We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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A pioneer in the use of laser technology in entertainment, Szajner's futurism carried into his other pursuits. His second album is a soundtrack to a documentary on capital punishment, but the mood feels more akin to the techno-dystopias popular in science fiction at the time of its release. Fans of Blade Runner or Escape from New York will be familiar with Szajner's aesthetic, but his dynamic songcraft sets him apart from the cinematic snyth musicians of his generation.
Although Szajner is somewhat of an obscure figure now, Some Deaths Take Forever was not only critically acclaimed, but influential as well. Carl Craig has stated that it is his favorite album ever. Szajner’s accolades and influential friends are impressive, but looking back his musical innovation may have been overstated. Many people were making dark, sci-fi influenced snyth-music at the time. Some Deaths take Forever doesn’t transcend the genre, but there are elements that make it stand out. Not content to let his synths play themselves, Szajner wrote fully realized compositions with an obvious beginning, middle, and end. The instrumentation is also diverse; Szajner included piano, guitar, electric piano, even a bassoon into the mix. On “Resurrector,” drum rolls combine with pearly arpegiatted tones and phased guitar until the tension boils over like a pot of spaghetti. The clever introduction of new instruments and moods keeps the songs from stagnating. Rather than being just a soundtrack, it has the complexity and self contained logic of a proper album.
As much as I enjoyed Some Deaths take Forever, it is definitely of its time, rather than ahead of it. The digital keyboard was just being introduced and its clear yet flat sound can be heard in the ersatz cello of “A Single Broken Wing” or the fake brass in “Suspended Animation.” The tone of the electric guitars sounds dated as well, the string bends and flighty solos are a bit too theatrical for a documentary about death row. Judging the album by today’s tastes isn’t entirely fair, though. After all, Szajner was working with the technology and musicians available to him at the time. He couldn’t have known that his music was going to sound retro 20+ years down the line. In any case, Szajner’s dynamic sense counterbalances the limitations of his style and instruments.
The album has enough unique moments to be enjoyed instead of relegated to a time capsule. “A Kind of Freedom” begins as a radio collage that morphs into a sad processional with jazzy Rhodes playing and synths that bob up and down in airy portamento. The bonus track, “Thol Ostia,” follows that up with dreamy minimalist ambiance anchored by marimbas and high, cybernetic whistling. These pieces are harder to categorize and they reinforce Szajner’s reputation as a lost genius of synth music. Perhaps he was not as forward looking as his supporters assumed, but his music demonstrates a technical density and driving energy that makes it exciting almost three decades later.
The thought of solo electric guitar improv generally fills me with a mixture of extreme apprehension, apathy, and an overwhelming urge to be elsewhere, but Justin Wright seems to have found a very compelling little glacial niche for himself. White Ohms is a surprisingly hypnotic and unique album.
White Ohms is a companion piece to 2008's Black Ohms and is composed of outtakes from those sessions. All of the tracks are made up of a single electric guitar being looped, but unlike many other experimental guitarists, Wright eschews electronic manipulation: his guitar sounds like a guitar. There are several easily identifiable influences here, such as krautrock, minimalism, Eno, and Earth, but Expo '70 manages to forge a unique sound rooted in endless mantra-like repetition, clarity, and seemingly inhuman patience.
The opening track, "Mantra in White Ohms," initially left me scratching my head, as it is composed almost entirely of a single sustained power chord that slowly ebbs and flows in volume. A soft looped pop approximates a very slow bass drum pulse but literally nothing else is added to the steadily droning wash of sound except for an occasional click or two (until the spectacularly subtle climax of a heavily-delayed random guitar noise). I am actually quite fond of it, as it is improbably mesmerizing, but I was not sure what to expect from the rest of the album after hearing a single chord drawn out for 15 minutes. Amusingly, the second track, "Land of Light," is built upon even less (a single repeated plucked note), taking minimalism to still more perverse extremes. Unlike "Mantra," however, "Land of Light" is augmented by some excellent spectral and spacey improvisation, which Wright is quite adept at. "Empyreal Totem," the final track on the side, continues the trend of incorporating new elements with each successive track, as it has an actual multi-note riff as its foundation. Of course, it is still soothing and languid, but it is a riff nonetheless. Again, the lead guitar is often brilliant. While it becomes somewhat conventional by the end of the track, the first half features a teasingly sparse trickle of near-perfect droplets of glistening sound.
