Podcast Episodes 717-720 are live!
After two weekends away, the backlog has become immense, so we present a whopping FOUR new episodes for the spooky season!
Episode 717 features Medicine, Fennesz, Papa M, Earthen Sea, Nero, memotone, Karate, ØKSE, Otis Gayle, more eaze, Jon Mueller, and Lauren Auder + Wendy & Lisa.
Episode 718 has The Legendary Pink Dots, Throbbing Gristle, Von Spar / Eiko Ishibashi / Joe Talia / Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Ladytron, Cate Brooks, Bill Callahan, Jill Fraser, Angelo Harmsworth, Laibach, and Mike Cooper.
Episode 719 music by Angel Bat Dawid, Philip Jeck, A.M. Blue, KMRU, Songs: Ohia, Craven Faults, tashi dorji, Black Rain, The Ghostwriters, Windy & Carl.
Episode 720 brings you tunes from Lewis Spybey, Jules Reidy, Mogwai, Surya Botofasina, Patrick Cowley, Anthony Moore, Innocence Mission, Matt Elliott, Rodan, and Sorrow.
Photo of a Halloween scene in Ogunquit by DJ Jon.
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Forgive my cliché use of a metaphor, but I somehow feel that when I listen to this disc, I'm looking at a fairly decorative car that simply doesn't go anywhere. Spaceheads have been churning out this same formula for years: a dubby pretense, a small amount of recycled and reused, two-bar repetitive sequences, some live drum playing and trumpet with loads of delay effects. The formula's getting old. While their music is undoubtedly pleasant enough for an escalator ride, and the band has earned a wide amount of respect as a performing duo, I've never felt their music was compelling enough to simply toss on the hi-fi and either bop along or pay much attention to. The rhythms and melodies exit the song in the same way each and every one of them came in, and the only lead instrument, the trumpet, does a lackluster job as tour guide. By the time this album reaches the fifth track, I swear I'm hearing remixes of the same song, over and over again. If it weren't for the insulting guitar riff on "Fog," or the horrible, tacky electronic drum fills and cheap 1993 Aphex Twin-ripoff on "Storm Force 8," I may have recommend using this music for quiet studies, creative writing, or other mentally requiring activities. Instead, I'm left thinking this album's only practical use could be to underscore a stuffy documentary on the British Rail system or a trip to the paper mill. Maybe lots of drugs might help my experience, but I just don't have enough cash to try that out right now.
As a listener, one of the more celebrated things about some prolific independent artists gaining more deserved recognition would be the availability of previous material that may have originally been issued in limited quantities, or else did not have as wide a distribution as present. Formerly released as a three-track twelve inch EP limited to 1,000 copies, the Scott Herren project of Delarosa + Asora's 'Crush the Sight-Seers' has recently materialized on CD through Chicago's Hefty Records, home to Herren's Savath + Savalas. In keeping with the added value of some reissues, a bonus track has been included. The recurring distorted keyboard chatters and metallic percussion sample of the opening track "OSSABAW" blends into a sub-bass progression and laid-back, half-time groove with the odd break to mark off sections of the tune. The two-and-a-half minute "OSS.BW" is a multi-layered piece of eerie drones, synth squelches and chimes that could be the equivalent of sound painting through channel surfing at a mixing console. "Airbrush (clogged)" builds from distorted vocal snippets and reverbed static to a cordial bass line and mid-tempo electro-percussion groove with a gradually building back beat. Eventually it all falls away leaving the distant sounds of distorted keyboards and squelchy tape shuttling. "Vs. Boah" skitters from static pops, sound layers and vocal samples to a dark sounding danceable groove which builds in intensity after each lengthy break. A shift in the key signature makes from a great release from all the tension the track builds. Dropping out just shy of the five minute mark for two-and-a-half minutes of silence, the music returns with an echo to the drones and hisses of "OSS.BW" to close off. While this disc may be an acquired taste as it's not as groove-oriented or melodically friendly as other Scott Herren projects, I'd have to say that it still makes for a great listen for just those reasons too. As mentioned in the liner notes, another good thing about CD reissues of unmarked RPM vinyl is hearing the tunes at the speed they were intended to be played at without any doubt.
The concept is interesting for a compilation to say the least: three bands recording songs that are influenced by or created under the influence of alcohol. It could be an absolute disaster, but here it works quite nicely. Then again, the artists featured here are no slouches (even though they may be out of their element a bit).
While pushing the normally suppressed and inaudible whirs and clicks of the mechanical innards of your favorite turntable into the foreground, Michael Gendreau has curiously pushed the attention on the actual sound output of his recording to the back. My zen-like state of concentration aside, it was virtually impossible for me to listen to the opening piece (one of two long tracks that makes up the album) without wondering where the sounds came from, how they were recorded, and what this all said about listening to the playback device instead of the playback. The use of a turntable to produce sounds other than those reproduced from a vinyl record is far from novel, but Gendreau spends a full 16:18 trying to beat the idea of these hidden sounds into our head. A constant drone that could be the inside of the tone arm amplified to a low roar, reminded me a great deal of the results of a naive experiment I once conducted by placing a microphone in front of a fan and letting it record for half an hour. It's interesting for about two minutes, then you realize that your ears have intentionally filtered this kind of sound out all of your life for a reason: it's boring. The second (and longer) of the two pieces finds Gendreau more actively affecting the results of his micro-scale recordings. Clocking in at 35:45, it's still not a piece for anyone deeply engaged in the Nintendo Generation, and the piece could easily be broken into smaller, more digestible segments. Structurally, it works like listening to a record as the record player's various internal sound quirks are explored episodically like grooves in a record that isn't there. The absent needle and wax are referenced in the way the track picks up an idea, exploits a sound or natural rhythm for a while, then drops the idea and skips onto the next. After nearly an hour of listening for the compositional touch that Gendreau added to make these more than simple field recordings, I came to realize that maybe the music was not, in itself, the point. The only question that remains for me is this: why wasn't this released on vinyl? 
