25 March 2013

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Albums and Singles

I think it is finally safe to say that I do not understand Dominick Fernow at all, as I am completely mystified as to: 1.) why this was released as a Prurient album, and 2.) how it somehow managed to avoid release for two long years (given Fernow's singularly relentless release schedule). Although it was recorded at the same time as 2011's  excellent (but polarizing) Bermuda Drain, Through the Window dispenses with noise almost entirely to indulge a somewhat misguided fascination with house techno.  The result is undeniably more accessible than everything else recorded under the Prurient banner, but accessibility is not what I am generally hoping for with Prurient and these songs are significantly less compelling than Fernow's other dance flirtations with Cold Cave and Vatican Shadow.

Blackest Ever Black

I am quite curious about why this album languished in the vault for so long, as it seems entirely possible that it was delayed because Fernow thought the noise world just was not ready for a release like this.  As amusing as that hypothetical thought-process sounds, it is not actually all that far-fetched, as the much harsher Bermuda Drain already raised quite a few noise-purist hackles when it was released–dropping some house beats back then as Prurient probably would have gotten Dominick absolutely pilloried.  Now, of course, the appropriation of dance beats by noise artists is quite commonplace, so no one really cares all that much.  Unfortunately, the rapid evolution of the form that has occurred in the meantime has also served to render Fernow's forward-thinking experiment somewhat dull by comparison.  Or maybe it is actually fundamentally dull, regardless of context.  I am not sure, as my intense loathing of house beats tends to cloud my objectivity.

The common ground between this and other Prurient releases is minimal and tenuous at best, the strongest link being the inexplicable inclusion of 4-minute interlude of piston-like machine rhythm, hissing white noise, and murky spoken-word ("Terracotta Spine") between the album's more dance-oriented bookmarks.  Otherwise, the only real relation to the Prurient of yore is that Fernow occasionally adds some whispered spoken vocals to his coldly alienating, one-man dance party.  The overarching problem is not with the aesthetic though–it is with the execution.

The two substantial pieces that essentially make up the entire album seem to be striving for a shadowy, propulsive "midnight drive" kind of feel, which is just fine by me.  Unfortunately, Fernow's cold, pristine, and ultra-minimal vision badly overreaches the somewhat pedestrian and predictable motifs his songs are built upon.  Both "Through the Window" and "You Show Great Spirit" are essentially just simple minor key synth riffs that are endlessly repeated with a thumping beat for 10 or 20 minutes.  Admittedly, both are quite propulsive, but they are also fairly bombastic and overly repetitive.

It will not surprise me at all if this goes on to become Prurient's most popular release to date (albeit one with a very different audience), but it just feels clumsy, dated, and dilettantish to me: Fernow definitely needs to cultivate a lighter touch if he wants to make dance music this straightforward.  The most frustrating part of it all is that I know Fernow is capable of making great beat-driven music.  In fact, I even like how he gradually builds and morphs the insistent kick drum pulse on these songs.  Unfortunately, Dominick's songwriting and melodic talents are lagging too far behind his rhythmic and textural abilities for this stab at dance music to truly catch fire.  There is still a nagging part of me that suspects that I may just not have found the perfect context in which to experience this album yet (barreling down the Autobahn at 4am in a melancholy mood with a dead prostitute in my trunk?), but my tentative assessment is that Through the Window is merely a well-meaning and unexpectedly listenable misfire.

Samples:

• Through the Window
• Terracotta Spine
• You Show Great Spirit

25 March 2013

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Albums and Singles

Benoit Pioulard's latest release makes a subdued, melancholy journey through watery pop. Peerless at his best moments, Hymnal is very nearly nothing but, showcasing a keenness for murky left-field songwriting that ought to go nowhere. Yet it all feels very direct and focused, very familial. Thomas Meluch probes discomfort, harmony, and unique production techniques to assemble music which flows naturally even if it takes no easy path to be heard.

