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I don't know about you, but my first thought when listening to the new Trans Am opus "TA" was not "Hey, this song really could use the remix treatment!" Sadly, that is what has transpired on this, a brief EP of reconstructions of three tracks from that album. The personnel involved are interestingly enough: John Herndon, here as A Grape Dope; Dan the Automator, he of Gorillaz, Deltron 3030 and Lovage fame; underground hip-hop flavorists Prefuse 73 and Dabrye; and Trans Am's own recording engineer Jonathan Kreinik contributing a remix of his own. Really, though, there is no improvement for these songs.Thrill Jockey
The source material is somewhat doomed from the start, so the remix of it can only improve upon the original or add something to it on a marginal level, which these remixes do (kind of). An added problem is also that the tracks that were chosen for remix are a few of the most static on the disc. "Cold War," "Infinite Wavelength," and "Different Kind of Love" are perhaps conducive to this process, but that doesn't make for interesting remixes, just variations. This is certainly the case with the "Cold War" mixes. Herndon does his best to add interesting textures, but we're still left with the lame keyboards and a similar beat, both of which were the main detractors from the original. Jonathan K's remix, coincidentally, focuses more on the other main detractor: the lyrics. It's a valiant effort to ghettoize the track with bizarre keyboards and higher-pitched "It's automatic" jabs, plus a funky beat to underline it. It ultimately goes nowhere, and we're left with those awful words. Dabrye succeeds in altering their material enough to elevate it, but it's still missing something. Maybe a rap from a talented underground MC? Dan the Automator and Prefuse 73 don't so much remix 'Different' - they 'resex' it, bringing the booty-shaking back in full effect. All in all, though, this is not the "perfect companion" to 'TA,' but it's the best you could expect.
 
samples:
- A Grape Dope - Cold War (Bombs and More Mix)
- Jonathan K - Cold War (War is Stupid Mix)
- Dan the Automator - Different Kind of Love Remix
 
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Girl Power gets knocked back back a few steps with Blechdom's latest EP release on TB6. The horrible vocals, detuned music and equally painful subject matter have undoubtedly plunged Miss Kevin's career into unbelievable new lows. The strange thing is that it's all intentional and I love it. While I make no psychological claims, I'm guessing she has probably struggled with but accepted the fact that she will never be an angry (but cute), mousey girl with an acoustic guitar, an anorexic sex kitten, nor a post-punk lipstick lesbian-on-the-four-year-plan fronting a rock quartet who chooses to spell girl with two r's and no i. Her chosen career path is faced with critical obstacles only tightwads like NPR reporters would discuss in depth. First and foremost, she's an entertainer, and until you accept her as such, you're setting yourself up to be soured by the sound. Consider that she's also immersed in a scene dominated by very, very serious men who wear two or three names like they think they're some composer or something. This short but sassy disc compliments her recent live shows with a souvenir of said entertainment. Listening, I recall the fond memories of when I first asked myself, "did she just say 'my pussy getting wetter'," or slipped her some cash during a super-classy rendition of that 1980s hit "Private Dancer," once popularized by Tina Turner (I love that imitation harmonica sound solo). Love it or hate it, it's impossible to take your eyes off of it when it's right in front of you. That, my friends is power. At under 15 minutes, the entertainment is short and sweet and without any fart humor the critics have accused her of playing up in the past. What else are you going to spend your $8 on? Two beers and a bag of chips?
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ET is hip again. I'm not really sure why but I'm assuming that it's just being rediscovered yet again by a new generation of creative musicians. But since Extended Technique is in fact old hat I find it hard to get interested in ET per se. Take the woodwind for instance — what's the point, after Bartolozzi, Zorn and the rest have done it all? While ET used to make me think, "Gosh, that's very strange way to play an xyz, how interesting and novel," now I don't. I got over it. It's not that I don't approve of ET. I do. I approve of any effectively deployed technique. But a musicians over-valuation of ET's intrinsic value can be tiresome. Perhaps we all go through that phase, musicians included, so let's charitably ascribe any ET excesses to a passing phase. Meanwhile, Subotnick and Stockhausen, among others, have shown that a tape machine or record player is as much a musical instrument as any other so it's reasonable to think of Jason's approach to tape loops as no less ET than Greg's trumpet playing. But now let's consider the additional aspect of the lamentable challenges faced by the improviser, in particular that editorial judgment cannot be used and the inevitable requirement for novelty, and I think it becomes clear that we really have to cut the brave extended technique improviser a lot of slack. We cannot realistically hope for the extraordinary brilliant results that improvisation can bless us with without expecting some of the rest to be served along side. So I'm very pleased that this CD has much more of the former than of the latter. It's mostly laid back, a bit spooky, film-esque in parts. The brilliance of Jason's sounds lies in his good taste; he concentrates only those that are genuinely good to listen to and works them all the way out without hopping restlessly from one bewildering ET trick to another. In that way it is like Robert Rutman — it's in the finesse, the commitment to beauty. I thought of that because some of the music here sounds a bit like Rutman's. Greg's contribution is sometimes ornamental and at other times it is right in the middle of the generative process. It's at those moments that this CD really impresses. My biggest criticism is that at times the sound of the room it was recorded in is unhelpful and rather distracting but that's an aspect of the paltry budgets these brave adventurers are given to work with. Incidentally, the cover art from Jason's three-year-old Audrey is very attractive.