The second side kicks off in somewhat workmanlike fashion with "White Rift," which was disappointing after the consistently enjoyable and surprising first side. Paradoxically, it fails because there is too much going on. The central riff is a bit busy sounding and the repeating distorted sustained power chord is both unsubtle and uninteresting. While it is not necessarily bad, it sounds like it could have come from any number of forgettable krautrock records. Fortunately, the absolutely brilliant "Tonal Elation" follows and delivers beautifully on the promise displayed on the first half of the album. While it is superficially very similar to "Land of Light," there are subtle differences that elevate it to an almost perfect oasis of blissful, droning, spaced-out psychedelia: textural hums, echoey scrapes, drowsy throbs, and even some subtle melodic movement near the end. "Serenity" then finishes the album with twelve languid and sublime minutes of sustained shimmering ambiance.
White Ohms has made me an enthusiastic Expo '70 fan: Justin Wright has an mastery of space and simplicity that has me in awe (as well as a knack for bad-ass seventies-inspired cover art). I imagine this cassette will sell out quickly, as it is a limited edition of 200, but he is a pretty prolific guy so more releases should be on the way. Besides, if the session outtakes are this impressive, I imagine the actual Black Ohms albummust be one hell of a record (and it is somewhat less limited).
Punning does not inspire my confidence. Neither do vague album titles, literary references, or super limited releases. This cassette suffers all four of those faux pas, but the music itself shows nothing but good taste. Considering my appetite for bubbly space music, I'll take it as a lesson not to judge by appearances.
Aside from what's put to tape, I know very little about Christian Science Minotaur. I do know one thing for certain: they have good taste in books. Proof is that they named all the songs after harpooners in Moby Dick. But as to why, I have no idea. Only the jibbering synth-drums on “Daggoo” approach the fierce literary paganism its namesake implies. As the opening track, it starts off gently with celestial chimes and skittering delay. It grows gradually with increasing tempo, finally working itself into a frenzy of pounding toms and warped ululations. Nothing else on the tape matches the song for strength, but that’s because of the high mark it sets.
Cut by the two sides of the cassette, "Tashtego” bridges the gap between the heavy war whoops of "Daggoo" and the more diffuse second half. Heavy bass swells add tension mid-song, but those are quickly submerged in the track's lunar soil. A sputtering clave beat keeps a quick tempo, but that too settles into the mire. True to his name, "Queequeg" is the odd one of the bunch, having no percussion in it at all. Instead, sweeps of tuned static billow and shake, slowly dissipating into a diamond mist.
Listening to this tape is a pleasure, but it's a lonely one. At 100 copies, Map 3 (of 9) seems a meager gift to the music world. The number is an improvement over previous releases of 30 or 50 copies, but I wish Christian Science Minotaur had more ambition for the public's ear. Cassettes and 3 inch CDRs are great for curios, but don't release your best music on them.
KID606 is dedicated to bringing his uniquely reckless fucked up and beautiful music to our fucked up and beautiful world. Insipired by the best of electronica, punk, jungle, hiphop, bass, dancehall and techno, Kid606 Fuses it all together with a love of pop culture that Andy Warhol would approve of. Apart from running the labels Tigerbeat6, Shockout, and Tigerbass, Kid606 has performed all around the world many times over, and released records on highly regarded labels such as Ipecac, Wichita, Mille Plateaux, Fatcat, Souljazz, and Carpark. His highly original productions helped spearhead and define the edgy and confrontational glitch and mashup styles that are now common in modern music production. His album "Down with the scene" (2000) was a landmark release for the burgeoning international electronic music scene, with everything from hardcore ragga jungle and serene ambient to abstract IDM and the dubby soul classic "Secrets 4 Sale" with Mike Patton. Things only got more exciting as Kid606 delved deep into the seedy overworld of mainstream music with critically acclaimed unofficial remixes that many people wanted to hear yet no one else was willing to make. All the while releasing his own original and diverse productions as well as official remixes for Amon Tobin, the Rapture, the Locust, Foetus, Depeche Mode, The Bug, Peaches, Dälek, Ellen Allien, Saul Williams, Super Furry Animals, and countless others.