Kranky

The last few seconds of "Mercy," the first song on Hymnal, ring out with tape-damaged beauty, heralding a vague but pleasant finale to an album which has just started. This is the way Meluch carves into the first moments of a new release. Hymnal digs deep into a hole and stays there; "Mercy" plays like a breath of air before a long dive, with "Hawkeye" and "Excave" drifting in and out of subsonic echoes and through slow waves of longing. Thomas Meluch captures a space in folk music (in its augmented present form) that almost resembles electronica, where everything is sustained and overt repetition earns more than single gestures.

The difference is this is purely bucolic, and rhythmic but soft, and laced with long drones, many of which serve as intermediaries between the more structured songs. "Gospel" is a gorgeous slow cycle of metallic chords that never aim for sublimity despite the name, etching the short range of notes into stone over five minutes. In excluding the indulgence that such a deep, endless pool of sound should spur him to, Meluch lets the audience fill in those gaps. It's very simple, but very clever, and it plays perfectly to his already well-established preference for muddled obscurity and shrouded purpose. "Litiya" holds on a strange chord in its final moments, an unwelcome oddity that melts into the bleary catharsis of "Knell." Each ambient part follows after poppier songs not as a counterpoint but a complement; it's almost as if Meluch's contemplation begs to be intoned vocally and instrumentally as well.

After releasing a number of sparse drone pieces back in 2011, it's not hard to see Hymnal as a way of capitalizing on those stems, treating them as a base inspiration for some further sound experiments. In this case, Hymnal is a plunge into the ocean, a demonstration of how tranquility can lead to ennui, or passion for something unknown. Drone and folk intertwine in mellifluous, unique ways, but never stagnate, because Hymnal shows that not using space is not necessarily wasting it.

samples:

• Mercy
• Gospel
• Litiya

 

25 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

On this dense little 7" from the Norwegian quintet of guitar, bass, drums, synth and tuba, one half of the improvisations make for a slow burning pandemonium, while the other removes all barriers and just freaks out, with both songs excelling in their attempts. It is sloppy, noisy, and insane, which is the best possible outcome for this sort of work.

Va Fongool

"Feda Bru" is all sludgy creeping chaos, making for a mess of sound that is hard to distinguish parts from one another.Besides the wobbling synth noise that opens the piece, everything else becomes a mass of slowly surging noise that simmers more than anything.It is messy, but in a lurching, controlled fashion, with a passage of deliciously clumsy bass guitar to close things out.

What was held at bay on the A side comes completely apart on "Logatunellen."Right from the outset; a drum passage that sounds like a kit being rolled down a long staircase, eventually stabilizing itself and forming some beautifully deranged sloppy garage rock sound.Drums clatter away, guitars feedback more often than they play actual notes, and the synth, bass and tuba merge together into some unholy roar.In the closing moments the rhythm section locks into a repetitive, but pounding groove while the guitar squalls above, with each layer slowly peeled away until the conclusion.

From the sound to the weird, absurdist artwork, it is obvious that Mummu are going for balls out unhinged improvisation, and their attempt is more than successful.For all its messiness, however, there is enough underlying focus and structure to give these two pieces a definite song-like quality, and not just random instrumental jerking off.Getting that structured disorder is no easy feat, and this band does it exceptionally well.

25 March 2013

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Albums and Singles

Nostalgia, and catering to it, can be a dangerous thing. There are of course exceptions, such as the recent Swans tours and albums and Wire's own reappearance in the early part of the 2000s, but too often it is fraught with artists clinging shamefully to old glories with little artistic merit. Which is one of the things that makes this ostensibly new Wire album somewhat hard to peg down. Building upon material that was previously performed live, but overall unfinished from the post-154, pre-first breakup era, Change Becomes Us builds itself upon these and puts a Bruce Gilbert-less sheen to everything, with mixed results.

Pink Flag

First, and what I find the most difficult part of this album to swallow is that this is not unheard material:everything on here is based upon reworks of material captured on Document and Eyewitness and its sister compilation, Turns and Strokes.Personally, I have sat with those albums for the better part of a decade and a half, and I know many others have much more experience with them, and thus those unfinished, rough, and poorly recorded versions feel like the "right" ones to me.The idea of revising and polishing them as newer material is somewhat troublesome.

