- Scott Mckeating
- Albums and Singles
This vinyl-only companion to Astral Social Club's Neon Pibroch album, also on Important, is the equal to its more readily available CD counterpart. Balancing organic techniques with digital tools like he just originated the perfect formula, Neil Campbell has truly found his calling with his ASC project.
Melodic loops buckle under the gentle pressure, wah wah drones blend in with bird call electronics and pattering beats. As the title track opener progresses the sounds slurry into even madder digital sounds, fading into and out of harshness. Campbell's mixing of elements gives the impression that a Neil Campbell DJ session would never reach the expected peaks and troughs of a four-to-the-floor. Instead the music sits high in the breezy atmosphere, wobbling between linear tracks.
The brief "Manifold flange" is too brief to get a real road trip out of its sounds. The trapped and degraded/degrading droplets swirl around while a skinny beat pounds time. The chunks of repetition that make up "Nitrous Foment" build in single notes and batches of barks. Rising in summer wave lifts they engulf the song's core, leaving the songs bones as dust and swept away with the wind. A bit of noisy muscle is squeezed in at the end. It's typical Campbell.
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Release date: June 26th, 2007
"Super Grease" is a limited edition of 500 vinyl only release from Vibracathedral Orchestra/Sunrrof!/A Band member Neil Campbell. This is a companion release to Astral Social Club's "Neon Pibroch" CD also on Important.
Astral Social Club is the current project of Neil Campbell, formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, A Band and many more. Campbell has been active since the early 80s, and The Wire magazine has said that, along with his friends Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower, he "provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s".
Campbell's approach as Astral Social Club could be seen as both a continuation and a refutal of his work with Vibracathedral Orchestra - a continuation in that it continues the quest into the unknown stellar regions of improvised drone-based music, and a refutal in its espousal of most of the elemental organic rock modes that made that band so special. The focus here is more on alien electronics and overloaded loop disorientation, sometimes even working with sounds more readily associated with the far end of dance music to produce a truly vast 21st century psychedelic sound.
Late last year, VHF Records released a compilation/mix CD drawn from the earlier string of self-released CDRs which showcased the diverse methods employed in Astral Social Club recordings. These encompass straight-ahead drumbox/synthesizer jamming, computer-processing, swirling loops, primitive vocal holler, noise catharsis, tranquil guitar shimmer and a busload of other angles. The live experience throws these methods up the air, cranks up the volume and adds a visceral, seething human presence before letting it fall all over the audience. Despite the excessive use of electronics and processing, the over-riding feeling is one of a raw, ecstatic communion with the music, a million miles from sterile "electronica".
Although largely a solo project, Astral Social Club collaborators have included Tirath Singh Nirmala, Richard Youngs and Arttu Partinen.
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Release date: June 26th, 2007
'Neon Pibroch' is a brand new full length CD from the Astral Social Club. Also available at the same time is a limited edition Astral Social Club LP on Important entitled, 'Super Grease'.
'Neon Pibroch' is dedicated to the memory of Textile Records founder Benoit Sonnette. Astral Social Club is the current project of Neil Campbell, formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, A Band and many more. Campbell has been active since the early 80s, and The Wire magazine has said that, along with his friends Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower, he "provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s".
Campbell's approach as Astral Social Club could be seen as both a continuation and a refutal of his work with Vibracathedral Orchestra - a continuation in that it continues the quest into the unknown stellar regions of improvised drone-based music, and a refutal in its espousal of most of the elemental organic rock modes that made that band so special. The focus here is more on alien electronics and overloaded loop disorientation, sometimes even working with sounds more readily associated with the far end of dance music to produce a truly vast 21st century psychedelic sound.
Late last year, VHF Records released a compilation/mix CD drawn from the earlier string of self-released CD-Rs which showcased the diverse methods employed in Astral Social Club recordings. These encompass straight-ahead drumbox/synthesizer jamming, computer-processing, swirling loops, primitive vocal holler, noise catharsis, tranquil guitar shimmer and a busload of other angles. The live experience throws these methods up the air, cranks up the volume and adds a visceral, seething human presence before letting it fall all over the audience. Despite the excessive use of electronics and processing, the over-riding feeling is one of a raw, ecstatic communion with the music, a million miles from sterile "electronica".