His new album "Shout at the Döner" drops late April, and is easily his most accomplished record to date, it combines all the brash and exciting plunderphonic and sampledelic elements he is best known for with a whole new world of uncharacteristically musical and danceable hooks and styles which are both fresh and timeless. 606 draws on some of his biggest electronic influences like LFO, AFX, Mike Ink, Green Velvet, Mouse on Mars, the Prodigy, Daft Punk, Shizuo, Mr. Oizo and Giorgio Moroder, to make bold and powerful songs about the decline of America, leaving California, broken hearts,drunken hook-ups, social phobias, soulless partying, economic downfall, gnarly basslines, ego worship, moving to berlin, diva vocals, baltimore club, obsessive compulsive disorder, the best parts of horror movies, acidhouse, ADHD, shameless irony, speed garage, megalomania, LSD, satanism and the ever prevalent Döner Kebab, arguably europe's best late night cuisine to consume on the way home from from the club, (Especially if you had to much to drink!).
We think this release is the Kid's first successful stab at what we like to call "schizotronics" actually combining elements of many different Dance music styles into new songs without pretension,trying to hard to fit into any trendy genre, or losing the joy and energy of the driving beats and basslines that make music so fun in the first place. Maybe it's intelligent dance music for people who thought they didnt like intelligent dance music, Maybe it's unintelligent vacant technopunk trash, but you will definitely want to listen to it more then once to find out for yourself! External Links
Paul Taylor and Kevin Tomkins have been working together for well over 25 years, most notably as the notorious power electronics duo Sutcliffe Jugend. After a few reinventions of that project, they emerged a few years ago as simply SJ and created two albums, Between Silences and Threnody for the Victims of Ignorance that channeled the same dark atmospheres and tension, but expanded to more instrumentation than just raw synths and screamed vocals. This evolution has continued into Inertia, where guitar is the main instrument, but along with piano, clarinet, and other traditional instruments, to create dark and disorienting audio paintings.
The first of these simultaneously released albums, Two Guitars, is exactly that: the 11 tracks that comprise the disc is based exclusively on the guitar playing of Taylor and Tomkins. Tracks like "Only Walking" and "Paradox" hover barely audible, with understated melodic guitar playing setting the mood, the former mixing with clanging strings and distorted effects, while the latter content to just stay near silence.
Tracks like "Half Life (Remembered)" and "Between Territories" channel 1960s space sound effects through the guitar, with sustained string tones, hammered and bent notes, and a sense of chaos more than control or structure, which are stark contrasts to the simple rhythms of "Lip" and especially "In Memory of a Close Friend (Imagined)." The latter is a beautiful piece of long and slow guitar tones, stretched out to resemble melancholy strings or cello that is somewhat reminiscent, melodically, of Bodychoke’s softer work, but is much tighter and more controlled than most of the other pieces, which all have their fair share of random cuts and blasts.
The two long tracks, "Blue Funk" and "Black Sun," would have fit in nicely in the isolationist scene of the mid/late 1990s, with the dark abstract minimalism and bleak, sparse structures in league with Robert Hampson’s Main or Justin Broadrick’s Final projects, both of which used guitars similarly as raw material.
Duel, on the other hand, incorporates a wider set of instruments into the same theme, but into a tighter set of two short tracks, and two 20-plus minute ones. The shorter two, "First Duel" and "Third Duel" match Taylor’s guitar with raw, uncomfortable clarinet from Tomkins. The former retains the arid sprawl of the Two Guitars material, while the latter has a definite bend towards the harsher spectrum, bringing in rough electronic shards and guitar feedback.
