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29 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

Son Lux, otherwise known as Ryan Lott, hails originally from Denver and is now based in New York. Here he presents us with his debut CD of 11 exquisitely styled and crafted slow-burn songs, a pleasing marriage of lean classicalism with trip- and hip-hop beats, and the whole flavored with a distinctly otherworldly ambience. Only three months into 2008 and I have already come across a possible contender for best of year.

Anticon

Lott possesses a distinctly breathily and cracklingly fragile voice, a voice which constantly threatens to shatter into crystalline shards as piercingly bright and sharp as ice glinting in sunlight, but which simultaneously, and thankfully, avoids descending into cloying sentimentality or nauseating self-pity. Set against the deliciously languorous 3am-in-the-morning backing vibe, consisting of piano, organ drones, strings, woodwind, bass, and counterpointed by those apparently contradictory beats, that voice sends a frisson of delight coursing up and down the spine which is made even more exquisite by lyrical friction. There's something appealingly dangerous about a voice that could potentially break hearts intoning the words "You will betray me baby / I will be true..," or "You stand between me and all my enemies." That frictional tension is quite startling and sharp in places, for instance in the track that contains that first set of lyrics mentioned above. "Betray," which, although driven by a quietly upbeat rhythm supported by an equally funky bass-line, produces sparks when those same lyrics, delivered in that plaintive hallmark style, rub up against the walls and mazes created by the backing. Lott's voice is particularly effective when a solo piano hauntingly echoes the pitch and timbre of his delivery, as on “Raise,” or sets itself up against the quiet drones, electric piano, and sawed strings of "Tell," where the ethereality and emotion-laden qualities of Lott's vocal range are given full rein.

Like most good stories though, the tale is one of contrast and chiaroscuro. Lott travels from one style to another with an enviable and accustomed ease, as if he owns each of them and made them his own, ranging from chamber to hip-hop and everything in between; in the process managing to create a set of near-perfect 'pop' songs to boot. Jumping from a breezy soulfulness to a razor-sharp regret, and from an almost jaunty elevated and unlooked for hopefulness to a state of painful awareness that things haven't quite gone according to plan, he covers the whole spectrum with both a confidence and a surety that many would give their immortal soul for. Furthermore, it all sounds natural and easy, to the point that it is almost the correct prescription. Any other approach would have been doomed to failure. I find that an astonishing, and delightful, feat, especially so in these days of manufactured and slickly-packaged mainstream musical pap. While it will justifiably gather around it a coterie of admirers, I find it a pity that its constituency won't be as broad as it manifestly deserves.

On a personal level, the beauty of Lott's debut opus lies in the very stylistic and emotional ranges that he exhibits so confidently and in such an accomplished manner. I guess it must be easy enough to release an album displaying a collection of stylistic variations in an effort to establish musical credentials; it must be a completely different proposition when it comes to integrating everything into a seamless whole that not only flows but veritably shines. I would venture to guess that Lott's attempts at audio-alchemy have succeeded admirably.

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29 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

27 has quietly become one of my favorite bands over the last few years and their latest album is the perfect explanation for why that is. I'm an unashamed fan of pop music, and I am thankful that there is a band like 27 that continues to offer a reason to love hooks, lyrics, and songs.

Relapse

My introduction to 27 came a number of years ago when Brainwashed head honcho Jon Whitney asked me to run an errand for him that put me at their show here in Atlanta. I had no idea what to expect but by the end of the gig I was walking out of Lenny's with a copy of every piece of merchandise I could get my hands on. I had found a new band that I could obsess over, but sadly I never really saw the band or heard much from them again for a long time. Their discs for Let the Light In and Songs From the Edge of the Wing both stayed in my car for years as records that I would often go back to when I wanted to listen to something with some soul, but they were never blasted across my consciousness with gig posters, magazine ads, or online reviews like so many lesser bands in the same time.

So when I was recently reviving my love for their early music by putting Songs From the Edge of the Wing on heavy rotation, I thought to look the band up on Amazon's MP3 download service to see if they had released anything new. Say what you will about the intersection of a huge retail corporation and a small band from Boston—the result couldn't have made me happier. When Holding on for Brighter Days was released in the middle of 2007 it was nowhere on my radar screen and now the album is among my early favorites of the new year.