When everything comes together, the results are of the same quality I would expect from Wire:"Doubles and Trebles" tweaks "Ally in Exile" (which also inspired "I Don't Understand") with more complexity and some of the acoustic guitar sound Colin Newman brought on board with Red Barked Tree, but keeps some ugly distortion in as well, retaining the espionage tinged tension of the original.The same goes for "Stealth of a Stork," which works in material from "Witness to the Fact," but keeping that nasty, spiky edge amidst the cleaner studio tweaking.

An example where things fall flat, however, would be "Re-Invent Your Second Wheel," which superficially has a light, floaty sound akin to most of A Bell Is A Cup, complete with some of Graham Lewis' more affected vocals.As a stand alone composition, it would probably be acceptable, but not outstanding.Knowing this is based upon the bizarre neo-tribal Dadaist "Zegk Hoqp" just makes everything seem wrong in comparison.The odd call and response chants and sloppy polyrhythms (which included the members of DAF on Document and Eyewitness as percussionists) are reduced to a light, unobtrusive pop number.

The other troubling facet of this album is that it continues to have such a pop leaning that it starts to blur the lines between a Wire album and a Colin Newman project.Bruce Gilbert always kept things weird (in the best possible way), and as the band continues more and more without his input, this lack of difficulty becomes more pronounced."Keep Exhaling" (originally "Relationship") could be culled from a Newman solo work, and "Time Lock Fog" works for what it is, but makes me crave the dissonance of "5/10," from which it was spawned.

That is not to say that this lighter pop feel is always a bad thing, however."B/W Silence" works well as an ethereal influenced piece, based upon the live version of "Lorries" that already had that sensibility to it."Magic Bullet" also, previously heard in an abysmally lo-fi form as "Over My Head" balances the melodic and the ugly quite well.

Something like "Eels Sang" sits in a grey area for me that I am still not entirely sure how I feel about it.The overall feel is faithful and consistent with the live take, but it just feels so different without Lewis' exasperated vocals and the beautifully harsh horn blasts.The same applies to "Love Bends", which as a stand alone song would be quite excellent as a bit of intentionally overblown pop, but the fact that it borrows from the deliriously unhinged "Piano Tuner" leaves things somewhat questionable.

I know how awful it is to end a review without a definitive opinion, but to be honest I simply have not been able to form a specific one for Change Becomes Us, which I suppose is a conclusion unto itself.Had I no familiarity with the nascent, disjointed material this was borne from, I would definitely be fond of it, although I would probably still feel that it is a bit less difficult and challenging than the best Wire albums.But with the fact that it is based on material I have heard so many times over the years, my opinion ends up tainted by feelings of how things "should" sound in their original form.As I said, nostalgia can be a dangerous thing.

samples:

• Stealth of a Stork
• Re-Invent Your Second Wheel
• Love Bends

 

25 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The material contained within this three disc compilation makes for a point of controversy in the noise and power electronics scene over 30 years since it first appeared. Some of Maurizio Bianchi's earliest material was sent to William Bennett's Come Organisation label for release. Before it finally appeared, the material was overlaid with Nazi propaganda speeches, and Bianchi was credited as Leibstandarte SS MB. Bianchi claimed it was done without his consent, while Bennett's contention was that it was how the albums were intended to be released and it was Bianchi's religious conversion soon after their release that triggered his dissatisfaction with the release. Regardless of the history, the resulting material is a mostly strong entry in Bianchi's early catalog.

Menstrual Recordings

While who is right in this argument is not clear, it also does not affect the quality of these recordings.In fact, both sides seem to be justified at different points.Disc one, Triumph of the Will, seems to support Bianchi’s claim.The two long pieces without the speeches would work better:the churning, undulating electronics and simple, but effective rhythmic propulsion of the title piece would work much better on their own, and the melancholy, funereal organs of "To Birkenau" feel out of place amidst the abrasive propaganda.The previously unreleased bonus piece, "Ygolonhcet", has a cleaner, more bass laden sound, with an analog warmth and rattlesnake like synth passages that clearly sound of the same era.