"Second Duel" layers the nauseous clarinet with buried clattering noises and other unclear sonics, as the time goes on the track becomes darker and more aggressive, with instruments shrieking and groaning in the most uncomfortable ways while the distant rattling rhythm clicks on.
"Fourth Duel" follows a similar path, but emphasizes the noise guitar and feedback, with the addition of harsh electronic elements that resemble the Cold Meat Industries era Sutcliffe Jugend, but with more restraint. The sound is almost that of church music, perverted and processed into something evil and violent, with a sense of mania that is really consistent with their other projects, but the duo is creating completely different sounds.
Inertia has the same chaotic and sinister sound that they fostered through the years as Sutcliffe Jugend, but in a more mature and nuanced way. Rather than relying on angry screams and abused effects pedals, here they allow in a wider variety of approaches and ideas that prove the attraction to their work is not simply because it is dark or menacing, but because it is well structured and designed.
In their third release on Thrill Jockey in barely a year, the fraternal trio continue their trek into Appalachia-damaged stoner rock that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet takes their backwoods classic Sabbath through Earth sound into a realm all their own.
Across this album there are many of the expected reference points: early Sabbath sludge dirges, a hint of 1990s grunge rock, and a bit of contemporary metal here and there. But, just as it seems like a track settles into something conventional, an oddity will pop out that changes everything entirely. Even early on, on the opening "Laywayed," there is a grunge-influenced alternative plodding, not quite becoming overly murky, but definitely heading that way. Then the mix simply gets cut up seemingly at random, destroying the rhythm that had been fostered.
Some of the shorter tracks lean even more on the unlikely: "Headless Conference" picks up the rhythmic pace to an almost manic jazz one, compared to the lugubrious tracks before. Even more departing, "Heat Pleasure" has the guitar riffs fast enough to create that dull roar that early grindcore bands established themselves with.
More often though, the tracks stay somewhat wrangled in. Both "Wild Knife Night Fight" and "Honey" throw dual vocal harmonies over overdriven bass into more conventional "rock" territory, though the latter especially contrasts the twangy mountain folk sound with grimier sludge aspects, sounding like a more fleshed-out Earth from the modern era jamming with the heroin loving incarnation from some 15 years ago.
Other tracks play up the folk elements more: "Aestival" and "Seminal Shining" have a lazy, yet sinister quality to them that perfectly fits an early fall visit to rural Virginia. The twisted, schizophrenic folk arrangements are somewhat reminiscent of some of the best Angels of Light albums, but never sounds like a direct copy.
With all of this variety and experimentation, it’s refreshing to hear tracks like "Blood Pride" and "Aasstteerr" unabashedly break out the loping blues metal guitar riffs that sound like Ozzy era Sabbath in the best possible way, with just a little bit of twang: the latter bursting out from a noisy chaotic introduction. The disc’s title track pretty much encapsulates the entire album’s ethos into a single 13 minute track, getting in bass heavy sludge, dissonant guitar noise, jazzy improvisation, and pure stoner rock all together in a way that makes sense.
For a young band, Pontiak definitely has their proverbial shit together when it comes to sound and style. In the individual pieces, it might not be something that is breaking new ground or pushing the boundaries, but put together it is a catchy set of normally disparate styles that work well together here.
I don't know if music has ever been prescribed for people suffering from the vagaries of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Perhaps it is yet to be. I don't know if this album, the debut full length release from the Austrian duo of Roman Gerold and Richard Eigner, would help with the attention aspect of the disorder (its lush textures allow the mind to drift along lazily). I am positive though, that its soothing sounds can certainly calm the frantic, hyper-driven tendencies of the modern mind.
