majestic furrow of sound. Every sound seems handmade and purposefully placed with this duo, even in the molten heat of the thickest barricades of barbed feedback.

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06 November 2010

Albums and Singles

Isis are undeniably one of the most popular hard rock independent label bands in the business while Aereogramme deserve to be right up there with them, headlining mega shows with the same numbers. Both have soft and loud moments, both Aaron Turner and Craig B can coo like a dove and scream like Satan's spawn, but, even as this is one of the best In the Fishtank releases, I'm skeptical if it will gain new fans for either entity.

05 November 2010

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Albums and Singles

The latest release in an impressive line of ‘Merz’ titled releases onImportant may prove to be Merzbow’s most easily enjoyable and finestbeat related work to date. Masami Akita continues to fight thegood fight on behalf of the animal kingdom though his arsenal of noise,static, fury and a trusty drum machine.
Important Records

From the cheeky digital pig eating a human hand on the coverto the carnage of the inside artwork Merzbow hints at a context and afocus of animal domination/revenge for the abstract sounds. Althoughthe treble squealing whine on track 1 could never be heard asanything other than the sound of a fully trained up war pig on thecharge. All of the songs here rely heavily on beats and these vary inviolence and intricacy from the growing and ever modifying patternof track 4 to the more straightforwardly moving but complicatedbeat on track 2. The addition of a set structure to the usual punishingnoiseelements takes some of the fire from Merzbow but it also provides a bedfrom which to dig deeper and get lost in the manipulated frequenciesand washes of static. As these brief patterns loop they dig melodicfurrows from the squalls which he then discards with the flick of adial or the clicking of a plug in. Merzbow’s beat making abilities areimproving with every release and this evolution is madeexplicitly obvious on track 3, where the beat moves from a cheap Casioshape to a shuffling stalling dusty locked groove.

There are slightsimilarities in the combination of noise and percussion to the stylesof producers like El-P and Dälek and it can only be a matter of timebefore a Peta approved MC collaborates with Akita. Of course it wouldtake a quite exceptional vocalist to volunteer to attempt to ride themass of blasting sonic debris that is created here.But it’s not all drum and static heaviosity, as behind the black on thesecond and third tracks there’s something smaller and melodic going on.There’s a collection of sounds difficult to pin down in there thatmakes it look like he thought about adding a moreconventional melody to the songs and then just flicked it back into themix. These moments sound both beautiful and odd as they slip to and frothe overwhelming Merzbow abuse. Whether he takes this direction furtheror descends back into his experiments with noise isunknown but his insane work rate means that it won’t be long till it's found out.

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05 November 2010

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Albums and Singles

Thisguy who seems to care about the welfare of animals and suffers from asevere case of misanthropy has me entranced. Masami Akita'spredisposition to releasing animal-related albums has spawned yetanother record that has perhaps no sonic relation to its title or PETAsponsorship.

Blossoming Noise

At certain points listening to Senmaida reminds me of what itmust feel like to be torn to pieces and relocated somewhere else, likestepping into the transporters in all those sci-fi television series. Iused to listen to a Merzbow records a few times a year and then shelvethem for whenever I decided a headache was in order or whenever I feltlike listening to something that would purify my mind and wipe mymemory clean. When "Tract 3" kicks in with it's game-like, poppingrhythm and the call of animal sounds, it's hard to believe that Merzbowhas been doing anything but this for his entire career. This isn't aharsh noise extravaganza, it's simply my favorite Merzbow album to dateand one of the best records I've heard all year.

Save for a few animal sounds clearly tucked away under Akita's monumental barrage of noise splatter, Senmaidais a predominantly rhythmic album that is catchy enough to keep thealbum in my player. The inclusion of beats over his white noise,all-the-sounds-in-a-blender provided a way for Akita to explore his noise further. NowAkita has almost completely eschewed the pure noise approach andcreated something vaguely new so far as my knowledge of the infiniteMerzbow catalogue goes. Don't get me wrong, there are still longstrokes of jumbled chaos riddled all over this disc, but morediscernable samples are used and space is absolutely essential to eachof the three tracks.

