17 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

There are a number of significant omissions in Eliane Radigue's discography, as the sole available medium in the '60s and '70s (vinyl) could not contain her long-form drone works without ruining them by carving them up into multiple parts.  Consequently, this extended epic of ultra-minimalism is just now getting a formal release despite being premiered in 1974.  While its immediate impact is blunted considerably by the 37 years of drone/electronic music evolution that followed it, patient listening reveals a visionary and enveloping work that is unexpectedly timeless.

Important

Transamorem-Transmortem is a single 77-minute piece that was originally intended as an installation, but was debuted at The Kitchen in the spring of 1974.  An actual performance was not possible, as Radigue's instrument of choice was an unwieldy ARP 2500 modular synthesizer (a rare and unusual pick for one’s primary instrument), which was essentially a small wall of dials. Also, her pieces famously tended to take years to compose and required lots of notes and diagrams.  In lieu of "live" performances, Radigue would painstakingly arrange and test speakers until they satisfactorily delivered sound to every inch of the room, then allow a reel-to-reel tape player to perform the piece for her.  I wish I had been there to hear how the audience reacted to something this radically minimal (probably quite well, actually, as Rhys Chatham was the curator at the time).

It is actually difficult to imagine a piece being any more minimal than this and still having people want to hear it, but this turned out to be quite absorbing once I hit upon the perfect combination of volume and focused attention.  Put simplistically, Transamorem-Transmortem is a single droning chord with a slow pulse beneath it and some prickly high-end frequencies above it.  The high-end keeps it from quite being comfortable and my initial impression was that it was all just too static to hold my interest.  I was wrong, of course, but there is no denying that this piece is unapologetically difficult.  It is difficult in the best sense though–I get no sense that Eliane set out to willfully alienate or startle anyone with her bold abandonment of conventional texture, melody, harmony, and rhythm.  Instead, she was just very far ahead of the pack in following her muse into largely uncharted territory.

The secret to appreciating the piece lies within Radigue's own philosophies about what she is trying to do with her music–namely, emulate water.  Transamorem-Transmortem is a sea of sound–it seems like an endless humming if listened to casually, much like a lake looks placid from a distance.  When listened to loudly and deeply, however, a vibrant and immersive microcosmic world of throbs and oscillations comes into focus.  Obviously, a 77-minute analog synthesizer buzz will appeal to very, very few people, but those that have the patience and focus needed to appreciate this will be amply rewarded.  The more I listen to this, the more I am awestruck by how aggressively and confidently Radigue discarded almost all of the things that people generally expect from music in pursuit of something both pure and perversely beautiful. This is music distilled to its very essence.

Samples:

• One
• Two
• Three

 

11 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In light of the on-going Occupy Wall Street protests and England's summer riots, James Hoff's single-sided picture disc on PAN feels a little heavier than it otherwise might. Stitched together from various "historic riots," none of which are named, How Wheeling Feels When the Ground Walks Away presents lo-fi crowd roar, chants, guitar solos, breaking glass, and other disobedient noises as the soundtrack to failing systems, desperation, and widespread anger. An audio documentary more than a musical treatment of collective discontent, Hoff captures the anxiety of rebellion and revolt as vividly as any camera could, though its effectiveness might depend on where and how it's heard.

PAN

How Wheeling Feels lasts just a brief 19 minutes, but in that time James Hoff subjects his audience to an unnerving racket that is as scary as it is varied. Despite many riots consisting of the same kinds of action, Hoff finds a way to make his material sound distinct throughout, and almost musical. Rhythms and crescendos emerge from contrasting voices and group chanting, moments of shoulder-stressing drama unfold in the sound of crying and unidentifiable explosions, and a common narrative emerges from the prolonged repetition of angry demonstrations and violent events that Hoff either captured or borrowed from elsewhere. The way he layers noise gives the various profanities, sirens, gun shots, car horns, and cheers an added dimension they could never have on the nightly news.

But, no matter how musical the record might be, the emphasis falls squarely on the moods and feelings that pandemonium and disorder create. And since riots are so often the products of injustice, Hoff's album also packs a social and political punch, whether he wants it to or not. I can't listen to this record without thinking about recent headlines or hot topics like class warfare, economic malfeasance, sexual discrimination, and numerous others. Whatever inspires protest, it's looming there in the background, quietly moving the audio along.

