09 January 2005

Administrator

Albums and Singles

While maintaining the typical uncompromising method to creating music,which is after all much of what makes Waits what he is, he perhaps goesa bit too far. For the first time in his career, he abandons keyboardinstruments. Instead, he is accompanied by a drove of weird noises,from bells, whistles, hisses and what sounds like banging on pots andpans to industrial clanging and leaky pipes hizzing, to humanbeatboxing, which Waits performed and recorded on a cheap tape deck inhis bathroom.Anti
Turntablism courtesy of his son Casey is alsoincorporated, and while far short of anything DJ Shadow would put hisname on, it is the final nudge that pushes Real Gone'ssound from the eccentric to the borderline insane. Such tomfoolery attimes threatens to derail the album, but Waits and his trademark gravelthroat keeps Real Gone if not grounded at least focused.Sometimes a mere croak, Waits's war-weary pipes conjure up images oflate nights, hard drink and one carton of Marlboro Reds too many, whilesubtly revealing the true star of Real Gone, and indeed the keyto Waits's longevity: his skill as a songwriter. When mated to theyarns Waits is able to spin in the span of three to five minutes, themanic music becomes sublime. Waits matches tribal drumming andprimitive chanting to make an anti-jingoism anthem: "The sun is up theworld is flat/ Damn good address for a rat/ The smell of blood/ TheDrone of flies/ You know what to do if/ The baby cries/ HOIST THATRAG!" Waits's longstanding to downtrodden has not wavered at all, fromthe unlucky lover with "Green Grass" ("Lay your head where my heartused to be/ Hold the earth above me/ Lay down in the green grass/Remember when you loved me") to the unfortunate accessory on "Don't Gointo that Barn." His ability to create characters and tell compellingstories has not lost any of its uncanny power, as is evident on "How'sIt Gonna End": "There's a killer and he's coming/ Thru the rye/ Butmaybe he's the Father/ Of that lost little girl/ It's hard to tell inthis light." Waits does overdo things at times:- "Sins of the Father"is an egregious overindulgence, boring, preachy and tortuously long atnearly eleven minutes. The opening track, "Top of the Hill," is littlemore than a vehicle for Waits's newfound instrumentation choices, asthe lyrics are nothing more than a string of non sequitirs, madetolerable only by the fun Waits has with the turntables and beatboxing.On "Clang Boom Steam," Waits felt the need to imitate orally what couldbe either a steel foundry or a busy railway yard, with, just as thetitle suggests, clangs, booms, and hisses from his mouth, a pointlessmeandering that is wildly out of step with the rest of the album. Butit doesn't matter, as Waits does as he pleases, and whether it'sthrough luck, ability or something more sinister ("I'm not able, I'mjust Cain") he releases one of 2004's most compelling albums. - 

samples:

• Hoist That Rag
• Don't Go Into the Barn
• Clang Boom Steam

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09 January 2005

Administrator

Albums and Singles

And then there was Tussle, the latest in a succession of bands honingin on the resurgence of interest in bands like Liquid Liquid, Pigbagand 23 Skidoo.Troubleman Unlimited
This San Francisco group released a pretty nifty EP lastyear called Don't Stop,which not only introduced their particular brand of dub-influencedpostpunk instrumentalism, but also featured an ace remix by The SoftPink Truth. "Don't Stop" became a minor underground sensation becauseof its rubbery, melodic basslines and dense layers of digitallyprocessed percussion. They came on sort of like a low-rent PiL withless noise and more dub. It was nothing earth shattering, to be sure,but it was eminently listenable, and seemed to suggest that the bandmight be capable of some grand things in the future. Their debutfull-length Kling Klang, shows that there was a lot more where"Don't Stop" came from. And that's the problem, really. They repeat theformula of "Don't Stop" with almost zero variation across 11 tracks.Though the album is only about 40 minutes long, it feels four hourslong. Kling Klang achieves a kind of bland uniformity of soundthat evidences a band unwilling to take risks or experiment with theformula that has garnered them critical praise. In the end, it comesdown to four white guys making passable instrumental dub with DFA-styledance rhythms and the odd echoplexed shout. Tussle obviously wantcritics to think they are influenced by krautrock, by creatinginterminably repetitive grooves and naming their album in tribute toKraftwerk. However, their connection to krautrock is all style and nosubstance, and other reviewers would be advised to steer clear of suchlazy associations. I have a feeling their live show might come off alittle better, as it reportedly features trippy video projections, butthis album is tedious. It's hard to even pick one song and talk aboutits relative merits, because all the tracks seem to meld into oneanother and form one giant, shapeless mass. Perhaps I'm being unfair,as Tussle are certainly a talented group of guys, and they are quitegood at doing what they do. The problem is that they aim a little toolow. If you turned this album on at a party, it would quickly fade intoa non-threatening white noise background, which could either be a goodthing or a bad thing, depending on your tastes. For myself, I prefermusic that engages me a bit more intensely. 

