21 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I'd love it if someone put out a new slab of roller-rink rockingelectro every few months so that I could at least daydream aboutrollerskating while I'm in my car with the subwoofer thumping funky 808throbs at me.  Jimmy Edgar's newest is such a record: a lovelyslice of new school meets old school on wheels.  If I can leaveall of the record's fashion-conscious hoo ha behind, I'll be just fine.

Warp

I can't tell if Jimmy Edgar is infusing old school Detroit electro witha newfangled sense of digital arrangement or if he's making moderndance music with a retro pop-locking fetish, but either way, it'sworking. Moments on Color Striplike the opening of "My Beats" sound as if they could have escaped froma Cybotron 12" from twenty years ago, but they are always juxtaposedwith something decidedly new-sounding like the filtered synth trills in"I Wanna Be Your STD," and that makes this record a wonderful way torevisit old school electro without feeling like I should just put on anold record instead.  A lot of the rhythm programming here simplywasn't possible with a lot of early '80s hardware, so the record isn'tlikely to be confused for a relic. Still, Edgar's not simplyreferencing the past here; it's more like he's pulling it as if througha time machine to show how the supposed future sound of music from afew decades ago still sounds futuristic today with a few tweaks andcuts.

"Personal Information" actually sounds like it could be an earlyMadonna instrumental with some smart production and over-the-top synthbass hooks. The vocals on cuts like "Color Strip Warren" are (true tothe genre) mostly monotonous and serve either as a simple hook or justas an added texture amidst a flurry of drum programming and bassthrobs. I can't fault him for lyrics that don't particularly resonatebecause he's frankly working from a mold that's light on substance andheavy on groove. Luckily, the groove is all here, and it's authentic.

I imagine that kids growing up with laptop battles and plug-ins and anendless stream of data from which to sample in a world of complexdigital production and synthesis at their fingertips might find Color Stripa little too straightforward and even routine. Those on the lookout fortredy retro-styling might have alarms going off with the album's coverimage, also.  To me, however, the beauty of the record is that itbalances the new school tricks with old school charm. Vocoders and 808sand wiggly synth leads are de rigeur for this sort of record, andthere's no reason to spaz all of that out with a million micro-editsand the DSP kitchen sink. I'm glad to find records like this every oncein a while, and while I'm not about to join an electro 12" of the weekclub and play the whole thing into the ground, Color Strip is an excellent addition to my collection, and one that's going to take a lot of trips around the roller skate dance floor.

 

samples:

• Pret'a'Porter
• LBLBDetroit
• My Beats

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21 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Lavishly packaged in a beautifully presented wallet, this two-disc recording of Earth live in New York serves as a wonderful epilogue to their recent album Hex. Featuring the same line up as on that album, Live Hex sees Carlson and company showcasing their latest material and applying their newer, sparser sound to older songs from Earth’s back catalogue.

aRCHIVE

The first disc begins with a non-album track from the Hex sessions, “Plague of Angels,” which slowly builds up the mood into powerful and almost joyous ambience. The recording quality is like an audience recorded bootleg but much clearer and James Plotkin has mastered the album masterfully; when the kick drum is hit the room shuddered and I could feel it through the furniture. Not something I’m normally be impressed with apart from the fact that I had the volume on a low setting. The previously released tracks from Hex sound different on this album. “Raiford” sounds more oppressive and heavier than the studio version. Most of the differences are possibly due to the lack of overdubs on the live recordings; Carlson put layers of banjos and guitars over each other on the album which softened the tracks. With just the lower toned guitars (both regular and baritone) the music weighs a few tons.

One of the most interesting parts of the album for those familiar with Earth are the new versions of older songs. “Ouroboros is Broken” from Earth's first EP sounds like a completely new song. I was utterly astonished to see what it was when I checked the track listing. It then segues into “Coda Maestoso in Fb Minor,” which again sounds utterly different to the original. Whereas it used to be a fuzzed out textbook example of stoner metal at its finest, it is now sounds like damnation made music. It seems like it’s slower and heavier, like someone put a huge rock on a chain around its neck.