Weltanschauung (which was partially available on the Susan Lawly Anthology 2 compilation of Come Organisation material), however, makes the inclusion of the speeches seem more calculated and artistically justified.Used sparsely, their appearance on "Under the Victory Banner" is nicely balanced by the ebb and flow of noise, mutually benefiting from one another."SS20 Attack" uses air raid siren-like electronics, bomb dropping synths and morose, bass heavy rumbles to fit the title perfectly."Zyklombie" features undulating, thumps and wet outbursts add to the discomfort, which becomes more of a pronounced nausea on "Plutoniumetrio".

Lebensraum seems like it was intended for a Come Organisation release, but never saw the light of day until an unofficial cassette tape release in the 1990s.It does feel conceptually somewhat incomplete, with Bianchi's thin, brittle electronics being cut between Come associate Jordi Valls discussing serial murderers in the first half, and even gets to be a bit like noodling prog rock keyboards at times.I do not think Bianchi actually donned a gold lamé cape during his performance, but it is probably the closest he ever got.The second half of the original cassette feels a bit more slapped together structurally, but his unmistakable depressive electronics and filtered bits of noise shine through.

It is rather surprising that this material ever managed to get a wider release, and from the sound of things, it was mostly culled from vinyl versions of the original releases, leading to an occasionally murky, time worn sound but considering who this is it feels completely appropriate.I do not think anyone looking to check out an early M. B. release is going to expect (or even want) an Eleh level of surgical sonic sterility.

It is irrelevant who made the decision that ultimately resulted in these releases, because their historical importance to a genre can not be overstated.A quick sampling of "Triumph of the Will" reveals where Genocide Organ got their initial sound, and the use of politically and morally ambiguous fascist associated imagery lead to Con-Dom, the Grey Wolves, and pretty much the whole Tesco scene.While the speeches used on Triumph of the Will do seem somewhat slapped on and a bit distracting, the use on Weltanschauung and the associated imagery work quite well, and do not feel at all like a celebration or support of fascism, but instead add to the uncomfortable yet compelling feel to the work as a whole.There might be historical precedent captured in this set, but also a good deal of pleasantly bleak, apocalyptic electronics from one of the early masters of the style.

samples:

• Triumph of the Will
• SS 20 Attack
• Lebensraum (Part Two)

 

24 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

For better or worse, this limited-edition vinyl release continues Important's tireless recent string of ultra-minimal drone albums.  Recorded over the course of several very late nights spent with his newborn daughter back in 2011, Lonely Women's Club is about minimal as it gets, essentially amounting to 40 minutes of one-chord organ drone with only the subtlest of variations.  While it is enjoyable for what it is, it definitely seems like the sort of album that several dozen other artists could have made, making it a somewhat exasperating effort for someone as talented as English.

Important Records

 

24 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Ba Da Bing are clearly not ones to shy away from massive undertakings, following last year's 4LP Night Coercion into the Company of Witches reissue with yet another quadruple LP.  2008's The Snowbringer Cult was a monumental album for Natural Snow Buildings at the time of its release, as it was their first effort that was not available only as a hyper-limited cassette or CDr.  As such, it was many people's first exposure to the duo and Mehdi and Solange definitely set out to make it count, packing it with just about every single possible facet of their sound.  That "kitchen sink" approach does not make for the most listenable whole, but Snowbringer is not lacking in sustained stretches of absolute, otherworldly brilliance.

Ba Da Bing

The original version of The Snowbringer Cult was released as a double CD by Students of Decay, a format that remains in place for this reissue.  The first disc contains a solo album by each member of the band, while the second disc is a lengthy collaborative effort.  Aside from the addition of a vinyl format, the reissue remains completely faithful to the original album in every way.  That was a wise decision, as only a lunatic would add bonus tracks to a 2 ½ hour album and the original art is thematically integral to the overall package (and also difficult to improve upon).  Also, remastering or "cleaning up" such a beautifully and uniquely produced album would be criminal.  The only truly significant change is that all three albums are now available as stand-alone releases, which makes them much easier to absorb.  That was a truly great idea.

