15 April 2012

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Albums and Singles

There's a saying something to the effect of "You'll never be as good as your first album," and for Frank Tovey, his second Fad Gadget record doesn't make a good argument against that statement. In 1981, Tovey seems to have been trying to distance himself from the electro domination that prevailed throughout his first singles and much of Fireside Favourites. Depeche Mode were graduating from opening for Fad Gadget to headlining their own shows, and Mute was being recognized as a home to many synth-dominated acts. Tovey made choices that may have suited him right at the time but years later I don't think they hold up so well.

Mute

It's important to note that between Fireside Favourites and Incontinent came a single for "Make Room." It featured live drumming from Wire's (then ex-) drummer, Robert Gotobed, Wire friend Desmond Simmons on synth, and a slapping funk bass riff contributed by Pete Balmer. The song leaned more in the direction of electro-funk than that of synth-punk, and didn't leave nearly as much an impression on the fans, critics, and history as the B-side, the seminal "Lady Shave." "Lady Shave" was clearly the more bold side. It more closely resembled the early Fad singles, but, regardless of the instrumentation, the song was an attack: it was aggressive, dirty, catchy, and unavoidable. I mention the importance of this song as it seems like such a poor choice to relinquish such an awesome feat to the B-side. To me, this is the choice that sets Incontinent up for mediocrity.

One of the most unfortunate perils of British music is that the fickle press seems to have had an unfair influence on decisions of bands and record labels. Just as soon as acts like OMD, Human League, Gary Numan, or Soft Cell were "in" for being synth acts, they were "out," and most were changing their sound in the early '80s to either prove that they could create music by (needlessly) adding excessive amounts of more traditional rock instruments or cave in to record executives who wanted them to "update" their sound to a more commercially viable "pop." (This is a repeating cycle, see: the demise of shoegaze in the early '90s.)

"Blind Eyes" doesn't launch the album with a very bold statement. The funky bass, piano, hand claps, and live drums, are all mixed so homogenously dead center, and Tovey's vocals blend in so much with the colorless tapestry that they too sound almost completely void of personality.It certainly doesn't sound representative of the Fad Gadget who was introduced to the world, launching himself off bars and engaging everyone. Even the song "Swallow It," which is a fantastic song on paper (it's got a great riff and audacious lyrics), sounds rather flat.

"Saturday Night Special" is pure genius, however, it sounds unlike anything Tovey did before or after. The song, a waltz with harpsichord providing the bulk of the instrumentation, either gets its name from the common slang for a small, cheap handgun, or perhaps it is a nod to the Lynyrd Skynyrd song with the same title. It features some of the most memorable lyrics ever penned by Tovey and is this album's jab at America:

"Every man should have the right to own a gun
Every man should have the right to shoot someone.
Film stars and farmers still forcing opinions like TV politicians playing cowboys and indians."

Despite the setback of having a somewhat flat production like the other songs, "Saturday Night Special" manages to be a breakthrough, as is the closer for side one of the LP, the instrumental title track. This electro gem features some delicious sequencing by Daniel Miller and probably would have made a great B-side to "Lady Shave," which should have not only been an A-side, but was damn good enough to make Incontinent a better record as side one song one. "Manual Dexterity," the instrumental song opening the record's side two, on the other hand, is forgettable enough to have been left as a B-side and off the album.

"King of the Flies," got a remix before being featured on a 7", making it more immediate and less bland, however it didn't make the song any less forgettable. "Diminished Responsibility," on the other hand, screams to be a full-album side, as the nearly six minute piece with drone waves and noises could easily last for another 15 minutes. The album's closer, "Plain Clothes," is almost unlistenable due to the painfully uncomfortably distorted guitar riffing.

Sure, Frank, too wanted to prove that he could record an album loaded with more traditional instrumentation, but it wasn't what he was good at, not at this point. What followed the next year, Under the Flag, thankfully more than made up for the poor decision making that went into Incontinent.

samples:

• Saturday Night Special
• Incontinent
• Diminished Responsibility

 

11 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I've grown to expect unusual albums from Daniel Padden and this one did not disappoint me.  Much like Sublime Frequencies and Harappian Night Recordings, Ship Chop is the product of an omnivorous love of indigenous and exotic music from around the world: Padden took his favorite records and turned them into collage pieces that inventively combine previously unrelated cultures and sounds. Most remarkable about the album, however, is how exacting he was with his editing.  This easily could have been a murky and surreal miasma of overlapping recordings, but it isn't.  Instead, this album is surprisingly coherent, sharp, and hook-filled.  While there quite a few shorter pieces that are too brief to be satisfying, the handful of more extended songs are pretty unerringly excellent and it all forms a memorably warped whole.

