16 September 2012

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An established drummer and improviser, Rosaly takes this background into a different direction, dissecting and reassembling his own improvised recordings into a structured, though intentionally chaotic composition. While the drums make for the most identifiable sound, the non-percussive elements are just as essential, resulting in an album that occasionally calls to mind the best moments Organum, but stands firmly on its own.

Utech

The first side of the LP leads off aggressively, with guttural, overdriven bass frequencies and rhythmic undulations that eventually make room for the drums.For the most part, Rosaly's playing is metered and sparse, but provides an effective drive to the piece, made all the more effective by the occasional percussive outburst.This combination of steady, metronomic playing and pseudo-blast beats continues, enshrouded by the overdriven, but tasteful layers of noise, before throwing in some abrasively sharp metal crashes.

Dropping to silence, it slowly comes back together via effected buzzes and high-pitched drones that wobble in and out of audible frequencies.It then segues into full on gamelan percussion, pure and resonant, to push the sound into a different place entirely.It is on a fragmented, sputtering note that the first half ends, letting bits of gamelan and metallic chimes drift off in entropy.

The flip side immediately comes across as darker and more sinister, with treated feedback and creaking metal setting the stage.Bent percussion and demonic metal scrapes lurk, channeling seriously evil images without becoming overly aggressive.Eventually the piece falls apart again to a more electronic sounding passage before closing on full bore percussive polyrhythms, again bringing a malignant darkness.

Centering and Displacement was originally conceived as a six-channel installation by the artist, although Rosaly considers this stereo mix to be the definitive one.Admittedly, I would love the opportunity to hear the full multi-channel mix, since I am curious how both the more frenzied and contrasting sparse moments would be spread across that spectrum.However, this LP stands strongly on its own, and does an excellent job at balancing the raw, chaotic moments with the calmer, pensive ones.It does seem to be a contradiction to the idea of improvisation by using it as a jump-off point for tightly organized composition, but I can not argue with the results.

samples:

• Part 1 (Excerpt 1)
• Part 1 (Excerpt 2)
• Part 2

 

16 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

As half of the duo Solo Andata, Kane Ikin works heavily with treated and processed field recordings, shaping them into complex, sometimes shadowy organic compositions. On this solo outing he works less with nature, but uses practically everything else (synthesizers, drum machines, rotting vinyl, etc) to create an album of similar complexity, albeit a darker, more isolated sensibility.

12k

As an admitted sucker for both textural vinyl surface noise and vintage drum machines, I was instantly enamored with the likes of "Europa" and "Hyperion", both of which focus heavily on the decaying static of old vinyl and erratic, shambling synthetic rhythms.Although the machines appear throughout, Ikin opts to make it less about a programmed rhythm, and more about using the individual beats and hits as the focus.While the former opens the album in a dramatic fashion, the latter closes it in a sparse, skeletal coda.

The album seems to be almost split, with the first half consisting of more complex, deep compositions, and the remainder working more within spacious, arid territories."Slow Waves," for examples, obscures a melodic thrust that sounds far off in the distance with undulating bass drone and surface noise, while the loop-heavy "Rhea" slowly piles layers on into a static laden, almost harsh piece.This is very much contrasted by the fragments of music and heavily processed rhythm of "Black Sands," and the distorted beats and gentle white noise puffs of "Compression Waves."While the album and song titles conjure a distinct cosmic feeling, it is only on a few pieces such as "Oberon" where it seems an obvious theme.Distant, radar like pulses guide much of the song, even into its more disjointed, dissonant ending.

