27 May 2007

John Kealy

Albums and Singles

This limited edition 7" highlights two of Jarboe's many facets, going from the simple and evocative to the hypnotic and divine. Despite being extremely prolific these last few years, Jarboe's music has been a little patchy but there are moments where her fire burns as bright as it did during Swans' mighty career. This single is one such moment, her performances on the two songs showing both her tender, beautiful singing and her roaring, visceral hollering; both pieces are stunning.

 

Paradigms Recordings

Side one, "Seeress," is a gentle and spacey number, Jarboe providing not only her beautiful voice but also organ and piano. Musically it is not a million miles away from her former comrade in arms Michael Gira's current output but that is unsurprising as both artists occupied the same musical plane for so long. The flip side is a completely different animal. The Sweet Meat Love and Holy Cult is a new improvisation-based group featuring Jarboe and an array of collaborators. On this untitled piece Jarboe chants and howls, almost doing away completely with lyrics. Her vocals combined with the lurching tribal rhythm make the music feel like it is tumbling out of the speakers. It is an incredibly powerful piece of music, full of the spirituality that Jarboe has embraced. Her conviction and energy is captured perfectly on this gem of a track. Anyone who may have lost interest in the years since Swans dissolved would do well to check this out, I am certainly highly impressed with this 7" which has reignited my interest in Jarboe.

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

There may not be a more satisfying album than this released all year. Wound tight around the spine of a clear idea is a simple and elegant network of art, music, and performance cemented in wonder. Torch Songs is firm and tangible: a mass of skin, muscle, and bone that strikes and, in striking, cuts a path from earth to the stars.

 

Die Stadt
 
Jonathan Coleclough, Andrew Liles, and artists Geoff Sawers and Iwanaga Keiko have done more than offer up an album for consumption. It is impossible to pick up this release from Die Stadt and ignore the work binding the songs together: a full-color, painted poem (its contents spanning three languages) dresses this beautiful gatefold sleeve.
"One night I find / myself wandering / through a dark and tangled wood / The air is damp / the trees are dripping / hung with mosses and / ferns..." Abstract music exhibits a tendency to reach for the stars too quickly, to remove itself from the confines of the body and the mud and lilt ever upwards towards the vast, black, and less exacting firmament. For those of us still riddled by gravity and the laws of the sciences, such music is a kind of escapism: whether haunting or illuminating, such music is the space where tired heads can go to rejuvenate. Over time this sort of idealism has rendered a laziness. Many artists and aspiring musicians forget why the space exists and its beauty is slowly effaced in the name of interesting sounds and a vulgar modernism that abhors any romance and every principled conviction. Coleclough and Liles, however, know better: Torch Songs is given a context and framed within a night of strange wandering. As the poem continues, stars become visible through the thick network of branches over our nameless narrator's head, but they are as of yet unrecognizable. Coleclough and Liles begin with their feet on the ground and their music opens from within the earth as it were: it is a weird conglomeration of foggy hums and metallic clattering stretching out as a flower bed. From it a further development will emerge: the stars and that space of comfort are visible, but we cannot begin there or make our journey there easily, and our artists know it.

I won't spoil the rest of the package but this release functions as a whole and it is useless talking about the music without mentioning what it is housed in. The gatefold packaging isn't merely artwork, it's art conceptualized within the performance that is this project's genesis. Torch Songs began in 2004 when Liles remixed Coleclough's live performance at the Intergration 3 festival in the UK. Subsequent recordings were sent to Liles and yielded eight distinct, but unified songs made from spectral moans, glass bowls, metallic knick-knacks, wooden toys, marbles, bows, perverted bagpipes, and perhaps many other instruments of various shapes and sizes. In 2005 Geoff Sawers painted what would become the cover to Torch Songs during one of Coleclough's performances. Sawers painting not only binds this project together, it is featured as part of the music on the record: his brush strokes can be heard on side B. Torch Songs is carefully considered, a well-developed collaboration that pulls out all of the stops and convenes on a meaning or on a concrete thought and moves from there. Further art artifacts are included as images on either side of the LP sleeves and they all seem to refer to one another, each one fleshing out the strange narrative that begins in the poem.