The second disc is a 3” CD with what I take to be the encore on it. The combination of a regular CD and a 3” CD is a nice touch. The two tracks on it are a perfect finisher for the album. “Dire and Ever-circling Wolves” is more of that cinematic Western of the Damned styled tracks from Hex. The closing piece, “Divine and Bright," was another great update of an older piece. Yet again it is completely mutated in its mood and feeling with Earth’s new style. At this point of the album I am kicking myself for not taking a cheap flight to the UK to see them on their tour.

Live Hex isn’t strong enough to act as a replacement to its parent studio album but it does serve as an excellent document of Earth’s current incarnation. One slight problem I had with it was the editing between tracks (to cut out the band tuning between songs) as it seemed a little rough, at one point it sounds like the crowd is mid cheer then instantly “Raiford” starts, almost mid-riff. However Live Hex is certainly the best of all the available Earth live albums. It is a commanding recording that shows that despite turning off most of the fuzz, Earth are still one of the heaviest and most formidable bands on their namesake.

samples:

• Plague of Angels
• Coda Maestoso in Fb Minor
• Dire and Ever-circling Wolves

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21 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

RazorX is the production team of Brits The Bug (Kevin Martin of TechnoAnimal, God, Ice, and more) and The Rootsman, who make blistering,aggressive hardcore dancehall tracks with the levels pinned to the redunderneath some of some of the most creative Jamaican MCs, and thisawesome two CD set collects the first ten 7" singles.

Rephlex

A friend of mine from work was born and raised in Jamaica, and he goes backhome quite often (it gets cold up here in Boston) and comes back withbootleg mix CDs and DVDs he buys on the streets of Kingston. Thevariety and flavor of stuff that ends up on these mixes are out of thisworld. The music scene is vibrant and flourishing, and to me it'salmost saddening to see only the people who are -influenced- by theJamaicans (see the indie crowd's warm embracing of M.I.A., Rhythm andSound, Lady Sovererign, etc,...) make the big waves around these parts.The MCs on the mixes that he's returned with that I've heard aresimilar in their execution to the ones here: using the voice as arhythm instrument as well as a melodic instrument, but the music isquite different. The Jamaicans music is much more pleasant andhedonistically driven, while Razor X are far more enraged, matching theborderline brutal lyric deliveries with music that's equally asrelentless.

Killing Sound unsurprisingly lauches with "Killer," featuring He-Man, a tune that has been arguably played out between the Bug's PressureLPand singles from both Razor X and Tigerbeat 6's Shockout, but thesong has yet to get old for me. It's matched in power and aggression bythe following "WWW" featuring Mexican, but both are upped by the evenlouder and faster "Slew Dem," taking things into overdrive, featuringWayne Lonesome, who's also made the rounds with Bug associate Kid 606in the last couple years. While it's strongly based in dancehallreggae, they flirt with other electronic styles like hard techno on"Problem Version" (a "version" on disc B without a corresponding original on disc A) anddrum and bass on "Yard Man" featuring El Feco.

I was having drinks with my aforementioned friend from work onThursday night and out of nowhere he started talking about the Jamaicandialect of English, and how, while a lot of English words, in hiswords, have been 'bastardized,' there's plenty of words and terms andsayings that have absolutely no roots in English. Listening to lyricsfrom the Jamaican MCs (both here and elsewhere) it's clear that I sureas hell don't understand even close to everything that's being said, soit's difficult for me to comment on the lyrical content. What I donotice on Killing Sound is that things are far morecomprehensible for a white guy like myself than the Jamaican imports.Only by the end, with a reprise of "Killer" featuring Warrior Queen onthe mic instead of He-Man, does the lyrical delivery come closer to themore animated Carribbean-based Jamaicans.