Refracting the lounge and exotica of yesteryear through a lens of glitched electronics, Golden Solitude is as warm as an afterglow, with its unpretentious blips of pop and mellow hints of sultry jazz. An element of entrainment is at work on this record, as song by song, it seems to gradually slow down. Synced up with it, I slowed down as well. The first two songs, parts one and two of the title cut feature saxophone played in a style vaguely reminiscent of Kenny G. Normally this would be enough to turn any self respecting music lover off, but here, mixed with resonant vibraphones, pastel electronic washes, and the oceanic wave of a softly crashed cymbal, it works well, announcing the smoothness of production to be found on the rest of the songs.
In “A Fancy Friendship” the pop sensibilities and studio wizardry of the duo are exemplified. Emotive female vocals purr without lyrics over the top of a silken bass line. Dubby echoes drip off the tight percussion hits as bits and pieces of electric debris ripple through the speakers and disappear before they’ve had the time to be announced. “Disappearing City” is a more meditative affair. Ushered in by what sounds like a slurry of desiccated keyboards it quickly gives in to the dynamic interplay between bass and drums found throughout the album, a recurring element that make these songs so engaging. More experimental moments are heard on a song like “Concrete Leaves” which could be a study in Just Intonation: a brass horn hovers over extended notes, layered it plays against itself, going up and down in small increments, yet cyclically returning to a key note. This song also represents the nadir point of the album. It isn’t the last song, but is the slowest, and without percussion, bass, and the strong hooks of the previous pieces, it left me feeling like I was floating in a dissonant void of naked sound.
At the end “Golden Solitude” is reprised and remixed as a click and cut fest of flanged beats, microscopic splices, and tones that waver like a theremin. The sax is left out of the proceedings. The piano, briefly heard on the first version, is somehow given more space to breathe amidst the dense collage of audio snippets. Upbeat compared to the rest of the disc, it imparted a buoyant, relaxed feeling. With the resurgence of interest in the various forms easy listening music, this album takes a step towards a contemporary acoustic and electronic interpretation of those styles.
Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada has had a bit of a resurgence in the public eye lately due to a number of recent reissues of works that, in retrospect, fit alongside many of the best and most challenging minimalist works of the last forty years. Here, EM presents the fourth and final Wada release in their series with the world premiere of a 1974 performance in Syracuse, New York consisting of a single drone and four Wada-created "pipehorns" tuned to the frequencies of the room itself.
What results is a 162-minute drone work (cut to 77-minutes for the CD version) of near stagnant enormity. Beginning from the drone, an oscillation that takes acoustic information from the room and recycles it back out, each horn enters one by one only to spend the next two-plus hours monolithically exploring the overtone structures of the room in a kind of quartet meditation on sound.
Works like this are, to be fair, not for everybody. This is truly directionless, and the musical change which takes place from beginning to end is near zilch. As with anything this unmoving then, the important question is whether or not the journey from beginning to end achieves its intended effect and whether that effect is worth one's time. The answer to both of these in this case is an enthusiastic yes.
Each horn note's bellow or drone gradually builds the whole into an intoxicating blend of overtones no less effecting than those used in La Monte Young's Well-Tuned Piano. It is always a pleasure to hear sound and space used in such unity, as it creates a dialogue not so much between the musicians and their instruments but between them and the sound itself. As the room bends and shapes the slight variations in sound it creates an effect far beyond the actual notes played, and it is to this effect that the horn players (Jim Burton, Garrett List, Barbara Stewart and Wada) contribute when playing their notes.
Thus the work is one whose strength comes from its size, as it is only with complete immersion that the piece comes to hold any its potentially meditative intricacy. This is a minimalism far removed from Reich and Glass's restructuring of classicist forms and is far nearer to the ritual spirit of Angus MacLise, the stark and simple structures of Alvin Lucier and the tonal attunement of Pandit Pran Nath. Often such works are touted as lost classics, but it is rare that it is actually the case. In this situation however, its value is as clear as can be.