At 16 pieces, there are a lot of ideas crammed into Sublunar, but never does it feel incoherent or messy:they all have a common murky sensibility to them, a sort of post-rock tinged take on ambient music and industrial drone.The worst part is that a few of the miniature pieces, such as the stuttering rhythms and what may be guitar of "Titan" and the fragmented beats of "An Infinite Moment" are simply too brief, with the former clocking in at under a minute.I personally would have enjoyed hearing these sounds and styles expanded upon, but I would not want that in lieu of any material already a part of this album.While I have definitely enjoyed Ikin’s work with Solo Andata, I think I would be just as eager to hear a follow up to this one.

samples:

• Europa
• Slow Waves
• Oberon

 

13 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

Masami Akita and Maurizio Bianchi are without question amongst the pioneers of harsh, abrasive electronic music. Both of their careers began quite prolifically around the same time, and since Bianchi's return in the late 1990s have continued as such, with both producing a massive number of albums each year. These two albums act nicely as reference points on their long careers, with the 10" capturing pieces each submitted for the Mail Music Project compilation, here appearing unedited for the first time, and the LP being a recent collaborative work that stands amongst both artists' best material as of late.

Menstrual Recordings

The material on the 10" was recorded contemporaneously, but independently from one another for the aforementioned 1983 compilation that presented only a minute of each work.Bianchi's contribution, "Amniocentesi," is pure 1980s M.B.: all slow decrepit electronics and depressive atmospheres.The morose, damaged synths are occasionally met with a stammering, fragmented drum machine likely from a broken down organ, with everything staying firmly rooted in Bianchi's grey and cheerless ambience.

The Merzbow piece, "Envoise 30 05 1982," sits nicely with his early 1980s discography, before he became overly focused on piercing harsh noise blasts and instead dabbled in tape loops and found sounds.Phasing distortion overshadows slowed down tape collages, with the occasional burst of harsh noise that makes for a strong rhythmic accent.With some fuzzy textures and turntable scratch skittering, it is pure old school Akita, and easily my favorite era of his career.

The material on Merzbow Meets M.B. is recent work from both acts as a true collaboration, and the bonus included 7" makes for a nice split release to compare to the 10" as far as the individual artists' work goes."Dissonant Abstraction" initially is all roaring, cavernous Merzbow noise, but kept restrained and under control.Low register swells and patterns make for an ersatz rhythm, with haunting passages of synthesizer clearly marking Bianchi's contributions.His work here has shades of his more recent new age material, but it works, balancing out the harsher end of Akita’s harsh noise.In some ways it sounds like each artist’s solo work mixed together, and it is rather effective.

The other half, "Surreal Distortions," is overall more in the noise spectrum of things, with muffled, bassy noises and thin analog electronics.There is not the same hints at melody as on the other side, and instead focuses on harsher textures.Bent oscillators and electronic chirps mark this a clearly analog piece, and with the occasional use of phasing and flanging it calls to mind some of CCCC and Astro's best work.Here it feels more like a collaboration between the two, with Akita’s use of chaotic mixing and Bianchi’s use of synthesizer sounds.

The 7" single included with the LP features each artist contributing their own recent solo works as well, and while both are excellent, neither are surprising.Merzbow's "Fragment B" is all scraping metal and bleeping electronics, so in some regards is a throwback to his early 1990s junk noise sound without the overly loud electronics.An occasional rhythm sneaks in here and there, but for the most part it is pure chaos.Bianchi's "28th Flux" has the bleakness of his early works, but a more modern, higher fidelity sheen covering the pained electronics and darkness.

As both artists are ridiculously prolific, and I personally have a fondness for their earliest work in both cases, I tend to only occasionally dabble in either of their new releases.In this case, the recent collaboration work is exactly what I hoped it would be, mixing the best sounds of both artists together splendidly.Coupled with the vintage material on the 10", and it makes for a pair of releases that demonstrates the best facets of these two long respected artists.

samples:

• Amniocentesi (M.B.)
• Envoise 30 05 82 (Merzbow)
• Dissonant Abstraction
• Surreal Distortions

 

13 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

An audio-visual collaboration featuring Evelina Domnitch, Francisco López, COH, and Asmus Tietchens (amongst others), Liquifed Sky is truly a synthesis of audio and visual, emphasizing the indisputably organic connection between fluid and light, as well as the physical effect of sound waves upon both. It might not be the most convenient release, being a data DVD, but is well worth the effort.