27's most obvious selling point is Maria Christopher. Her voice is sweet, even when the music is less so. She has a perfect lullaby tone that is immediately likeable and inviting, and that sometimes works in spooky contrast to the lyrics and the rest of the band's playing. Her voice is often doubled and spread out all over the mix so that it becomes the only thing that I can really pay attention to when it's present. But when she's not singing, the weird details and varied instrumentation work wonders.

The band toys with samplers in a way that gives the songs some depth without sounding gimmicky or over-produced. Their incorporation of electronics is refreshing for me because I listen to a lot of music where laptops and software exert considerable muscle on the mix, and those records are tricky to get right. 27 has taken an almost naïve approach to the sampler that lets their musicianship and songwriting shine without sample-spotting or plugin lust getting in the way. "Closer to You" even sounds like it could be an attempt at proto-trip hop, and yet it's not out of place sandwiched between the bittersweet "Heaven Owes Me One" and the lush but sad and slow "1001 Gods." In another time, 27 might have found a home on a label like 4AD where this exact mix of sounds and moods and occasional forays into pop experiment would have felt natural.

I often wonder then what a band like 27 is doing on labels like Relapse or Hydra Head, and the cognitive disconnect between a label known primarily for heavy and extreme music and a band that makes loveable, melancholy three minute pop songs may be one of the reasons I don't see much about them around here. Ultimately, I'm just glad that someone is putting out their records. Album opener "Brighter Days" is one of the most sublime pop songs that I've come across in years and it highlight's 27's formula perfectly. The songs are short and to the point, layered with sweetness and a touch of menace and just enough interesting little sounds in the background to keep me wanting to hear them again and again.

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29 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

Italy's Alessandro Tedeschi (the man behind both the ambient Netherworld outfit and Glacial Movements) seems to be waging a one-man campaign through his label to make us aware of the fragility of the icy snowbound environments situated at both poles of our planet. This release, by fellow Italian ambient artist Oöphoi (Gianluigi Gasparetti), is the label's fourth foray and steadfastly continues the tradition set by the previous three in bringing extended and hauntingly crystalline sound explorations of these threatened environments.

Glacial Movements

Oöphoi here regales us with a delicately sparkling, shimmering meditation on that very fragile nature of the pristine ice-sheets floating on the waters of the northern and southern extremities of this globe—an endangered fragility made even more topical with the news that large cracks are appearing in the massive Wilkins ice-shelf in Antarctica and that glacier-loss is accelerating. Oöphoi brings this matter to our attention through the medium of just over 65 minutes of minimalist drone, composed of slowly evolving and minutely changing synth washes providing a dreamlike backdrop for the ghostly voice of a solitary theremin, perhaps lamenting and bewailing the complacency and the careless attitude with which the human species disregards the health of his only home. The net result being a long slowly-unwinding Eno-esque ambientscape, describing a world where mankind has very rarely set foot simply because of an accident of geography and climatology, a place of endless stretches of white populated only by polar creatures supremely adapted to these harsh conditions, yet still, paradoxically, a place where the reach of man's shortsightedness has had, and continues to have, a profoundly damaging effect.

What I took from this was the shiveringly haunting beauty gracing one of the last true wildernesses left on this much-traversed and explored world of ours, a beauty bathed for at least half the year in utter darkness, the skies only occasionally enlivened by the playful auroral visitations splashing themselves across the vast expanse of midnight blue, the stars peeking out from behind the shimmering veil of electrons like some shy maiden. Oophoi's soundscapes capture that essential crispness of the polar air, where everything takes on a clarity unavailable elsewhere, where the light from billions of tiny pinpoints of light reach us and put on a gloriously unashamed display, perhaps because of the very fact that there are very few witnesses around. The whole sound, just like the land itself, welcomes the listener wholeheartedly with a coldly soporific and torpid embrace, enveloping one with a desire to do nothing but lie back and let the imagined warmth overwhelm, until life itself becomes a dream slipping through numb fingers.

This harks back to the early experiments in ambient soundscapes, gently wafting, swirling and mesmerising, unhurried, just like the slow progress of the glaciers and floes of ice flowing on the frigid seas of these ice-bound regions. Deeply spiritual in many ways and deeply moving, unfolding with a stately pace befitting the rhythm of life in these stark deserts of ice and snow, this album was, for me, redolent of both crisply cold but sun-lit winter mornings, or that part of the day when the blue skies of the day have given way to the deep purples and blues of twilight, the time when the stars emerge from the wings in order to put on their nightly show. This is shatteringly beautiful, scintillatingly frozen, and stunningly magnificent ambience.

