19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

Just in time for its twenty year anniversary as a label, Thrill Jockey Records is pleased to announce that noted electronic duo Matmos has joined the roster, and is about to release the most conceptually elaborate yet weirdly poppy record of their career. The timing is apt, as Matmos members M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel will also be celebrating their own twenty year anniversary as musical and romantic partners this fall. To celebrate the occasion, Thrill Jockey will present The Ganzfeld EP in October in advance of the new Matmos album, The Marriage of True Minds, which is forthcoming in early 2013.

The EP and the album have the same conceptual basis: telepathy. For the past four years the band have been conducting parapsychological experiments based upon the classic Ganzfeld ("total field") experiment, but with a twist: instead of sending and receiving simple graphic patterns, test subjects were put into a state of sensory deprivation by covering their eyes and listening to white noise on headphones, and then Matmos member Drew Daniel attempted to transmit "the concept of the new Matmos record" directly into their minds. During videotaped psychic experiments conducted at home in Baltimore and at Oxford University, test subjects were asked to describe out loud anything they saw or heard within their minds as Drew attempted transmission. The resulting transcripts became a kind of score that was then used by Matmos to generate music. If a subject hummed something, that became a melody; passing visual images suggested arrangement ideas, instruments, or raw materials for a collage; if a subject described an action, then the band members had to act out that out and make music out of the noises generated in the process of the re-enactment.

The Ganzfeld EP features two new Matmos tracks that are explicitly based upon psychic session material, and a throbbing minimal techno remix by RRose of the Matmos song "You." Careening from widescreen electronic pop to eerie choral music, the results are eclectic, fun, and disorienting in equal measure.

"Very Large Green Triangles (Edit)" begins with a tiny sung riff which the test subject Ed Schrader seemed to hear in his mind during his psychic session. This riff is paired with a classic Baltimore club beat and orchestral and choral stabs faintly reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack music for "The Omen." The result is a kind of urban gothic anthem to a primordial geometric image generated during a psychic experiment (please consult the lyric sheet for the full transcript of Ed Schrader's wild and wooly psychedelic vision). Ed was asked to re-sing words and phrases from his psychic transcript, and these vocal snippets are chopped and stacked over a frantic vogue-ball kick drum pattern. This edited version is also the soundtrack to an animated music video currently in production by the Bay Area design and motion graphics company L-inc.

Transforming Matmos' original song into an ominous club-banger, on his remix of "You," RRose, of highly respected esoteric techno imprint Sandwell District, wreathes the whispered vocals of Carly Ptak (Nautical Almanac) in a funereal fog, and turns an amplified rubber band played by Jason Willett (Half Japanese) into a relentless bassline guaranteed to rock a warehouse party at a five am. Since you haven't yet heard the original version of this song, you can consider this remix a precognitive pre-mix.

"Just Waves" pushes in an entirely different direction, layering the voices of Matmos' own M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel with three other singers: Dan Deacon (you know who he is), Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors), and Clodagh Simonds (Fovea Hex). Singing the transcripts of psychic experiments in pitched clusters of monotone sprechstimme reminiscent of the avant-garde "tele-operas" of American minimalist composer Robert Ashley, phrases recur and coalesce into a gradually emerging chord progression, supported by warm pulses of organ and synthesizer. Over the course of its nearly thirteen minutes, the sung transcripts move across a bewildering range of emotions, images and moods-- from mystical, to ludicrous, to strangely moving-- as the busy overflow of language consolidates into a single phrase repeated by all five voices in a resolving major chord. Are these people pulling our leg? What is the concept that stands at the origin of this experiment? The band's members aren't saying, but "Just Waves" offers a beguilingly complete vision all its own, exclusive to the EP.

More information is available here.

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

Grapes and Snakes is the first collaborative work of two of the most respected American underground experimental/noise artists, Aaron Dilloway and Jason Lescalleet. Using purely analog synths and tape manipulation, they build a foggy psychoacoustic mass that lies between dynamic yet patiently treated tape-music and industrial howl.

Jason Lescalleet's sound world occupies a space between noise, contemporary composition, and minimal electronics. Using decidedly primitive tactics and equipment (e.g. antiquated reel-to-reel recorders, damaged tape, etc.), his work focuses on extreme frequencies and microscopic audio detail. He's been a member of Due Process, performed and recorded with Keith Rowe, Joe Colley, Jason Kahn, John Hudak, Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley (both separately and as Nmperign), and most recently Graham Lambkin in their Breadwinner project which has yielded unprecedented and glorious results in the electroacoustic music of today. He lives and works in the state of Maine.

Phenomenal live performer and recording artist, Aaron Dilloway utilizes magnetic tape, synths, contact mic growls, and various other electronics and evocative sounds to create experimental noise and electronic sets that tend to start with a slow burn and build to mindmelting climaxes of intense energy and catharsis. A very physical and versatile performer who has shared the stage and collaborated with a who's who in noise and experimental electronic sound, audiences tend to walk away from Aaron's sets completely dumbfounded. He is a former member of the band Wolf Eyes, and currently also works with his solo modular synth project Spine Scavenger and an ever-changing cast of sound artists under the name The Nevari Butchers.

The LP is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, pressed on 140g vinyl and it is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silkscreened pvc sleeve.

More information is available here.

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

Dead Can Dance released a string of unique and wonderful albums during their prime, but I absolutely loathed 1996's Spiritchaser, so their break-up in its wake seemed like a fine artistic decision to me.  I never expected them to ever record new material again, as Lisa Gerrard seemed to be doing quite well on her own as a soundtrack composer and lives on a completely different continent than the comparatively dormant Brendan Perry, and yet...here we are.  As I expected, the reunited duo do not quite recapture the magic of classics like The Serpent's Egg, but there are still some glimpses of it amidst this oft-perplexing effort.