LINE

Half of this release is made up of a two part visual piece titled "Mucilaginous Omniverse" by Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand, the first half scored by COH and the second by Domnitch and Gelfand.The visual component of both is a series of colorized video recordings of drops of silicone oil being propelled by the sound waves of the audio accompaniment, with the droplets merging together into natural geometric shapes and then dissipating.For the first part, COH's shimmering noise and radio-like static create a sense of cohesion as synth bell tones and fluttering electronics keep things flowing.It may seem abstract at first, but there is a surprising amount of structure and organization to it.The audio portion contributed by Domnitch and Gelfand on the second half has less musicality to it and instead a cold, clinical sound that works quite well on its own.Oscillating between delicate microsounds and deep, heavy passages of menacing electronics, the piece closes on a rather soft note.

"Hydro Acoustic Study," visualized by Paul Prudence and scored by Francisco López is a different experience entirely.The video component is heavily digital, consisting of patterns and shapes modeled to match the properties of water and shaped by the sound that propels it.Using generative strategies to visually animate, López' sound is at times more aggressive and forward than I usually expect from him.His penchant for quiet, near silent moments are interrupted violently, eventually locking into a mechanical rhythm that causes digital interference in the visual proportion.

Finally, Domnitch and Gelfand present "Memory Vapor," made up of a cloud chamber and particle accelerator illuminated by a white laser that becomes a spiraling, neon tinted prism of particulate matter.The audio portion by Asmus Tietchens is shrill and somewhat sparse in nature compared to his other work, but is completely effective, with its dirty, grimy hue acting as a perfect counterpoint to the fragmented visuals.

Authored as a data DVD, rather than a traditional video disc, the highest resolution playback of these videos (in 1080p) is allowed.However, that means that it is unlikely to play in most standard DVD players, and given the significant bitrate of each video, streaming it off the disc is not the smoothest experience.For that reason it is best copied to a hard disk before playing (each video is between 1 and 2.5 gb), and thus it is not necessarily the easiest thing to just throw on.In some ways it makes for the perfect antithesis of the prevailing lower fidelity, digital download culture that has gripped most forms of music.I watched it via a PC connected to my TV and audio receiver, but I would have preferred if it had been presented as a BluRay disc instead for the sake of convenience.However it is presented, both the visual and audio portions match each other perfectly, with neither overshadowing the other in significance, resulting in an experience that is worth the effort.

13 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

Amongst fans of dark, heavy music, James Plotkin is a name synonymous with work that defies categorization or genre boundaries in a slew of projects too numerous to list. Lesser known, at least perhaps in the USA, is drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, who may be working from a free jazz template but produces music that is similarly impossible to categorize. The two meet here for the first time on Death Rattle, the result of a four-hour improvisation recorded last year, and the result is as blistering and intense as expected.

Rune Grammofon

The four pieces that make up the album work with only Plotkin's guitar and Nilssen-Love's drumming, but the result is anything but simplistic.The emphasis is on the guitar on "The Skin, The Color," wavering between chugging rhythm and kinetic free improvisation.All the while, Nilssen-Love's manic drumming lurks in the background; his flailing, hyperactive playing acts less as the rhythm and more of a lead instrument.

The line between hard-edged metal structures and explosive free jazz improvisation is straddled on "Cock Circus" the clearest.Right from the beginning with the more riff-oriented playing jumping in and out of grinding noise, and by the same token, the drums balance between sharp, aggressive patterns and explosive, loose improvisations.Just when it sounds like it is getting into indulgent noodling it locks back into a rigid groove to mix things up.

Less overt, but also vacillating between order and chaos is the title piece, which features inhuman sounding Plotkin squall that mimics the title of the song perfectly, as Nilssen-Love's snare rushes serve as a punctuation to the grotesque guitar."Primateria" has the most erratic feel of the four songs on here, with tightly clipped guitars and percussive accents slowly building up and collapsing.The whole time it sounds like it is about to fall apart into an unstructured mess but it never happens.Considering this was the last material recorded in that four-hour session, this is probably less of a conceptual decision and more just physical fatigue setting in.