The differences in sound in no way makes me discount this album orthe music created by people from England or Philadelphia or Berlin: thesound of The Bug and Rootsman with the MCs is brilliant, and reminds mehow much I loved Pressure and ache for its follow-up. The musicon disc A is so intense, however, that it's hard to do much to asidefrom dance to and have fun to. Its attention-commanding qualities makefor a difficult listen to while working or trying to concentrate onsomething other than the music. Disc B is the B-sides collected, whichare the more instrumental 'dub' versions of the A-sides. It makes for asomewhat odd listen from start to finish of disc A and B, so I sayleave disc A in the car and use for both long trips and slow drivesaround the city and tote around disc B in a portable for working out ortaking public transport. The power isn't diminished for disc B in anyway, but with less intense lyrics and more free-flowing music make iteasier to use in more situations.

samples:

• I Don't Know (ft. Tony Tuff)
• Killer Queen (ft. Warrior Queen)
• Problem Version

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15 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The actions and arguments of the Recording Industry Association of America and some of its most powerful members exemplify a complete and utter disregard and contempt for the interests and behavior of musicians, independent record labels, and, most importantly, the music-buying public. The RIAA seeks to regulate the behavior of consumers and actors in a free market via unreasonable means and at their expense, financially and otherwise. Its claims of supporting "creative vitality" and "artists' rights" are disengenuous, as the RIAA represents the corrupt and exclusionary oligopoly of major record labels, Hollywood film studios, and corporate entertainment media outlets. That certain "indie" labels have membership in this association is not indicative of an RIAA looking out for their best interests.

Among our grievances...

• The assault on legitimate free market consumer behavior, including fair use "ripping" of digital files for individual portable electronic music players and laptops, (See: "RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use", Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 15, 2006)
  
• The shameful practice of suing music fans and their families (particularly when the target is underage) for unreasonable punitive sums so as to make examples of them (See: "Internet activists help get lawyer for woman accused of piracy", Associated Press, January 26, 2006)
  
• The "copy protection" schemes of major record labels, antithetical to legitimate consumer behavior and supported by the RIAA, that go so far as to violate the privacy rights of our citizenry (See: "Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far", Mark Russinovich's Sysinternals Blog, October 31, 2005 and "Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit?", Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 9, 2005)
  
• The criminal "payola" scandal, perpetrated by major record labels in collusion with corporate entertainment media entities, where artists received unfair preferential treatment on public airwaves (See: "Sony Settles Payola Investigation", Press Release, Office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, July 25, 2005
  
• The exorbitant and near-extortionary pricing strategies of major label compact discs, which in and of themselves facilitate so-called "bootlegging" (See: "Poll Examines Music Buyers and Their Needs", Associated Press, February 2, 2006)
  
• The vendetta against hip hop "mix tape" culture, which includes bullying producers with threats of legal action, as well as facilitating raids and arrests of retailers and other actors maintaining the integrity of this time honored musical tradition and promotional tool (See: "Untold Story of Mondo Kim's Raid", The Village Voice, June 16, 2005 )

The RIAA and the aforementioned colluding oligopolists are enemies of music and of consumer rights, therefore we at Brainwashed.Com call for the immediate dismantling of the RIAA.

1. We call for all recording artists and independent labels that are currently members of the RIAA to immediately separate from this group in an act of protest, hopefully to form a more progressive association that better represents their interests.
   
2. We call on music lovers worldwide not to purchase the products of major record labels and to ask others to do the same.
   
3. We call on individuals who own stock in the oligopolists cited above, in mutual funds or otherwise, to divest immediately and refuse to invest further.
4. We call on the United States Congress to halt all ruling on DMCA until there are more organizations at the table deciding these laws which apply to the entire music industry.
   

The undersigned individuals agree with these statements and stand with Brainwashed.Com in solidarity against the RIAA.

To sign the petition, email us with your name, email address, city, and zip code.  This information will not be made public NOR will it be used in a database NOR will you be contacted by Brainwashed.com and its affiliates NOR will you be added to ANY "spam" email lists.  We guarantee that.