[PIAS] America

It is very easy to forget how radical, visionary, and impossibly cool Dead Can Dance were at their peak in the late '80s.  I thought I had pretty adventurous taste as a teenager (Sonic Youth, Skinny Puppy, extreme metal, etc.), but my first exposure to Gerrard and Perry's work left me utterly bewildered.  I simply could not process that two people could be so aggressively out of time and out of fashion, yet sound so captivating doing it.  They were certainly the only band that I had ever heard that embraced an ethno-medieval aesthetic, but their genius and idiosyncrasy went much deeper than that: Brendan Perry resembled an anachronistic goth Frank Sinatra and Lisa Gerrard sounded like the high priestess in some kind of ancient cult.  It was almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around the fact that Lisa and Brendan were actual people who were alive at the same time as me (and in roughly the same cultural environment).  And, of course, their songs were often great.  I was in love.

Many of the elements that I loved back then return for Anastasis, but something is definitely off in a fundamental way.  That is painfully apparent within the first few minutes of the opener, "Children of the Sun."  Not as far off as the self-parodying New Age/Native American dance party aesthetic of Spiritchaser, perhaps, yet off in a way that is much harder to understand.  I had envisioned myriad ways for a new Dead Can Dance album to disappoint me, but I never entertained the possibility that they would attempt to sound contemporary or artificial.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what they did, as "Children" is built upon a very "now" groove and is rife with obvious synth textures and faux-sounding strings and horns.  That seems completely counter to the band's entire raison d'être.  Also, it is unspeakably depressing to think of Perry and Gerrard composing an album with computers and synthesizers.

Without bizarre, organic instrumentation and an otherworldly, ritualistic atmosphere, there is not much about "Children of the Sun" that is distinctly "Dead Can Dance" other than Brendan's vocals, which sound as deep and soulful as ever.  Unfortunately, the words that he has chosen to soulfully sing are sometimes wince-inducingly bad ("We are children of the sun, our journey's just begun, sunflowers in our haaaaaaaaair").  That is pure drivel and he made it the goddamn chorus of the song (and it does not sound any more profound when sung).  I do not understand what happened, as he has clearly shown himself to be capable of writing wonderfully enigmatic and richly metaphoric lyrics in the past.  He knows better than to rhyme every line and be incredibly prosaic and literal.

I do not know why I kept listening past the first song, but things thankfully got quite a lot better with the Gerrard-sung "Anabasis," which is largely indistinguishable from Dead Can Dance at their best (the piano in the outro being one of the only divergences).  "Agape" follows a similar path with similar success, but augments its Middle Eastern strings with an attempt at a sexy groove which arguably works.  Unfortunately, it is followed by another egregious misfire: Perry's "Amnesia."  This time the lyrics and vocals mostly meet my approval, but the instrumentation is pretty much that of a rock band (piano, drum kit, bass) with some gloomy synth coloration added.  Instrumentally, it resembles a somewhat plodding Cure song.  That is unacceptable for Dead Can Dance.  Also, the piano riff at the beginning amusingly reminds me of Double's "The Captain of Her Heart."  That cannot be a good thing.

The remaining four songs continue the odd trajectory of the album's first half, alternating strong pieces with more dubious ones.  Mathematically, that is not bad: half of Anastasis is quite good and can be arguably celebrated as a return to form (somewhat).  The mystery and sheer otherness are gone, but that was probably inevitable (they are victims of their own influence, after all).  And they are no longer a vital creative force, opting to augment and enhance their previous stylistic ground rather than go somewhere bold.

There are also some significant (but neutral) changes that are apparent to people like me who cannot stop deconstructing things (tendency towards "epic" song structures, increased density, very professional and "cinematic" use of strings), but the key thing is that Lisa and Brendan demonstrate that they can still conjure up some great, distinctive melodies.  Unfortunately, the album's less successful moments are bad enough to derail the album...for me, anyway.  Regardless, I am very curious to see if Dead Can Dance's newly homogenized sound draws a new generation of fans (the NPR set?).  After all, Spiritchaser was a significant success.  If so, this could be the beginning of a fruitful second act (but one that is probably not for me).

Samples:

• Children of the Sun
• Anabasis
• Amnesia

 

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

It has been an atypically quiet year for Barn Owl, but Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti have filled the void somewhat with major solo albums every bit as good as their main gig.  While Porras' Black Mesa heavily favored the band's lonely desert rock side, Caminiti's deceptively titled Dreamless Sleep takes a dreamier, dronier approach.  While its shimmering bliss sometimes lacks distinctiveness, Evan does a wonderful job balancing his ambient tendencies with healthy doses of tape hiss, unpredictability, and artfully controlled guitar squall.

Thrill Jockey

It is hardly a surprise that one-half of a drone-heavy guitar duo has made a drone-heavy guitar album, but Dreamless Sleep is actually quite different from Caminiti's work in Barn Owl.  That difference will probably only be perceptible to fans, but it is significant nonetheless.  In fact, on pieces like "Bright Midnight," Evan seems to share more common ground with Tim Hecker than he does with Barn Owl.  I sincerely doubt that was deliberate though.  Rather, it likely stems from a radical change in Caminiti's process: he originally recorded the album onto a four-track in 2011 before leaving for a tour.  When he returned, he opted to radically overhaul and deconstruct what he had done.  The resultant aesthetic turned Evan's expected suite of glimmering EBow and synth drones into something a bit more gritty and satisfying, as his sustained tones sometimes stutter and battle washes of static and feedback.  That added contrast, tension, and unpredictability essentially elevate this album from a decent, but forgettable one to an unquestionably good one, as some of Evan's unmolested passages veer dangerously close to "pastoral."