samples:

• Here It Comes
• Decompression
• Tight Jeans

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09 January 2005

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The Master Musicians of Bukkake take their name from the famous2,000-plus-year-old Moroccan band, replacing the traditional "Joujouka"with "Bukkake," a Japanese term for a particularly vile form ofpornography, which I won't describe here, except to say that ininvolves a large group of men doing something rather humiliating to onewoman.Abduction
This particular musical collective hails from the PacificNorthwest, and has close ties to the Sun City Girls; both Alan Bishopand Charlie Gocher make guest appearances, and the album is released onSCG's own Abduction label. Like a lot of bands lazily being lumped inunder the heading of New Weird America, MMOB focus on freeimprovisation and play with the idea of a hippie drum circle, movingbetween areas of dissonance and chaos, to long passages of cohesiveensemble playing. The Visible Sign of the Invisible Ordercomes in 15 separate tracks that have been joined together into onelong, amorphous musical ritual. And the emphasis here is on ritual,with much of the music drawing from a Westerner's conception of Middleand Far Eastern ceremonial musical forms, from Moroccan joujouka toJapanese taiko, from the most hidden Sufi order to the most profane andobvious ethnological forgeries. Like much of SCG's best work, there isno distinction made between high and low art here, and a shamblingsense of joyous group improvisation negates any sense of that sleazycultural imperialism often found in the "World Music" section of yourlocal record store. MMOB achieves a righteous sense of psychedelic,ritualized improvisation that is dynamic, hypnotic and substantive, asif the musicians on Paradieswarts Duul had decided to channelthe entire Sublime Frequencies catalog into one hour-longimprovisation. Schuller and the collective (which includes thesuperlative Eyvind Kang on electric violin) attack a multitude ofinstruments, largely percussive in nature, with all players utilizingtheir voices in a nonverbal, intuitively Eastern way. Though I doubtany of the mantric recitations and chanting found on the recordrepresent anything other than meaningless glossolalia, the MMOB areincredibly good at building tension and drama with their meldingvoices, creating an invisible ritual chamber in which the music exists.Much of this music was recorded outdoors, with the coastal and interiorforest acoustics lending an ancient, timeless quality to the music.Scattered among the 15 tracks are several well-placed moments ofclimactic explosiveness, most notably on the slyly named "Access ofEvil," which reaches a hair-raising crescendo of ululations andmonolithic tribal percussion. "Pillow of Green Light" apparentlyattempts to recreate the Dogon tribe's creation myth, with aterrifyingly chaotic swirl of noise and electronics, the soundtrack ofa pre-Babylonian alien abduction deep in the heart of Africa. Therepetitive firing of a 9mm firearm on "Custody's Last Battle/SecretWars" evokes the slaughter of Native Americans, forging a secret jihad.The album ends with absolutely lovely "Circular and Made of the Earth,"which combines high-lonesome steel guitar (or is it sitar?) with femalevocals, floating on a rich backdrop of deep, reverberating aums andharmonic drones. My only complaint with this album is the botchedpackaging job, piss-poor four-color process having rendered the coverphoto and liner notes completely unintelligible. Musically, however,the MMOB have created a true masterpiece, one that entirely transcendsthe collective's unfortunate choice of name. 

samples:

• Access of Evil
• Pillow of Green Light
• Circular and Made of the Earth

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26 December 2004

Jonathan Dean

Albums and Singles

Released in 1972, Judee Sill's second album is very much in the same mold as her debut. However, for this, Sill took greater control over the production and orchestral arrangements as David Geffen granting her complete artistic control. The result is an album full of arrangements that are a closer match with her cosmic lyrics—celestial vocal harmonies, baroque horns and church organ, shades of gospel music and the ever-present vocal multitracking that is Judee's trademark.