Dekorder

The first thing I realized as I listened to this album is that Daniel Padden has excellent and fascinating taste in music, but my second epiphany was that he approached this project in a surprisingly ego-free way.  A lot of the time, his editing is so subtle as to be unnoticeable.  Padden's aim was clearly not to dazzle the world with his clever juxtapositions or inventive layering.  Instead, Ship Chop unfolds like a very eccentric mixtape, recontextualizing many of Daniel's favorite snatches of music to heighten their impact and better illuminate their inherent beauty.  The opening piece ("Various Saints") is initially a perfect example of that non-intrusive approach, as something that sounds like a Chinese funeral march slowly segues into strangely ghostly whooping, but it ultimately morphs into a groove composed of heavily chopped chanting.  The second piece, "Flared Up By Love," is a bit less schizophrenic: it is essentially a repeating male vocal over a simple flute pattern and an African or Indian drum loop.  It all sounds perfectly coherent and natural together, but it is highly likely that none of those individual elements originate from the same country, culture, or time period.

As alluded to earlier, Padden's degree of inspiration is often in directional proportion to song length.  The album's centerpiece is the 9-minute "Dancer's Reverse," which weaves together an eerie kalimba-sounding motif with some of the most tortured and forlorn-sounding strings that I've ever heard (they sound like violins, but anything is possible on this album).  That's only the starting point though, as it eventually cycles through some quasi-religious chanting, rumbling drums, and bizarre cut-up loops.  That kalimba returns again in the album's other clear highlight (the uneasy "Belly of Parchment"), where it is beautifully coupled with blurred and subtly dissonant flutes. The violins come back in a great song too, sounding more tortured than ever in "Rattling Belts."  Notably, that same piece ultimately becomes one of the weirder and more disorienting stretches on the album once the crazed hooting, yelping, and loud false laughter comes in.

It is definitely the darker pieces that resonate most strongly with me, but they wouldn't be nearly as effective if the rest of the album were any less unpredictable and varied.  Padden and his unwitting collaborators cover pretty much the entire gamut of human emotion in just under an hour: joy, pain, celebration, religious ecstasy, humor–it's all here.  The magic lies in how compellingly and inventively Daniel is able to unfold his condensed abstract history of all humanity.  Sometimes the changes are startling and abrupt, but there are also many times where something initially comical or absurd (a strangled bagpipe-esque snippet) is used as the groundwork for something much deeper.  Notably, the album also highlights the fact that much of the music that I would classify as "experimental" these day falls within fairly limited parameters in regards to production, instrumentation, timbre, and the types of scales and melodies used.  Ship Chop sounds quite bold and unique amidst that context.  It has some missteps and compositional flaws, certainly (great parts end too quickly, some transitions are too jarring, etc.), but they don't ever stop the album from being a playful, bizarre, and mesmerizing experience.

Samples:

• Dancer's Reverse
• Belly of Parchment
• Rattling Belt

 

 

 

11 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Michal Jacaszek is one of the few contemporary composers around who is able to blend classical themes and instrumentation with digitized noise without sounding forced or unnatural.  It's a very distinctive aesthetic that he has been honing for a decade now and it seems to grow more refined with each new album.  Glimmer doesn't stylistically diverge at all from my expectations, but Jacaszek has made some definite improvements in building textural layers and balancing his characteristic gloom with some warmth and movement.  Those minor tweaks collectively make a big difference, as this might be his finest album yet.

Ghostly International

One of the more perplexing problems in my life as a music lover is that I do not like the harpsichord at all, yet a number of great musicians use it for some of their best songs (Joanna Newsom, Colleen, etc.).  Jacascek goes one step further than most, however, as he makes it the very foundation of his sound here.  This puts him at a distinct disadvantage with me and my ears, but his instincts are mostly quite good.  Also, he makes very effective use of both clarinet and acoustic guitar, which helps.  He loses me a bit whenever he starts to approximate morose baroque chamber music, but the album's more abstract, ravaged, and creaking pieces are pretty stellar.  Ruin and decay might be Jacaszek's primary areas of expertise, actually: he seems to evoke them better than practically anyone else.  He is also quite adept at melancholy romanticism, which makes a striking combination.  When he is at his best, it sounds roughly like a zombie Bach and his undead friends are playing a forlorn concerto for the damned with rusted and cobweb-covered instruments.