There is not a single bad piece among these seven songs, but some definitely work better than others.  In general, Caminiti is at his best when he allows himself a long, slow-burning build-up and at his worst when he disrupts his hazy, languorous spell with something resembling a conventional guitar solo (rare) or when he allows things to get a bit too calm (less rare).  There are exceptions though, as "Symmetry" manages to steal the album despite being one of its shorter pieces, as its frailly shuddering and billowing notes are allowed enough space to be heard and matter.  Naturally,  such a fine piece unintentionally highlights a minor flaw (the recurring pattern of gradually escalating density), but it is hard to find that disappointing in the context of such a creative leap forward.  It also helps that all the songs with similar templates stand among the album's best.  More importantly, the longer pieces are varied and complex enough to render superficial structural similarities mostly irrelevant.  In fact, I had to keep reminding myself that Dreamless Sleep is essentially a solo guitar album recorded on a four-track, which is probably the highest compliment that I can pay Caminiti.

Samples:

• Bright Midnight
• Absteigend
• Becoming Pure Light

 

 

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

This debut full-length from the Berlin-based Ekomane shares a lot of conceptual common ground with Caterina Barbieri (one of Important's previous break-out sensations), though the two artists have radically different approaches to composition. For example, both artists are quite enamored with using slow shifts in repeating patterns to wonderfully hypnotic and near-psychotropic effect. Ekomane, however, largely eschews hooks or anything resembling conventional songcraft in favor of a visceral, slow-motion onslaught of phase-shifting fragments in immersive quadraphonic sound. Given that focus on intensity and psychoacoustic sorcery, I am not sure that this live document from 2018's Ars Electronica festival quite captures Ekomane at the peak of her powers, but the opening "Solid of Revolution" is certainly a beguiling introduction to Ekomane's distinctive aesthetic.

Important

Anyone looking for multiple vocalists (or any vocals at all, for that matter) on this album is headed for a major disappointment, as Multivocal sounds like a pure synth album and a hyper-minimal one at that.It was actually created using Max/MSP though, which presumably lends itself well to the extreme control and rhythmic precision needed to compose in this vein.Each side of the record features a single longform work built from a single simple pattern, though the two pieces apparently "mirror each other with the same principle in different musical scales."I suppose that is probably true, as the two pieces ultimately have very different tones, but the initial difference between the two is primarily one of where they start and where they are ultimately headed: "Solid of Revolution" comes right out of the gate as an arpeggiated melodic fragment whereas "Never Odd or Even" slowly unspools from a single repeating chord. The latter is admittedly the more impressive feat of structural sleight of hand, as an initially unpromising motif slowly blossoms into something quite complex.That said, "Solid of Revolution" benefits greatly from foregoing such a long, slow build-up, as I am immediately drawn in by the moody, futuristic-sounding hook and my interest only deepens as it starts to undergo subtly hallucinatory rhythmic permutations.As it unfolds, it becomes increasingly dizzying and disorienting, as the pattern seems to seamlessly blur, smear, change tempo, and cohere into entirely new patterns without ever losing any of its haunted, neon-lit atmosphere or sense of relentless forward motion.

"Never Odd or Even," on the other hand, is a far more staccato, candy-colored, and deconstructed-sounding affair.Initially, however, it is just a single weird chord that sounds a lot like an accordion.Gradually though, the reason for that chord's unusual harmonic character becomes increasingly clear, as Ekomane slowly pulls it apart until the individual notes form a lurching and kaleidoscopic melody of sorts.It would be a stretch to say that I actually like the resultant motif, but it certainly does provide a deliriously manic counterpoint to Multivocal's tense and obsessive first half.In fact, it is almost nightmarishly cheery, resembling a locked groove of an accordionist covering a radiant and burbling New Age piece at the wrong speed.Ekomane definitely gets points for originality, as a strong case could made that she successfully weaponized burbling kosmische psychedelia as a sanity-eroding swarm of fluttering synth-like tones.Eventually, however, it all condenses back into a single chord for an impressive bit of structural symmetry.As far as cool tricks go, "Never Odd of Even" is a legitimately impressive and imaginative feat, as it is akin to a prism diffracting white light into an entire spectrum of colors, then stealthily and imperceptibly reversing the process.Unfortunately, the strength of the motif being pulled apart is not quite sufficient to carry the piece (though my general aversion to major keys probably did not help matters).

My mixed feelings about the album's second piece aside, it is easy to see why Multivocal was one of Important's most eagerly anticipated albums in recent memory: Ekomane has a compelling and unique vision and she executes it with masterful control and focus.Moreover, "Solid of Revolution" is a worthy addition to the canon of great phase-manipulation works previously recorded by titans like Alvin Lucier and Steve Reich, as it marks an inspired evolution rather than a mere homage.When Ekomane is at her best, her shifting phase experiments feel like fresh and vital contemporary synth music rather than mere cerebral experimentation for its own sake.Also, these pieces have a lot more moving parts than classic phase-shift pieces built from just vocal phrases or clapping and Ekomane's minimalism prevents her from masking any seams with drones or accompanying chords.Consequently, I have no misgivings at all about declaring Multivocal to be a genuinely impressive feat of sound architecture.I am very curious to hear what Ekomane will achieve when she eventually records a studio album, as even Steve Reich only recorded a handful of phase-shift pieces in his heyday.That leaves quite a lot of unexplored possibility in this hyper-constrained niche and "Solid of Revolution" suggests that Ekomane is exactly the right person to explore it.

Samples can be found here.

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

This third installment of Fovea Hex’s excellent "The Salt Garden" trilogy brings the series to a close on an unexpectedly uplifting note, as Clodagh Simonds' ensemble transform their signature haunting and meditative hymnals into joyous, light-filled ones. Much like its predecessor, however, The Salt Garden III has also been released in an expanded edition with some bonus remixes. In this case, however, the remixes are a track-for-track reimagining of the entire EP by Headphone Dust's Steven Wilson. In essence, that offers two significantly different versions of the same EP, as the Wilson remixes take these four songs in a more shadow-shrouded and meditative direction akin to the previous EPs. Naturally, both are a delight, as Fovea Hex is a project like no other, occupying an enchanted and timeless realm of sublime, organic beauty.