Additionally, we may be contacted with any questions pertaining to this action.

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15 February 2006

Staff

Albums and Singles

The actions and arguments of the Recording Industry Association of America and some of its most powerful members exemplify a complete and utter disregard and contempt for the interests and behavior of musicians, independent record labels, and, most importantly, the music-buying public. The RIAA seeks to regulate the behavior of consumers and actors in a free market via unreasonable means and at their expense, financially and otherwise. Its claims of supporting "creative vitality" and "artists' rights" are disengenuous, as the RIAA represents the corrupt and exclusionary oligopoly of major record labels, Hollywood film studios, and corporate entertainment media outlets. That certain "indie" labels have membership in this association is not indicative of an RIAA looking out for their best interests.

Among our grievances...

• The assault on legitimate free market consumer behavior, including fair use "ripping" of digital files for individual portable electronic music players and laptops, (See: "RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use", Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 15, 2006)
  
• The shameful practice of suing music fans and their families (particularly when the target is underage) for unreasonable punitive sums so as to make examples of them (See: "Internet activists help get lawyer for woman accused of piracy", Associated Press, January 26, 2006)
  
• The "copy protection" schemes of major record labels, antithetical to legitimate consumer behavior and supported by the RIAA, that go so far as to violate the privacy rights of our citizenry (See: "Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far", Mark Russinovich's Sysinternals Blog, October 31, 2005 and "Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit?", Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 9, 2005)
  
• The criminal "payola" scandal, perpetrated by major record labels in collusion with corporate entertainment media entities, where artists received unfair preferential treatment on public airwaves (See: "Sony Settles Payola Investigation", Press Release, Office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, July 25, 2005
  
• The exorbitant and near-extortionary pricing strategies of major label compact discs, which in and of themselves facilitate so-called "bootlegging" (See: "Poll Examines Music Buyers and Their Needs", Associated Press, February 2, 2006)
  
• The vendetta against hip hop "mix tape" culture, which includes bullying producers with threats of legal action, as well as facilitating raids and arrests of retailers and other actors maintaining the integrity of this time honored musical tradition and promotional tool (See: "Untold Story of Mondo Kim's Raid", The Village Voice, June 16, 2005 )

The RIAA and the aforementioned colluding oligopolists are enemies of music and of consumer rights, therefore we at Brainwashed.Com call for the immediate dismantling of the RIAA.

1. We call for all recording artists and independent labels that are currently members of the RIAA to immediately separate from this group in an act of protest, hopefully to form a more progressive association that better represents their interests.
   
2. We call on music lovers worldwide not to purchase the products of major record labels and to ask others to do the same.
   
3. We call on individuals who own stock in the oligopolists cited above, in mutual funds or otherwise, to divest immediately and refuse to invest further.
4. We call on the United States Congress to halt all ruling on DMCA until there are more organizations at the table deciding these laws which apply to the entire music industry.
   

The undersigned individuals agree with these statements and stand with Brainwashed.Com in solidarity against the RIAA.

To sign the petition, email us with your name, email address, city, and zip code.  This information will not be made public NOR will it be used in a database NOR will you be contacted by Brainwashed.com and its affiliates NOR will you be added to ANY "spam" email lists.  We guarantee that.

Additionally, we may be contacted with any questions pertaining to this action.

Read More

15 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I Am Spoonbender is one of a handful of groups in serious danger offalling through the cracks merely because they were unfairly andinaccurately lumped in with the glut of trendy Electroclash groups thatfound brief, faddish popularity in the early 2000s.  After the wreckagecleared and everyone came to their senses, it seemed that IAS and a fewother bands only tenuously connected to this scene were effectivelydisposed of in certain critical circles, like the proverbial baby with the bathwater, despite thefact that they significantly preceded the trend and differdrastically in their musical approach and content.

