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The second album from Oneida's Bobby Matador and Erica Fletcher percolates the brain with its rich variety of effects and treatments. The songs themselves are pared down pop nuggets without a whole lot of structural variation. Even though there aren't a lot of different styles on display here, the palette of sounds used on this recording often surpasses that limitation.
The first couple of songs on Marginalia are especially strong, even tantalizing with promises of a bright future. “Green Tea” is brewed with subtle strengths that perk the ears even as it soothes. Under a cascading piano loop hides all kinds of strange distortions, shimmering organs, and low-end oscillations. Because the loop is constant, the song doesn’t change much melodically but there’s so much going on texturally that it hardly matters. There are warbling vocals on this track, but they’re less of a focus here than on other parts of the album. “Capture the Flag” ups the ante by picking up the tempo, adding a beat, and placing distortion more prominently in the mix. Here, too, is perhaps the strongest vocal performance on the album from Fletcher as she harmonizes with herself to capture the essence of emotional longing.
Yet as the vocals become more and more the focus of the songs that follow, they become one of the album’s weaknesses. It’s not that Fletcher’s voice is bad, and there are certainly many good moments to be found, but she exhibits a limited range and such a similar delivery on many of the songs that her voice becomes monotonous after a while. That some of the lyrics rely too heavily on pat rhymes doesn’t help, either. The vocals aren’t the only thing to cause my initial enthusiasm to wane. There are a couple of tracks that are pretty derivative. “In the Dark” could easily be a cutting room floor casualty from the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs, and the booming beat on “Back in Yr Corner” sounds suspiciously like their pals the Liars. Even more disappointing is that the production loses steam after a while, sounding somewhat rote toward the end as if the band’s not quite so inspired as they were at the beginning.
While the album never recaptures its initial high, that first excited buzz still stayed with me long after the album was over.
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The group's name suggests that the music is going to be like licking white hot, blistering, celestial comet trails as I soar through the universe in a multicolored ball of pure musical ecstasy. Unfortunately I am always disappointed by the "free" folk that greets me when I press play. On their second self-titled album, things have not improved much. There is nothing here to make me change my stance on the music; I still find them entirely impenetrable.
Hapna
The man behind A Taste of Ra, Nicolai Dunger, obviously has some ambitions for A Taste of Ra to be fluid, unrestrained and elemental but he still has not achieved this goal. I think he can do it but I wonder how many albums it will take before he gets there. Maybe in the future I will come back to his work and appreciate something crucial that I have missed but in the meantime I am not particularly enamoured with this album.
The album starts off with "37 Turns 'round You," a formless and uninteresting introduction. It is based around some aimless piano noodling which might have been listenable on its own but Dunger decides to add some haphazardly played tin whistle to the piece. It may be just conditioning from my tin whistle lessons as a child but every track featuring the out of tune nasal noise of Dunger's tin whistle playing is a chore to listen to. I think the feeling that is meant to be elicited by the devil-may-care approach to all the wind instruments on this album is one of freedom from traditional song structures. Unfortunately it just sounds like they do not know how to play these instruments. Only the odd time does the loose approach to song structure come together, such as on the song “Mother” or the album’s closer “Radhe-Shyam in Bliss Land” but by the time I get to these tracks it is too little, too late.
Before I come across as too gloomy about this album, there are some nice points. The guitars that introduce “Indian Love Call (Continues to Call)” are gorgeous. Alas, the tin whistle returns and masks the sound of both them and the vocals. The vocals on most of the album are not bad at all; Dunger’s voice is a comfortable middle ground between Will Oldham’s old man of the mountains and Marc Bolan’s young man of the woods. Occasionally the lyrics are a little corny but for the most part they are enjoyable. The female harmony on the aforementioned “Radhe-Shyam in Bliss Land” combined with a violin make it one of the most beautiful parts of the album, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the disc.