Janet Records/Headphone Dust

As with all Fovea Hex releases, the beating heart of The Salt Garden III is Clodagh Simonds' voice, as her simple, lovely melodies float over understated, minimal musical backdrops to evoke something akin to an ancient Druidic ceremony in a forest clearing.This time around, however, Simonds is joined by a pair of choral ensembles (the Dote Moss Choir and the Medazza Choir) to occasionally expand those melodies into harmonically lush and rapturous crescendos.The opening "The Land's Alight" is the definitive statement in that vein, as it begins as a chant-like minor key reverie over a gently shimmering bed of synthesizer drones.Around the midpoint, however, the tone completely transforms and Simonds' voice is joined by a mass chorus for a radiant crescendo brimming with light and simple joy.Objectively, it feels like the EP's clear centerpiece, but I am personally more drawn to the record's darker second half, as I have never been the target demographic for beatific rapture or radiance.Bridging those divergent moods is a lovely and delicate instrumental piece ("Trisamma") that highlights Cora Venus Lunny's darkly sensuous strings.

The more melancholy half of the EP begins with "A Million Fires," which is another choir-centric piece, though its heavy harmonium drones and majestic tone imbue it with a bit more gravitas than "The Land's Alight."In fact, it almost feels like an elegy, but there is an undercurrent of hopefulness that gives it an ambiguous and bittersweet feel that resonates more deeply with me than pure light or pure darkness would have.The closing "The Given Heat" initially creeps into far more seething and haunted territory, but it has more complicated emotions lurking in its core as well, as it organically swells into warm, ascending crescendos as it unfolds.More than any other piece on the EP, "The Given Heat" is where it most strongly feels like all of the individual components of Fovea Hex seamlessly come together in fluid harmony, as structures effortlessly dissolve and eerie synth tones quaver and swoop in the periphery like flickering ghosts.Like all of the other pieces, it feels like a glimpse into an imagined past, but twists that aesthetic by presenting it more like a precarious dream with some very dark shadows gnawing at the edges.      

For the most part, Wilson's four remixes faithfully retain the spirit and structure of the original pieces, but they feel slowed and stretched in a way that pulls them a bit closer to ambient territory.That makes them a lovely and welcome coda for a release that is all too brief, but I also quite liked what Wilson did with his version of "The Land's Alight," as the climatic switch to a major key is deconstructed into hallucinatory abstraction that favorably calls to mind some of This Mortal Coil's more experimental moments.In fact, given that this EP is a farewell to a beloved trilogy, I kind of wish Wilson had continued on and remixed his remixes so that the EP repeated again and again in increasingly dissolved and dreamlike form.In the absence of that imaginary tour de force, however, The Salt Garden III is another characteristically fine release in Fovea Hex's near-flawless discography.To my ears, the first two Salt Garden EPs featured stronger songs and more memorable hooks, but the final EP's shift towards mood and atmosphere casts its own kind of lovely spell.More importantly, the fundamental beauty of this project has always lay in its overall aesthetic rather than in the craftsmanship of any individual songs and that remains true here.When Simonds and her collaborators are at their best, it uncannily feels like they are vessels through which imagined ancient folk songs are being soulfully and supernaturally channeled.

Samples can be found here.

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

Like a lot of people, I am guilty of failing to properly appreciate Marcus Fjellström’s deeply unconventional and haunted vision during his lifetime, but Miasmah's Erik Skodvin has long been a tireless champion of the late Swedish composer's work, as the label was home to much of Fjellström work from the last decade. After hearing these reissues of Fjellström’s earliest two albums, I now fully understand why Skodvin was so passionate about his work: these two albums lie somewhere between a viscerally disturbing nightmare and a macabre fairy tale. I suppose that is not exactly surprising stylistic terrain within the Miasmah milieu, but the execution is what matters and Fjellström was on an entirely different plane than just about anybody else in that regard. At their best, these two albums make me feel like I am plunged into an intense and hallucinatory dreamscape filled with terrifying ballets, haunted clocks, and blood-soaked puppet shows.

Miasmah

Exercises in Estrangement was originally released back in 2005 on Manchester's Lampse label and it probably captures Fjellström at the peak of his dark intensity.Moreover, it is evidence that his vision was fully formed and bracingly original right from the start, though he certainly continued to evolve and explore more nuanced themes as his career progressed.At this stage, however, Fjellström's aesthetic could best be described as "an incredibly promising young classical composer witnessed some kind of mind-destroying Lovecraftian horror and was damned to forever experience viscerally disturbing visions every time he tried to close his eyes or sleep."Only part of that is actually based in reality (Fjellström studied at a Swedish conservatory and was an exceptionally gifted composer), but it is impossible to experience the sickly, pulsing dissonance of the opening "Planchette" without wondering what caused his vision to take such a disturbing and infernal path.

Part of that trajectory can admittedly be explained by some of his influences (Ligeti, Badalamenti, and Zdeněk Liška (frequent composer for macabre, surrealist animators like Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers)), but when "Planchette" erupts into the massive, shuddering terror of its crescendo, it feels like Fjellström's true inspirations were far more dark and primal than a mere healthy interest in other radical composers.Thankfully, the rest of the album is not nearly as assaultive and nerve-jangling as its brilliant opener, but it is no less evocative and inspired.It is important to note that there is a streak of playful whimsy that runs through the album as well, though it is definitely more akin to that of the aforementioned Quay Brothers than the comparatively toothless goth-lite of a Tim Burton film (though Skodvin mentions that Fjellström delighted in gleefully mashing together high and low art and celebrating "bad" taste).