The Helen Scarsdale Agency

I Am Spoonbender were clearly much more than just another in a legionof vapid fashion clones making derivative, pseudo-nostalgic garbagetarted up with bitchy posturing, but perhaps because of their usage ofsynthesizers, drum machines and their tantalizingly retroactivereferentiality, they were nonetheless linked to Electroclash, much totheir detriment.  A few like Ladytron and Adult have managed tosurvive the post-clash diaspora with a modicum artistic integrity intact,which means that there is hope for IAS as well, especially since theSan Francisco band have always had a lot more going on in the ideadepartment than either of the aforementioned two groups. 

Their live shows are spectactular multimedia affairs combiningseizure-inducing light shows with sophisticated rear projections andmusic that comes on like the bastard child of Klaus Schulze and Devo,live drums and banks of Numan-esque synths churning out pulsating,mindbendingfrequencies of sound with subtle aesthetic/political programmingseeping in like subliminal propaganda.  Their recordings reveallayers of intelligence and complexity with repeated listens.  Inshort, IAS are far too smart and thoughtful to be stuck in the samehole with all the other pidgeons.  In fact, if I Am Spoonbendercould be said to belong to any particular milieu, I would place themwithin thesmall and perhaps heterogeneous collection of wildly creative SanFrancisco audiovisual artists that also includes Matmos,irr.app.(ext.),and Sagan.

All this sets the stage for Spoonbender 1.1.1, described as the"tele-ambient dream self" of I Am Spoonbender.  Where IAS is theplatform for the groups more populist, outwardly directed energies,Spoonbender 1.1.1 seems intended as a willfully esoteric, theoreticalcounterpart.  The music is more abstract and freeform than IASproper, longform ambient compositions synchronized with specially chosen visualelements.  In the case of Stereo Telepathy Academy, the visual element is director David Cronenberg's rarely-seen early short film Crimes of the Future,a twisted, disturbing bit of Ballardian mindfuck that put the directoron the map as a truly original voice in modern film.  Though the album soundtracks an edited-down version of Crimes, it includes all of the voice-over narration from Cronenberg's other early experimental film Stereo,  afilm that purports to be the actual video record of a scientific studyconducted for the purpose of exploring experimentalsurgical procedures meant to advance telepathic communication. Throughout the film's silent succession of vignettes, a cold, monotonevoice frequently breaks in to describe the purpose of the study and thefindings, callous and clinical descriptions that are often belied bythe disturbingly emotional and sexual imagery on display. Spoonbender 1.1.1 retain this voice-over narration along withtheir ambient synthesizer excursions, so that the CD might serve asa sort of Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz hybrid alternate soundtrack to Cronenberg's Crimes, which is thematically linked to Stereo in ways that might not seem obvious were it not for this unorthodox juxtaposition.

Appropriate to the soundtracking of a film that plays on that strainof experimental, transgressive literarature typified by Burroughs andBallard (whose landmark experimental novel Atrocity Exhibitionisconsciously evoked in Cronenberg's films),Spoonbender's technique hereis a variant of the Burroughs/Gysin "thirdmind" technique.  Combining two film sources that were never meantto be combined, then bridging the ideological gap with their richlyevocative music, the music preserves the elements of chance andsynchronicity.  This effect comesacross splendidly when actually using the CD as a sountrack to theCronenberg film (which is only available as an included extra on theDVD of Cronenberg aberrant racing car b-movie Fast Company, strangely enough), full of zeniths and nadirs that often seem to correspond with the film's strange rhythms. 

The music itself, taken on its own terms, is spacious and hypnotic,a gorgeous inner/outer spacescape to rival the most galactic ofkrautrocks, with deliciously ear-massaging sprays of self-reproducinganalog spores.  Along with the surreal, detached recountingspseudo-scientific concepts like "psychic dominance" and "sociallyisolated telepathic gestalt" provided by the Stereo narration, Spoonbender 1.1.1 create agloriously suggestive blanket of shape-shifting psychedelic drones,quivering energy fissures and ghostly evocations of hopelessly obscuredtransmissions.  I enjoyed it in much the same way I enjoyed DeliaGonzalez and Gavin Russom's Days of Mars and Dopplereffekt's Linear Accelerator,but somehow to my ears Spoonbender 1.1.1 has it even more on theball.  Their particular mutant method of birthing spaceborne ambient electronicsis more crystalline in its purity, more specific in its intent, andultimately more powerful in its effect.  It is clear that IAS areready to emerge from under the long shadow cast by the unfortunatecritical assocations of their past.  No one is going to mistakethis for the new Fischerspooner album.