The music itself is not entirely characteristic of either performer, though what I love most about both Coleclough and Liles is evident throughout. On a basic level the music runs a gamut of moods, acknowledging fear, uncertainty, meditative calm, and a lingering playfulness throughout each of the eight tracks. Despite keeping the entire project sensible and understandable from beginning to end, Liles' work on Coleclough's source material is diverse. Each side suggests the next naturally, but each side also surprises and gives birth to new elements. These elements aren't arbitrary, either: as aforementioned there's a tendency in abstract music to move too far outside the realms of the human and to create in a way that ignores the importance of structure, melody, and narrative. Liles' reconstruction may be abstract, but it has identifiable parts and works as a guide, using sound to travel from one place to the next in a natural progression. This puts each of the eight songs right at my finger tips and gives my brain some room to interact with them. I had the good luck to engage this album with good company on a dark night with the windows closed and candles lit. The music shaped the room and made the candles glow brighter, the darkness outside closed into a denser mask, and the individual I was with began to fill the room with me, as though we were the only two people left in the world. It was a singular moment when the music merged with the space and the time I occupied: that memory has been fixed in my mind ever since and will stay there indefinitely.

Torch Songs will not likely be surpassed by any other release this year: I say this without hesitation. It is unapologetically a sumptuous work of art that goes well beyond being just another record or project between two outstanding musicians. That alone would've been enough: had this come housed in nothing more than a simple sleeve with minimal artwork, I would still be impressed by it and it would still be played quite often. But Torch Songs should be taken as an example of what a little extra time and thought can do for a record; all of the "extras" (the artwork, the weight of the vinyl, the presentation of the music, everything in short) renders this release far more substantial and enjoyable. I've heard individuals complain that abstract music is all form and little content, the sputtering catharsis of an air conditioner gone awry: Liles and Coleclough prove it doesn't have to be so. This album has set the bar unbelievably high for me and it's unlikely that I will look at any abstract music the same way now that I've heard it.

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Someone better give Mrs John Carpenter a phone call and tell her someone dug up her husband and taped his rotted ass to stack of synthesizers. Of course, John Carpenter isn't actually dead yet, but this duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes) and Steve Kenney (Werewolves) fill this vinyl with the kind of sounds that his wired-up and bloated corpse would expel from its disc drive.

 

Aryan Asshole

With "Frozen Fog 1" and "2" hemorrhaging into each other, this LP feels like each side is taken up by a single sprawl of dread-fuelled electric keyboard thought, instead of being split into three parts. A peeling howl of a pulse, the opener's tremors approach distressing levels and twist into a willingly sour sound. The duo's warped sense of rhythm sees the pitch rise and fall like some distorted melody, black sparks coming off the seams. The synth bank squelches along charred and smoky welds, dub aesthetics leading the music into the shuddering breaks of a Lee Perry K-hole. The whole of Frozen Fog seems lit by the last moments of a Star's life.

The cracked and stretched Tron lights of "Frozen Fog 3" give the flipside a colder atmosphere. The piece's patterns swirl and cycle like a nighmare on loop, the visuals recurring seconds after waking. Demons create a smoky audio world entangling the equipment in streetlight and fog. This release does to synth music what Carpenter's The Thing alien did to the bodies it inhabited: it messes with the source, spitting out something twisted and full of dread.

samples:

• Frozen Fog 1
• Frozen Fog 3

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Motor Ghost consists of Alex Neilson and Ben Reynolds and this limited edition LP is their first recording. It is an impressive document; their playing is challenging and full of life. A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is not always my cup of tea but it is captivating and surprising in equal measure. Most of the pieces sound much larger than a two piece, both musicians being highly adept at what they do means that they avoid the usual thinness of a guitar and drums duo.

 

Dancing Wayang
 
Neilson has been grabbing my attention with his stints with Jandek and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, two artists that his style fits in with snugly. A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is my first chance to hear him play his own music (well not entirely his own but he has far more of a creative input here than he does drumming for other artists). Here he has a lot more freedom to express himself and his drumming is the main draw on most of the tracks. Reynolds is not too far off himself, his guitar is one part blues ecstasy and ten parts circular saw.