That mischievous tendency is best illustrated by "Marionettes Revisited," which sometimes evokes a gaggle of panicked elves reacting to a rash of reindeer mutilations at the North Pole.Beyond the indecipherable cacophony of those cartoonish voices, however, lies an incredibly sophisticated composition, as tumbling xylophone melodies, military snares, and darkly impressionistic piano motifs bleed together for an intoxicatingly nightmarish tableau.Later, "Kandinsky Kammer" dabbles again in the blurring of childlike wonder and discordant horror, as the opening motif approximates a haunted calliope at a deserted carnival.My other favorite pieces are the roiling, slow-building terror of "Jeux" and the lysergically viscous synth burble of "Anstice.""Jeux" is especially revelatory, as the howling climax is a such a masterful swirl of swelling discordant strings and clattering, confused sounds that I feel like I am being swept up in a fucking tornado.I am also quite fond of the considerably less extreme "Oil," which calls to mind a foreboding and subtly curdled variation on Debussy-style impressionism.

That piece is followed by a brief and surreal interlude of noirish jazz, which highlights yet another fascinating aspect of Exercises in Estrangement: it is akin to an infernal fun house in which each new door reveals a grotesque twist on a different genre, yet all feel like natural extensions of Fjellström's core vision.I never get the sense that Fjellström was self-consciously attempting to show off the sheer breadth of his artistry–it just feels like he seamlessly repurposed a wide variety of stylistic threads to paint different scenes within the same coherent overarching vision.While I am quite fond of that vision, Exercises in Estrangement would not nearly as good without its unerring and sometimes transcendent execution.In just about anyone else's hands, music in this vein would feel oppressive and bombastic, but Fjellström's lightness of touch and unerring intuition make the transitions from delicate melodies to roaring, seismic climaxes feel earned and organic.This is an absolutely amazing debut (and an amazing album in general).I just wish it had not taken me almost 15 years to finally hear it.

Samples can be found here.

On 2006’s amusingly titled Gebrauchsmusik, Fjellström took a somewhat different and more overtly conceptual approach, but the resultant music is no less harrowing, intense, and wildly original.The title translates as "utility music" and Fjellström sincerely set out to compose exactly that in his uniquely skewed and macabre way, writing a suite of pieces that he deemed appropriate for various activities like dancing, death, celebration, and war.Obviously, subjects like death and war lend themselves quite easily to the distended and sickly horror of Fjellström's aesthetic, but he was more than happy to invert ostensibly cheery occasions like festivals into hellish, dissonant miasmas as well.In Fjellström's vision, all roads inexorably lead to a phantasmagoric plunge into hell's depths.

The album's most unusual piece is arguably the opening "Reanimation Music," as it is a rare, explicit nod to one of Fjellström's influences (in this case, most likely György Ligeti’s "Lux Aeterna").In it, layers of vocals from an "enigmatic mezzosoprano" are dissonantly smeared together with strings and flutes into an unearthly reverie of unsettling and uncomfortable harmonies.None of the album's other pieces are at all similar, but I suppose that is simply because none of the other pieces are intended to soundtrack a reanimation.War, death, dance, and fairy tales, on the other hand, all have their own multi-part suites (though Fjellström assigns each piece a numbered "perspective").Those perspectives tend to be quite different from one another, however, so one war-themed piece does not necessarily resemble another war piece.That said, both the "1st Perspective" and the "3rd Perspective" of the war compositions resemble some kind of hellish and fiendishly complex Rube Goldberg contraption (or perhaps an unholy mash-up of several dozen broken music boxes and the innards of a demonically possessed clock tower).There is a significant difference in scope between them though, as the first movement is a clattering and clicking evocation of seething menace, while the final movement builds into a full-on shuddering hellscape of swirling, blurting dissonance.In between those two pieces, however, lies the very different "2nd Perspective," which is an understated and shivering soundscape that seems almost entirely crafted from breathily misused flutes.

Given how inventive and unpredictable Fjellström's perspective can be on any given theme, just about all of Gebrauchsmusik's ostensibly disparate threads eventually find their way into some viscerally disturbing and absorbingly hallucinatory territory.That said, the two fairy tale pieces are arguably the most consistently unique and fascinating, as both resemble the curdled harmonies of an infernal orchestra tuning their instruments mingled with crackling EVP recordings of an enigmatically distorted male voice.Elsewhere, "Dance Music, 2nd Perspective" sounds like a sickly, rickety, and eerily spectral reimagining of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."Amusingly, Fjellström's treatment of "Festivity" is even darker still, resembling a pitch-shifted and time-stretched cacophony of church bell tones bleeding together in ugly harmonies.

In classic showman fashion, however, Fjellström saves the most disturbing and gnarled piece for the album's grand finale.Though it is somewhat brief, "Death Music, 2nd Perspective" is incredibly effective, evoking a scorched and churning hellscape of damned souls that stretches out into infinity.That is a fittingly chilling ending for Fjellström's vividly-realized and richly textured nightmare, leaving behind a lingering uneasiness that is extremely well-earned.While I love Exercises in Estrangement, Gebrauchsmusik feels like a more complete and disturbingly realized vision, uncomfortably resembling a diabolical inversion of a Christmas pageant for children in which all audience members are reduced to emotionally scarred husks sitting in pools of their own urine by the time the final curtain closes.I am not sure who the target demographic for such an experience is (besides me, obviously), but I am sure that Marcus Fjellström was an absolutely brilliant composer for bringing such an intense, unearthly, and legitimately horrifying vision into the world.

Samples can be found here.