This album is a hodgepodge of instruments and voices thrown together in an attempt to sound free but in the end A Taste of Ra are imprisoned by a lack of clear vision. Many of the songs make it sound like Dunger is trying to be eccentric just for the sake of it; "The Fox and the Frog" being a fitting example of this as a very proper sounding female voice tells a children's story over a wandering folky background. This story should grab my attention but this piece is so easy to ignore. The entire album is easy to ignore, while it is not bad, it is simply not engaging enough.
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O Yuki Conjugate release new CD.
‘The Euphoria of Disobedience’ marks their re-emergence after a 10-year hiatus.
Just one short decade after making their last album, UK ambient pioneers O Yuki Conjugate (OYC) release a new CD called "The Euphoria of Disobedience" (TEOD) on their OYC Limited label. This calls for a celebration, and indeed an explanation.
O Yuki Conjugate have released four studio albums and innumerable spin-off and side projects since their first gig in Nottingham in 1982. Currently in their third incarnation, the ever-youthful OYC have cancelled their hip replacements and are going all-out for superannuated ambient glory with their latest CD.
Started in 2002 and completed in late 2006, TEOD explores an area OYC have christened “dirty ambient” – multi layered, hyper textural and distinctly gritty. Less obviously ethnic than previous OYC releases, the perfumed garden of Eno's classic ambience is replaced by rough edges, noxious odours and abrasive textures. The result is a jagged beauty.
OYC are releasing TEOD as both an MP3 download and a numbered limited edition of 1000 in a unique digipak fronted with a hand cast resin tile. Both available only through their website at www.oyukiconjugate.com. In the States this is also available through Soleilmoon & Projekt.
The release of TEOD marks a new period of activity for the group. Their entire back catalogue is currently being made available as downloads from iTunes and their website. OYC are also working on at least one follow-up album provisionally scheduled for release in mid 2007.
Notes
· The 3rd incarnation of O Yuki Conjugate (OYC) is made up of original members Roger Horberry (RH) and Andrew Hulme (AH) with new addition Rob Jenkins (RJ).
§ Originally from Nottingham and now based in London, OYC record in RJ’s impressively analogue studio in deepest Middlesex.
§ The OYC-ers all run side projects – Stone Idols (RJ), Alp (RH) and A Small Good Thing (AH).
§ TEOD features a contribution from composer Cliff Martinez, known for his scores for Steven Soderbergh films
§ OYC have released four full length albums…
- “Scene in Mirage” (LP a-mission 1984) later re-issued as “Primitive” (CD Staalplaat 1996)
- “Into Dark Water” (LP Final Image 1986) later re-issued as “Undercurrents” (CD, Staalplaat 1992)
- “Peyote” (CD Projekt 1991)
- “Equator” (CD Staalplaat 1994)
Plus a remix album “Sunchemical” (CD Staalplaat 1996)
§ Go to www.oyukiconjugate.com for more background information.
§ Contact OYC at oyc at oyukiconjugate.com
O YUKI CONJUGATE
‘The Euphoria of Disobedience’
(OYCLimited1 CD)
1 noiseflaw
2 in dreams, perhaps
3 slither
4 binaryglow
5 out through the skin
6 tropospheric
7 where she goes at night
8 incomplete
9 sunlessglare
10 dirty roads
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The vibrations these two anonymous musicians produce are deep enough to cause strong sexual arousal, as alien as the technology of a visiting spacecraft, and heavy like the boot of an enemy on your throat. Special Powers is littered with a spectrum of styles, the moods shifting from cold and technological to dirty and carnal fluidly. The beats pound like war drums at times and at others they come to form simple, minimal grooves that pulse and groan with all the twitching, robotic life of a science-fiction novel.
Community Library
It's hard not to think of the future when Special Powers begins. Telephone tones beep mechanically over the deep, spacious pulse of a bass drum hurled through the cosmos and programmed by a tribe of warring, digital aliens convinced that Voyager was a threat sent from some distant, though mostly harmless, planet. When the orchestra of unknown oscillations begin to buzz like electronic trumpets, trombones, and tubas, it's difficult not to think that Reanimator travelled into the future and brought back some unfamiliar technology with which to make this music. The truth, however, is quite the opposite. Each of these eight tracks were constructed from well-known drum machines, old oscillators, simple guitar pedals, tape, and budget electronic gadgets. So much for the future, I suppose, but the band's music is captivating, utilizing these now old instruments in a way that still manages to sound like the work of some foreign intelligence.