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The direction of the latest five-song EP from Scott Herren as Savath + Savalas is in keeping with 2000's 'Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey' in that the groundwork of electronica, sampling and live performance bleeds perfectly into each other and still gives off somewhat of an organic feel. "Rolls and Waves of Ignorance" opens the disc with a nice wash of swelling minor chords and percussion under climbing upright bass lines and melodic tenor saxophone, which weave throughout. The mood is tranquil yet somber and somewhat meditative, and, as the title may suggest, with an almost freejazz-type statement to it. "Paths in Soft Focus" grooves along nicely with some quirky keyboard and guitar arpeggiation and long bass tones which are all anchored by the solid drumming of Johnny Herndon (Tortoise, Isotope 217, A Grape Dope). One of the more splendid pieces of music I've heard lately would be "Folk Song for Cello," thanks in part to its brilliant arrangement and orchestration. Building from a plucked cello progression, acoustic guitar harmonics, accordion chords and a hammer dulcimer (!), the tune settles in to a laid-back groove of synth bass, tight drums and playful keyboard and vibe flourishes. "Decatur Queen" goes from repetitive acoustic guitar, upright bass and quietly squelching percussion to a ripping snare line that drives the tune into a full-sounding romp of rhythmic keyboards and wah guitar, complete with layers of horns while closing off the disc, "Rolls and Waves of Acknowledgement" brings the EP full-circle. This track follows the same compositional style as the opener, only more sparsely arranged and with the instrumentation of fuzz guitar, bowed strings and a fuller bass sound. Ironically enough, "Acknowledgement" sounds quite dark in comparison to "Ignorance." Way too short at just over seventeen minutes, this highly recommended EP may have you checking out the various other projects Mr. Herren has on the go at the moment (Prefuse 73, Delarosa + Asora) until another full length disc makes its way out there.
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Here is a beautiful work by two artists who have different approaches to working with sound, but collaborate well. David Myers works with feedback-based sounds through various devices he has built, including a "feedback machine" I've seen him wear during live performances. (Suspended in front of his belly from a strap around his neck, he looked much like a cigarette girl from the 1930s.) Asmus Tietchens is not known to perform live, unless he's simply playing a recording of something composed in the studio. It seems his style is to take a sonic idea or source material, and go into the studio and work it for the length of an album (or double album). So you can pick up most any Tietchens CD or record, and hear a similarity between the pieces as he explores the many possibilities of his initial concept.'Flussdichte' is the third Tietchens / Myers collaboration. In this case, Myers sent Tietchens some material, and Tietchens went in the studio and built the pieces from this material. The result definitely has Tietchens' stamp on it — you could play it for any Tietchens fan and we'd guess it was his. (That's especially apparent to me when I hear sound that makes me think I'm in a submarine. No, I haven't been in one, but you may know this sound from movies, where the submarine is deep below the surface, and has its own ambient sounds coming from outside.) There are also some lovely melodic bits on the CD, including cut 6 ("T31:M5/10"), which sounds like amusement-park organ music, possibly emanating from an ancient merry-go-round. I won't try to describe any more — you will enjoy your own sound pictures when your allow you mind to drift with this CD playing.
Highly recommended.
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Recorded inside of a ship in Germany in 2001, this 42-minute piece is sometimes very quiet, with bursts of static and sounds like gurgling water. Elsewhere it has many layers of distinct sounds from drones to gently crackling static. There's a nice range from low to high frequencies and from droning to beeping/chirping sounds, with the overall feeling of something building in intensity, gently subsiding, then regaining strength in several waves. I knew nothing of Thomas Köner before hearing these two Kontakt der Jünglinge CDs, so by checking his web site (http://www.koener.de) I was not surprised to learn he started as a composer for film. From what I know of Asmus Tietchens, he does not often perform live, as he's primarily a studio-based composer. I would have been curious to learn what equipment he used in this performance, if any. Or did he just play prerecorded bits?