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29 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

Taking for the name of her band the title of her previous album, Carla Bozulich's latest broadcast is as unsettling as it is beautiful. Crushing No Wave-style rhythms sit beside milder, contemplative songs; the contrasts making for an album that in lesser hands could end up sounding disjointed and fragmented but, thanks to Bozulich's vision and the stellar cast of musicians accompanying her, Hello, Voyager is more than a collection of songs on a CD. It is a call to arms against all that is wrong with the world.

Constellation

Hello, Voyager is quite simply a joy of an album in terms of quality but not necessarily a joy to listen to. Throughout the album Bozulich comes across like some middle ground between Diamanda Galás and Nina Simone. Except there is no middle ground but a precipice located a little off in the distance where Bozulich can survey the musical panorama, pick out what she likes and create her own landscape. The grinding stomp of "Smooth Jazz" (a complete misnomer if ever there was one) and the harrowing, wordless lament of "The Frozen Dress" both reach that painfully human part of the soul that Galás always strikes at. However, there is never that sense of disembodied rage that you get in Galás' work. Instead Bozulich is more like a neighbor (one that you know well enough to say hello to but not much more) coming up and telling you some horrific news. "The Frozen Dress," in particular, makes my stomach sink in an unpleasant, anxious way.

That the polar opposite of these songs exist on the same album in perfect harmony is not only surprising but damn impressive. "The Blue Room" features some wonderful string arrangements that lift already captivating Bozulich's voice like pallbearers with the coffin of a hero: with grace, dignity and utter respect. "Paper Kitten Claw" is equally heartbreaking in its quiet solemnity. That Bozulich (and her accompanying band) can balance all these moods on one album is a true sign of her immense talent.

In short, this album hits all the right buttons. It is angry and full of passion yet can also by calming and delicate. Like an evangelist, she works up the audience (in this case, just me) into a religious fervour but this Evangelista is more of an insurrectionist than a messenger of god. And this is the abiding feeling that comes through all the songs, that Bozulich is singing direct from the front lines of a war on societies woes. Although she does not offer answers, her role is that of documentation. She leads us through these horrors: "You are with us now, we are all the same." It is a scary ride but thankfully escape is only a stop button away.

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23 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

The three names emblazoned on the simple and stark cover of this CD should be familiar to most people here–Duncan, von Hausswolff, Koner, and Tietchens have been around for many, many years, establishing themselves as elder statesmen of the scene. The present disc features three extended explorations recorded live, committed to tape in San Francisco, Montreal, and London, and represent a summation perhaps of the combined artistry and talent that these people have shown us all these years.

Die Stadt

None of these artists deal in certainty or the tyranny of absolute structure, however their work, while appearing to be the very antithesis of form and order, contains a sense that there is a correct rhythm and evolution informing each piece. Moreover, these people know what they are about: their amassed years of playing and experimenting with sound, which probably amounts to a combined tally of a century if not more, lifts them out of the sphere of the merely experimental and squarely into the territory of intimate familiarity, as if each has a close relationship with their materials, just like a visual artist has with their chosen media.

Duncan's nearly 25 minute contribution steps up to the plate for first bat with "Live at the Compound." This track exhibits as much concern for the absence of sound as for the qualities of sound itself. Fading in almost as slowly as some geological process, rolling in majestically in an unhurriedly concatenating wave, building strength by minute steps and becoming all the stronger for it, eventually breaking and dissipating quickly back into silence, only to be superceded by yet another wave. This is about natural rhythms, ebbing and flowing, reaching into and withdrawing, and everything layering in a repeating cycle—something perhaps like the continuous layering of sediments or the cyclical rise and fall of civilisations. This takes its time to develop; there is no particular timescale for things to reach their apotheosis and optimum equilibrium, it gets there when it is good and ready.

Tietchens and Koner, collaborating as Kontakte der Junglinge, fly in with "Montreal Solution 1," a weighty swirling engine noise passing to and fro overhead like some vast gravity-defying alien airship, measured in miles not feet, hanging in the air of our world in defiance of physics and commonsense. Natural sounds merge and emerge while occult rhythms peek almost shyly from behind the curtains of shimmering noise gravitating towards some unseen point of equilibrium. In contrast, Hausswolff's track, "Circulating Over Square Waters (Framed Nature)," brings it right back to the human and earthly sphere, mingling human voices and bird sounds together with ambient environmental sounds and a strange squeaking rhythm that makes its presence felt throughout the length of the track (which only loses cohesion towards the end) providing a kind of weird metronomic. These two oppositional elements, the one representing the world of natural rhythm, and the other representing the imposition of an unnatural order on what essentially refuses to be ordered, provide the underlying tension and engine that drives the track along.