samples:

• Excerpt One
• Excerpt Two
• Excerpt Three

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15 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

A collection of previously unreleased early material, Epidose 1showcases 14 heavily textured songs that are impressively strong, andit's not hard to see why they caught the attention of the majors. TheDrops somehow manage to be noisy and catchy, silly and heavy, all atthe same time.


Archenemy

The opening track "Space Song" begins and ends with jagged shards ofsound with a solid wall of noise in between, and that combination ofsharp and thick continues throughout most of the album. Lurking underall the bass and distortion are some pretty sharp hooks that punchthrough and grab you when you're not looking.

Samples are woven in ("Happy the Clown" features a sitcom laugh track)to create a surprisingly coherent collage, not unlike much of thealbum's artwork, and a snatch of Duran Duran is welded onto the end of"Floordrop Opera."

Kudos to Archenemy for getting their grubby mitts on this material andthrowing it out into the world; it's full of varied and solid nuggetswell worth saving.

sound samples:

• Space Song (Orig. Version)
• Happy the Clown
• Show Me the Way

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15 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Like label-mates Landing, Bright dish out melodic tracks rooted in '70sprog rock, but with a distinctively modern feel and looks ahead asmuch as it looks to the past. With its heavy repetition and psychedelicfeel, it's also an eight-song spiritual journey.

Strange Attractors

"Manifest Harmony" in particular feels like a ritualistic incantation with circling and heavily patterned music and vocals. It's easy to imagine vocalist Mark Dwinell performing shamanic rites in the empty desert landscape shown in the album's artwork. Throughout the album Dwinell's almost-chanted lyrics are invocations atop the layers of chunky guitars. Many tracks sound like an arcane ceremony overheard through an open window. But the music isn't at all quiet and hymnal; this ain't Enya. The electric guitars continually make themselves known and they open "It's What I Need" with a snarl.

The album is laced witha distinct Eastern influence, though there aren't any actual sitars,the guitars effectively mimic their delicate sound. Ringing chimes in"Flood" reinforce the east-meets-west feeling.

The album feels so methodic and deliberate, that I was surprised to learnthat Bright generally improvise in the studio. But that also adds tothe overall spiritual feeling...instead of improvising, it feels morelike Bright was channeling.

sound samples:

• Manifest Harmony
• Flood
• It's What I Need

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12 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Nonplacelabel founder BurntFriedman is one half of Flanger with Uwe Schmidt (Atom Heart, Atom™,Senor Coconut) and Jaki Liebezeit should need no introduction as thelegendary drummerfor Can. Both men are no strangers to collaborations and thisparticular combo is now going on its fourth year of releases and liveshows. This disc unsurprisingly picks up right where the first oneand the in-between Out In the Sticks mini-LP left off. 

• Sikkerhed
• The Sticks
• The Librarian

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12 February 2006

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This is the kind of debut that knocks on the door of Kranky andConstellation only to be carried directly into the pressing plant on asilver platter decorated with rose petals. This six tracker from mwvm(aka Michael Walton) shows a grasp of the ‘isms’ (minimalism, hypnotismand droneism) that’s already beyond the reach of acts with six times asmany members.

(self released)

Themusic of Mwvm drifts out on the outer surface of song and orbitsthrough the trails and pulls of larger musical institutions. Throughfreezing cold deep space “Relayed in Stars” trembles like the mile backdetritus of the Nostromo as a shower of rock cuts through waveringeffects. The sliding drones and restrained strum drifts could beslivers from a Ry Cooder soundtrack.
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