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ET is hip again. I'm not really sure why but I'm assuming that it's just being rediscovered yet again by a new generation of creative musicians. But since Extended Technique is in fact old hat I find it hard to get interested in ET per se. Take the woodwind for instance — what's the point, after Bartolozzi, Zorn and the rest have done it all? While ET used to make me think, "Gosh, that's very strange way to play an xyz, how interesting and novel," now I don't. I got over it. It's not that I don't approve of ET. I do. I approve of any effectively deployed technique. But a musicians over-valuation of ET's intrinsic value can be tiresome. Perhaps we all go through that phase, musicians included, so let's charitably ascribe any ET excesses to a passing phase. Meanwhile, Subotnick and Stockhausen, among others, have shown that a tape machine or record player is as much a musical instrument as any other so it's reasonable to think of Jason's approach to tape loops as no less ET than Greg's trumpet playing. But now let's consider the additional aspect of the lamentable challenges faced by the improviser, in particular that editorial judgment cannot be used and the inevitable requirement for novelty, and I think it becomes clear that we really have to cut the brave extended technique improviser a lot of slack. We cannot realistically hope for the extraordinary brilliant results that improvisation can bless us with without expecting some of the rest to be served along side. So I'm very pleased that this CD has much more of the former than of the latter. It's mostly laid back, a bit spooky, film-esque in parts. The brilliance of Jason's sounds lies in his good taste; he concentrates only those that are genuinely good to listen to and works them all the way out without hopping restlessly from one bewildering ET trick to another. In that way it is like Robert Rutman — it's in the finesse, the commitment to beauty. I thought of that because some of the music here sounds a bit like Rutman's. Greg's contribution is sometimes ornamental and at other times it is right in the middle of the generative process. It's at those moments that this CD really impresses. My biggest criticism is that at times the sound of the room it was recorded in is unhelpful and rather distracting but that's an aspect of the paltry budgets these brave adventurers are given to work with. Incidentally, the cover art from Jason's three-year-old Audrey is very attractive.
samples:
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Just when you think you can predict Low, they toss a curve ball in your direction which ends up coming back and hitting you smack on the noggin' and knocks you out. Without a doubt, Low has recorded their creepiest, most diverse, most intense, and least hit-song-friendly record to date. Once again, I am completely floored.
 
Lyrically and musically, the band keeps growing (exponentially so) in their abilities and daringness, merging fantastic vocal harmonies with shudderingly eerie music, unpredictable lyrics and deceptively simple and un-abused melodies. There's a certain intimacy to Low's music, as anybody who has seen them live can attest to, and on early recordings, even Low's albums sounded like the band could easily be in the same room as the listener. Over the last few albums, however, the band has almost distanced the live feel with the recorded sound, as production has included a number of elements which simply cannot be repeated live with their simple three-piece lineup.
For Trust, the group tried a new approach. The trio captured the recordings in Duluth before bringing to producer Tschad Blake (Richard Thompson, Los Lobos, Sheryl Crow) for the mix. While much of the music was live, the group actually experimented with a larger variety of both effects and instruments. Backup singers, bells, organ, accordion and banjo aren't things most Low fans are used to hearing (but then again, neither was the optigan back on Secret Name). The first most noticable departure is the album's overall aggression, heard right from the get-go.
Forceful percussive sounds are the driving forces on the song's opener, "(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace," a vocally-harmonic treat that gives me chilling goose-bumps, along with "Candy Girl," which I swear has toilet flushes, and "I am the Lamb," (a track with guest vocals by Gerry Buckley of America) which opens quietly with clapping and makes a song-length crescendo to the point of stomping and hitting wooden blocks by the song's end. Anybody who has seen them over the past year will probably recognize the jaw-droppingly beautiful songs like "Little Argument with Myself" and "In the Drugs," along with songs like "John Prine" which have been part of their live set since before last year's album was even released. The group even tries rocking out on songs like the distortion-heavy "Canada," the loud and in-your-face blare of the morbid "Snowstorm," and the George Harrison-meets-Phil Spector "La La La Song." (I swear, somebody's been listening to All Things Must Pass!) Mimi has very up close and personal moments with the songs "Tonight," "Point of Disgust" and the album drifts off into bliss with the delay-heavy "Shots and Ladders."
Trust may not get the band any airplay on commerical radio, a song in a TV ad, or the closing credits of a movie, but I can safely say it will make many people's top lists by the end of the year.