Death Rattle is not a surprising record by any means, and I mean that as the utmost compliment.Anything I have heard either Plotkin or Nilssen-Love involved in has defied any sort of easy description, but is always riddled with strength and innovation.Even here stripped down to two core instruments, that intensity is no less present, and makes for another high water mark in both artists' impressive discographies.

samples:

• Primateria
• Cock Circus
• Death Rattle

 

12 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

Recorded over three days in Greece, Varvakios is an odd yet perfect sound travelogue of sorts. Cold, intense, monochrome, guitar-based instrumentals—some with an almost Balkan atmosphere—alternate with field recordings perhaps in markets or auctions. The overall feeling is of urban industrial-tribalism amid an exotic, humid, foreign landscape.

LTM

"The Ivory Coast," from the 1982 album Tragic Figures, made me conjure up my own image of Savage Republic as a raincoat clad post-punk group from Northern England who possibly did a couple of records while they were at art-school. The Los Angeles based group have actually recorded numerous albums throughout the last three decades, but this 2012 recording could easily be mistaken for something of that earlier time period. Joining the group this time in the ever-changing lineup is Greek resident Blaine L. Reininger of Tuxedomoon, playing violin on a few pieces, adding an almost East-European folk aspect to Varvakios.

Savage Republic has a history with Greece. The flipside of their early "Film Noir" single covered "O Andonis" by Mikis Theodorakis. I can assume the Californians considered it a beautiful song but didn't realize it had been banned as "revolutionary" in the 1960s. As a result, the band became more popular in Greece than anywhere else in Europe! After four albums between 1982-89, Savage Republic fell silent, although their sarcastic "Real Men" from Tragic Figures, is on the soundtrack of Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, heard during a scene in Buffalo Bill's cellar.

Varvakios is the first Savage Republic release since 2007. The percussive, self-taught, whole-is-greater-than-the sum-of-its-parts approach makes for powerful and aesthetically pleasing music. I assume the sleeve art is by founder member Bruce Licher well-known for his beautiful creations using the letterpress on chipboard design process. This art mirrors the group sound: very simple yet iconic and distinctive. They are touring in 2013.

 

 

12 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

I know it will not last very long, but I am very much enjoying the current trend of noise artists turning their attention towards dance music and beats (something I definitely would not have expected when Masami Akita dabbled similarly a decade ago).  Along with Vatican Shadow and Pete Swanson, Ren Schofield's Container project is decisively leading the vanguard of that scene, though he almost slipped by me due to his association with the rather synth-centric Spectrum Spools label.  His latest effort is not quite as uniformly spectacular as last year's identically titled debut, but it definitely comes very damn close (especially the second half).

Spectrum Spools

Schofield's work is quite a bit different from the other recent purveyors of beat-driven noise, as he is a bit more wholehearted in his embrace of techno (specifically, minimal techno).  In fact, there is not all that much here that could unambiguously categorized as noise, though Ren's zeal for crunch, overdrive, and metallic textures ensure that his vision is far from typical dance fare.  Instead, Schofield's history of sonic violence (as God Willing) manifests itself in more abstract ways, such relentless, obsessive repetition.

That proves to be Ren's most effective weapon and he does not use it sparingly.  The most striking example is "Perforate," as the snarling, distorted acid-inspired bass line tensely and endlessly repeats for the entire piece while the increasingly bludgeoning percussion constantly ratchets up the intensity.  Most of the other pieces are a bit less demented, but the template remains roughly the the same: a simple beat and a simple bass motif form an insistent groove that gradually becomes more and more unhinged as Schofield tweaks the rhythms, pushes the EQ into the red, and strafes it all with a host of crunches, clangs, and garbled voices.