19 August 2012

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Albums and Singles

The Opalio brothers close an exceptionally productive year with this third and final release of 2019. I suppose just about every My Cat is an Alien release could be described as a live album, given the duo's devotion to "spontaneous composition," but this one is live in the traditional sense: it was performed in front of an actual audience. More specifically, it is a document of a 20th anniversary concert that the brothers gave in their hometown of Torino back in 2018. As befits such an auspicious occasion, the Opalios were joined by a pair of their favorite collaborators: Lee Ranaldo and French composer/guitarist Jean-Marc Montera. Needless to say, it is always fascinating to see what transpires when unpredictable outside elements are invited into Maurizio and Roberto's shared consciousness and this release is no exception, as the quartet gradually wind their way into some truly uncharted frontiers in mind-melting, cosmic psychedelia.

Antigravitational

I sincerely doubt that there is much that rattles Lee Ranaldo at this point in his career, but the prospect of sharing a stage with My Cat is an Alien for a spontaneously improvised live performance would probably be an extremely daunting endeavor for a lot of artists.For one, a huge amount of one's previously acquired musical knowledge would be instantly irrelevant (or even a liability), as the My Cat is an Alien aesthetic long ago transcended the use of any conventional scales, chords, harmonies, or rhythms.Secondly, Maurizio and Roberto Opalio have been closely collaborating for two decades now and they are very much on a wavelength that is uniquely their own.Furthermore, rehearsing or planning out how the performance should unfold is very much anathema to the MCIAA vision.Given their past work with both the Opalios and each other, however, both Ranaldo and Montera showed up with some solid intuitions about how they could seamlessly expand the MCIAA vision without running roughshod over its essential character.In fact, for the first ten minutes or so, it is almost possible to forget that Ranaldo and Montera are even present at all, as they mostly just hang back and provide a percussive backdrop to Roberto's queasily spectral vocalizing.For his part, Ranaldo does periodically take the microphone to contribute some spoken word, but it never becomes the focal point.Rather, it has the feel of a fragmented overheard conversation with an enigmatic context and an elusive trajectory.Once Ranaldo and Montera shift their focus to their guitars, however, the performance rapidly snowballs into a visceral and explosive twist on the Opalios' smeared and swirling deep space reveries.   

Obviously, getting to experience a noise-ravaged and volcanic twist on the Opalios' hallucinatory maelstrom of alientronics and repurposed toys is a huge part of XX Anniversary's appeal, but there are also some wonderfully transcendent moments along the way that feel like something altogether new.While I would be hesitant to say that the performance is ever less than otherworldly, the quartet sometimes delve into evocative passages that feel like something distinctly different from the Opalios' expected transmissions from the outer reaches of the universe.The most surprising one occurs quite early on, as there is a brief window where the performance feels like an ancient ritualistic dance, as the foursome's palette is pared down to little more than bells and an Irish frame drum.That stage of the piece's evolution is admittedly short-lived, however, as the ensemble soon finds their way into some even more unfamiliar vistas.Moments later, for example, it sounds like a cartoon robot is falling down a flight of stairs as a churning bed of guitar noise howls and a tight formation of jet fighters strafes the neighborhood.Other times, the endlessly shifting cacophony resembles musique concrète, a roomful of strange and clattering mechanized installations, air raid sirens, or a violently distorted public address system getting sucked into another dimension.There are also some moments in which the quartet sound exactly like My Cat is an Alien, but the best possible version of it, approximately an even more nightmarish version of Tarkovsky’s Solaris in which scores of disturbed and jabbering memory-ghosts emerge from the walls all at once.

The only caveat with this album's adventurously shifting trajectory is that it unavoidably carries some significant instability and ephemerality along with it: there are definitely some passages that I wish had lingered and evolved much longer before being subsumed by the next wave.That tends to comes with the territory in any four-way improvisation though, so the important thing is whether or not the rewards are significant enough to counterbalance that tendency.In the case of XX Anniversary, I would emphatically say that they are: Montera and Ranaldo steer the Opalios into some truly fascinating territory that they never would have gotten to on their own.In fact, there are a handful of themes that could easily form the core of their own full-length albums if Maurizio and Roberto had any interest at all in revisiting or cannibalizing their past work.Of course, they do not, so the most beautiful moments on XX Anniversary are exactly that: flashes of brilliance documented at their moment of conception, but destined to never appear again in any other form.For the most part, it is the sheer number of such moments that make this performance a compelling and one-of-a-kind listening experience.Beyond that, I quite enjoyed some of the more unfamiliar elements and juxtapositions that found their way into this album, such the acoustic percussion or the way that Roberto's rattling and broken-sounding "self-made double-bodied string instrument" blended with the guitar noise of his collaborators.XX Anniversary does not quite offer the same pleasures as some of MCIAA's more focused and sustained plunges into the lysergic depths, but this alternative course is quite a satisfying experience in its own right.I wish I lived closer to Torino.

Samples can be found here.

19 August 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

It is hard to overstate Lee "Scratch" Perry's influence on Jamaican music, hip-hop, and evolution of electronic music, as everyone who has ever used sampling or any dub-inspired production techniques is part of a continuum that he played a massive role in conjuring into being. For the most part, his most visionary work was recorded during the white-hot creative period in the '70s when Lee was obsessively recording at his Black Ark studio in Kingston, but his career after (allegedly) burning down his studio (to purge it of evil spirits) has objectively been a strange and erratic one with Perry embracing a sort of cosmic jester persona. He has always remained a boldly original thinker, however, and has continued to fitfully release some fine albums whenever he finds a sympathetic foil. One of the earliest artists to fill that role in Perry's post-Black Ark era was Adrian Sherwood for 1987's Time Boom X De Devil Dead (a union that was reprised two decades later with The Mighty Upsetter). With Rainford and its dub companion Heavy Rain, those two dub heavyweights are reunited once again (and at a time when both artists are experiencing a bit of a well-deserved renaissance). Both albums boast their share of killer material, but Heavy Rain is the more focused and uniformly strong of the pair.