James doesn't deliver a judgement on his sounds, though, or if he does, it can't be gleaned from anything in the recording. Sitting at home, listening to the sounds on headphones or cranked up on a good pair of speakers, the sensation I get is more voyeuristic. Playing this record is a bit like reading a history book: there's no avenue into the action the same way there might be, for instance, when listening to an album of improvised music. All the interpretation in the world won't put me into a rioters shoes, which is precisely why I think this piece is best suited for the art gallery in which it was born, or for any public space that would have it. Listening to these sounds out in the open, with other participants, would change the dynamics of the piece entirely. The acoustics would be different, sure, but more importantly a direct symmetry would be drawn between the recorded bedlam, the listener, and all the other people in the room. Instead of just recalling events, the sounds might fill in some very physical blanks and help complete an invisible picture of the space in which they are playing.

But, I'm just speculating. Privately, on record, How Wheeling Feels is uncomfortable and sharp enough; whether it's more immersive or knife-edged in a public place is something only more installations could answer.

samples:

• How Wheeling Feels When the Ground Walks Away

 

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This third album by Herb Diamante is a collection of the collaborations with a number of great and varied artists. From Sun City Girls to At Jennie Richie, Diamante and his pals cover a wide array of styles and moods. Sad, funny, and deeply weird, this album is as odd as can be without being strange for the sake of strangeness. There is real human tenderness under all schlock and mock horror which makes A Spoonful of Yeast one of those brilliant unhinged pop albums which never get made anymore.

No-Fi

Two of these songs have previously been made available as a download only single and another appeared on At Jennie Richie’s recent odds and ends compilation, In A Dream With Poe. Despite my initial misgivings about "Mr. Lonely," Diamante’s take on the song has grown on me greatly. I previously felt that Diamante’s vocals detracted from the Sun City Girls’ beautiful arrangement but I have since come to my senses and realized that Diamante has made the song his own. His Hammer Horror meets Scott Walker voice is ridiculous but it is also full of pathos.

This mix of humor and emotional force is replicated throughout A Spoonful of Yeast where songs about custard rub shoulders with phantasmagorical descriptions of unknown horrors. A camp, Halloween vibe runs through many of the songs; it is easy to imagine Diamante bathed in a green light surrounded by dry ice as he sings his lines. On "Riga" he sets up the scene of an evil creature stalking the night before breaking into a hilarious refrain of "This toilet reminds me of Riga." All through this, Sunburned Hand of the Man provide a shimmering, pastoral psychedelic backing.

As each song only features one constant (that being Diamante’s voice), it would be easy for A Spoonful of Yeast to sound like a bitty compilation. However, as each of the different groups play to Diamante’s tune it means the album sounds incredibly whole. Vibracathedral Orchestra’s droning, seductive music for "Yellow Vanilla Haze" works as well with Diamante’s voice as Diatric Puds’ fuzzy ‘50s rock’n roll vibes. Equally, Diamante alters his delivery to suit those of his collaborators which prevents A Spoonful of Yeast from going sour.

samples:

• Riga
• Yellow Vanilla Haze
• The Screaming Skull

 

10 July 2011

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

With its heavy letter pressed sleeve and short duration, this does feel like the digital equivalent of an old punk 7". Consisting of Dan Colby and Ryan Francini (formally of The Cignal) handling the rhythm section and Fates’ PJ Norman on guitar, these two songs gave me an instant feeling of nostalgia for the early to mid '90s "alternative" scene, before it became known as "indie" and consequently a maligned, pejorative label.

100m Records

"Foebic," with its rapid fire beats and repetitive bass line creates a very strong rhythmic underpinning, but the noisy guitar treatments for some reason gave an industrial vibe to everything.The result is sort of like early Mission of Burma filtered through the earliest releases on Invisible Records.Somehow it feels very familiar, yet completely new at the same time.

"Cutters" goes less for the dense rhythms and more towards a sparser, song-oriented feel.With an emphasis placed more on the vocals, the result is more "alternative" than "industrial," but carries the same old/new feeling that "Foebic" had.