Pan Sonic fans and those familiar with Terminal Sound System will find a lot to like about Special Powers: there's little doubt of the influence Pan Sonic has had on the band and Terminal Sound System's minimal approach to atmosphere matches right up with Reanimator's use of simple, effective backgrounds in their songs. The emphasis of their music exists in the interplay between their steady, scattered beats and the unusual effects they pull out of their machines; some of those effects might count as part of a distant melody and some of them are more reminiscent of the noises employed in movies. "Eat the Magic Toast," for instance, is both propulsive and uneasy, marrying the two elements together in a blurry fusion of synthetic, brass washes of sound and cracking percussion. "Blow Subidah," on the other hand, is three solid minutes of being beaten about the head with a baseball bat. A simple, repetitive, catchy beat rips through the song as various bass effects quake above and below it, sounding like an earthquake captured by subterranean microphones and then run through an array of machines. The band gravitates between these two approaches, opting to emphasize one element one minute and another the next.
There's an air of craziness about the entire album, too, as if the machines the band used suddenly came to life of their own accord and began to flail about violently in their new-found consciousness: it's sensory overload at times, as on "Special Powers" or "No Dancing." All of the elements of the songs will, at times, come together to form a single maniacal moment whose duration is just long enough to scramble grey matter and rearrange it in an uncomfortable manner. However this is accomplished, either by mania or by subtle, creeping insistence, the material is consistently involving and powerful stuff.
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Featuring just Flaherty and his alto / tenor saxophones (nothing extraneous but a very mild echo), its only when there are tiny gaps in the eight pieces that it becomes apparent the world out there is still turning.
This lonely voice and its turbulent attempts at communication are incredibly immersive and involving, songs flitting between angry tirades, unconnected effects less distorted rambling and simple gorgeous horn parts.This is the only LP necessary for proof that solo improvised sax is more than just skronking. Flaherty isn’t regarded the best around on the basis of primogeniture; he is busting heads open on account of his skill.
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"Paris" opens the disc, its delayed guitars, wheezing accordions, and heavy beat providing a hazy soundtrack appropriate for ambling over cobblestone streets with no particular destination in mind. "Easy Street," on the other hand, is more forceful, powered by a menacing guitar that only occasionally opens into sunnier vistas. "Oh I Was Bad" is a plea for a better hand, preferably face cards rather than numbers. Thompson’s voice doesn’t have perfect pitch yet has its own weary charm, full of knowledge and experience. The last song, "Bong Bong," is a peculiar instrumental with a little guitar and discordant keyboard stabs. It’s as unpredictable as anything else here and shows Thompson resisting complacency as firmly as ever.
With such a far-reaching history and extensive back catalog as the Red Krayola's, finding an entry point can be a daunting challenge. The Red Gold EP doesn’t epitomize the band's vision or career by any means, but it's still a safe and welcoming entry point for the uninitiated that also won’t disappoint the faithful.
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A self-released compilation featuring lots of unreleased, rare, and reworked music, this is a must for even casual Foetus fans. I nearly dismissed this as another remix album but it is far from that (there is only one remix and it is not bad). It may be an odds-and-ends collection but it is impossible to tell while listening. This is one of the best things J.G. Thirlwell has ever put his name to.
This web-only release draws parallels with Einstuerzende Neubauten's Strategies Against Architecture series that Thirlwell helped kick start when he started spreading the news from Berlin to British labels in the '80s. Damp is a retrospective limited to Thirlwell's work as Foetus covering the last three years. Like Neubauten's own retrospectives, there is a huge emphasis on not including previously released material and instead offering new takes and versions of familiar tracks and as much brand new material as possible. This is perfect for a Foetus fan like myself, despite owning most of the albums, I do not feel the urge to buy every compilation, EP or collaboration and as such I only already own one song out of the dozen featured on Damp.