The improvisations are richly colored, neither player encroaches on the other's space. They instead fill out the piece with their own hues and shades. At times it sounds like neither musician is listening to the other but they know what the other is feeling. It does not always gel together, on "Tremble" there are a few moments when it sounds like the music is going to spin off its axis but they always regain their composure. It is these moments that show off the power of improvisation, it is dangerous sounding and as Blixa Bargeld puts it: "There's no beauty without danger."

On "My Dancing Day" Reynolds switches to acoustic guitar which suits his style of playing far better than the electric. This brings side A to a stunning close, his fretwork comes to the foreground while Neilson's drumming becomes blurred, almost like a sandstorm hitting the drum kit. Turning the LP over, my ears are greeted with the furious sounding "Golden Promise." The spacious improvisations that have preceded it seem like distant memories as this piece thunders around the room, one of the players adding the dümuk to the instrumentation. The cornet-like tone of this instrument sounds hysterical (in a manic sense as opposed to hysterically funny) next to the drums and guitar.

The album spins to a close with something completely different. After nearly two sides of frenetic instrumental music, Motor Ghost dispense totally with their weapons of choice and instead opt for a bout of a cappella folk singing. "Leaves of Life" is a haunting song drenched in reverb, its lyrics set based around the crucifixion of Christ. Neilson alone sings, his voice sounding much older than I was expecting, the pain of the song creeps into his singing. On this note, the adrenaline rush of the rest of the album evaporates and the sound of the needle running off the groove sounds a lot sadder than it ever has. It is a startlingly gorgeous end to a good but thorny album.

samples:

• Gash Division
• My Dancing Day
• Leaves of Life

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Like labelmates Noiseshaper, the aptly named Dubblestandart operates in a space metaphorically and geographically outside of dub reggae.  Whereas the trailblazing, crossreferencing On-U Sound roster managed to strike a balance between the integrity of its Jamaican forefathers and the promises of forward-thinking pop, this Austrian band has yet to earn the right to do little more than skulk under Adrian Sherwood's mighty shadow.

 

Collision - Cause Of Chapter 3

Last year's Are You Experienced failed in its attempt to replicate that admittedly tricky On-U formula, even going so far as to enlist original New Age Stepper Ari-Up for one of its few highlights, "Island Girl Dub."  By contrast, Immigration Dub (which features both a new remix and a video for that collaboration as bonuses) is a more enjoyable though considerably less ambitious record, taking the emphasis off of genre-crossing and returning to the beating heart of dub.  

The album starts strong with "We All Have To Get High," a tribal, funky, and almost soulful proclamation with a cheeky vibe sure to please those drawn to reggae for its generally pro-marijuance stance.  "This One Is About Flying" and "Tiny Place Called Earth" stick to formulas previously utilized by the band as well as more potent forebears such as Mark Stewart or Tackhead. Perhaps a reference to the Angolan social democratic political party, "MPLA Dub" lightens the mood a bit musically while offering no distinct clues as to its meaning.  The title track features spaced-out toasting from Nigeria-born 3gga and a solid rhythm section while "Dub 51" instantly recalls (with some concern) the chord changes of Rhythm & Sound's "See Mi Yah" riddim, though somewhat faster.

Strategically, the band sprinkles a few quality covers in with the originals, including a take on Dub Syndicate's "Wadada" featuring a sampled Prince Far I.  Of particular note is a refix of Ken Boothe's "When I Fall In Love," reprised towards the album's end as an extended dub take.  The snappy percussion and swirling vibes, along with the whistled hook, remind me just why I got into Dubblestandart in the first place.  A step in the right direction, Immigration Dub shows more than a few glimpses of the promise unveiled on the absolutely essential Heavy Heavy Monster Dub record, though a stagnancy looms ominously on the proverbial horizon should the group grow complacent.

samples:

• When I Fall In Love
• Wadada
• Dub 51

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Those seeking Burial style experimentation wont find it on this dubstep producer's full-length debut.  Far more comfortable representing the dancefloor, the up-and-coming artist uses his time on plastic to submerge listeners in a black sea of uneasy darkness and bass.