The variations in tempo, timbre, and intensity make for a far more interesting album and, instead of sounding simply loud and powerful, Senmaida has a dark feel to it that isn't too far removed from all the dark jungle or drum 'n bass that was popular years back. The beats aren't what is out of control, though, it's the dark, mechanical, nearly industrial pulse of Merzbow's percussion that seems the most sane and consistent part of the record. Above those beatings, however, is the rattle of marbles being chucked around inside the skull of dead animal, the ADD-driven smashing of a billion toms hurtled through a wood cutter with the performer still attached, and all the digital means necessary to pin it all together.

The word "senmaida" literally means "a thousand rice paddies" and, so far as a thematic must go, serves as Akita's way of saying "don't eat animals." The album cover, however, sports a cartoon rabbit shooting a needle into a human's eyeball, the individual being strapped down to a medical bed and looking awfully uncomfortable. I guess Akita has never claimed he was the master of holding down a narrative, but whatever the case may be, this is one of Merzbow's strongest records.

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05 November 2010

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Albums and Singles

Deerhoof have always done an admirable job of spanning the wide gulfbetween pure pop and pure noise. The most recent release from the San Franciscoquartet is their strongest synthesis of noise and pop yet.
Kill Rock Stars

While early recordings were more nowave then they were power pop, albums like Reveille and Apple’O foundthe band stringing the two together, as though it were the most naturalthing in the world, while Milk Man altered the approach, utilizingkeyboards and atmospheric samples. Obviously, it didn’t sound like popmusic to most, but behind the skronky guitars and absurdist tales ofwarped childhoods and bent sexuality, there were great songs. Though it would havebeen enough for them to rest on their achievements of past releases, itseems pretty clear that the band have released their strongestcollection of songs yet.

At 20 tracks, TheRunner’s Four can seem a bit overwhelming, and while the first half ofthe album is seemingly devoted to the band’s more accessible material,the second half is just as rewarding. “Chatterboxes” opens the album with a suitably menacing guitar line andSatomi Matsuzaki’s airy vocals. It’s an understated opener for an albumthat is bursting at the seams with angular guitars and sublime pophooks. More indicative of the album as a whole is “Running Thoughts,” ajazzy number carried by drummer Greg Saunier’s crashing rhythm andslinking guitar that seemingly ebbs and flows through its nearly fourminute duration with hardly any effort. “Spirit Ditties of No Tone” isnear psychedelic in its execution, with Matsuzaki spouting offabsurdist couplets over the acid drenched guitars of John Dieterich andChris Cohen. Throughout The Runner’s Four, Deerhoof’s strong sense ofsurreal storytelling remains intact, such as on the lost pirates’ tale“Odyssey.” Elsewhere, “Lemon & Little Lemon,” bubbling keyboardgives way to brushed percussions and soft vocals.

With The Runner’s Four, Deerhoofseem poised to gain a whole new legion of fans.

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02 November 2010

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Albums and Singles

SAND - Golem

Sand - Golem

- Special edition LP, limited and numbered to 633 copies

Deluxe heavy duty cover / LP about 200g

- CD Digipak 3 panels

Rotorelief releases, in 2010, a series of new albums from Sand as well as a reissue of their obscure and rare album Golem, and albums by Nurse with Wound and Current 93.
This series of albums from Sand is called “INXOM”, the series title having one letter for each album. So, 5 albums of Sand are to be released.

Two more albums from Nurse with Wound and Current 93, two groups who helped to bring to light the mystery that is Sand, increase the number of letters in the title. With these last two albums the series becomes INXODEM.

His First Steps – Golem - Desert Navigation - Sylph Ballet – North Atlantic Raven. And Chromanatron by Nurse With Wound and When the May Rain Comes, cover versions of Sand by Current 93.

The present album is a reissue of Golem, the legendary album from the cosmic and psychedelic genius that is Sand.

Personnel

Johannes Vester

Ludwig Papenberg

Ullrich Papenberg

Track Listing

Face A :

01. HELICOPTER

02. OLD LOGGERHEAD

Face B :

03. MAY RAIN

04. ON THE CORNER

05. SARAH

Bio

There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand manifest absolutely these mysterious phenomena. Story-tellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses, Sand were known, at the end of the 60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). Then Sand - Ludwig Papenberg and his brother Ullrich Papenberg, and Johannes Vester, developed a more avant-gardist, proto-industrial, visionary experimental approach, a truly unique entity in the history of music.