Hans-Joachim Roedelius' stature in German experimental music is well documented in his work with Cluster, Harmonia and Brian Eno. Yet Roedelius' solo output often drifts sadly under the radar. Here Roedelius' 1979 solo effort, his second, is reissued so that once again his distinctive musical style can be seen unblemished by a surrounding group. With this freedom, Roedelius used his simple compositional approach to achieve one of his most whimsical and curious statements.
Perhaps most surprising about the work is its predilection for distinctly classicist motifs and styles. Despite their unusual instrumentation (often combining rich grand piano chords with synthesized melodies atop), most of these works feel like small classical samplings from a bygone era. The synthesized horn lines of the opening "Fou Fou," the gently descending melody of "Toujours," each work gracefully skims along with an almost Kurt Weillian sense of a line, only as filtered by the simplicity and cultivated aesthetic of Erik Satie.
Of course any nostalgic feeling achieved by the album is an eccentric distortion of the classical fare that it conjures. Yet this is a testament to the artist's talent as a composer and arranger, and works such as the waltzing "Rue Fortune" don't so much rehash the past and resituate it. There is a nearly circus-like dementia to the piece as a four-chord rhythm is repeated above increasingly swirling background synthesizers. The effect is subtly disorienting, never taking over the work so much is deepening its potency.
The same could be said of "Cafe Central," whose synth lines loop atop one another below a synthesizer melodic line and pulse. Given the general lack of rhythm machines or sequencers here, Roedelius makes the most of what he has, always carefully choosing each sound and effect and never getting too overindulgent with them. This gives "Cafe Central" a highly Eno feel, and could easily fit in as one of the beautifully soft-spoken miniatures within Another Green World.
Over and over again what displays itself most clearly here is Roedelius' ability to take a small melody or idea and expand upon it until it becomes a work in itself. This doesn't mean layering endlessly however; sometimes, as on "Le Jardin," all he needs is a melody, a buzz, a synth line and some birdcalls to create an evocative piece whose reach is refreshingly short. Each melody here speaks for itself and each work is as playful as the next, as exhibited by the Kraftwerk circa Autobahn momentum of "Etoiles," with its lilting synthesizer rhythms, cooing female vocal and drifting cello line. It is a cohesive whole far that achieves a whole far greater than its cutesy melodic fragments may imply.
Included in the reissue are six bonus cuts, three of which are remixes and three newer tracks. The remixes are different enough from the originals to keep them interesting, and the new tracks fit snuggly in, rounding out an already impressive and understated work. While so many of these kinds of albums have come to sound dated, Roedelius' clean and crisp sound retains the freshness of his material, even as electronic music moves ever further from the approaches and sounds he most adheres to.
Sacros won the 1968 Chilean schools contest for "beat" groups. Five years later they recorded their only record: this Latin American country rock hymn cycle inspired in part by ancient Mayan and Andean Gods. Released September 18, 1973, seven days after a military coup installed the dictator General Augusto Pinochet, most copies were destroyed in the subsequent crackdown.
40 years ago, Sacros looked set for success, at least in their native land. They had won the national schools competition in their "carefully chosen look, dressing in black trousers with white lace shirts" and at the time of recording their debut (after numerous changes of personnel) they were a well-honed trio, having practised at the Divina Providence Church in exchange for "making an electric mass". Tomas Herrera was drumming, and Hernan Valdovinas was on bass sharing vocals with Patricio Panussis, one of the first 12-string guitarists in Chile.
This self-titled disc is a lovely cross-pollination. On one hand Sacros were friends with many priests and exposed to religious music; hence their name, "Sacred," on the other, they were hearing US electric folk influences such as The Byrds. Ironically, other US influences were at work in Chile, too. At the behest of Nixon and Kissinger, the CIA were busy training the Chilean miltary, and funding anti-government strikes. Kissinger stated that "the issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves" and "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." On September 11, 1973, the Chilean airforce bombed Santiago using British-made planes, and decades of murder, torture and other human rights abuses were set in motion. On the day of the coup, Salvador Allende took his own life. Poet and singer Victor Jara was held with thousands of others in the Chile Stadium where he was repeatedly beaten before being machine gunned. Before his death, Jara wrote a poem about the conditions in the stadium which was smuggled out in the shoe of a friend. And let me take this opportunity to point you to Robert Wyatt's version of Jara's "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I remember Amanda"). An estimated 200,000 people left Chile for exile. Two members of Sacros fled to Spain. Herrera quit music. Valdavinos became a renowned painter and only returned to his homeland post-Pinochet to play music again with his old friend Panussis. The latter had remained in Chile and subsequently formed the band Miel and also Musica Universal (unfortunately, a "new age" act). Henry Kissinger won the 1973 Nobel Peace prize.