Although largely a solo project, Astral Social Club collaborators have included Tirath Singh Nirmala, Richard Youngs and Arttu Partinen.
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- Albums and Singles
Release date: June 26th, 2007
Black Magic Disco is the new all-star band featuring Tom Greenwood (Jackie-O Motherfucker), Maurizio & Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) and Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Praxinoscope). The project was born out of an idea from Tom Greenwood (former leader of the avant-folk-blues ensemble Jackie-O Motherfucker) who invited Maurizio and Roberto Opalio (aka the Italian improv duo My Cat Is An Alien) and their close collaborator Ramona Ponzini (also involved with the two brothers in the projects named Painting Petals On Planet Ghost and Praxinoscope, as well as in the new collaboration with Z'ev) to perform with him for two months of touring throughout all Europe in May/ June 2005.
As one can imagine, the result was killer. The music which came out of he live performances was totally explosive, combining Ramona's Japanese vocals & hypnotic chimes with Greenwood's psych-blues guitar attitude & wild turntablism, over MCIAA's alien cosmic flux of electric guitars, space toys & percussions, creating a still unheard mixture of sounds unifying archaic & post-modern, western & eastern, sky & earth. This debut CD represents a unique chance to experience almost 80 minutes of that pure and magic live action, divided in four long tracks taken from the original live recordings. Black Magic Disco's logo comes from the pencil of Roberto Opalio. The gatefold jacket CD artwork, curated by MCIAA contains some band photos taken during the live performances included in the record.
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This CD/DVD is the first proper release by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson's post-Coil audiovisual project. The music on Form Grows Rampant is a logical continuation of Sleazy's contributions to late-period Coil and the reformed Throbbing Gristle, a suite of dense digital environments that combine shuddering electronics with sampled vocals. In the process, The Threshold HouseBoys Choir create a brand new genre that might be described as Post-Industrial Exotica.
The DVD is the main attraction here, containing a slightly lengthier version of the program that premiered at last year's Brainwaves festival. The DVD contains five videos captured at the GinJae Vegetarian Festival held in Krabi Town in the south of Thailand. Because the recently expatriated Christopherson's has made Thailand his new home, and because of the prurience suggested by his longtime nickname "Sleazy," there is a distinctly perverse undercurrent to the name "HouseBoys" and to the five-part video program included on the DVD. Fear not: there is nothing here which could be construed as boy-porn by any but the most censorious fundamentalists. However, these videos do not shy away from depicting young, willowy Thai boys in the rapturous malaise of ritual religious ecstasy, and there is a distinctly erotic component to the proceedings that must be acknowledged.
The boys whip themselves into a furious trance, heads shaking back and forth, eyes rolling back into their heads. A crowd of people stare as they eagerly volunteer to have their eyebrows and cheeks and lips pierced with long skewers and giant sharpened metal poles. Christopherson slows down the video footage as a way of depicting the peculiar beauty and savagery of the GinJae Festival, adding subtle time-stretching effects so that it seems as if one can actually witness the moving of the spirit in these zealous young acolytes of the "Khatoey" Holy Men. As an ethnographic documentary, this doesn't work very well at all, as it is far from a complete picture of the cultural context which surrounds this important festival. However, as a highly aestheticized way of gazing upon these seductively erotic-religious rituals, the videos are a resounding success.