Die Stadt have a knack for confronting and getting us to think about our attitude to sound and definitions of what constitutes music. Most people would say that what is contained on this album isn't real music, but I would argue however that in fact this is the genuine thing—beautiful, flowing, challenging, meditative, and above all, inspiring. Those, to me, are the hallmarks of a truly quality album.

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23 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

cover image It is safe to say that noise as a genre has officially achieved crossover status. There were hints at this before, such as Wolf Eyes landing on Sub Pop and delivering rhythmic, yet still brutal punk influenced noise and Prurient becoming a Pitchfork pin-up boy for the genre. Fuck Buttons (my early winner for subtle band name of the year award) have adopted some of the harsher elements of noise, but framed it with melody and other musical elements that somehow works.

ATP Recordings

I knew that the gentle chiming melody that opened up the "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" couldn't last for a band with this kind of moniker, and I was right.Not long after it opens a bit of overdriven amp noise and some pulsing bass mucks up the beauty.However, it never fully overtakes it, and even when the manic European style power electronics vocals rear their (intentionally) ugly head, the melody never goes away, it lingers very definitively.I know it is lazy criticism to make such comparisons, but imagine Whitehouse vocals and about half of the noise tracks layered with some excerpts from Aphex Twin's ambient work and that gives a rough idea.

Pretty much all of the tracks feature that noise infused overdriven synth sound to one extent or another, and often mixed with some form or variation of rhythm."Ok, Let's Talk About Magic" takes this template, using an archaic beat box rhythm that could have been a leftover from the early days of Esplendor Geometrico, manic vocals and‚Ä¶wait, who the hell invited Geoff Downes in to play keytar?Someone got prog rock keyboards in my noise, but for some reason I'm not angry.

A few tracks focus less on the dissonance and more on simply trying something weird, like the clattering tribal percussion and spastic tribal chants of "Ribs Out" or the Casio keyboard and monotone kick drum of "Bright Tomorrow."The latter is especially worth mentioning as it opens sounding like any sort of cheesy pseudo-disco club music imaginable before the jackhammers of noise knock the wall down and the unwashed masses bum rush the show (yo).

As a whole it is an odd proposition to mix chilled out synth oriented ambience with digital noise and most unhinged vocals this side of a Sutcliffe Jugend album, but in practice it is a refreshing take on two genres that can so often stagnate rather than continue to grow.It won't appeal to the PBR swilling mosh-pitters, but I think that is just fine with 95% of the universe.

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23 March 2008

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Albums and Singles

cover image It doesn‚Äôt take a psychic to figure that two members of the Boredoms and one from Reynols getting together for live improvisations are probably not going to be creating smooth jazz or g-funk era R&B. Across the four tracks and all possible permutations of the trio (the first three tracks feature each working as duos before the final full trio lineup), there‚Äôs enough psychedelic tomfoolery to satisfy even the most jaded of adventurous listeners.

Public Eyesore

Chaos is the name of the game here, yet in a somewhat controlled manner.There are tinges of old school Boredoms or Hanatrash here, but in a decidedly less brutal, more restrained state of mind.The first track of four, a duo of Courtis and Yamamoto, is a lot of guitar noodling through a battery of delays, occasionally plaintive keyboard tones as well that grow a bit harsher as it clicks on.At its peak, the din of noise is like a field recording of a steel mill‚Ä¶and someone thought it was "bring your kid to work day" and the kid is teaching himself guitar in the middle of all of the machinery.

More expansive is the track of Yoshimi and Courtis, which lets the Boredoms member yell and shriek over live layering effects as both abuse their guitars and synths, but letting enough silence and near silence build between outbursts to give them more of a punch.The Yamamoto/Yoshimi track does give a Boredoms reunion feeling to it, a batch of headache inducing sustained keyboards and guitar banging that, at times, conjures up a wonderfully 1980s hair metal vibe where the listener can almost picture Yamamoto flailing around, teased hair and spandex, with his tongue out to get those hightest notes possible to come out of that poor six-stringed instrument.