 

4 Men With Beards

More occult and religious imagery again, with a new thread of directness and honesty only hinted at in her first album: "I've been looking for someone/Who sells truth by the pound/Then I saw the dealer and his friend arrive/But their gifts looked grim/Now I'm tired of hanging on...Beautiful pearl, o when will you reappear?" The yearning for spiritual cleansing and reawakening is palpable throughout Heart Food, which despite its Chicken Soup for the Soul title, is nothing less than a cry to heaven from the darkest depths of hell. It's an absolutely remarkable album, and one that, if there were any justice in the world, would be mentioned at least as often as critically-acclaimed mediocrities like Carole King's Tapestry or Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark. In "The Phoenix," Judee prays for salvation and rebirth in the midst of an eschatological nightmare: "On phosphorous wings the phoenix floated/The fires froze and the sea was hushed/And when I tried to speak, the sun imploded/And the ware will wait in my guts/Till the devil bites the dust." I don't think I'll ever get tired of the odd paradox of these songs, with lyrics worthy of David Tibet's most apocalyptic nightmares coexisting with muted easy listening-style arrangements for guitar, piano and strings. Heart Food's finest moment comes with the final track, the seven-minute "The Donor," in which Judee Sill builds a stunning choir of layered voices singing the Kyrie Eleison, transforming the liturgical hymn into a haunting, ritualistic call for mercy from a cruel and arbitrary God. After a long silence, the album oddly concludes with a brief Irish jig. Heart Food was Judee's swan song to the world, as the album again failed to ignite the interest of the public, and she dropped out of society, disappearing into an underworld of drugs and prostitution, only resurfacing with the news of her death from a heroin overdose in 1979.

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26 December 2004

Jonathan Dean

Albums and Singles

The 1970s was the decade of the singer-songwriter: a golden age in which anyone with passable guitar skills, decent vocal ability and a handful of good songs could land a recording contract. But just as in every other era in popular music, the most original artists tended to be largely ignored in favor of easily digestible, crowd-pleasing pap. In a decade in which Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were selling out football stadiums, an artist like Judee Sill had no chance.

 

4 Men With Beards

Sure, Judee had the same MOR production values and soulful twang as a Carole King or a Carly Simon. She had the same ability to pen honest, heartfelt lyrics that spoke to the universal human condition. Sure, her debut album was produced by Graham Nash and Bob Harris (her ex-husband and the producer of Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon). And yes, she was discovered by David Geffen and signed to the Asylum label, home to Mitchell and scores of other successful singer-songwriters. However, she also had a penchant for complex occult religious symbolism and a melancholy streak that could become downright depressing. She also struggled with a lifelong heroin addiction, a fact she never shied away from in her lyrics. Her songs were about yearning, romantic or spiritual, often both in one song. Judee navigated a wholly unique lyrical world full of angels and prophets in the shape of children, messiahs and demons in the shape of ex-lovers, and God and Satan as ever-present influences in her life. On her solitary radio hit "Jesus Was a Cross Maker," she resurrects a familiar Gnostic idea, comparing Jesus to Satan and vice-versa, pointing out the essentially enigmatic nature of both good and evil, and the hedonistic call of both. It's frankly not surprising that Judee Sill's music never caught on with a bigger audience, considering lyrics like these: "Once I heard a serpent remark/'If you try to evoke the spark/You can fly through the dark/With a red midnight raven/To rule the battleground'/So I drew my sword and got ready/But the lamb ran away with the crown." All of this coexisting with seemingly innocuous 70s folk production: warmly resonant nylon strings, gentle orchestral fills and the odd flourish of flute or clarinet. Adding to the strangeness, Judee's voice is almost always heavily filtered, fed through several doublers, triplers and harmonizers, lending an oddly psychedelic plasticity to her deceptively pastoral songs. Judee Sill is an incredible debut album, one that deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation of listeners. For years, it's been impossible to find this album or it's follow-up Heart Food outside of expensive Japanese bootlegs of questionable pedigree, or the super-expensive Rhino Handmade CD editions that came out earlier this year. Thankfully, 4 Men With Beards, a specialty vinyl reissue label out of San Francisco, has rectified this situation with a pair of reasonably priced vinyl reissues presented exactly as the original albums were upon their initial release, right down to Judee's personal message to the listener: "May you savor each word like a raspberry."

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26 December 2004

Jonathan Dean

Albums and Singles

Tigersushi is obviously trying to exceed the benchmark they set for themselves with last year's Miyage mix orchestrated by vegan DJ collective K.I.M. This double-disc mix is billed as the second volume in the How To Kill The DJ series, and is by far the most schizophrenic, eclectic and downright random collection of tunes ever presented under the pretext of a continuous DJ mix. The first volume was a relatively tame affair mixed by Ivan Smagghe, containing a standard cross-section of danceable material drawn from vintage 80s sides, with a full complement of newer electroclash and dancepunk material.