Michael Gordon ventured into somewhat similar stylistic territory with his disturbing Decasia score, but he was much more aggressive and used teeth-rattlingly detuned instruments.  Jacaszek's work is far more subtle and listenable because he is able to maintain the illusion texturally while still remaining conventionally melodic instrumentally.  There are some great individual motifs strewn throughout Glimmer, like the melancholy overlapping clarinets in "Windhover," or the stuttering Spanish-tinged guitar at the beginning of "As Each Tucked String Tells," but Michal tends to shine brightest  in the shadows and periphery.

For me, the real beauty and genius of this album lies in its submerged-sounding swells, escalating hiss and crackle, odd creaks and echoes, reversed loops, and rare roars of noise.  In this regard, "Evening Strains to be Time's Vast" is probably Glimmer's single greatest piece, as it unfolds in an eerie, slow-burning backwards lurch beneath a languidly beautiful clarinet solo before erupting in a caustic squall of noise.  While that is definitely the album's harshest and most cathartic moment, its brilliant crescendo is not a fluke: Michal achieves a similar degree of roiling brilliance at the end of "Dare-gale."

Obviously, I still wish there was a lot less harpsichord on Glimmer (apologies to guest harpsichordist Margosia Skotnicka).  Personal prejudice aside, it is responsible for too many of the album's rare moments of obviousness or dubious nods to chamber music.  Also, I think Jacaszek errs on the side of sounding too much like a soundtrack composer sometimes.  Literally everything else about this album is wonderful though.  Jacaszek still has some room to grow as a composer, but his textural wizardry as a producer is unimpeachable and I absolutely love Andrzej Wojciechowski's beautifully nuanced clarinet playing.  And I can't fault Jacaszek's vision: he has certainly carved out an appealing niche that is uniquely his own, which is a rare thing.  For all its brooding, gloom, and neo-classicism, Glimmer is a remarkably singular, vibrant, and deep listening experience.

Samples:

• Dare-Gale
• Windhover
• Only Not Within Seeing of the Sun

 

11 April 2012

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Albums and Singles

When I first found Throbbing Gristle's live album, I expected it to be the ultimate TG time capsule--preserving TG's live sound for future generations—but the band had other plans.  Rather than a live recording made at a pubic gig, Heathen Earth was a contrived and controlled affair that captured the sound of Throbbing Gristle performing for an invited audience in their studio. Rather than a blistering assault, it played more like a subdued (albeit menacing) jam session. They never made it easy.

Industrial Records

I picked up a copy of the original CD release of Heathen Earth when I was in college.  I paid little attention to the liner notes when I first scanned through that strange, muddy mess of a record so I had no idea that it was a live recording until sometime later. I was already familiar with 20 Jazz Funk Greats and D.O.A., but I had always treated TG as an act to be revered and appreciated more than truly enjoyed. Drew Daniel's wonderfully exhaustive book on 20 Jazz Funk Greats reignited my interest in trying to understand TG in the context of their time. So, when it came time for me to revisit Heathen Earth through the newly remastered reissue, I jumped at the chance to experience the live sound of Throbbing Gristle anew.

To be fair, Throbbing Gristle's recorded sound was so raw that it often carried about it the noise, imperfection, and energy of a live recording anyway. So if Heathen Earth sounds not so far away from a studio recording as one might expect, well that only makes sense given the constrained conditions under which it was recorded and the unpredictable nature of the artists who wrote and performed it. How fitting for a band that skewered expectations at every turn to release a live album that sounds in some ways more polished than their studio records.

This remastered edition benefits the source material greatly. The remastered mixes feature more stereo separation and a much-improved frequency range.  I hear the difference the most in the low frequencies, as if some of the low mid-range has been carved out of the mixes to provide a little more separation. The mechanized kick drum and bass line in "Something Came Over Me" feel pumped up, while the squealy static noise in "The World is a War Film" sits higher in the mix.  Chris Carter says that he didn't EQ anything during the remaster process in an effort to preserve the sound of the original records, but the revisit on the source material has made a notable difference here.  Everything is just a bit louder too, though thankfully not bashed over the head with the brick wall limiter that might be tempting to apply to a 30 year old, eight track recording.

After all these years, the aspect I find most striking about Heathen Earth is how it defies TG's confrontational image.  The track list seems to be chosen specifically to avoid the freakout energy of tracks like "Hamburger Lady" and "Subhuman," and while Heathen Earth is far from easy listening, it is generally smoother and less difficult than many other TG records. The record's most abrasive moments come early in "The Old Man Smiled" and are then followed by a noisy jam of synth noodles, hisses, and feedback on "Improvisation," the creepy if relatively mellow "The World is a War Film," and the synth-driven "Something Came Over Me," that serves as a blueprint for early Skinny Puppy if ever there was one.