While these two songs aren't pushing boundaries or re-inventing the wheel, I don’t think that was ever the intention.What’s here is just good old fashioned punk inspired rock that is familiar but never derivative.For anyone who longs for the heyday when Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go weren’t just labels, but institutions, this is as inviting as it gets.It’s a terribly short teaser of what will hopefully be more to come.

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Having abstained from a new Merz release for almost two years, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when cracking this disc open. Well, I expected noise at least, for good reason, and I definitely got that. Thankfully, my hopes that the context of this album would make it stand out amongst the ones I have and haven’t heard were not dashed. Recorded live last year as part of a Kurt Schwitters exhibition, Masami Akita puts on a great show that meshes his older "home made electronic instrument noise" sound with his modern "laptop noise" aesthetic.

Prisma Records

While sadly Akita has abandoned his early work with junk noise and tape loops in favor of harsher instrumentation, even that vibe is referenced in this 41 minute set, with competing phased sine wave loops and almost rhythmic cuts between them at the onset.The opening really proved how this was going to combine the best of Akita's styles, with the jerky, almost rhythmic looped noises and wonderfully corroded low bit rate blasts of digital squeal.

Although the early passages seem to take on almost a perverse sense of acid house techno via the analog squelches, Akita is more than happy to add in passages resembling helicopters overhead (a nod to Stockhausen perhaps?) and what could be loops of motorcycle engines, over which it sounds like he’s bashing tin cans and other random bits of garbage.For the purists, there’s also more than enough blasts of filtered white noise to keep them happy.
One of the biggest assets here, other than just the sonic variety, is the use of loops and rhythmic passages.Rather than sounding like the generic "wall of noise" Merzbow that some of his releases are, there is a lot of dynamic build and structure throughout here.While never quite getting to the tight, cut-up loops of Pain Jerk, the longer, repeating segments seem almost to pay homage to the early industrial chaos of SPK or the harshest Throbbing Gristle works.

The constant rhythmic throb also gives an almost hypnotic sense: like an overblown LaMonte Young composition, the repetitive passages locked my attention in, both hearing the rhythmic stuff and the other improvised sounds around it.That is, I feel, one of the characteristics of a great noise recording.While many decry it as just random distortion and feedback, a really good album will shape that into something that demands one’s focus.I’ve heard many a noise album that I find myself tuning out, but that didn’t happen once here.

It does seem fitting that Akita put on one of his best performances in recent memory in tribute to Schwitters, the Dada artist that not only inspired his approach to music, but also gave him his namesake, from the sculpture Merzbau.Even without any sort of thematic relevance though, I’d rank this among not only Merzbow's best work in recent years, but I would also place it on a short list of his best releases since the project’s inception.

samples:

• Excerpt 1
• Excerpt 2
• Excerpt 3

 

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Dominick Fernow has always been a polarizing figure in the noise scene: people either obsessively buy every limited tape he puts out, or they like to rant about him and his label on various noise message boards. So upon hearing that this album was going to be even more divisive than anything has yet released, my interest was definitely piqued. After hearing it a few times, it’s different, and yet not completely out of character in his discography.

Hydra Head

 

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect based upon the first two tracks that were released from Bermuda Drain."Many Jewels Surround the Crown," released as a Record Store Day 7" (and reviewed here) opens this album in a skewed, but still familiar way.While the level of restraint on that track was apparent, it also wasn’t drastically removed from some of the tracks on Pleasure Ground or And Still…Wanting.Here it seems to have even more polish, focusing more on the ambient synths and Fernow’s spoken word, with seemingly more of the noise stripped away.

While I didn't think that was completely unexpected, the second track, "A Meal Can be Made," which was released as a free MP3 a few weeks ago, is a different story entirely.I wondered how Fernow's time in Cold Cave might affect his other projects, and I think it's quite obvious here.It instantly reminded me of early Skinny Puppy with its abrasive, but still melodic layering of keyboards and stiff, mechanical rhythms, which is a good thing.However, the vocals were another matter entirely.Alternating between black metal screams and grindcore growls, the voice seems out of place.In my opinion, the "cookie monster" vocals can work in noise and the various permutations of metal because the dissonance surrounding them in the music creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts:it becomes an even uglier mess.When those vocals are pretty much alone and laid atop what really amounts to an aggressive synth pop track, they sound a bit silly.

