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.
Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
There are clear and obviousreferences to Klezmer, French street music and Flamenco idioms in themusic, and less obvious hints of Mariachi, American and Brit trad-folk.Though the music here is still unmistakably the work of Jeremy Barnes,with odd passages of psychedelic whimsy, the strangeness comes mostlyfrom unexpected cultural juxtapositions and stylisticcross-germinations, rather than from the extended, improvised freakoutsof his previous projects. There is a new emphasis placed oncomposition, musicianship and melody on Darkness at Noon,bringing the project closer in style to groups such as The MagicCarphathians or The One Ensemble of Daniel Padden. Most tracks arebased around Barnes' accordion playing, which is by turns fast andfurious, or slow and droning. Filling out the sound are an array ofinstruments drawn from at least three continents: harp, oud, Turkishcumbus, jaw harp and an array of percussion. For the most part, thealbum is bright, energetic and upbeat, with all the instrumentalelements in perfect synch with each other. "Laughter in the Dark"begins with a Morricone Mexico-by-way-of-Italia trumpet solo, soonjoined by Barnes' squeezebox and percussion. The track slowly anddecisively builds to a fantastically orgasmic center, with a resoundingchorus of voices chanting words drawn from a George W. Bush speech. Thedistinctly Gallic sound of "The Moon Under Water" sounds like a lostcut from Yann Tiersen's soundtrack to Amelie, while "The Water Underthe Moon" is a romantic waltz with strings and piano that skips overwet cobblestones on a dark European street. Perhaps its just that mybrain seems to leap to film imagery, but there are many moments on Darkness at Noon when I was reminded of classic cinema like Reed's The Third Man (shades of Anton Karas' gypsy music score) and Fellini's carnivalesque La Strada."For Slavoj" is a musical tribute to the great postmodern thinkerSlavoj Zizek, playing on the Lacanian philosopher's ideas of nostalgiaand kitsch with a recollective folk tune, replete with syrupy repeatedchorus of "I love you," before dissolving into Steve Reich-style modernclassical piano piece. This is just one of many examples of the breadthand scope of AHAAH's eclectic musical vision, which for all of itshard-won complexity, arrives to my ears as a deliciously gelled andeminently listenable whole.
Gesine marks the return of the guitar asdominant voice, this time a rarely-treated almost acoustic soundoccupying a far more subdued setting. Backed only by finger-snap-sizepercussion, a few earth-toned hums and feedback drones, the instrumententers within the already charged atmosphere of the bedroom where thelowest relief or incidental amplifies to the potential hinge for asong's drama. Ielasi's guitar drops like ink in water suspension,coloring and adding sculpture to the backdrop's warm restlessness. Hisfigures, though, are not fixed, meandering instead across a ghostly andascetic blues, very much in the MazzaCane Connors or Charalambidesrealm and with a similar hidden complexity. Close listening providesthat Ielasi has in many cases, quadruple-tracked his guitar, two of itsclones doing a mirror-walk on the scratchy surface level blues patternswhile two more layer harmonic overtones beneath. These under-layerstake on a degree of sterility in their arrangement and inhumanconstancy, pulling Gesine further from the golden antebellumviews of Connors and the C-bides and closer to the disquietedatmospherics of Ielasi's fellow Italian and Viennese improvisers. Bythe fifth of the six tracks, background and foreground have coalescedinto a dual-stranded dagger of whining feedback, a slow black-out of Gesine'sintimate texture that leaves only the drowsy, given-up plucking of thesixth track to map out a final hesitancy. The 30 minute disc is simplyone more beautifully packaged and recorded release from Ielasi, theabove only one reading of music whose inflated miniatures and subtleguitar anti-heroics require many more.
Each of the four tracksbegins in total silence, which is actually unpotentiated sound justbeyond the threshold of audibility. Slowly and gorgeously, the densesound of vintage electric organs begin to coalesce in the far distance,looped steam calliope melodies smeared out across the sky likecumulonimbus cotton candy clouds. Soft and murmuring, Beequeen's dronesare sweet and airy, filling the room with densely immersive butspiritually uplifting sound, a gossamer architecture of floatingspiderwebs and translucent dirigables. It's a sound birthed in adaydream, buoyant melodies from a distant circus big top obfuscated bylayers of fog and abstracted by years spent asleep and dreaming. Music For the Head Ballethas far more to say than an average album of minimalist, electronicambience, which shouldn't be surprising to those who have listened toBeequeen's work through the years. Freek and Frans are singularlytalented at the seemingly effortless creation of mood and atmosphere,impregnating their nebulous compositions with a cerebral quality thatalways welcomes repeated listens. In the midst of its disarming beauty,"Days That Never Were" contains uncanny elements of the ominous,haunted by the distant, fragmented memories of childhood. In contrast,"These Foolish Days" seems breezy and uncomplicated, though it travelsthrough mysteriously gauzy chambers of tantalizingly fuzzydiscombobulation. "White Feathers on a Dish, Used to Erect thePyramids" sounds like an Angelo Badalamenti score skirting just outsidethe edge of melody and cohesion. The new addition of "Remind Me of You"takes an atonal, shapeless swell of organ drones and sets it againstthe summer buzz of sunlight and distant lawn sprinklers. Head Balletis not for those looking for pleasures concrete and tuneful, but ratherfor those that wouldn't mind a total immersion in an esoteric audioenvironment full of half-remembered dreams that slip back into thecloudy murk before they can be fully grasped.