On-U Sound

Rainford (Perry’s given first name) is ostensibly an entirely song-based album, but it is kind of a stretch to describe late-period Perry's spontaneous-sounding stream-of-consciousness vocalizing as anything resembling conventional songcraft.Nevertheless, it is quite fun to imagine him accumulating a mountain of crumpled papers as he struggles to rewrite lines like "reggae on the moon, super ape on the moon" until they convey exactly the nuanced meaning that he intended (embellished with jabbering animal noises, of course).It would be more apt to say that Perry instead delivers some spirited vocal performances over a series of solid grooves provided by a large cast of On-U Sound/Dub Syndicate luminaries and associates.That said, there are actual choruses for several pieces that feature hooks sung by Denise Sherwood Devenish and Emily Sherwood Hyman (Adrian's daughters).As such, Rainford is both a family affair and an On-U Sound all-star celebration.It is appropriate then that Rainford often has the feel of a party album, albeit quite an amusingly off-kilter one.For example, the laid-back ska groove of "House of Angels" could fit quite seamlessly into any beach party scene from a spring break-themed '80s movie.Elsewhere, the playfully deranged "Makumba Rock" resembles a gleefully hallucinatory and dub-damaged dance party in a deep jungle.Perry, unsurprisingly, is at his most animated and unhinged throughout that piece, fake-sobbing and periodically pleading for his mommy (presumably because the party is simply too crazy even for him).Amidst all the lunacy, however, there are some very cool and unexpected twists, as Samia Farah contributes some jazzy vocal flourishes and Sherwood increasingly warps the groove into a whooshing, sci-fi mindfuck. 

The rest of the album is a bit of a mixed bag, as Perry's characteristically erratic muse leads him to both some perplexing misfires (the overdramatic "Let it Rain" and the kooky "Cricket on the Moon") as well as a handful of legitimately inspired gems.Naturally, Sherwood and the assembled cast of UK reggae luminaries deserve a hell of a lot of credit for the latter themselves–particularly for the dub-wise slow-motion chug of "African Starship," which benefits from some absolutely delightful (and understated) flute, trumpet, and synth contributions. Notably, "African Starship" also features the multi-instrumental talents of Gaudi, who seems to bring out the best in Perry almost every time he appears.For example, Perry sounds like a wizened, melancholy prophet in the slow, heavy groove of "Children of the Light" and the piece's skittering dub flourishes, soulful melodica, and toy piano hooks elevate it to something approaching transcendence.Gaudi is not involved in "Kill Them Dreams Money Worshippers" or the closing "Autobiography of an Upsetter," however, and that pair round out an unexpectedly near-perfect run of songs on the album’s second half.Admittedly, "Kill Them Dreams" feels like a bit of an anachronism, resembling an idiosyncratic would-be classic from the early '80s, but it is a good one and I am always on-board whenever anyone assures me that we are about to have a black magic party."Autobiography," on the other hand, is exactly what the title promises, as Perry tenderly looks back on his life over a squelchy reggae vamp that features a host of inspired vocal flourishes from guest Leigh Stephen Kenny.The "I am The Upsetter" vocal hook is an especially great touch.More than any other piece on the album, "Autobiography" captures Perry as his most endearing and human.Moments like those are what make Rainford a significant release, as the album occasionally reveal the deep soul and hard-earned wisdom that is usually concealed by Perry's penchant for eccentric antics and self-referential wordplay.

Samples can be found here.

In traditional Jamaican dub fashion, Heavy Rain deconstructs and reinvents most of the songs from Rainford to shift the emphasis away from the vocals and onto the groove.That said, there are also some welcome subtractions ("Let It Rain"), some great new additions, and some significant changes in the cast of characters involved.As such, it often has a very different tone than its original source material.

The biggest surprise is that Brian Eno turned up to help transform "Makumba Rock" into the relentlessly propulsive and spacey "Here Come The Warm Dreads."Elsewhere, former Skatalite Vin Gordon joins the party to enhance three pieces with some lazily smoldering trombone solos.Notably, one of those three pieces is quite an impressively radical reshaping of "Kill Them Dreams" (now "Rattling Bones and Crowns") that carves away all the "pop" touches to leave behind a sinuous and contemporary-sounding slab of heavy dub.In fact, almost all of Heavy Rain's enhancements are for the better, aside from perhaps a few questionable harmonica intrusions and the removal of all the crazy jungle sounds for "Makumba Rock."The new version of "Autobiography of an Upsetter" is not exactly an improvement either, but that is only because the original was just about perfect as is.That said, the more spacious and gently hallucinatory version of "Children of the Light" ("Enlightened") is every bit as good as the original.And all of the weaker pieces from Rainford seem considerably stronger in their newly altered form.For the most part, Heavy Rain unerringly excises or significantly downplays almost every element from Rainford that felt at all kitschy or retro.Also, the entirely new pieces are universally quite good (or at least endearingly weird, like the all-too-brief and awkwardly lurching "Hooligan Hank"). 

As was the case with Rainford, Gaudi's handful of appearances tend to correlate strongly with the album's best songs.In this case, that hot streak continues with a pair of killer new pieces: the slow, heady throb of "Dreams Come True" and the rolling, clattering "Mindworker."The latter also features an especially fiery vocal performance from Perry in full prophet mode, as he enigmatically rants about collecting souls, "transfigurating" minds, and ruling the night in the land of slime.Of course, it should be noted that Gaudi's efforts tend to stand out precisely because the rhythm section, the guitars, and the dubbed-out percussion flourishes of Adrian Sherwood are all fully absorbed in conjuring up the heavy, fluid grooves that form the backbone of everything.It is very easy to take participants like Crucial Tony, George Oban, and Style Scott for granted, as they have been making great reggae for so long that they make it seem totally effortless and organic.In other non-Gaudi news, "Above and Beyond" is still another unexpected new gem, as saxophonist Paul Booth and violinist Sami Bishai engage in dueling solos over a muscular, bass-heavy groove.