So, I wasn't sure what to expect when I got my hands on the full album, it was either going to be a more fleshed out take on Fernow's previous work, or a misguided attempt at crossing over into "music".Thankfully the former is a better descriptor for the album, because the rest of the tracks here are far better than "A Meal Can Be Made."

There is one other track that has that whole Skinny Puppy/Rape & Honey era Ministry vibe to it, "There Are Still Secrets," which feels a whole lot more coherent as a song.Fernow is still screaming and barking the vocals, but the delivery fits better in the context of the song, and it doesn’t seem to jump around structurally as much as "A Meal Can Be Made" did.

Somewhere between mid 1980s industrial and ambient is "Let's Make A Slave," which turns down the aggro thrash but retains the bleepy synths and stiff rhythms.The title track and "Palm Tree Corpse" sound more like the dour, keyboard heavy Prurient stuff as of late, the latter throwing some of his usual screams on over its rather pretty ambient layers.When Fernow goes the spoken word route with his vocals, like on these two tracks, I think it works pretty well, especially since the pitch shifting and heavy effects are stripped away here

It’s only "Watch Silently" and, to a lesser extent, "Sugar Cane Chapel" that sound like the Prurient of yore, the former a mess of hyper-kinetic noise and feedback, and the latter taking the more keyboard-focused sound and covering it in layers of reverb and distortion.

I'm honestly not sure what to think about Bermuda Drain, because on one hand, it sounds like Prurient, but a more polished and developed one.Which is what is perplexing.To me, a "polished" Prurient is almost an oxymoron, and somewhat the antithesis of the lo-fi, seedy vibe associated with most of the releases, in all their Xeroxed and hand-dubbed glory.While other releases such as the Cocaine Death compilation were very professionally packaged and presented, the sound on the disc was still ugly and abrasive.Here it all has a professional gleam to it, which I wasn’t really expecting.

Fernow has certainly evolved into something beyond the feedback and harsh noise, but it is extremely hard to pin down. There definitely is some bleed over from his work with Cold Cave, and especially his Vatican Shadow side-project, but Bermuda Drain feels different than anything else he has done, regardless of the moniker used.Admittedly, I was hoping he would integrate a bit more of the black metal guitar sound that the alternate version of "Many Jewels Surround the Crown" 7" demonstrated, but not this time.As it stands, I can see how the hardcore noise crowd will hate this, but for people with more eclectic tastes, there's a lot here to deconstruct.

samples:

• There Are Still Secrets
• Let's Make A Slave
• Watch Silently

 

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

If I could think of any condition that exemplified life today, it would be distraction. Even the most contemplative life is arrested by a thousand nagging interruptions. For my part, I was especially distracted while reviewing Old Punch Card, constantly turning away from the work to read some random article or watch some Internet video. Nothing peculiar about that, I’ll admit, but then I realized how well the album evokes distraction as a state of mind. It’s the sound of our own attention scattering into the ether.

Thrill Jockey

The ponderous nature of Old Punch Card is apparent right from the beginning. Thin sheets of static flow from the speakers, pitching up and down. Lopsided gurgling loops appear, and then a buoyant, appreciated synth melody, which drifts lazily for the remaining length of the piece. All of this happens within the first few minutes, creating a pleasantly disorienting mood that lasts throughout the entire album.

Old Punch Card is full of musical non-sequiturs, bits of sound disjointed from the sounds that preceded it. This makes it difficult to describe without going on endlessly about its particulars. It resists any sort of general categorization. Ambient? Sort of. Noise? Yes, but not really. Conceptual? Who knows?

Part of the difficulty is that Prekop never stays with one sound for very long. While the tempo stays leisurely throughout the album, each fragment sounds so distinct that the music always seems in a state of constant flux. In "November December," for example, crackling loops are replaced by gentle guitar picking, which is followed by a growling synthesizer drone, which is followed again by ascending synth arpeggiations. And so on and so on. None of these transitions are violent, but taken together over the album’s length they have a curious, mind erasing property. After I’m finished, I’m always at a bit of a loss to explain what I’ve listened to.