The coverversion could certainly sound better and be better recorded, butwithout the actual authorship of the song, there is an emptiness. Muchbetter to take a song and create a variation on a theme, inspired bythe original but not onerously dictated by it. And so in keeping withthis notion, Temporary Residence presents their Black Sabbath tributealbum called "Everything Comes & Goes," featuring self-proclaimed"interpretations" and "mutilations" of Sabbath's songs (with perhapsone or so being a little more straightforward than the rest). The bandsassembled here stick exclusively to pre-1975 material so there is noconfusion about whether this is Ozzy's Sabbath or Ronnie's or Tony's.This is strictly an Osbournian identity. Matmos inaugurate the sacredrites of tribute with a sparse electronic conception of "F/X." There isa great distance between the original song and Matmos' treatment but,again, this is the kernel of distinction between being a true tributealbum and simply a facsimile album. Japan's Ruins throw their typicalcurveball in what is definitively not a cover version but rather amedley of Sabbath themes enjambed next to one another. The song isforgettable but the band's preemptory (and unnecessary) apology in theliner notes is humorous. The Grails have a post-rock imagining of"Black Sabbath" which is adapted well by the inclusion of the band'sviolin. Another post-rock instrumental is supplied by Paul Newman whometallurgically add a measure of angularity to "Faeries Wear Boots."Four Tet offer a saccharine version of "Iron Man" as only they can.Again, there is not a lot of profundity here, but a pleasant listennonetheless. Curtis Harvey (late of Rex) Trio add an almoststraightforward cover of "Changes" but they countrify and folk it upjust enough to make it one of the better interpretations on thecollection. Ned Oldham's Anomoanon supply the most ghostly and eerie"mutilation" with their take on "Planet Caravan." The song is haunting,meditative, and deliberate, perhaps the most evocative on the album. Inthe final two slots, Racebannon satanically blasts out "Sabbath BloodySabbath" while Greenness w/ Philly G pieces together the mostSabbath-sounding offering yet in their cover of "Sweet Leaf," all thewhile being quite careful not to sound anything like Mogwai's cover ofthe song. While the individual bands here have certainly paid justtribute to Black Sabbath, I don't think that they have necessarily donethem justice. Everything Comes & Goesis more amusing than invigorating, but such amusement should not bedisregarded because it creates a cute album of variations. The bandswere prudent in clinging to the early Sabbath material since soonafterward (post-1980) Sabbath itself became more amusing thaninvigorating.
Lacking a lot of the sound experimentation featured on hisdebut album, "Big City Secrets", the theme of "Come To Where I'm From"seems to be perfecting the art of song craft. Beginning with thebittersweet acoustic-led "In The Sun", which has been a long-time livefavorite of Joe's fans and was also recorded by his mentor/label bossPeter Gabriel for a Princess Di tribute album, I had a bad feeling J.A.has gone soft and has given up his cutting edginess for more AOR-drivenpop balladeering. "Chemical" and "History", with their flickeringsounds fluttering around the song's jangly pop heart like butterflywings of distortion, are refreshing reminders that no matter howradio-friendly Joe gets, he's still head-and-shoulders above most ofhis pop-driven peers. Giving further props to Tom Waits, such as"Bottle Of Me" from "Big City Secrets", "Invisible Hands" is alate-night lovers lament, with it's big drums, echoey guitar, andwhispered vocals - personal, sensual, and enticing. "Come To Where I'mFrom" is, essentially, both homage to the genius of the late JeffBuckley and a promise to carry on in the creation of ecstatic,groundbreaking music. Beautifully honest and sublime.
Any hip hop record that references Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Neverending Story and Street Fighter II in the first 90 seconds without sounding absurdly corny has something going for it, and Black Dialogue just improves from there.
Jason Molina seems to be getting all the wrong kind of attention. Pegged as a follower and adherent of any number of past songwriters, Molina's distinct voice and his band's broad musical range often goes ignored in favor of unnecessary name dropping and undeserved, negative comparisons.