The Isengrind album (Solange Gularte's solo project) is the shortest of the three, clocking in at just over half an hour.  Despite that comparative brevity, it contains many of the set's highlights, as Gularte was in the midst of a particularly fruitful creative period at the time.  With few exceptions, the mood is a very shadowy and ritualistic one, leaning very heavily on droning Indian stringed instruments, choruses of ghostly chanting, clattering percussive flourishes, and eerily discordant flutes and pipes.  On the best pieces, such as "To Ride with Hölle" and "Wooden False Face," Solange manages to sound so anachronistic and alien that it is actually far easier to imagine that this is an ancient field recording of a long-forgotten cult in the midst of a human sacrifice than the solo project of a contemporary French woman.  In fact, the latter often seems impossible.  The mesmerizing spell is disrupted only once, as the somewhat ill-advised "Cat's Cradle" dragged me reluctantly back to the present by drifting too closely to contemporary Freak Folk territory.  Happily, that song can easily be deleted from an iTunes library to leave a near-perfect album, but vinyl owners will just have to try to get used to it.

The Twinsistermoon half of the disc unsurprisingly shares a lot of common ground with Solange's effort, offering up still more occult-sounding drones, dissonant woodwinds, and tribal percussion.  There are some significant differences, however.  For one, Mehdi Ameziane's drone pieces are more dense and grinding than Solange's.  More significantly, those heavier pieces are interspersed with a number of melancholy and sweetly child-like acoustic ballads.  Another key difference is that the illusion of timelessness is not quite as effectively maintained as it is with the Isengrind portion, though that is mostly by design.  On songs like "Order of the Dreamt," Ameziane balances his more traditional instrumentation with roiling distortion and spacey flanging to create his own surreal headspace.  I am also quite fond of "Spells," which artfully combines Mehdi's talents for both ritualistic "funeral procession" percussion and cascading acoustic arpeggios.  The rest of the album is not quite on the same level, however, alternating between Mehdi's simple, eerie campfire songs and some lo-fi metallic drones.  Those remaining pieces are not exactly weak, but they are easily eclipsed by both Twinsistermoon's own post-Snowbringer work and the rest of this album (which is excellent).

I was very happy to learn that Ba Da Bing were making the Natural Snow Buildings' portion of The Snowbringer Cult available on its own, as it unquestionably one of the duo's finest albums and needs to be heard by itself (and with fresh ears) to be fully appreciated.  However, its original inclusion as the final disc of a three-way split release with the duo's solo projects was kind of an inspired idea, as it beautifully illustrated how the duo united was so much greater than the sum of its parts.  That is not necessarily true now, as both solo projects have evolved greatly in recent years, but Mehdi and Solange's collaborations still felt like a stunning and magical transformation back in 2008.  While I definitely like the Isengrind and Twinsistermoon segments of this collection, the Natural Snow Buildings portion of The Snowbringer Cult is an absolutely revelatory and dreamlike tour de force from start to finish.

Actually, "dreamlike" might be a bit misleading, as the opening "Resurrect Dead on Planet Six" (a cryptic Toynbee Tiles reference?) is much closer to a nightmare, building from queasily dissonant drones and flickering echoes into a roaring, visceral crescendo of guitar noise.  Structurally, it closely resembles some of Mehdi's solo work, but its execution is so complexly multilayered and seamlessly organic in its flow that it rises to a completely different level.  That trend basically holds for the entirety of the album: expected ideas are alchemically turned into otherworldly brilliance through ingenious layering and deft transitions (and it all sounds both massive and gloriously anachronistic).

With very few exceptions, almost all of these ten songs are highlights, a fact that is even more remarkable given the uncharacteristically varied stylistic territory covered.  "Inuk's Song," for example, is a gently rippling and hallucinatory reverie, while "Nieve Sacra" resembles a spacey, psych-damaged Morricone and "They Do Not Come Knocking There Any More" approximates a full-on tribal war march.  The more abstract title piece, on the other hand, basically resembles nothing else that earthbound mortals have recorded outside of Natural Snow Buildings–my best approximation would probably be "an ancient voodoo ceremony is sucked through a black hole and eventually re-emerges mashed up with the doomed Children's Crusade of 1212."  If there is a higher compliment for a piece of music, I certainly cannot think of it.