"Still Talking" is built around a simple oscillating synth tone and overlapping layers of tape loops that hint at dark sexual energy without ever exploding into it outright.  "Don't Do As You're Told, Do As You Think" brings TG back to something that sounds more recognizable as a band, but still, the song is little more than a loop that grinds on for seven minutes as the band throws sounds over it before the whole thing comes to an abrupt stop.  Throbbing Gristle ends the set with a bit of ironic humor by bringing the audience out of the performance with the recorded voice of a hypnotist on "Painless Childbirth," and just like that, it's over. The sound of a slide projector advancing slides can be heard in the background, but without the slides or a video or some other reference for the event, I can't help but feel that the record is somewhat limited in its ability to capture the live experience.

This reissue contains a bonus disc of live recordings made at more traditional performances from 1980 and it's here that I begin to get a better sense for how tense and strange a TG performance might have been. The recording quality for most of these tracks is considerably inferior to the material offered on Heathen Earth, but somehow these recordings feel more like being present at a TG gig. "Trained Condition of Obedience" feels almost completely unhinged in a way that nothing on Heathen Earth ever does. "An Old Man Smiled" recorded at Club Berlin sounds radically different than "The Old Man Smiled" recorded back at the Industrial Records studio. On this disc the band is more given to sprawling noise and the pitch black squalls that I think of whenever anyone mentions "Throbbing Gristle" and "Live Show" in the same breath. Maybe all of that just winds up being a product of my own bias, having never seen Throbbing Gristle perform but having had years to imagine what it must have been like.

The bonus disc closes out with the 7" Single versions of "Subhuman" and "Adrenalin," two tracks that couldn't sound much more different and still be contained on the same record. If "Subhuman" represents TG at its most violent and overtly confrontational, "Adrenalin" is decidedly more subversive perhaps because it sounds almost like a proper electro track that some madman has grabbed hold of and added weird shit to. While these two songs don't tell the whole story of Throbbing Gristle, they do a great job of revealing some of the band's strange breadth and general demeanor.

samples

 

• An Old Man Smiled
• The World is a War Film
• The Old Man Smiled

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Ten years ago this week a heart attack ended Frank Tovey's life. To this day, Fad Gadget has still not achieved "household name" status but Tovey's music continues to have an influence both directly and indirectly on music across numerous genres and ages. This month Brainwashed is going to honor his work by tackling each Fad Gadget album.

Mute

For those who don't know thie history of Mute Records, Daniel Miller released a single under the guise of The Normal in October of 1978. He was just a young guy with enough money to record a couple songs, press a 7" single, and distribute from his bedroom. "TVOD/Warm Leatherette" was a hit and for months Miller was flooded with demo tapes from bands he had no interest in who wanted him to put out their records. It wasn't until the following year when he was introduced to Frank Tovey by graphic artist (and now noise artist) Edwin Pouncey (Savage Pencil, Pestrepeller) that Miller decided to release Mute 002."Back To Nature"/"The Box" by Fad Gadget appeared in September 1979, 11 months after Mute 001, and "Ricky's Hand" (coupled with a remix titled "Handshake") followed shortly in February, both produced with Daniel Miller. The punk ethic was being marketed for mass commercialization and Frank Tovey was the perfect marriage of energy and forward-minded technology, he had a fantastic stage presence, and, most importantly, wrote some excellent songs.

For a musical act, the key to transcending the "dated" label is to possess the talent for creating exceptional songs. Forget the technology Frank Tovey employed, and accept that his first two singles, "Back To Nature" and "Ricky's Hand" had the perfect elements: driving rhythm, catchy riff, and unapologetic, non-cliche lyrics. Following the two singles, Tovey expanded his studio lineup and recorded this debut album with the power team of Eric Radcliffe, John Fryer, and Daniel Miller. Although an expanded cast of characters included more traditional instrumentation such as live drums,bass, and guitar, the sound remained faithful to what was established with the first singles.

"Pedestrian" opens side A with a deceptively quiet introduction in the form of an interplay between guitar and a twinkling synth, turn it up loud enough to hear it and suddenly the monster synth sound and hurried rhythm crashes in. This is clearly an example of the energy that Frank channeled as Fad Gadget, and, for something so synthetic, it's sound resembles what could be imagined as live: as Frank almost trips over the lyrics a few times, simply to keep up with the energry of a fast moving song, ironically titled "Pedestrian." Without a gap, the noises from the song's end mutate into the opening for "State of the Nation," a slower tempo popular set opener with an eerie riff and a delicious live drum beat by Nick Cash. "Salt Lake City Sunday" returns to the uptempo feeling from the album opener, and it's a short tune poking fun at Mormons, of course,

"They march, the Latter Day Saints
Salt Lake's sick residents
They want you to repent
The want your ten percent"

It's kind of eerie how 22 years later people are still asking Mormons the same question, and especially now that Mitt Romney is scarily close to becoming a president, "can you leave my ancestors to rot in their graves?"