 
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I never thought that #1) I would ever see Wire live or #2) I would be sitting here reviewing new material from the quartet. The method behind the 'Read and Burn' series is to record something and release it to the fans quickly, without loads of promotion and other time-consuming hassles that come along with full-length albums for record company machines. With this approach, the band feels that all fans have access to the recordings while the fence-sitters can just get a full-length recording when it comes out. Take this warning: volume two in this series is out now and will -not- be distributed to stores at all. Instead, due to the success of the first volume, the group is selling it direct from the web and at their shows. Wire reintroduced themselves to the world with their "greatest hits" shows two years ago. The band discovered that it was amazing to be playing together and a "hits" tour wasn't something they wanted to get in the business of doing. 'Read and Burn 01' saw the band tossing a very tasty treat to the bands: six short and fiery songs totalling about 16 minutes, heavy on the guitar and feverishly energetic. On volume two, the band has expanded the sound to include more electronic pieces, like the disc's jaw-dropping closer (their most recent concert-opener), "99.9," and "Nice Streets Above" which could easily please any fan of the 'Bell is a Cup' album. Fans of the first volume will be pleased with the rough and fast tunes "Trash/Treasure" and the song simply titled, "Read and Burn," where the bark-like lyrics take a back seat to a rawkus progression only a band like Wire could pull off. Over two decades after their inception, it's amazing to think that this band is still as fresh, original and true to a sound which has become all their own. I can't wait for the next one in the series.
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Originally released on vinyl last year, Anomalous has recently issued an expanded CD version of this magnificent piano-derived piece. The first track, "Period," opens with some plaintive piano notes over the expected low-frequency drone. What is surprising in this piece is the piano—it's up-front rather than altered and hidden like the sounds used in his other pieces. The sound is full and lush, and as each sparse, melodically abstract phrase is played on the piano. Some of the notes are significantly extended, slowly decaying and interacting with the music as some stunning textures emerge.Anomalous
The piece is dark and contemplative, and the sound is much warmer than Coleclough's typical metal-derived drones. The second piece, "Periodic," is a reworking by Colin Potter that leaves out the piano strikes but keeps their decaying ambience. It is a dark, absolutely gorgeous piece that's much more ominous and complex-sounding than the previous track, full of spooky reverbed-out sounds and the rumbling of machinery in the distance over the slowly shifting low-end drones. This disc is truly a captivating listen. A limited edition of 300 copies of this album were released with a second disc containing another 18 minutes constructed from the same source material. The first track, "Periodicity," features prepared piano surrounded by shimmering metallic and low-end tones. It's an interesting piece, but at times, the tonal palette of the scraped and chiming prepared piano sounds limited and repetitive. The second track, "Summand" adds the resonant piano sounds to the sonic foundation from Coleclough's album with Andrew Chalk, 'Sumac.' The two drones slowly shift and interact; the overall effect is hypnotic but the development is really subtle; there's not a lot going on. Later on, digitally-processed high frequency tones are introduced, and the piece ends with loud metallic resonance. The second disc has some great sounds, but is a little less compelling than the first and is probably only essential for completists. 'Period' on its own is an incredible album that establishes Jonathan Coleclough as one of today's premier drone artists.
 
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You've got to love Landing for being as prolific as they are, and for "spreading the wealth," as it were; releasing multiple projects a year on a host of different labels. 'Fade In/Fade Out' finds them growing into their collective skin even more, and easily stands as one of their finest works. The 5-song EP opens with a quiet energy, building only slightly, and revealing that, at last, Landing have captured and tuned the delicated balance between their wall of echoey guitars and the quieter beauty they can sustain. "Forest Ocean Sound" finishes with such delayed guitar, churning out a melody of intense charm. Then the space sounds and percussion of "Against the Rain" begin, stirring your soul to its very core as you listen, waiting for the crushing crescendo that never comes. Instead, Aaron and Adrienne Snow's vocals blend and intertwine with the music like never before, becoming one with the drone and swell around them. What makes this all particularly stunning is that this EP was conceived through improvisational sessions, with the songs being created and recorded at the same time. They all blend together so well that you realize how tight this band is, and how well they can read each other to create like this. Only on "Whirlwind" is there a hint of the Landing of before, with the drums becoming more pronounced, and the swirling guitars taking a background role to Adrienne's lilting vocals. On "Pulse," the distortion returns in full force, revealing a track almost Kronos Quartet in nature. Awe-inspiring music that will not leave my headphones for some time.
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