Contributing to this success is Sleazy's soundtrack, which represents his first major musical project since the death of John Balance and the subsequent demise of Coil. Many people, I assume, will be interested to know how this music compares to Coil. The answer to this question is complex. Certainly, there are many features of the music that will be very familiar to those who have followed the work of Coil, especially during their last decade of existence: shuddering electronics, dense atmospherics, eerie digitalia, twisted and mutated vocals and sinister undercurrents hinting at a gleaming heart of darkness. These features give the music of THBC a superficial veneer that is unmistakably Coil-esque, but on the whole it is a very different animal. Here, Sleazy leaves behind the elements of chance, chaos and asymmetry that characterized late-period Coil. Perhaps because he is working almost exclusively with computer software now, instead of the variety of analog synthesizers and organic elements favored by Coil, the music feels more hermetic and inorganic. Even though human voices and other elements are sampled, they are mutated to the point where they synthesize with the rest of the digital library of loops and effects. This is not necessarily a criticism of THBC, but rather a proviso to those who were expecting the second coming of Coil.
The tracks are lengthy and contain layers of digital ambience. Melodies are present, but are sometimes buried, or are so child-simple that they become almost subliminal. Some of these tracks have appeared before in compilations in a much more nascent form. "As Doors Open Into Space" was previously known as "Mahil Athal Nadrach" when it appeared on the It Just Is... compilation last year. Here, it is expanded and reworked, with new elements added, until it becomes a rich, post-ethnic piece of electronica with a joyful melodic progression that sounds positively triumphant coming at the end of the disc. Critics such as David Toop have criticized the Anglo-American-Continental tendency to co-opt the musical features of third world cultures as a texture for their music, and certainly THBC could be accused of this kind of ethnic colonization. However, Sleazy's pieces are so hypnotic and beautiful, and so vague as to be impossible to pinpoint which specific world musics are being invoked, that they come across as a sort of 21st-century exotica: space-age bachelor pad music for the sexual tourists of tomorrow. Lovely pieces such as "Intimations of Spring," alive with electrified spirit voices smearing out behind a resonant sequence of xylophone tones, quickly negate any inherent problematics. All that is left is a stunningly well-conceived collection of audiovisual art that, though it is quite different, is undoubtedly the worthy successor of the legendary group to which Sleazy once belonged.
samples:
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- Lucas Schleicher
- Albums and Singles
The Glow-Worm's Resistance reaches for a synthesis between pop sensibilities, romance, and the often mantra-less sizzle of electronic composition and in the process manages to detail the difficulty of accomplishing such a goal. Yturriaga paints his record with broad and impressionistic strokes, gathering together the lazy strumming of slow-core rock 'n' roll with the busy explosions of programmed drums, sampled speech, and computer generated instrumentation. He does so, however, haphazardly. The result is a collection of ten songs that sound familiar in some ways because they utilize techniques and song structures proven to be effective by other bands, but that also sound confused, as though they're falling apart trying to hold together two very different and incompatible sensibilities. The opening song, "Perfect," is an excellent example of this problem. Yturriaga's vocal delivery aches to croon, his heart set on ushering forward all the vigor and drama of a romance at the very precipice of exhaustion. Behind him is the dry bump of electronic effects pretending to be percussion and an all-too-straightforward and repetitive guitar. I can almost feel what Yturriaga desires to accomplish in this contrast, but the result is little more than a dry and somewhat confused song.
This can be contrasted with a piece like "The Wait." It opens ominously, determined, and with a clear goal. Integrated into the hum and warble of a distorted orchestra Yturriaga inserts recorded and manipulated speech, introducing the track with an air of mystery. The song quickly solidifies with the inclusion of a tasteful synthetic beat and simple organ part. His vocals come as a surprise, but they blend perfectly with the song in terms of both delivery and tenor. As new instruments are added to the mix the song fleshes itself out naturally, culminating in an organic and unified whole that makes sense from beginning to end. If Yturriaga wants to improve his song-writing ability he needs to pay attention to this piece in particular. He balances all of his influences quite well on "The Wait" and does so without sacrificing any of the attractive elements inherent in them individually.
Unfortunately this delicate balance only appears briefly throughout the rest of the disc ("Poema de la Resistencia" is fabulous throughout, but far too brief), rendering the project uneven and unsatisfying on the whole. Yturriaga is clearly talented and obviously has plenty of ambition, but he'll have to temper his approach in order to make good on that ambition.