Another crowd favorite, "Coitus Interruptus" follows, and, if you were either lucky enough to see Fad Gadget live or are able to watch the video here (see 3:31), it becomes painfully clear even Bradford Cox owes his entire live schtick to Tovey!

I can't say I'm as excited about side B. While I enjoy the opener, "Newsreel" and the closer, "Arch of the Aorta," it doesn't have as much soul as the first side. "The Box" was needlessly re-recorded for the album, as it loses all of the power and intensity of the version that graced the B-side of the debut single. "Insecticide" is an fun, tweaky, noisy tune, with squelchy, distorted vocals; and it seems to be an odd choice for a single A-side, as it was coupled with swingy, horn-blaring "Fireside Favourite," (as Side AA of the single) from the end of the first side. Given the 7" didn't come with a classic picture sleeve, it could have easily been a record label choice, but "Coitus Interruptus" would have clearly made a better hit single.

It's important to note that while it wouldn't be uncommon to hear Fad Gadget music played in a set with Human League, Kraftwerk, or Gary Numan songs, however the sound is where the similarities end. Tovey's approach was different: he didn't incorporate technology in the same way. Frank Tovey used synthesizers because he found them to be his best resources as the one-man show he started out as. He didn't distance himself from his audiences by either assuming a the role of a robot nor an emotionless alien. As Fad Gadget, Tovey engaged with the people–hanging from rafters, leaping into the crowds, tar-and-feathering himself, shaving himself onstage, suffering head injuries, and bleeding–making a genuine show of his live performance. Additionally, his subject matter was clearly not a grim painting of a horrific science fiction future (note that his first single was titled "Back To Nature").

In a time where technology was making new forms of music possible, Frank Tovey chose to keep as much control over it, keeping it as human as possible. Those who still aren't convinced only need tolook at the cover for Fireside Favourites, it's not a display of technology, it's a photo of Frank singing live!

samples:

• State of the Nation
• Fireside Favourite
• Insecticide

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Maximalism is in vogue for electronic musicians right now. With the rise of commercialized dubstep (aka "brostep"), this trend is unlikely to be reversed in 2012. Luckily, John Talabot is making fantastically balanced, listenable dance music a bit left of center; his debut album, ƒIN, downplays the genre's current above-ground trends in favor of his own nuanced production.

Permanent Vacation

As near as I can tell, Daft Punk's hyperbolic live shows in 2007 were a zeitgeist-defining moment, setting the tone for five years of dance music both rewarding (Flying Lotus and the Brainfeeder scene, Underworld's slept-on Barking, Orbital's return to the stage) and laughably overwrought (Justice, Deadmau5, Skrillex, et al.). Dance music is, by its very nature, a track-oriented scene, with songs sculpted for maximum impact in three or four minutes within a club setting, where hard-hitting structures make perfect sense. For those who prefer digesting their music at home, on headphones instead of in between sweaty, thrashing bodies, electronic music that fires on all cylinders can wear out its welcome quickly.

To that end, Barcelona-based musician John Talabot has crafted a full-length debut that strikes an elegant, elusive balance between danceable energy and relaxed home listening. Talabot has been producing remixes for a few years now, deconstructing well-known songs by the xx, Delorean, Glasser, Shit Robot, Teengirl Fantasy, and others. His first album under this pseudonym, ƒIN—French for "the end"—has already raised his profile a good bit in dance music circles. The good news is that ƒIN lives up to the hype: it's a stunning piece of work, elegantly composed, tailored for repeat plays, and the best electronic album I've yet heard this year. Talabot's ear for stacking simple melodies on top of one another like Legos, building emotional impact with precision, was pioneered by acts like Orbital in the '90s. I can't recall the last time I've heard the concept executed this sharply.

Lead track "Depak Ine" doesn’t immediately charge out of the gate; rather, it's a seven-minute slow-burner that incorporates nature samples—check the frogs croaking in place of the would-be "chorus"—and enough atmosphere to make Christoph Heemann jealous. (Well, maybe not quite.) While not aggressive, the tempo and rhythm are significant enough for "Depak Ine" to revitalize any 3:00 AM dance-floor. Pional's echoed vocals on the next track, "Destiny," recall Noah Lennox's reverbed chants on Merriweather Post Pavilion and Tomboy, minus the all-colors-bleeding production that sank Merriweather's replayability faster than the Titanic.