Many of the songs here continue the lounge, big band and film noir vibes that have always been staples of the Foetus repertoire. The more industrial sounding elements have been pushed aside; it is only when the Melvins provide the music on "Mine is no Disgrace" that it sounds like older Foetus releases but the Melvins make it far more evil. On a side note, it would be interesting to see a full album collaborating with the Melvins as they suit each other perfectly. Lyrically, Thirlwell still packs a solid punch as over the course of the disc he sings about hating, dirty sex and disease, andraping nuns: themes employed by lesser artists as cheap shock gimmicks but they feel like they have more weight to them on a Foetus record.
Damp acts extremely well as a sister album to 2005's Love, it's not surprising as a sizeable portion of Damp was recorded during the same sessions. Playing the two discs one after the other highlights the similarities between the two but this release is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet. "I Hate You All," "Not in Your Hands," and the epic "Cold Shoulder" make it obvious that Thirlwell still has buckets of ideas and talent to use. By far the jewel in Damp’s crown is the gorgeously melancholic "Chimera," which is quickly becoming my favourite Foetus song. Considering how strong the pieces from recent years have been, I might review my Foetus purchasing arrangement as I normally concentrate on the main Foetus albums. Now I think I should be picking up any EPs or Thirlwell-related side projects that I come across.
As well as newer material, there is some reworked older material included. There is a new version of "Into the Light" from the Null EP as well as the cover of The The's "Shrunken Man," which appeared on the Shrunken Man Interpretations EP years ago.
To be honest, I am surprised that I enjoy this album as much as I do, even after I loved Love so much. Damp is a fantastic disc, showing that Foetus is not only still as strong as ever but I feel he is surpassing himself.
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Lullabye Arkestra sunk their talons into me pretty quickly. The album starts with slow, mournful strings and horns that build into a dramatic climax in which the floor suddenly drops out, replaced by the band in full-on assault mode. Before the song even finished, I had to go back and listen to that amazing opening again.
After the soaring bombast of the first track, I wasn’t ready for the rootsy direction the album takes. The band continues with the distorted bass and melancholy horns, but instead of a pummeling charge, they flirt with blues and early rock 'n roll. The emphatic wailing vocals often steal the spotlight while a church organ toils in the background.
Although at first I was disappointed that they took this route after the superb opener, the band’s enthusiasm eventually won me over. Even the slower, minimal "Come Out, Come Out" is a nice shelter from the storms that both precede and follow it. "Nation of Two" finds the group returning to the heaviness of the opener with a blistering, if straightforward, distorted anthem. They slow it down even as they keep the heavy aesthetic on "Bulldozer of Love," this time bringing their horns back to add discordant squalls and squeaks on the song’s periphery. Their final statement is another burner, starting with slow feedback before the band hits together. An ode to rock and roll, it nicely summarizes their varied approach on the rest of the album, alternating between distorted bass and catchy horns and choruses.
Even as my opinion fluctuated somewhat during the early section, Ampgrave won me over on the whole. It’s a fantastic, invigorating album whose only fault is that it’s over far too soon.
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This blacker than black collaboration between Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg is a great piece of mood music. KTL is more subdued than the main output from both of these artists, yet together they instil a palpable sense of tension into the music to give it a captivatingly creepy result.
Editions Mego
O’Malley and Rehberg paired up to form KTL in order to soundtrack a theatrical work by Gisèle Vienne and Dennis Cooper. The work is called Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), after Gustav Mahler’s musical adaptations of Friedrich Rückert’s poetry. Judging from pictures on the web, Vienne and Cooper’s work is heavily influenced by the Knecht Ruprecht and Krampus traditions of Germanic Europe, as well as using strange dummies of young girls dressed in black metal shirts and hoodies. The music here is not the actual soundtrack for the theatrical work but it is related to the soundtrack according to the sleeve notes. Along with the notes in the booklet come images of anonymous long haired figures and robed beings ascending a staircase, perhaps a nod to the classic cinematic tension in a horror film before the inevitable terror.