 

Tectonic

The relative youth of dubstep compared to other club-oriented electronic music subgenres partially insulates it from some of the pressures of the full-length album.  Whereas techno producers are constantly derided, and with good reason, for making glorified singles collections instead of cohesive audio documents, artist albums from Skream and MRK1 are credited for trailblazing almost by default.  And while both of their recent CDs rightfully deserve attention and praise for the high quality tunes, the principle of "first mover advantage" arguably added an extra boost.  As in the business world, once vinyl-only dubstep imprints subsequently appear reactive, scrambling to get something out on disc for an eager and voracious audience.  After last year's impressive double-disc label compilation / DJ mix, Tectonic Plates, the prominent Tectonic imprint selected Random Trio member Cyrus to be their first, albeit unlikely, flagship act.

It takes all of 40 seconds of sparse jittery "Gutter" for that now-familiar snare-centric dubstep pattern to make its first appearance, immediately followed with a dash of tabla and a wistful woodwind emulation.  By immediately conjuring the most obvious and just about clichéd elements of the sound, Cyrus displays his "if it aint broke, don't fix it" attitude.  Still, just because an artist is comfortable in the present paradigm that defines the subgenre does not excuse him from slacking off, and thankfully Cyrus proves himself to be very good at making the club-ready tunes that many have become familiar with on dancefloors worldwide.  On the previously released "Bounty," he shows an understanding of the space between the beats and how to utilize them to create a sense of drama, sometimes with light strokes of ghostly synth and others with near silence.  "Rasta From" throws a bone to the dub reggae contingent, throwing a mess of echo over a generally unintelligible Jamaican voice, without compromising his overall austere vision.

Throughout these 12 cuts, Cyrus performs a balancing act between coddling the minimal and unleashing the extreme, yet still holds it all together impeccably.  Boisterous wobbly bass aggressively dominates "The Watcher," while the decidedly barer "Indian Stomp," which appeared on the soundtrack of the dystopian Children Of Men, throws spicy Eastern vocal and percussion into the mix.  While having earned the respect of many in the dubstep community, Cyrus' profile hardly matches that of superstars like Digital Mystiks or Kode 9.  He doesn't necessarily need the cult of quasi-celebrity that has formed around some other producers, though at the end of the day it may ultimately lead to less public excitement and fewer sales beyond the scene's core constituency.  Nonetheless, From The Shadows is an entrancing noir of aural bleakness with just the right amount of dramatic tension.

samples:

• Bounty
• Rasta From
• The Watcher

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27 May 2007

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Only four full albums into her solo career, Jessica Bailiff has already racked up enough rare and unreleased tracks to put out a compilation that succeed where most fail. It manages to stand on its own as a coherent work of a developing artist rather than a mismatch collection of oddities. 

 

Morc

The songs on Old Things show the clear development Bailiff’s career.  The newer tracks are a stark set of intimate folk songs, gentle minimal acoustic guitar chords and soft, delicate vocals.  The older works, on the other hand, are exercises in fuzzed out guitar drone ecstasy:  pure shoegaze the likes of  which haven't been heard since Kevin Shields went into seclusion and Pete Kember & Jason Pierce stopped talking.  "Crush (version 2)" and "For April" exemplify this perfectly:  all slow tambourine percussion and minimal, fuzzy sustained guitar riffs mixed with beautiful angelic vocals.  The former also features Low frontman Alan Sparhawk's 12 string electric guitar work that thickens up the sound to even more lush levels.  Even more so, the stiff drum machine and lead guitar elements prominent on "Maybe Tomorrow" could be a lost Darklands era Jesus & Mary Chain demo like we were teased with via "On The Wall" and never heard again. 

More abstract moments are also evident on the ambient drone "Your Sounds Make Patterns In My Eyes" and the processed guitar and loops of the closing "Figure Eight (For Jonathan)" that are a bit spacier and more abstract.  These two tracks bookend the disc in a glorious drone that differs in mood from the boys club of Earth and Sunn O))), but no less compelling.  "Helpless" is another of these monolith workouts: a right channel filled with glorious, almost tactile guitar fuzz while the left is soft vocals and percussion before ending with electronics and piano.