Tigersushi

Part Two, as conceived by DJ Optimo, takes a completely different tactic, preferring sheer volume and eclecticism to any notion of consistency. His bizarre behemoth of a DJ mix fuses together close to 70 tracks from a myriad different styles all over the musical map—from 70s psychedelic funk and rock to 80s Detroit techno, from leftfield disco to completely tangential trips into outsider, avant-garde and industrial noise music. On this particular voyage, it's not at all surprising to hear Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" rubbing shoulders with Carl Craig's "Demented Drums," or later to hear Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods" fade out into The Langley Schools Music Project's version of "Good Vibrations" (for the uninitiated, the LSMP is a gymnasium full of Canadian grade school kids playing gamelan percussion and singing guileless versions of famous pop songs).

Because of the sheer number and variety of songs selected for the mix, Optimo does not let any track play for very long, editing most down to one or two minutes, and endeavors seamless transitions between each, even when attempting something insane like fusing a mashup of Akufen and Monte Cazazza to a mashup of Nurse With Wound's "Two Shaves and Shine" with Blondie's "Atomic." I'm aware that this sounds completely fucking insane on paper, but it somehow succeeds. If it's not very satisfying in the sense of a dance-friendly party mix, it does appeal on a purely intellectual level, as hidden connections are revealed between disparate strands of music that might have been thought nonexistent. For all of my DJ ambitions, for instance, I never would have thought of gluing the bubbly tropicalia of Os Mutantes' "A Minha Menina" to Pablo's classic "Cissy Strut," but it sounds amazing.

The second disc, entitled Espacio for no apparent reason, forgoes the short-attention-span mixdown of the first disc in favor of letting each song play out in its entirety. As such, it's more of a "chillout" disc than the first, as thee infinite beat is not kept in perpetual motion, and tracks such as the Angelo Badalamenti theme to David Lynch's "Mullholland Drive" or Arthur Russell's beatless voice-and-cello "Another Thought" could by no stretch of the imagination considered dance songs. Kudos to Optimo for including such excellent, if completely random selections as Sun City Girl's "Opium Den" and The Only Ones "Another Girl, Another Planet" on the same disc. For sheer eclecticism and varied musical taste, Optimo's How To Kill The DJ Part Two is the one to beat, although beyond the initial novelty, I'm not sure what particular use it has for the average listener.

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26 December 2004

Jonathan Dean

Albums and Singles

BreathlessThis is the long overdue CD reissue of one of the most mythical,sought-after albums from the British progressive folk scene of theearly 1970s. Right up there with classics like Comus' First Utterance and Simon Finn's Pass the Distance, Jan Dukes De Grey's 1971 LP Mice and Rats in the Loftis a brilliant work of psychedelic folk with a seething undercurrent ofmalevolence. Apparently having learned a lesson from the artistic andcommercial failure of their first LP, 1970's Sorcerers on theNova label, the duo of Derek Noy and Michael Bairstow enlisted drummerDenis Conlan, and quickly disposed of all notions of pop songcraft towhich they might have initially aspired. Instead, they recorded thedistinctly uncommercial 19-minute sidelong "Sun Symphonica," abreathtaking, dynamic work of epic genius, fusing together at leastfive separate musical movements into an unfolding narrative that beginswith a hippie paean to the sun and proceeds through progressivelydarker and more twisted realms. The instrumental bridges arebrilliantly conceived, referencing the medieval idiom popular inBritish folk of this period, but impregnating it with an energy thatsmolders with intensity and immediacy. Effortlessly wielding 12-stringguitar, violin, cello, flute, clarinet, recorder, harmonica and adizzying assortment of percussion, the trio plays with all the poise ofan experienced jazz ensemble, but produces something altogether heavierand more psychedelic, as if Amon Düül II had restricted themselves toacoustic instruments and decided to compose a soundtrack to The Wicker Man.As the "Sun Symphonica" trudges on through its many moods and phases,it gradually becomes clear that a distinctly pagan formula is at work,and the solar imagery is quickly eclipsed by its more primordialcounterpart: the devil in the form of dead, bloated corpses coveredwith maggots rotting under the intense noonday sun. By the 15-minutemark, the track is a swirling maelstrom of simmering instrumentalfragments flying around the stereo channels in a lunatic dance, as the"sunshine" mantra returns once more, where in a savage irony it hasbeen transformed into a terrifying hex. Unfortunately, the album neveragain reaches the maniacal heights of Side A, but where it does go isnearly as fascinating. "Call of the Wild" utilizes the voices of allthree band members to create dizzying vocal harmonies in a song whichcelebrates the savage nature of man, and advocates the expression ofinner, suppressed primalisms. By the halfway mark, the song experiencesa radical break with structure and turns into a seething echo chamberof wicked guitar improvisation. The final track is also by far thestrangest, the eight-minute title track, which creates a hypnoticwhirlpool of electric fuzz guitar over which Derek Noy narrates ingreat detail a ritual human sacrifice with a zeal that would set H.P.Lovecraft's hair on end. Mice and Rats in the Loft is uneasylistening at its finest, and Breathless' first-ever CD reissue does anadmirable job of reproducing the cover art in their foldout digipack.The booklet contains new liner notes by David Tibet, which should comeas no surprise, as the influence of this album can certainly be felt inCurrent 93 efforts such as Thunder Perfect Mind and Tamlin.Anyone interested would be advised to pick up a copy of this limitedreissue before this masterpiece fades back into obscurity once again.
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26 December 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