While Old Punch Card is engaging, there is something a bit too heady about its musical circumspection. Every song is like a Zen koan set to music, with the listeners being some kind of metaphysical detective. Prekop throws in all sorts of stylistic U-turns, and it is this playful misdirection that evokes being distracted so well. Yet the whole thing feels more like a puzzle than a mystery, with about as much drama and danger as a day spent browsing the internet. As for me, I prefer my pleasures to be a little more earthly.

samples:

• November December
• Old Punch Card
• Array Wicket

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This five disc box set collects all of Tindersticks' soundtracks for the French director Claire Denis. Dating back to their classic second album and continuing right up until their current incarnation, their relationship with Denis has borne exquisite musical fruit that covers a surprising spectrum of styles. This collection is an absolute treasure, covering the two previously released soundtracks with four unreleased works and each one is a masterpiece.

 

Constellation

Approaching the Nottingham group after a concert promoting their second eponymous album, Denis set the ball rolling on a long-lasting and powerful collaboration. Using the moods and motifs from their 1995 album, they scored her film Nenette et Boni. Beginning with an instrumental version of "My Sister," they set Denis’ work to strings, vibraphone and guitar. The cinematic quality of their music was always evident but here was the proof that Tindersticks were more than capable of adding their voice to another’s vision.

Five years later, the band produced the soundtrack for Denis’ Trouble Every Day (the only one of these movies I have actually seen I must note) where their melancholic but tender music accompanied some very dark subject matter indeed. Blood-drenched, sex-fueled cannibalism is not the first topic that comes to mind when I think of Tindersticks but this is part of the strength of Denis’ film and of their soundtrack. Originating from an unfinished sketch from the Curtains sessions, the score is built around the song "Trouble Every Day" which is perhaps the band’s greatest composition. At live performances around this time (including a concert where they were backed by a 17-piece string ensemble), this song stuck out as being extraordinary even amongst their strong back catalog. Stuart Staples and Dickon Hinchliffe trade vocals across verses as Hinchliffe’s violin and string arrangements create a haunting and desolate drapery for the images on screen. The rest of the band builds a brooding mood throughout; sparse instrumentation punctuated by brass and bass match the threatening eroticism of the movie.

While both these soundtracks have been previously released, the remainder of the box set is dedicated to unreleased works. After Trouble Every Day, Staples and Hinchliffe both scored a film each, L’Intrus and Vendredi Soir respectively. Staples’ "anti-music" for L’Intrus comes as a serious shock to me as he deliberately moves away from everything I would expect from him. Using arrhythmic drum intervals and claustrophobic, gritty guitar, he creates a sound world completely apart from Tindersticks and his own solo recordings.

On the other side of things, Hinchliffe embraces the idea of a traditional soundtrack with both arms. His strings and piano score for Vendredi Soir is a conservative but beautiful work which is in stark contrast to Staples’ racket which precedes it. The final piece, "Sunrise," is particularly gorgeous and it bears more than a passing resemblance to the song "Until the Morning Comes" that Hinchliffe penned for the Tindersticks album Waiting for the Moon. This continuous back and forward between Tindersticks’ main canon and their soundtracks shows just how much of themselves goes into the Denis films; it goes far beyond a traditional composer/director relationship.

Not long after these soundtracks, the group went on hiatus before disintegrating as half of the original members left. Hinchliffe unsurprisingly has moved into composing for film and television full-time and Staples is now leading the second incarnation of Tindersticks. Their studio albums since coming back from the cold have had a different tone compared to the earlier albums and the soundtracks recorded by this new line up are no different. The working relationship between Denis and Tindersticks resumed in 2008 with 35 Rhums. Flute and accordion play prominent roles here, certainly at odds with what I was expecting (a common and happy theme throughout this box). Unfortunately, this disc is rather short but it is absolutely brilliant for its entire length.

The final and most recent soundtrack is 2009’s White Material which throws yet another curve ball; it harks back to the spare arrangements of the earlier soundtracks but explores a completely different atmosphere. If I had been listening to this blind, I would have said it was some other Constellation Records group like Silver Mt. Zion or some of Do Make Say Think’s darker moments. There are times, like on "Andre’s Death," where the group build the tension with scorching guitars and an inescapable rhythm; not descriptions normally associated with Tindersticks but they fit the bill throughout White Material. Even though their main releases have not been too stuck in any particular formula, it is through these soundtracks that Tindersticks have truly experimented with their music.