As was the case with Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches, The Snowbringer Cult is an absolutely exhausting and overwhelming listen in its entirety, which is its primary flaw.  There is way too much here to reasonably process and not all of it is great.  The similarities end there though: Night Coercion was a time capsule from a formative, largely unheard era of Natural Snow Buildings' career, while The Snowbringer Cult captures the duo at their absolute collaborative zenith.  The other major difference is that the best part of The Snowbringer Cult is now available by itself, no longer diluted by the inclusion of two full other albums worth of songs...and it is absolutely, screamingly essential.  The Isengrind/Twinsistermoon albums are perfectly fine, but the Natural Snow Buildings' third is a strong candidate for the best thing that anybody will release this year (reissue or otherwise). This is the kind of album that I would run into a fire to save.

• Natural Snow Buildings, "Inuk's Song"
• Isengrind, "Wooden False Face"
• Twinsistermoon, "Spells"

 

23 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Artist: Emme Ya
Title: Chthonic Transmission (Abysmi Vel Daath)
Catalogue No: CSR175CD
Barcode: 5060174954115
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Dark Ambient / Ritual
Shipping: 28th March

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“Chthonic Transmission” is Emme Ya’s 2nd full-length album for Cold Spring. Ritual Dark Ambient with esoteric vocals and an archaic magickal energy.

“The album itself is an Alchemical process, in which I am descending and ascending, in a series of ritual visualisations under the veil of daath, being all such 6 stages of personal spheres of transmutative inner magickal paradigms, which are just part of the development of my own personalities, sexual feminine energies evoked and transmuted, with the sole purpose to transcend this existential reality in which I am submerged. Trying to explore in the sea of nothingness, searching my own inner light of self-creative power. Transforming, mutating, developing. Once again and again in a giant cosmic ouroborus… entering my parallel worlds eternally” (Emme Ya).

Tracks: 1. The Vortex Ov Primigenian Sun / 2. Chthonic Transmission (Abysmi Vel Daath) / 3. The Light That Is Not (Consecration Rite) / 4. Reversed Kundalini (Transmutation Rite) / 5. Descending To Astral Void (Solve Et Coagula) / 6. Emerging From The Grey Egg (Encircled In A Thousand Lanterns)

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23 March 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Artist: Iron Fist Of The Sun
Title: Who Will Help Me Wash My Right Hand
Catalogue No: CSR175CD / CSR179LP
Barcode: CD: 5060174954115, LP: 5060174955365
Format: CD in jewelcase / LP on yellow vinyl in j-card sleeve
Genre: Power Electronics / Cold Electronics
Shipping: Now

Order CD / Order LP

New full length album by English artist IFOTS. Continuing on his path of exploratory yet focused industrial, and his trademark clean detailed power electronics that was first seen on his debut CD for Cold Spring, “Behavioural Decline”, “Who Will Help Me Wash My Right Hand” is a frantic mix of structure and chaos, less violent than previous releases but instead drenched in melancholy and bitterness.

Available on CD and LP limited to 200 copies on yellow vinyl.

Tracks: 1. For You I Will / 2. This Dog Has No Master / 3. Be Forever Green / 4. Saltpulse / 5. Who Will Help Me Wash My Right Hand

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18 March 2013

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

A loving tribute to experimental percussionist Matt Weston's collaborator Teri Morris (of Crystallized Moments and Tizzy), the two pieces that make up this 7" showcase his strengths as a one-man band, while crafting a pair of songs that are as independently captivating as they are touching.

7272Music

The A side, "Coiling for the Kickback" quickly locks into a repeating, garage rock like groove, with Weston’s understated guitar playing and rock solid percussion keeping things focused, but occasionally drifting into tastefully sloppy, punk influenced material.

"Walking Through the Undertow" kicks things off more abstract, with cut-ups of cheesy organ, cheap drum machine rhythms and solid live drumming before eventually coming together in an ever so slightly jazz-dub-tinged overall sound.Both songs conclude with some of the raucous, and overall much upbeat material being underscored by an ever so slightly sad, mournful melody that adds an appropriate reverence to the otherwise celebratory work.