As ƒIN progresses, Talabot shows his versatility. "Journeys" incorporates a sun-kissed, summery vibe, layering guest vocals from Delorean frontman Ekhi Lopetegi atop a Caribbean melody. The chopped-up vocals and synths on "Last Land" shoot the album's upbeat nature into the clouds; the track pauses for a breath midway through, only to return with a heartstring-tugging key change set against the primary melody. "When the Past Was Present" is the album's secret weapon, with a groove reminiscent of New Order's flawless run of singles on Substance; halfway through, a laser-beam note of distorted, echoed guitar cuts through the din (think "True Faith") and takes the song's emotional impact to the next level.

It's hard to find fault with ƒIN. If anything, though, several of these tracks could stand to be lengthened. Only two cross the five-minute mark—the opening and closing tracks, naturally—as ƒIN is clearly tailored to our iPod Shuffle ADHD generation. At a meager three minutes, "El Oeste" winds down a whole lot quicker than it should; its locked-groove rhythm is the most hypnotic thing on the album by a mile, so when it ends abruptly, its impact is somewhat lessened. Likewise, "Estiu" builds tension as effectively as possible in three minutes, but ultimately has its hands tied by its quick ending. If Talabot would have doubled the length of a few of these tracks, I think the album would be improved—if just barely.

Many of my favorite electronic artists aren't afraid to stretch out their songs, playing to their strengths ad infinitum, from Tangerine Dream's hot streak in the early '70s to Orbital's sprawling masterpiece In Sides. Let's hope Talabot does the same going forward; several of the songs on ƒIN are begging for such treatment. Closing track "So Will Be Now..." magnifies the preceding tracks' thirst for running time; it tops out at seven minutes with not a second wasted, weaving a rubbery bass line and soulful vocal samples into a hypnotic web of prog-house, closing ƒIN on its high water mark. Despite its occasional self-imposed restrictions with regard to song length, ƒIN gets my vote for the best electronic album of 2012 to date.

Samples:

• Destiny
• When the Past Was Present
• So Will Be Now...

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This is the first of two collaborative albums between Jim O’Rourke and Christoph Heemann and represents some stunning spaced-out collage work by both artists. While it lacks the variance of Vol. 2, this particular work is a master class in using a very limited palette of sounds to create a massive emotional impact. The duo are almost painterly in their craft, shading and blending the different tones into each other rather than allowing any discrete patterns to emerge.

 

Streamline

Divided into three sections, O’Rourke and Heemann cover a lot of ground as the duo test each other’s limits. The first piece starts from almost nothing, slowly developing into a thick, beautiful drone inlaid with bubbling textures and what sounds like an accordion being beaten to death. Listening to it on headphones, the level of detail in the various layers of sound is astounding. The piece eventually dissipates into something that veers between a murky electronic thrum and human voices being fed through a star; it certainly feels like Heemann is more in control at this point.

The second piece opens with what appears to be an Ebow drone, giving the impression that things are now in O’Rourke’s court. Feral animal sounds begin to eminate from the darkness as an oppressive throbbing noise becomes more and more perceptible. This mix between machine-like and predatory sounds is like a waking nightmare, turning the enveloping and comforting emotions of the first piece on its head.

The final piece returns to the gentle approach of the album’s beginning. Drifting tones sleepily cross the room, lulling me gently towards a state of relaxation. Granted, my relaxed state is somewhat perturbed by the return of the accordion; this time not being beaten to death but still rather discordant. It is a mood-killer for sure but it suits the piece perfectly.

What is most surprising about Plastic Palace People is that these recordings go back 20 years and represent an overview of the work O’Rourke and Heemann have been doing together over all that time (from the information given, this work appears to pre-date O’Rourke’s stint with Mimir). It sounds utterly modern and exactly like what I would expect from a brand new recording from the two of them. Although, given that Heemann often returns to sound sources and completely reassembles and reprocesses them into new forms, it is probably not that much of a surprise.

samples:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

 

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Time of the metronomic kind gives shape to music. It defines the tempo of a song, fixes when sounds should and shouldn’t be played, and determines mood as surely as major and minor keys do. On 2 Seconds/B minor/Wave, Michael Pisaro and Taku Sugimoto reverse that relationship and employ sound to illuminate the physical shapes and vaulted spaces of time. The product of independent performances, this album comes together in an astonishingly cohesive way, meaning that besides being a perspective-bending and aleatoric success, it is also a beautiful 60 minutes of music. Listen closely or let it pass over you, either way it furnishes many rewards.