A warm, honest record from the deep south.

• Love Like A Sailor
• Midwest
• Laying Down the Gun

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26 December 2004

Matthew Jeans

Albums and Singles

Hope for Agoldensummer

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26 December 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Hope for AgoldensummerEvery year I hope that there will be at least one record that I'll fallin love with. I pine for the kind of record I'll want to put in theplayer every time I sense that I'm around speakers or a pair ofheadphones; the kind of record that I'll wear out from constant abuseand wind up buying again and again; the kind of record I want to giveeveryone I know as a gift for no other special occasion than just beingalive. It's rare that such a record comes along and usually at the endof the year I'm left making year-end lists and voting in polls foralbums that were great, or fun, or inventive but not quitelife-changingly beautiful. There aren't many records that make me wantto re-evaluate my beliefs about music and about people, and even fewerthat manage to transcend all the mess of a music industry full of emptypromise promo sheets and groundswells of hype. Thankfully as the yeardraws to a crisp wintery close, I've found a record that does. Hope ForAgoldensummer hails from the deep south and the music they maketogether oozes the rustic, porch-swing spirituality that one mightexpect, but with uncommon grace and warmth. It would be easy to play incliches and revive the jug band for the Converse and hoodie-wearingindie set, and someone somewhere is no doubt trying to get that towork-but that's not what Hope is about. Principal songwriter and freespirit Claire Campbell anchors the group with a soaring, soulful voicethat is comforting even as it's aching. Her sister, Page, harmonizesand occasionally takes the lead with a deep voice so strong yet sonearly ready to break that I find it impossible not to want to singalong just to make sure that the songs keep going. And while the voicesand the words are undoubtedly the stars, the accompaniment of cello,slide guitar, accordion, and a simple brushed drum kit is sparse but soincredibly perfect that it makes me wonder how the songs could havebeen written any other way. Drummer Jamie Shepard's enormous bass drumgives the songs a deep, dusty and hollow heartbeat of a rhythm whilethe simple glockenspiel melodies and spaghetti western guitars give theotherwise authentic, down home atmosphere a hint of something bigger.This is family-made music, right down to the honest-to-goodness sisterswho sit and sing and bring audiences to tears, and it follows in thatvividly southern tradition of families gathering around to sing andcommiserate and tell stories set to song. Heart of Artis a slow, almost mournful album full of songs about loss and regretand shame and yet it winds up being celebratory in its belief thatmusic is strong enough medicine to cure any ill. Like an album ofmurder ballads where the only cause of death is a broken heart, therecord keeps finding new ways to pull at the deep, recessed, cynicalheartstrings until the only way to beat Hope is to join them. Whenpeople who never appear to suffer try to craft songs that are upliftingand hopeful, it always seems too glossy and too strong to meananything. These songs acknowledge the pain and the anger and thehurtful, hateful things that people can do, but somehow the songs carryon, the musicians carry on, and as a listener, I carry on because Ibelieve in where we are all headed. When the whole band sings "we cometogether/ and we work/ and we fall apart/ I play music because I'm inlove with silence and sound," during the triumphant album closer,"Laying Down the Gun," it's impossible to resist the thought, the hopethat music really is a magical tonic for all that ails you. I'm findingnew songs to fall in love with every time I listen to this record, andnew, unexpected moments of clarity and insight. Most of all, I've foundthe record this year that reaffirms my faith in music, my love formusic; it's the record that reconnects me with other people through thesimple tradition of song, and for that I'll be forever thankful.
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