There is a very evident leaning towards the minimal throughout this collection, but rather than seeming intentionally Spartan or esoteric, it is more in the home demo DIY sense.  The minimal synth lines in "Warren (Home Version)," augmented with repetitive acoustic guitar and just an overall demo sound is like a nice fuzzy blanket of analog warmth on a cold winter's day.  Regardless of how to classify it (you probably shouldn’t), Old Things is a compelling, gorgeous listen which is simply too warm, too personal, and too likeable to ignore. 

samples:

• Warren (Home Version)
• Maybe Tomorrow
• Figure Eight (For Jonathan)

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25 May 2007

Scott Mckeating

Albums and Singles

Taking a sidestep from Directing Hand’s vision for folk forms and improvisation, this live set is a collective's ecstatic field holler for escaping reality. Recorded at 2005's Glasgow Instal festival with a cast noise/free luminaries such as Dylan Nyoukis, Phil Todd, Karen Constance, Ben Reynolds and David Keenan, Alex Neilson leads a 30 minute charge of the doors of constraint.

 

Time-Lag

Built on a bed of heavy duty cymbal flutter, melody is a transitory thing with zither and didgeridoo styled drones stretching over the piece. Coaxing chain mail butterflies from his rattling kit, Neilson again rescues the instrument from its rhythm prison. At times its polymath Neilson's vocal soars over the top, keeping him the source and center of the sound. The batter and clatter of his bent spine percussion structure may fade in and out of range, but even when his hammering workout turns down to the feathering of drums, the approach is unmistakeably that of the ensemble's leader.

Huge swathes of reverb meltdown broaden and oscillate like lawnmowers taking the heads of the wicked; Beast In redolent of a scorching, purging fire. Layer upon layer of solo players choosing their steps carefully means that this is not another hard-as-you-can festival piss-up outpouring. Heavy elements mount and plunge, making something more fragile then the sum of its individual parts. There are blasts of sugar overfuelled reed work over warm washes of twinkling percussion forming between the mud flats hum of escaping feedback. The second half of this single piece seems to be centered on some light refracted guitar work (either by Ben Reynolds or Ashtray Navigations' Phil Todd) which reaches for the skylight with hemp dirtied fingers. Oddly reminiscent of some of the laser-seared edges of My Cat Is An Alien's electronics, this playing is a great example of this team-ups refusal to go hell-for-leather throughout the whole set.

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25 May 2007

Scott Mckeating

Albums and Singles

Taking a sidestep from Directing Hand’s vision for folk forms and improvisation, this live set is a collective’s ecstatic field holler for escaping reality. Recorded at 2005’s Glasgow Instal festival with a cast noise/free luminaries such as Dylan Nyoukis, Phil Todd, Karen Constance, Ben Reynolds and David Keenan, Alex Neilson leads a thirty minute charge of the doors of constraint.Time-Lag
Built on a bed of heavy duty cymbal flutter, melody is a transitory thing with zither and didgeridoo styled drones stretching over the piece. Coaxing chain mail butterflies from his rattling kit, Neilson again rescues the instrument from its rhythm prison. At times its polymath Neilson’s vocal that soars over the top, keeping him the source and centre of the sound. The batter and clatter of his bent spine percussion structure may fade in and out of range, but even when his hammering workout turns down to the feathering of drums, the approach is unmistakeably that of the ensemble’s head/lead.

Huge swathes of reverb meltdown broaden and oscillate like lawnmowers taking the heads of the wicked; Beast In redolent of a scorching, purging fire. Layer upon layer of solo players choosing their steps carefully means that this s not another hard-as-you-can festival piss-up outpouring. This means that heavy elements mount and plunge, making something more fragile then the sum of its individual parts. There are blasts of sugar overfuelled reed work over warm washes of twinkling percussion forming between the mud flats hum of escaping feedback. The second half of this single piece seems to be centred on some light refracted guitar work (either by Ben Reynolds or Ashtray Navigations’ Phil Todd) which reaches for the skylight with hemp dirtied fingers. Oddly reminiscent of some of the laser seared edges of My Cat Is An Alien’s electronics, this playing is a great example of this team-ups refusal to go hell-for-leather throughout the whole set.

Read More

25 May 2007

Scott Mckeating

Sound Bytes

Taking a sidestep from Directing Hand’s vision for folk forms and improvisation, this live set is a collective’s ecstatic field holler for escaping reality. Recorded at 2005’s Glasgow Instal festival with a cast noise/free luminaries such as Dylan Nyoukis, Phil Todd, Karen Constance, Ben Reynolds and David Keenan, Alex Neilson leads a thirty minute charge of the doors of constraint.

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