The Hushush label website refers to the latest release from Vromb as "the first chapter in an electronic opera for ultratonical machines." If that works for you, by all means, go for it. While there's a narrative background to this release that is expressed vaguely in the artwork and printed inserts which accompany it, I can't help but wonder if such accoutrements sometimes detract from otherwise interesting music. After all, it's the sound here that we can all experience without the cultural baggage of language, theories of music, and so on,... Structurally, the songs here build as one might imagine: generally growing from a small, discrete set of sounds into a much louder and less easily defined set. Distant hums and hisses grow into swelling storms of overtones and drones. Rhythm is provided alternately by the natural pulse of tones and by looping effects employed to stretch discrete sounds over time, causing the album undulate as the energy is pulled in and released. Vromb's digital collage can transform from a mild ambient rumble like a radio left on in another room to high-pitched skree not unlike I would imagine a cranial drill would sound in short time. The ebbs and flows here work to keep anything from being too much of a particular thing for long. The tracks with a stronger rhythmic sense employ repeating synthetic patterns which echo a minimal techno aesthetic, whereas the quieter moments recall any number of electroacoustic compositions of the last several years. While the idea that there is a story that underlies this album might add to the repeat-play value, it is ultimately not a factor in determining what Vromb is after here: namely a thorough excursion through the realm of digital microsound, with a focus on the dissonance of that sonic landscape. If any of that, (or the story of Professor Heurel Gaudot) interests you, this is probably a good record to add to your collection. 
Mick Harris has helped to define more genres than many artists can claim to have released respectable albums. From his longest running moniker, Scorn, devotees have come to expect a certain formula: mix equal parts sparse electroacoustic ambience with driving, fractured breakbeats. Add woofer-thrashing bass frequencies and spoon out with a dash of painfully dry humor. Scorn's work has been one of a gradual stripdown of all that was non-essential on early albums like Colossus and Evanescence, and the move towards minimalism has alienated many in its wake. Scorn's last full length for Hymen, the blisteringly straightforward 'Greetings From Birmingham' showed that Harris had all but exhausted the possibilites with dead slow beats and low-end rumble. With 'Plan B' however, Scorn returns to form in a way that's a bit unanticipated. While stripping down to just the barest of bones, 'Plan B' manages to merge Scorn's minimalist anger with something that had been left behind somewhere around 'Evanescence;' the groove! 'Plan B' is a constant head-nodder from its opening assault of speaker-blowing bass feedback to the finale that stops abruptly like someone ending a strenuous workout by hopping off the exercise bike. You'll need a decent pair of speakers or headphones to really make sense of this, as a great deal of the depth comes from the way Harris manipulates the low-end often in nonsensical ways. Melodies are carried by fluctuations in filter cutoff, looping piano figures, and the occasional tonal scrape or stab. Meanwhile, Scorn's sense of humor remains in-tact. A lesser artist would take this formula and add a 'spooky' sample from Aliens, but Harris cuts the assault of beats and bass with occasional samples that lighten up the work and relieve it of the deadpan seriousness that so much of this kind of music adheres to. Equally at home in a set of post-industrial beat mayhem or an underground hip hop dj set, 'Plan B' might just give you an excuse to shake it a little. 
This memorable live collaboration between one of the world's most explosive drummers and a titan of the UK jazz scene bizarrely came about from a random meeting at an airport in Portugal during Corsano's lengthy tour with Björk. As expected, the result is some absolutely incendiary free-jazz flame-throwing, but with some unexpected surprises thrown in too.
This reissue of ACR’s Factory Records swansong captures the band at the height of their popularity and influence, spearheading (along with New Order, Quando Quango, and others) the dancification of the celebrated Manchester indie scene. While inventive, funky, and certainly a proto-Madchester touchstone, it doesn’t hold up quite as well as their Simon Topping-era earlier work (perhaps because dance music evolves a hell of a lot faster than punk). Of course, I am very much predisposed to "tense and brooding" over "funky and fun," so I may not be the target demographic here. Still, I suspect that this is probably the sort of classic album where you had to be there to fully appreciate it.
The album starts with a soda can being opened: the click of aluminum as the tab is pressed down, the tsssh sound of carbonation being released into the air, the hissing fizz of cola. It ends with the sound of the can being crushed and thrown to the ground with a rattle and clunk. In this caffeine-fueled, densely layered and politically charged audio collage, we are taken on a ride through the billion-dollar advertising campaigns for Pepsi and Coke, the vagaries of the cola wars, celebrity endorsements, and torture. While Negativland are not generally known for their catchy hooks, upbeat rhythms, and memorable lyrics, Dispepsi remains a great "pop" album.
This split 10" EP pairs two great examples of contemporary bands carrying the grindcore torch into the 21st century. Both Drainland and Grinding Halt modernize the genre in different ways; one slows it down to a menacing crawl and the other keeps the tempo up while challenging the genre’s clichés. Together, the two sides of this EP make for some heavy and thrilling listening.