When all of those great moments are added up, they amount to a remarkably solid and very current-sounding outing for Perry, rounding out quite an impressive streak of strong 2019 collaborations (he also recorded with Peaking Lights and hip-hop producer Mr. Green).To some degree, it is not at all surprising that the dub companion to Rainford would be stronger than Rainford itself, as Perry has always been far more renowned for his imagination and his production skills than he has been for his singing.However, I was surprised that Rainford occasionally hit the higher highs of the two releases, as Perry's offbeat charisma is very hard to resist when he is focused and impassioned.While I sincerely doubt that there is anyone who expects the deeply idiosyncratic and unpredictable Perry to record a flawless album as an octogenarian, a legitimately strong case could be made that he did exactly that in a roundabout way: if the best songs from Rainford and the best songs from Heavy Rain were brought together, the resultant release would be every bit as good as many of Perry's more celebrated '70s releases.The only real difference is that Perry is now happily luxuriating in a genre that he created decades before rather than actively trying to pioneer and define a new one.

Samples can be found here.

19 August 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I certainly grouse a lot about the seemingly endless tide of modular synth albums being released in experimental music circles these days, but there are a handful of artists who induce me to marvel at the truly incredible potential of such gear instead. One such artist is erstwhile guitarist Cam Deas, who absolutely floored me with last year's brilliantly twisted and phantasmagoric Time Exercises. Happily, this latest release returns to roughly that same squirming, tormented and mind-dissolving terrain, but the world of the more spacious and nuanced Mechanosphere evokes a somewhat different feel than its more explosive and abrasive predecessor.

The Death of Rave

There are lot of reasons why artists are drawn to modular synthesizers, but the one that I find most compelling is when an artist is led there because they have a vision so radical, deranged, or obsessive that they cannot realize it through any other means.At the very least, Deas' recent work can be said to fall quite squarely in the "radical" category, as he uses a computer-controlled synth on Mechanosphere to construct a strange and complex interplay of erratic rhythms.He also wisely exploits the instrument's rich possibilities in conjuring up densely gnarled and unearthly textures, bringing to life yet another howling cacophony of extradimensional jungle creatures.In fact, one of the most significant differences between Time Exercises and Mechanosphere is simply the perceived proximity of that unholy menagerie.With Time Exercises, it felt like I was in its writhing, squirming, and jabbering midst.With Mechanosphere, it often feels like I am attending some kind of ancient tribal ritual in a remote jungle village and any Lovecraftian horrors that await me are still mostly off in the distance (though I can definitely hear them approaching).As such, the rhythms of that imagined ceremony tend to be the heart of this album, as the heavier sounds are generally more threatening and unnerving than downright apocalyptic.To some degree those rhythms resemble a layered, tempo-shifting collage of traditional hand percussion recordings by some intrepid explorer who vanished into the rainforests of Borneo a hundred years ago.That said, they have since been polished to a futuristic dancefloor sheen and set to an erratic kickdrum thump.As such, Mechanosphere frequently resembles a maniacal dub experiment built from dozens of pitch-shifted and temporally mangled recordings of woodpeckers.    

If there can be said to be a "single" on Mechanosphere, it is unquestionably "Set in Motion," as there is an uncharacteristically lovely and chime-like melody in the eye of its convulsively shuddering and clattering storm.In fact, it would almost feel like a prescient vision of a jerkily kinetic strain of alien dance music if there were not so many heaving, seismic swells violently distending the space-time continuum.The following "Four Flows" shares some fragile ties to dance music's most outré fringes as well, as its shuffling and lurching robo-rhythm is intertwined with the slow pulse of a repeating deep chord.In fact, it approaches an especially textural, mechanized, and off-kilter strain of dub techno, but that comparative accessibility is gleefully curdled by the sickly way that central chord unpredictably slithers and squirms out of its moorings.There are couple other intriguing deconstructions of dance music to be found as well, as "Refract Deflect" sounds like an Andy Stott single being violently stretched, compacted, and pulled apart by unseen demonic forces.Elsewhere, "Collapse" resembles a spasmodically deranged kickdrum pulse in the center of an intense electrical storm.The remainder of the pieces are bit more atmospheric in nature, though that atmosphere can feel disconcertingly alive and malicious at times.On "Drift Though" for example, it feels like the fabric of reality is nightmarishly bulging and tearing as an otherworldly horror strains to break through a dimensional barrier.On "Slip," it sounds like it finally succeeded, as the final moments of the piece evoke grotesquely squirming tentacles emerging from a clattering squall of static and chaos.

While Mechanosphere is an unapologetically visceral and experimentally minded affair from start to finish, it is important to note that there is a remarkably coherent and imaginative vision at its heart.That is best illustrated with the closing "Solitude," as all the ugly, gnarled textures and skittering rhythms vanish to leave only a haze of grinding metallic swells and gentle oscillations that feels like a supernatural mist slowly rising up from the trees.Despite its underlying sharpness and the eerie queasiness of the harmonies, it legitimately achieves a kind of sublime alien beauty.Moreover, there are glimpses of that beauty all throughout the album, oozing out from the gaps in Deas' inhumanly dexterous percussion eruptions in multifarious, distended forms.While I am not sure that Mechanosphere necessarily tops the bombshell of Time Exercises, the shades of melodicism and harmony that fitfully creep into the convulsive chaos mark a significant and welcome evolution, as an album like Time Exercises can only be made once: any attempt to replicate its jabbering elemental force is unavoidably damned to yield diminishing returns.To his great credit, Deas intuitively grasped that and acted accordingly, though that did not dampened his resolve to unleash yet another wildly heaving, synapse-exploding behemoth of an album.Mechanosphere is a different kind of behemoth, however, as it offers some hidden layers of depth to explore and absorb once I get past the more immediate and mind-blowing aspects of its skittering madness and volcanic intensity.

Samples can be found here.