Erstwhile

Pisaro and Sugimoto pull back the curtains on their first collaborative record with the pellucid ring of a sine wave and the clink of some unidentifiable objects. This sound reaches into the room and drifts like smoke into the corners, where it finally resonates and settles like a thought. And then the next glassy wave of sound rolls out behind it and the show has begun. What follows are three pieces that were recorded separately, in Japan and California, and combined afterward. Beyond agreeing to record without hearing each other, Pisaro and Sugimoto came up with some basic rules to help guide their performances. They decided that each song would last exactly twenty minutes, and that each would be shaped by a simple concept, which each title explains very well. "2 Seconds" indicates a unit of measure or pulse from which to begin, "B Minor" dictates a key, in which Michael provides the melody and Taku the harmony, and "Wave" suggests just a wave, whatever that might mean to them as performers. All else was left up to chance, including which instruments were to be used.

The resulting pieces are quiet and surprisingly accessible, filled with melody, and punctuated by seamless bouts of motionlessness and silence. These silences aren’t so long or frequent that they dominate the music, but they do alter its sense. On "2 Seconds," with Taku regularly tapping objects together and sometimes utilizing what sounds like a power drill, Pisaro drops his tones into the near-silence the way someone might drop pebbles into a pond. Dropped one at a time, these tones bloom like a flower and give shape to the space and time into which they fall, in just the same way that a dropped pebble would send ripples across a pond’s surface. Because a sine tone’s shape and duration are wound together so inextricably, and because Pisaro and Taku’s performances work so well together, the music ends up giving a tangible shape to time. As Michael increases the complexity and sends more tones crossing and quivering into each other, the normal sense of time also increases in complexity, until it finally explodes. Minutes and seconds cease to be adequate indicators of its quality, and things like density, color, and emotion take their place. And listen closely, because even Taku’s seemingly regular contributions work to subdivide and mince time’s typical forward crawl.

"B Minor" is also a quiet and inward song, and thanks to the silences and the sense of space that infuse its melodic and harmonic phrases, it too feels like a song that is in control of time, rather than the other way around. But, its main attraction isn’t this feat, it’s the almost impossible sympathy that shows up in Michael and Taku’s playing that takes center stage. Their performances are so complementary that it’s hard to believe they were recorded in isolation. Pisaro and Sugimoto lace consonant harmonies with bouts of dissonance, half-bluesy progressions, and broken rhythms as if they were listening to (or maybe even watching) one another very closely. In places, the affinity is so strong that the music sounds composed. Of course, their restrained playing goes some way in explaining why two such performances might blend so well, but it doesn’t account for the almost impossible rapport they so obviously share.

The closer, "Wave," ventures into entirely different territory, with Pisaro providing field recordings of waves from the California coast and Sugimoto laying down a time-freezing drone. Here, the sympathy they built over the course of the album breaks down a little. Both their contributions sound like they could be standalone pieces, and besides the obvious conceptual connection, there isn’t much going on in the way of integration. Instead, there remains the still hum of Sugimoto’s drone and the surge of the ocean. Whether they contrast or not is left entirely, and appropriately, up to chance and whoever is listening. Once they both stop, the album ends and the curtains close, but that more robust sense of time sticks around for much longer, as does the beauty of the entire record.

samples:

• 2 Seconds
• B Minor
• Wave

 

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

For his second solo effort, Deerhunter's Lockett Pundt abandons his experimental tendencies and throws himself wholeheartedly into making chiming, sun-dappled guitar pop.  On one hand, this album is much more focused, hook-filled, and filler-free than The Floodlight Collective.  On the other hand, he absolutely should not have done that, as he was much more compelling before.

Kranky

While this album is very different from its predecessor, it is easy to see where Lotus Plaza's change in direction originated: the best moments on Floodlight (like "Red Oak Way") tended to be the poppiest, most propulsive ones, so Spooky Action at a Distance attempts to replicate that success with every single song.  Unfortunately, there is a substantial problem with that logic, as Pundt is not a strong enough songwriter or emotive enough vocalist to quite make that work.  The Floodlight Collective's poppier moments worked only because his hazy, mumbled songs were propped up by some extremely cool textures, effects, and inventive ideas.  Spooky Action doesn't offer much in those regards at all, so the songs have to stand entirely on Lockett's melodies and beats.  Sometimes everything comes together pretty well, like the stomping, tambourine-heavy beat and strummed harmonics on "Out of Touch," but he more often misses the mark on at least one piece of the puzzle.  Lockett is simply not playing to his strengths here–he has definitely proven that he can do some very likable and unusual things when he is appropriately armed with effects pedals and processing techniques.  Choosing to play simple, fairly straightforward rock seems to be a pretty ill-advised move.