So, for very good reason, then, this is an ultra-rare album. I listened to it with bated breath, as the early 1970s combination of spiritual and country rock styles might have come out sounding as dodgy as Spinal Tap meets the Gypsy Kings. Yet, with light production, restrained playing and gentle experimentation, Sacros has an integrity which modern attempts to create the analog sound can't match, and it always steers clear of the worst turgid excesses of the psychedlic rock era. The short opening piece "Aum" welcomes us to Chile in muted fashion, reverential voices to the fore. After that, in innocent contrast to the political events which would unfold, it is consistently breezy. As a non-Spanish speaker, I find the lyrics pleasantly mysterious but for all I know it's trite nonsense. No matter, this is a record I'll be enjoying for a while. Patricio Panussis's guitar playing at the start of "Iluso Que Suenos" has a hypnotic propulsive quality predicting Johnny Marr by about 25 years. A psychedelic ode to the Plumed Serpent "Quetzalcoatl," God of the Mayas, is also a highlight, but the truly transcendental track is "La Realidad" ("The Reality"). This piece is a perfect crescenso of infectious vocal melodies, thumping bass, and jangling guitar; from one West Coast to another. Chile Stadium is now named Estadio Victor Jara and (in musical terms) Sacros is a worthy reissue. Some spirits cannot be "disappeared."
Two sidelong tracks of low-tech miasma make up this cassette EP. While the individual sound elements are varied and potent, as a whole the compositions tend to drag in the middle. I'm sure that Millions didn't set out to be an example, but The Unanimous Night is typical of what happens when music gear is relied upon to generate mood music.
Call it speculation, but I'm pretty sure that Millions used Boss Loop Station RC-20XL to build most of this album. Developed for live sampling, this guitar pedal's ability to infinitely layer sounds makes it the tool of choice for the dronist. About as common as cows in Wisconsin, their strengths and limitations are built into countless cassettes and CDRs issued in the last decade or so. The problem with them is that once a suitable soundscape has been made, no element can be taken away without stopping the whole recording. In other words, Loop Station music is good for the build-up but ultimately becomes repetitious and inert.
Regardless of what Millions used to make The Unanimous Night, the music follows the same dynamic. Side two, "The Dreamed Man," begins with reversed guitar swells, easily constructed with the help of our friend the RC-20XL. After the loop is introduced, spurts of wobbly sub bass crawl into the mix along with high pitched insectiod buzzing. Good enough, but halfway through the tape that damn guitar loop is still playing. It's like having an unwanted acquaintance over for a séance.
The eponymously titled flip-side holds the attention a little better. Acidic distortion and discordant choral pads give it the feel of some incantation by ritualistic physicists. The atmosphere is suitably cosmic until a mid-game slump hits that piece too. Interstellar howl and hiss do have their charms, but the charm wears quickly.
What kills the atmosphere on both of the pieces is the persistence of stale sound elements. Cheap, portable equipment has revolutionized the economics avant-garde music, but compositional sophistication hasn't always moved forward to compensate for the equipment's limitations. The Unanimous Night is by no means the worst example of this trend. I chose it to make a point because I'm intimately familiar with how music that sounds exactly like this is made. Of course, the Loop Station or any other piece of equipment can't totally dictate aesthetics. The problem is that for music that trades on images of mystery, Millions is pretty easy to figure out.