Not dependant on a classical “Krautrock” style, Sand is nevertheless part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands, as well as being the originators of proto-industrial musics.

www.rotorelief.com/new-releases/

31 October 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image Both of these artists have discographies that consistently combine the worlds of laptop based electronica and the purest, most natural possible human instrumentation into strong, cohesive works, and this collaboration is no exception. With Minamo's blending of folk and experimental electronics and English's penchant for dulcet tones and field recordings, the results are an even more perfect synthesis of the varying styles.

Room40

English is a prolific solo artist who has released a large body of work on his own label, as well as a recent 7" on Touch that was uncharacteristically abrasive.After hearing that single, I wasn‚Äôt sure what to expect on this collaboration, but he has mostly returned to the sparse, inviting tones and field recordings that I am familiar with.While Minamo's albums on 12k were already rather subdued recordings, here that becomes even more pronounced, leaning more on acoustic guitar and gentle electronics rather than the more kraut inspired leanings on their other albums.

The opener, "The Path," encapsulates the album in a single piece:a foghorn like melody bellows off in the distance as birdsongs appear like gulls by the sea.Then, a soaring harmonium drone and delicate acoustic guitar arrives, complicating the sound but never becoming too dense.The piece builds in complexity, with a relatively thick mix by the end, which somehow manages to be dense, yet spacious at the same time. Many of these elements appear throughout the remainder of the album, but never in a repetitive manner.The field recorded crickets and distant sounds that open "Headlights" suggest the unknown, but in a mysterious, rather than sinister manner.While the opening half is more spacious and ambient, the closing portions focus more on the electronics.

The long "Springhead," which stretches over 17 minutes, is a consistently evolving and mutating piece, first focusing on chimes and long, sustained tones droning on and on, but then later there are buried melodies and complex sound structures to be found, shifting the mood from pensive melancholy to dramatic flourish and back again throughout. The closing "Fireworks," however, is the most bizarre track when placed in context.Compared to the previous song‚Äôs careful mixing of subtle electronic sounds with natural, organic guitar notes, this one replaces the cautious notes with fast, raw guitar strums, getting as close to "rocking out" as one could while still retaining a folk context.The track is by no means going into Slayer territory, but is definitely more raucous than the tracks that preceded it, going out with a bang for sure.

While both of the artists are known for blending the worlds of pure, synthetic digital tones and natural, human warmth and instrumentation, the collaboration between them simply serves to magnify these strengths.With Minamo's delicate laptop folk and English's field recordings and careful sense use of droning sounds, the final result is a hazy but welcoming album that never loses its sense of mystery.

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31 October 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image Consisting of their first released output since going on hiatus in 2003, this set is a lengthy collection compiling all four Peel Sessions the group performed, most of their b-sides, and their three out of print early EPs before signing with Mute. The result is a five year span of music that will satisfy both the fan who has all of the albums, and the newcomer who has yet to hear anything from the trio.

RROOPP

Appliance appeared in the late 1990s as part of the prototypical "post-rock" scene that began to develop, and like contemporaries such as Fridge or Add N to X, mixed dissonant electronic experiments around a more traditional musical framework, equal parts krautrock and that of a non-German variety.Appliance not only used the synths and electronics, but also co-oped the repetition, locking many of their tracks into simple repetitive motifs that never become boring.The early "Number Three Channel is Clear" exemplifies this.Even without much in the way of keyboards or drum machines, the band locks into a Neu! type groove of guitar, bass and drums that goes from meditative rhythms to full bore playing in its relatively short duration.

This doesn‚Äôt just characterize their early work, however.While the later songs emphasize the electronics more, they maintain the dedication to repetition, like on the Peel Session take of "As Far As I Can See" from 2002.These later pieces focus more on the electronics, but often retain the guitar parts, such as how the synth textures and drum machines that mostly define "Tuesday Is Nearly Over" are lead by the plaintive guitar notes.The hybrid of technology and traditional instrumentation is reminiscent of New Order‚Äôs earlier, better moments.

Other musical references spring up subtly throughout the material here, such as the terse, tentative funk guitar that springs up on the Peel takes of "Mountains 1" and "Fast Music" (which later became "Food Music" upon its official release).While no means infringing on George Clinton's personal territory, it adds a nice element to the mix.Similarly, the death throes of Brit-pop can be heard a few times throughout this set, such as the Stone Roses-esque rhythms and psychedelic guitar moments on "Weightless Conditions" and "In The Event of Just Looking."