The five discs are housed in a decadent card box along with a book where Michael Hill writes about Claire Denis and her work with Tindersticks. The essay is published in English and in a French translation and features extensive quotations from most of the artists concerned (though Hinchliffe is notable by his absence). Also included in the book are stunning stills from the various films covered by the box set. While I am never anything less than impressed with Constellation's sleeves and packaging, they have definitely pushed the boat out here.

samples:

• Ma Soeur
• Sunrise
• Andre's Death

 

10 July 2011

Matthew Jeanes

Albums and Singles

Somehow Mick Harris has slipped a couple of records by me in the last few years starting with the Super Mantis Part 1 single released by Combat Recordings in 2008. Scorn somehow makes simple drum beats and atonal bass sound angry. He's been working out this formula for over a decade and has left a traceable line from Super Mantis all the way back to his one-off Weakener project from 1998. In some ways, not much has changed: the bass still warbles and wobbles, the beats are still dead straight and simple, and the ambience is slowed down and impossible to pinpoint. But in other, subtle ways, Harris has refined these tracks over time and he's kept up with and just one step ahead of the legions of younger producers that he has inspired.

Combat Recordings

The Super Mantis A-Side is heavy and nearly grooveless.Harris approaches the rhythm work with dry precision and the drums are mixed so loudly that they pound and crash without ever really changing.The B-Side is a less-focused remix from Blackmass Plastics that uses Scorn's signature bass grind but ups the tempo in a way that removes some of the original's dread.

Super Mantis Part 1 is followed up by a remix record and another 12" on Combat Recordings, and Scorn has just released another new full length on the US label Ohm Resistance.Clearly I've got some catching up to do.

10 July 2011

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is best known for his work in Tarentel and The Alps, but his latest solo release doesn't sound much like either of those bands (no surprise, since they don't sound much like each other either). Instead, his self-described celebration of love itself plunges wholeheartedly into dream pop/shoegazer territory, sounding like Lovesliescrushing's best moments expanded into a warm and enveloping ocean of artfully layered guitar noise.

Type

It has often been said that the devil gets all the best songs, but a pretty strong case could be made for heartbreak as well.There certainly are some great pieces about love going well, but in general it is the ones about it going wrong that resonate most strongly.Consequently, Jefre's refreshingly uncynical decision to dedicate an entire album to love could have ended very badly for him.Instead, Love is a Stream turned out be an ecstatic, immersive, and thoroughly beguiling work and a rather ingenious detournement as well: Cantu-Ledesma has re-purposed My Bloody Valentine-style blurred guitars by stripping away all the mopery and all elements of traditional rock song structure.What remains is the swooning and hazy distilled essence of dream pop with all the sharp edges and crackle left intact.This is the sort of album that can be very effectively summarized in just one simple line: "45 minutes of excellent blissed-out, shimmering guitar noise."There are some synthesizers and some guest contributors involved—like Xela—but aside from the occasional buried angelic vocals of Lisa McGee, everything else is tangential to Jefre’s gently roiling and hissing cascade of sound.

The album does have some flaws, but they are with structure and sequencing rather than content. I don't understand why Cantu-Ledesma split this album into 12 separate pieces of varying lengths or why he did any tampering with his formula at all.As soon as the absolutely heavenly "Stained Glass Body" ended, my reaction was "What? Why are you stopping?!?"Jefre got everything exactly right with that piece and it could have easily been extended for another 40 minutes to yield an absolutely perfect album.It is not that other songs are disappointments, but some of the textural divergences in other pieces are a bit distracting and it is pretty hard to get sucked into the three songs that only last about a minute–this kind of music demands full absorption.Nevertheless, this is still quite an excellent effort and anyone that has walked into my apartment while it has been on has invariably exclaimed something like "Hey- who's this?I like it."Whoever is playing the role of Cantu-Ledesma's muse appears to be doing a brilliant job thus far.

Samples:

• Stained Glass Body
• Wild Moon and Sea
• White Dwarf Butterfly