Sadly, there is also another fundamental issue here: even the album's good moments are homogenized into bland lifelessness by the production–the dynamics and character seem to have been squeezed out.  There is little bite, meat, or gravitas to this album at all, just endless vaguely pleasant, polite, detached-feeling sameness.  The low-end is probably the most lamentable casualty, but the problem is most acutely apparent when Pundt unleashes a rare flurry of dissonance–what should be attention-grabbing crescendos wind up being too smoothed-over and devoid of real presence to make much impact at all (though the howling riff in "White Galactic One" is a notable exception).  It's all very frustrating:  Pundt clearly worked very hard on his songwriting and came up with some appealing hooks and loads of nice ringing arpeggios, yet his efforts rarely amount to anything particularly substantial or distinctive.  I suppose this album arguably succeeds as some sort of summery, shoegaze-damaged indie rock road music, but it is too gutted and predictable to hold up to attentive, sustained listening.  While there are still admittedly a few pretty good songs here (like "Strangers" and "Black Buzz"), none of them come particularly close to reaching the highs of Lotus Plaza's debut.  This is a definite step backwards.

Samples:

• Strangers
• White Galactic One
• Jet Out of the Tundra

 

08 April 2012

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In a move that can only be described as "classic Heemann," Plastic Palace People 2 exhumes and recombines recordings from a 20-year-old collaboration.  These aren't just unheard remnants from the vault though: a lengthy and very recognizable segment of Mimyriad is reprised.  In fact, this can easily be viewed as a third version of that album–while most members of Mimir are not represented, their absence is not especially noticeable (given the nature of the music) and the two albums follow a similarly drifting, abstract, and long-form structure.  I think this incarnation definitely improves on the previous ones in most ways, but the whole endeavor is still as puzzling as it is revelatory.

Streamline

Unsurprisingly, all of these recordings were purportedly taken from 1992, a period when Mimir was working on Mimyriad with new member Jim O'Rourke. In most cases, cannibalizing a previous album  and excising the contributions of some members would be an extremely dubious and ethically questionable thing to do, but Mimir was essentially a playground for Heemann to rip apart, warp, and reconfigure the contributions of others: he's more of a restless, eternally dissatisfied audio mosaicist than a Mimir revisionist in this case.  I'm not sure how much raw material is reappearing here, given Heemann's talent (and zeal) for processing and recontextualizing, but it is very hard to miss the lengthy xylophone, bongo, and mournful horn motif that was arguably Mimyriad's centerpiece.  Also, the length and structure are nearly identical: Plastic Palace People 2 is a single 18-minute piece that slowly drifts from theme to theme with long quiet stretches and dreamlike (il)logic.

I am fairly sure that O'Rourke was fully in "musique concrète composer" mode at the time of these sessions, as there is no recognizable guitar present.  As a result, this is a significantly more abstract affair than it was when Andreas Martin and The Legendary Pink Dots were involved.  On one hand, I am happy that there is nothing resembling a cheery quasi-krautrock jam here, but I miss Martin's acoustic guitar.  Instead, there is strong emphasis on ghostly, subtly dissonant drones, which I am quite pleased with.  Unfortunately, I am less pleased with the seemingly fragmented structure and occasional long stretches of field recordings.  While Heemann often processes and tweaks them inventively, my attention definitely starts to wane a bit whenever I am subjected to construction workers hammering, street noise, a subway, trickling water, or someone flipping through the pages of a book.  This is partly my fault though, as the deep, submerged-sounding undercurrent that contextualizes and colors these passages demands more focused and intent listening than I am usually able to invest.  This might actually be an album that should be exclusively listened to on headphones, as nuanced, slow-building intensity seems a hell of a lot like "not much is happening " under normal listening conditions (and parts that seem like silence actually aren't).

The main justification for Plastic Palace People 2's existence is the end.  Mimyriad closed with a jangly, anticlimactic psych-rock jam, while this album surges to a heavy, grinding drone crescendo.  As a result, it feels like a much more coherent and dynamically satisfying piece.  The catch is simply that it requires a lot of time and attention to appreciate that–this is unapologetically challenging music (though much less so than H.N.A.S., thankfully).  Naturally, I am fine with that, but it certainly took some effort on my part to fully warm to this and appreciate the evolution and artistry involved.  While I would be much more enthusiastic about an entirely new Heemann album than I am about yet another variation on my least favorite Mimir effort, I have to concede that the sessions were worth revisiting and that he has probably finally sculpted the definitive album from them (at least for now, anyway).

Samples:

• excerpt 1
• excerpt 2
• excerpt 3