Schofield manages to remain fairly varied in the details of his execution despite that somewhat narrow and recurring trajectory.  The most obvious anomaly is "Acclimator," where Ren allows himself a conventionally propulsive and relatively unmolested groove.  He still insistently repeats an incredibly minimal bass line and unleashes a flurry of metallic grinding and clattering, but it feels more like bizarre dub than a full-on assault.  "Dripping" is also a bit unusual, as it offers a weirdly lurching, crunching groove rather than Ren's standard pummeling and unrelenting forward momentum.  Such divergences make for a surprisingly listenable album, as they provide an effective contrast to (and respite from) the rhythmic bulldozing of LP's wilder moments.

Naturally, those wilder moments are the best part, so I was a little disappointed that only two songs achieved that degree of intensity.  That is the pessimist in me speaking though, as I could just as easily say that two out of five songs are minor masterpieces of visceral power.  I suppose Ren probably cannot keep repeating his formula of  "insistent groove gradually escalates into dense, cathartic chaos" much longer without encountering dramatically diminishing returns, but he certainly has not reached that point yet.

Samples:

• Acclimator
• Perforate
• Refract

 

 

 

12 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

Back in 2010, this unusual shoegaze/drone duo released a truly mesmerizing CDr on Seattle's small Debacle Records label.  Sadly, not very many people noticed.  Fortunately, one of the few people who did notice was Barn Owl's Jon Porras, which eventually led to the requisite James Plotkin-remastering job, a high profile vinyl reissue, and a well-deserved second chance to share their dreamy choral gloom with the world.

Helen Scarsdale

Most people were first exposed to The Slaves earlier this year when Digitalis released Spirits of the Sun, but this earlier effort is quite a bit different than that one.  The basic building blocks are the same  (Barbara Kinzle's reverb-drenched, sacred-sounding vocals and some minimal, organ-like synthesizer),  but The Slaves were a bit less doom-influenced back in 2010.  That is not necessarily better or worse, but Ocean on Ocean feels noticeably less dark and less harsh than its successor.  It is markedly less varied too, but that relatively narrow scope works surprisingly in its favor.  In fact, I do not think anyone else could make an album like this and make it work.  I am not sure if that means that Kinzle and Birch Cooper are brilliant or merely very lucky, but the extreme similarity of these six pieces results in a wonderfully hypnotic and immersive whole.  That goes deeper than just "this is an intelligently constructed and thematically coherent album" though: this is the kind of album that can be played in a constant loop for hours without ever growing annoying or boring.  There are not many albums like that.

There are, of course, some noticeable differences between the songs, but it is not hyperbole to state that all six adhere to the same glacial flow or that the actual chord progressions are both interchangeable and irrelevant.  The differences, when they appear, are almost exclusively textural and pertain to Cooper's guitar work.  The most notable example is probably the seagull-like feedback swooping above the opening "Seventeen," but his subtle escalations of density and distortion are both omnipresent and essential dynamically.  His restraint is quite singular, actually, as he regularly manages to evoke roiling, controlled chaos without ever quite breaking Kinzle's warmly hallucinatory spell.

The aesthetic of Ocean on Ocean can be perfectly summarized as a "variations on a theme," with the theme being "incredibly slow-moving and hazy swells of warmth over distant snarls of noise."  There is literally nobody else that sounds quite like this, but this album does share a lot of common stylistic ground with This Mortal Coil and The Hope Blister, albeit not at all in a predictable way (no Big Star covers, for example).  Rather, The Slaves offer a slowed-down, stretched-out, and blurrily indistinct vision of that sound, like how ...Smiles OK might sound under the influence of a heroic dose of heroin or cough syrup.  Which, as it turns out, is quite beautiful.

Samples:

• I'm in Heaven
• Shadows II
• Doduke

 

12 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

The first release from this Archieuthis Rex side-project, Trithemius drops much of the metal trappings and instead focuses on synthetic beats and bleak, mangled electronics resulting in an inhuman and aggressive piece of modernized industrial.