My favorite moments appear a lot in the earlier material, which utilizes little or nothing in the way of synths in favor of some unabashed guitar squall, such as "Pre-Rocket Science" or "Throwing A Curve Ball," both of which remind me a bit of Loop or some of Spacemen 3's harsher moments.The other extreme is represented as well, like the meshing of chaotic, noise based synth work with a traditional 'rock band' performance on "Slow Drive."

Often these sorts of collections are too heavily skewed toward one market or the other:either the career retrospective that die-hard fans are compelled to buy, often for only an EP's worth of new material, or a selection of failed experiments and ragged demos that are of little more than historical curiosity.That‚Äôs not the case here, where 15 unreleased Peel Session tracks are included, along with mostly out of print and rare material.While die-hard fans may have some of the b-sides or singles already, the Peel Sessions material alone makes this set worthy of interest.Perhaps this is the first step towards a re-activation of the band, and given their legacy presented here, that would be a great thing to happen.

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31 October 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

cover image The fact that Aranos's latest album was recorded live at Prague's Archa theater earlier this year is pretty irrelevant, aside from the surprise that one man with a violin is able to conjure up such an unholy cacophony on a stage by himself. Instead, Archarcha is far more notable for being the formal debut of a particularly violent and difficult new long-form piece, the 30-minute "Concerto No. 42 for Violin and HD." Bizarrely, the album also works as a kind of a perversely effective career retrospective, despite the fact that only one of the four pieces has ever been released before.

Pieros

Archarcha consists of four lengthy pieces that each explore a different facet of Aranos‚Äô lengthy and constantly shifting evolution.Naturally, given the eccentricity of his muse, such an undertaking is necessarily incomplete: there aren't any conspicuously electronic textures, for example.Nevertheless, quite a bit of ground is covered and Aranos seems equally adept throughout at lurching, deranged cabaret, quasi-Buddhist ritual music and the many odd places in between.

The album opens with a shimmering and absolutely beautiful wood flute-based ambient piece entitled "Flight of the Dung Beetle," which seems like gentler take on the Tibetan-influenced work on 2008's Samadhi (no singing bowls this time around).It is actually a fairly richly meaningful and appropriate title too, though I initially thought it was merely an impish allusion to "Flight of the Bumblebee."Dung beetles spend their lives digging through shit and actually fight with other dung beetles over it, but the Scarab varieties were considered a sacred symbol of transformation in early Egypt, so there are some deep metaphors to sift through for those inclined towards such things.Aranos keeps the Zen Drone-Lord reverie going for the next piece as well, breaking out his violin for 20 minutes of mesmerizing bowed and plucked perfection after a brief vocal interlude.Aranos' more drone-themed work is definitely my favorite phase of his career and this is some of his best.

The album's serene and heavenly first half comes to a very abrupt and brutal end, however, with the beginning of the aforementioned "Concerto No.42 for Violin and HD."The primary motifs of the piece are violently sawed and pitch-shifted violins, echoing sinister squeals and creaks, and deep throbbing and shuddering, but it shifts quite a bit of the course of its viscerally unfolding nightmare.Of course, it never shifts into anything that is not uncomfortable, dissonant, or disturbing though‚Äìat least not until the end, where it becomes a kind of lumbering tango.I am pretty conflicted about the piece as a whole, as it is an undeniably imaginative, virtuosic, and awesome tour de force, but it is so overwhelming and jarring that I am in no hurry to experience it again anytime soon.I felt the same way about Lars von Trier's Dancer In the Dark too, so I guess Aranos is at least in good company.

Amusingly, the set concludes with an Aranos classic from 1999's Making Love in Small Spaces, the off-kilter "pop" of "Beams of Sunshine."It feels kind of like he finished playing "Concerto," squinted at the audience through the glare of the spotlights and exclaimed "Wow- you guys are still here?Hmmm‚Ä¶. I guess I'll play something you know then."I have never personally appreciated Aranos's vocal pieces as much as his abstract work, but in this context it makes a refreshing and palate-cleansing end to a very strong set, easing the jangled nerves of the brave souls who made it that far.Archarcha is probably the most condensed representation of Aranos‚Äôs skewed brilliance that I have yet heard, so anyone curious about him would be well-served to start here‚Äìa person would have to be either deaf or dead inside not to appreciate at least "Flight of the Dung Beetle." It may get pretty snarling and harrowing at times, but this is definitely one of the absolute highlights of the Aranos oeuvre.

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