The climax is the full on trio playing together and, clocking in at 26 minutes (essentially twice as long as the other pieces), it does not let me down.The sound is bolder and more aggressive, Yoshimi's vocals are more commanding, the guitar is more fuzzed out and grinding, and there is a sense of big, spacious metallic rhythms.However, the track is just as willing to mellow out and let in some calm piano playing and open air as well, keeping things fresh and moving.

As chaotic as it all is, there is a lot to enjoy here and to focus on among the variation.The album has a very raw feeling to it: it sounds like there was little in the way of post-production or heavy mastering done in order to preserve that immediate feeling that the live performances surely had.Although listeners may have to adjust volume levels to find a level that gives maximum impact, it is worth the effort.

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23 March 2008

Albums and Singles

Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio remixes Popol Vuh's "Nachts: Schnee" from the 1987 soundtrack Cobra Verde, and crafts a piece that balances craving and anguish. Haswell & Hecker undertake the impossible: "Aguirre I" from the 1972 soundtrack Aguirre - The Wrath Of God.

22 March 2008

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These two releases from the enigmatic Anthony Mangicapra's ever-changing Hoor-Paar-Kraat project could have been from two completely different artists. The first, an LP reissue of two older pieces, is a heavy and superb release and the second, a CD-R of new material, is equally wonderful but is cut from a completely different cloth. Both releases are from that same spectrum of musical surrealism as Nurse With Wound and Irr. App. (Ext.) but never apes these obvious influences. Unfortunately, like the rest of the Hoor-Paar-Kraat catalogue, these two albums are quite limited so are unlikely to be easy to find for long.

Goat Eater Arts

Containing two long tracks, the LP collects two tracks from two different very out of print releases. The sleeve is very attractive, a simple silkscreened design of a man and an evil-looking duck that suits the absurd audio content. On one side is "The Nagaraja Movements," which was previously released as a 3" CD-R in 2006. It starts with a low droning sound and what sounds like someone's throat. This gives way to an unexpectedly punishing riff that is straight out of the Earth2 school of detuned guitar lines.

The other side contains "Sundownings," which takes an altogether more sinister turn. It was originally the last track on A Tale for Babes and Sucklings but unfortunately the other two pieces on that release have not resurfaced as of yet. "Sundownings" is reminiscent of early Nurse With Wound with its atmospheric and unearthly rumblings and weird percussive sounds. The piece slowly changes texture, taking on the characteristic of a supernatural storm beating the outside of the shelter. It is a powerful and unsettling piece that could very nearly be yet another crappy dark ambient track but Mangicapra and company nimbly sidestep that pitfall.

cover image The second of these two releases is Tzool-Mah, an album containing four new pieces. Like An Anagram Hypnotic (and indeed all the other Hoor-Paar-Kraat releases I have), the sleeve is an elegant handmade design involving fingerprints, sealing wax and some patterned paper. I often complain that too many people are more concerned with packaging than with content but, when the balance between both is done right, it makes the impact of the music even stronger. This is one of those instances.

Inside the lovely sleeve is a CD-R containing four engaging compositions. The first, "To Dine is Divine Intervention," consists of the hypnotic of bowed cymbals with harsh metallic sounds punctuating the drawn out resonances. The bowing becomes more frantic towards the end of the piece, creating a black mood that makes me feel anxious. My anxiety is not helped by the creepy breathing on the subsequent piece, "With Twofold Force in Twin Directions." The percussion brings to mind a giant in hobnail boots pacing up and down inside an oil tanker. The music makes me feel quite small.

The atmosphere is somewhat dashed by "The Food of the Underworld (A Pomegranate Seed)" which lacks the appeal of the other pieces on these two releases. I would not go so far as to say it is a dud but it is definitely lacklustre in comparison to Hoor-Paar-Kraat's usual high standards. Luckily normal transmission is resumed with the very long final track which is a fantastic and funny loop of several recordings of conversations and readings of Paddington Bear. It is a disorientating but deeply entertaining wander through a room full of disembodied voices.

I get the feeling that Mangicapra is pushing Hoor-Paar-Kraat in a number of directions, trying not to be derivative or repetitive. The breadth of material on these two releases alone is huge (and having been exposed to a few other releases, this variety is the norm) but it always sounds like Hoor-Paar-Kraat, which I imagine is hard to do when so many styles and approaches are utilized. Yet it is not such a strong character as to overpower the music as these bulletins from the outer borders of reality supersede such trivialities as character and personality.

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