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I would be a criminal if I called Robert Lowe anything but a master of his craft. Allusions to divine sources of inspiration and eastern meditative practices might help convey some intimation of what Omns feels like, but such a description would completely overlook how lyrical and detailed the entire record is. Included on this CD and DVD combo is the work of an artist with all of his facilities functioning on the highest level possible.
Kranky
The Psychic Nature of Being came as a surprise to me. Kranky has managed to release nothing but good to phenomenal records in the last few years, so I wasn't surprised when I found that I was enjoying the record as I listened to it. What caught me off guard was just how vivid it was. Here was a guitarist painting elaborate pictures with only the barest strumming involved and with a kind of overwhelming minimalism. Despite the asceticism of his arrangements, the music Lichens produces is loud and powerful, demanding attention and personal involvement. None of this has changed on Omns, though it sounds as though Lowe has tempered his improvisational approach more on this record and for the better.
This tempering benefits Lichens' music in two ways: it expands the range of sounds used on any one track and it provides a unifying theme to the record that was absent on The Psychic Nature of Being. Without uttering a word, Omns outlines a narrative through Lowe's superb guitar performance, vocal utterances, and sound effects. This is the heart of the album: the fact that Lowe has learned to express himself flawlessly with the instruments he employs. It's no wonder thoughts of Buddhism, spirituality, or transcendentalism come to the mind's of writers when attempting to probe Lichens' music and explain the effect it has: Lowe puts himself in his music, transforms his spirit into rumbling, distorted guitars and crying tongues, and has the skill necessary to tie it all together in a meaningful way. All the while, through his ascetically informed approach, he builds a recognizable, but distinct aesthetic. The language of his music becomes immediately available to whoever is listening and his vocabulary is simultaneously accessible and richly poetic. Lowe walks the very fine line between highly artistic, difficult expression and immediately powerful and familiar dialect.
Omns passes quickly: it is a scant five tracks and 43 minutes long. After the phased and warped ring of "Sighns" concludes, it is tempting to begin the record all over again and mine the record for all it is worth. This is worth doing, but Kranky also includes a DVD with this album that is worth paying attention to as well. Featured on the DVD is a live performance at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, Illinois, a space I am quite familiar with. The performance is outstanding, even if some of the supplementary images are unnecessary. What is astounding is how quiet the audience is on the DVD. The Empty Bottle is not some unheard of venue in Chicago and has been host to a number of very popular bands. Every show I saw there was caked in crowd noise, people chattering incessantly over the music in order to be heard and increasing the volume of their voices as the music became louder. Not so during this Lichens performance. Lowe commands this audience, silences them and draws their attention squarely on his barely moving frame. Even when his guitar playing sinks to near inaudible levels and his attention shifts from his instrument of choice to various pedals, microphones, and machines, the audience keeps quiet, giving Lowe the space he needs to create his art. The performance is completely distinct from much of what appears on the record and has increased my appetite to see Lowe play in the flesh. The album alone is superb, but the DVD pushes this package over the edge and fixes it in my mind as astonishing.
samples:
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Imagine there is a machine moving through space without any discernible origin, its shape and size are thoroughly alien to the human mind, and it is transmitting a series of communications as it ploughs through our solar system and back into deep space. Orange would be the recording of those communications.
Thisquietarmy
I can't think of a project Aidan Baker has been involved in that is more spacious and alien than this. His work under the Nadja guise reminds me of metal, doom, and gloom more than anything else and my familiarity with his other projects brings to mind inner-space more than outer-space. He has always blurred the edges between conventional heaviness and the density of drone music, but on Orange Baker and Eric Quach allow their compositions to disseminate endlessly. There's a levity in these four songs that I don't often find associated with Baker and I have to assume that this is due to Quach's contributions, at least in part. The compositions are still chock full of textures and perpetually distorted instruments, but on Orange that approach to writing music is utilized to destroy consciousness, not cement it in layers of mud, earth, and steel.