Land of Decay

On "–ó–∫–∑–æ—Ä—Ü–∏–∑–º" the industrial vibe comes through the clearest, via aggressive, processed synthesizer, mangled guitar and heavily processed voice fragments.It just barely clings to a sense of structure amidst swirling chaos, and instantly reminded me of the b-sides to VIVIsectVI.Via overdriven thuds and rhythmic drum machine, "Collapsing Palace" goes for a more death industrial, Cold Meat Industry like sound, oppressive and bleak without being dull.

"Dirge" is an aptly named track, initially mixing pounding kettle drum beats atop grinding, scraping noise as what may or may not be human voices float up from the deep.Even when it becomes a bit more psychedelic and synth heavy in its later moments, it retains that malignant, funereal march throughout.

The simple rhythm and fuzzed out, memorable bass sound of "Red Altar" goes for more conventional, almost rock sounds, and the noise squall of the title track comes across as a bit more metallic, rather than spacey. With its wavering keyboards and feedback-laden guitar, "Antipalus Maleficiorum" resembles Jesu's more dissonant material, but even further removed from traditional music conventions.However, the subtle melody and gauzy feedback balances the light and the dark nicely.

Considering the recent resurgence in the popularity of minimal wave and synth pop sounds, I suppose a re-embracing of what industrial music became in the 1980s, is likely on the horizon, and I hope that more artists take the Kapustin Yar approach of integrating some of those genre tropes into an updated framework. Trithemius has moments of familiarity that take me back to my high school favorites, but still feels like a new and complicated work.However, the cynic in me fears that the world will end up with a slew of Front Line Assembly carbon copies…I hope I am wrong.

samples:

• Dirge
• Collapsing Palace
• Red Altar

 

10 September 2012

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Albums and Singles

No stranger to ambient music, Kerry Leimer has been active since the late 1970s, creating his own synthetic compositions when the genre was in its infancy. Permissions is, in part, a collaborative work with Taylor Deupree (who produced the album and added to some of the tracks. The resulting album is a long form album that both conjures the early days of electronic music, but in a distinctly modern framework.

Palace of Lights

Permissions is conceptually a form of "disassembled music," in which something that resembles a conventional song is pulled apart to its core elements and then are reshaped and processed into something else entirely.On the sixth part of the album (which is made up of 16 untitled pieces), this is quite clear, with its erratic, unpredictable thuds and fragmented guitar sounding like traditional music clinically dissected.The same sensibility is evident at the end on the 14th piece, which has the same mix of occasional beats and note clusters.

Other parts come across as more straight ahead ambient, such as the reversed metallic percussion and murky layers of the 11th segment: it feels less adventurous but more meditative.The same goes for the melancholy, glacial pace of the seventh piece that is a bit more grounded and stable compared to those around it.

The remainder of the album lurks in that purgatory between complex, almost musical pieces and sparse, more skeletal studies.The third piece pairs disembodied synth beeps in a swirling space with microscopic pieces of guitar scrapes and far off bass heavy formless drones.Immediately after is a pastiche of icy winds and unidentifiable tones, with what could be power tools being used off in the distance for added effect.There remains a delicate beauty, even though there is a slightly more frigid feel to the track.

Given the length of the album as a whole, it is not too surprising that there are a few moments that did not fully click with me, although they are few and far between.At times the fragmented swirl of guitar, strings and synths become a bit too disjointed and chaotic, which is just made more obvious with understated surrounding tracks.Also, at times, the untreatedguitar sound is simply veers too close to new age muzak for my ears.

On the whole though, the weaker moments are well outshined by the stronger ones that make up the bulk of the album.In addition to Leimer's compositional strength, there is that organic but digital sheen that is quite familiar for anyone that is versed in Taylor Deupree's solo work, but it never overshadows the underlying material.Permissions makes for a strong, modern take on ambient with a healthy bit of deconstructed pop music that erratically makes itself known.

samples:

• Permissions 3
• Permissions 6
• Permissions 14