The disc's mood is set with the 25-minute long opener, "Estranged," where the feeling of impending doom seeps like blood through a mattress. It is a musical purgatory acting as a prelude into the depths of hell. Hell in this case appears to be a forest as the next four tracks, "Forestfloor 1-4," are inhospitable and startling. Rehberg's contribution becomes more pronounced as shards of noise and sound rip through the mix like glass from a cannon. For the first two parts, O’Malley goes for fast tremolo picking instead of his usual play a chord and holding it for a couple of days approach. The end result is a cold blast reminiscent of some of the winds knifing through the northern hemisphere the last few weeks. The third and fourth parts of "Forestfloor" see O'Malley return to the slow dirge that he is famous for, at the same time Rehberg's equipment sounds like it is on its last legs.
The album finishes with "Snow," which, despite its pretty name, continues the dread that has permeated KTL from the very beginning. The uneasy quietness is deeply unsettling following the chaos of "Forestfloor," only reverb-drenched ambience and a distant high pitched squeal break the silence. It sounds like the unnatural stillness of the aftermath of something violent and bloody. It closes off the album perfectly; there is no real sense of closure per se but instead a feeling of a lucky escape. Next time whatever creature is stalking through the forest might just win.
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The One Ensemble of Daniel Padden released two fantastic records before Live at VPRO Radio upped the ante immeasurably. The comical and the sublime tendencies of Padden's previous work were married effortlessly in those recordings. Wayward the Fourth is a continuation of the musical environment showcased in those songs: a small step forward from a nearly perfect performance and a chance to hear more songs in that style.
Secret Eye
The One Ensemble's music comes in waves: smokey ones that dance and weave in and out of audible frequencies until they fabricate a space all their own with rules that don't exist for other compositions and definitions that betray the very term. The exotic brew of the east and Padden's own Volcanic whimsy allow the music on Wayward the Fourth to go any direction it pleases and often the instruments and voices employed take sudden turns and execute acrobatic maneuvers that'd make the most talented contortionist wonder about their constitution.
The opening "Joker Burlesque" announces itself quietly, floating into existence on a wave of buzzing strings and odd hums. With the addition of sharply plucked guitars and unmistakably One-ish vocal calls, the album begins to take off, stepping deftly about the room like some hypnotic dancer with seductive intent. As the song washes through the remainder of its nine minute duration, a strange and unsettling calm begins to settle in and Wayward the Fourth sounds as though it might come to an early and quiet end, harkening back to the Ensemble's debut release. "Neither One Thing" quickly erases that notion with a quirky chorus of high-pitched voices, a walking acoustic guitar, and the simple flourishes of other stringed instruments. There's something truly child-like about the music and as "Shapes Disguised as Sizes" begins to stomp about it becomes difficult not to imagine this as the soundtrack to some very imaginative child's mind. Being carried away by all the sensuous arrangements, off-kilter voices, and dance-inducing rhythms is easy and imagining a world of strange creatures inhabiting the world this music exists in is even easier.
"Smok," for instance, brings to life a world of sailors weary from the sea and drunk on the docks, celebrating the chance to relieve themselves from work for one night. The music rotates and swings to and fro before engaging a cinematic aura and developing an entire story about the history of the sailors and their voyage. The second-longest piece on the record, "Resonant Kings," sounds precisely as it is named: it swells and whispers gently underneath the steady playing of a circular acoustic melody highlighted by dramatic and urgent strings literally propelling the song along. The sharp rhythmic dynamics and brisk cadence thrust this song to the center of the album and give it a heavy weight. This is less a reverie and more an intense moment replayed over and over again, with the consequences always held just out of view. Padden and company do a superb job and switching between these moods and between various modes of expression, whether playful or serious. This easily matches the performance on Live at VPRO radio as a whole and presents a whole range of ideas that sit extremely well next to each other. It's proof that the genius heard there was no mere fluke and that Padden and his band still have a lot of music left in them.
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