With titles like "Agent" or "Clockwork," these tracks might be expected to exhibit some degree of violence, both being potential references to one form of brutality or another. Instead both hiss and moan by, glowing in phased and warped bits of synthesizer and majestically elongated guitar performances. I'm tempted to say that solos exist on some of these tracks, but I only mean to imply that there is some amount of conscious structuring happening alongside the seemingly improvised bits of formlessness that drift throughout each song. It is, in fact, easy to let some of these songs fade into the background. As they pulse along, they become mesmerizing and begin to seep into the walls and floors of the space in which they're manifested. Inevitably some rogue element will strive to be louder or more distinct than all the other parts at play; when that happens it's as though I'm being snapped out of a dream and I have to gather myself before continuing to listen to the record. Christy Romanick's photography is the perfect accompaniment to this phenomenon: her work is bold, but abstract enough to be seductive and hazy. Her photography suits this kind of music perfectly, highlighting the way the music can be both subliminal and overtly powerful.
This isn't ambience, though. It's too uncomfortable to be ambient. There are elements of terror on Orange, especially as the closing track, "Blood," comes to an end. I'm reminded of immense voids in its closing moments and some primal terror takes a seat in that memory; I can imagine looking around for some anchor, some point of sensibility and seeing nothing but blackness all around me as the song plays. When it ends in a snap that picture of the void doesn't go with it, but stays firm in my mind. So, despite working subconsciously at some points, Orange leaves a lasting impression. It will not win Baker any new fans over to his particular style of music, but it may leave current fans clamoring for a further collaboration between these two musicians. They have both clearly learned how to play with the minds of their audience.
samples:
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- Scott Mckeating
- Albums and Singles
The pop culture splatter of this square cut lathe's cover isn't a good indicator of the contents. Like riding the brain cortex on a crank-handle railroad cart, Jazzfinger's lo-fidelity routes are gorgeously gritty trails in electric drone. Even though it moves slightly left from their recent release of improvised melancholia, these two cuts create an idyll from structures and melodies that aren’t really there.
Their penchant for sustained tones is joined here with a rhythmic and cage-rattled bobbing. The mellifluous piano slough of "Orange Sauce" is evidence that they can counter drone with percussive celerity. A stem of jungle bird calls slowly reveals itself to be rattling metallic percussion, and not the slightest bit jungle related, but the air is still thick enough to be their dankest number to date.
Coming from the batch stamped 'lo-fi' in their vaults, the flipside, "Peace Factor Fashion," is a scratch of stretching bone and muscle. It might contain a moan of a melody but it is still very obviously a melody. If this was played on a horn the noise-jazz set would be on their knees in worship. A burr throated growl of a black pulse, steady as the room around it slowly crumbles, coaxes misfortune from the falling piano notes. With a bedaubing of this track and its veiled elements in something oily and dirty, this has the duo still sitting years deeper in the fog than the everyday drone hoi polloi.
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- Anthony Locke
- Albums and Singles
"Obedience Training" kick-starts the set with an almighty apocalyptic assault on the senses. Chasney's guitar is pushed to the limits with intense feedback and powerful noise. Somewhere between Keiji Haino and Skullflower with its mixture of at times unpleasant ultra high frequencies and sheer walls of hypnotic drone. "Sabre, Yours in Black" is a blacker than black doom laden piece where NVH's playing in particular is almost recognizable although this is indeed more extreme than anything I've heard from either of them in the past.
It's Wednesday morning and the sun is shining and the birds are singing so I flip the LP over, grab a cup of tea and put the needle onto "The Emasculator." This surely is as close as imaginable to the blistering sound of the fires of hell. "Yours In Black" closes the LP with an almost Wolf Eyes style nightmare electronics vibe. Deep sub low frequencies rumble with layers of intense freaked guitar wail and echo.
It's a truly terrifying guitar/electronics collaboration which effectively blurs the lines between both mediums. It's perfect for those like me who may have been left slightly disappointed by the recent KTL output. Limited to a satanic edition of 666 copies, this reassuringly expensive package, recorded winter 2005 is certainly not for the faint hearted.
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- Anthony Locke
- Sound Bytes
