Being thankful for an earful.
Brand new music by Marie Davidson, Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry), CEL, Marisa Anderson and Luke Schneider, Stina Stjern, Carmen Villain, Murcof, A Lily, and Far Golden Pavilions, with music from the vaults by Tomaga, Ozzobia, Jan Jelinek.
Sushi photo by Lindsay.
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Bremen return with a new double-LP of glacial electronics, strung-out drone-punk and smouldering space-rock minimalism.
Following the release of their self-titled debut on Skrammel in 2013, the Swedish duo of Jonas Tiljander (Brainbombs) and Lanchy Orre (Brainbombs, Totalitär) joined the Blackest Ever Black fold with last year’s Second Launch. If the mood of that record was brooding and stygian, its monochord intensity unfaltering, then Eclipsed, their equally sprawling new set, could be construed as a warmer, more dynamic and variegated offering. Perhaps. There are still passages that are heavier than a death in the family. Still a staunch obsession with the consciousness-altering power of repetition.
The band’s points of departure are specific: a particular organ sound from J.A. Seazer 1970s' recordings, the squalid alien guitar tone of Chrome, the cranked, psychic roar-out riffage of Hawkwind, the melancholic mode of Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson, minimalism from La Monte Young to Eleh, "cold eighties electronic sound," and sloppy, lo-fi psychedelic rock from the likes of Pärson Sound and Träd Gräs och Stenar. Tiljander’s icily poised synth/organ drones and the grieving cosmic howl of Lanchy’s guitar dominate the landscape, but their instrumental palette has also expanded to include various percussion treatments, saxophone, strings, dissolved vocal fragments. Their exploratory jamming, overdubbing and dub-savvy mixing yields a music of unbelievable eloquence and physicality.
Eclipsed is another masterpiece of black hole psychedelia from one of the greatest underground rock’n’roll units on the planet. No serious void-worshipper’s collection is right without it.
More information is available here.
This is a joint release with Steven Wilson's (Bass Communion / No Man / Porcupine Tree) own Headphone Dust label. He's a big fan of Fovea Hex and was very keen help releasing the new material. There'll be a special pre-order only version available through Steven's website, which will also include a 20 min. bonus CD feat. a remix by Steven of one of the tracks from the ep. This will only be available through his website until the end of February.
Here's some more info from Headphone Dust:
FOVEA HEX – The Salt Garden I (10inch vinyl + CD + limited bonus CD) on Headphone Dust (HDFH1021 + HDFHCD25) &
Die Stadt (DS116 + DS116A)
Track listing: 1. The Golden Sun Rises Upon The World Again / 2. No Bright Avenue / 3. The Undone Mother / 4. Solace
Product Description
The new EP from Fovea Hex THE SALT GARDEN is the first ever non-SW release on the Headphone Dust label, a testament to the unprecedented quality of the work. Steven has long been a fan of Fovea Hex, and in 2008 he invited singer / songwriter Clodagh Simonds to guest on his first solo record Insurgentes. Fovea Hex also counts the likes of David Lynch, Brian Eno and Underworld amongst its fans.
You may also recognise Clodagh’s name from her vocals on early Mike Oldfield albums Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn, and from her early 70s folk rock group Mellow Candle, which she formed in Ireland while still a teenager. She then dropped off the musical radar for decades, before returning in 2005 with the remarkable Fovea Hex project. The songs are dominated by a voice that’s too steely to be deigned ethereal, but remains too otherworldly to file alongside more conventional female singer-songwriters. The pace is languid, the arrangements intricate and fragile. Fovea Hex's closest cousins would perhaps be 4AD artists such as Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, and This Mortal Coil, but really this music is completely unique and exceptional, a mix of electronic and acoustic sounds from instruments ranging from state-of-art to ancient and arcane.
The Salt Garden 1 is the first in a series of 3 EPs released in conjunction with German label Die Stadt, and contains 4 brand new tracks. Issued as a beautifully packaged limited edition 10 inch vinyl, that also includes a CD copy of the EP.
For more info go here:
FOVEA HEX: www.janetrecords.com
STEVEN WILSON: www.stevenwilsonhq.com
DIE STADT: www.diestadtmusik.de
Once again thanks to everybody who participated in the 18th Annual Brainwashed Readers Poll. It's an honor to be able to do this every year and we appreciate everyone who contributed to the nominations and voted.
All the best wishes for 2016.
Despite being under 30, Vancouver's Sarah Davachi has the musical pedigree of someone twice her age, as she has a master's degree in electronic music from the famed Mills College, a history of residencies all over the world, and a successful career as an archivist and music researcher. Of course, none of that would matter much if her music was not good, but Davachi's full-length debut on Students of Decay expertly and assuredly blends her love of vintage modular synthesizers with a host of organic instruments (cello, harmonium, oboe, etc.) to forge something quite timeless and distinctive. - Anthony D'Amico
In the span of only a limited amount of recordings, she has created a distinct identity. Threading the organic with the synthetic isn't revolutionary, however Davachi's academic discipline and achievements in composition and sound creation is apparent. This is the high quality stuff. Both of this year's releases are dedicated and focused but they are also vibrant and thematic. She has managed to make serious music enjoyable. - Jon Whitney
They have already got a (virtual) gong from their service to music with Throbbing Gristle but they truly deserve recognition separately from their early work. Either together as Chris & Cosey/Carter Tutti or solo, they continue to create new soundworlds and new experiences for listeners. Re-visiting their older material could have been the sign that they were through with new ideas but the end result proved otherwise as they persist in challenging conventions. - John Kealy
33 Chris & Cosey albums + 16 CTI albums + 6 Carter Tutti albums (without counting singles, collaborations, collections, live albums, solo records, etc) = a massive contribution to music (even without including TG!). For four decades, the duo has not taken a break from recording and performing, all the while evolving, destroying expectations and establishments, and transcending trends gracefully. 2015 was another active year for the duo with multiple releases and live shows, and with the re-invention of Industrial Records, there is no sign of slowing down yet. - Jon Whitney
Chris & Cosey started out as pioneers and ended up as living legends. That they're still making gripping new music sets them apart from all the new wave goons still riding the '80s wave on the retro circuit. Fortunately the majority of their discography is currently available digitally, which means there's no excuse for anyone to overlook their catalog at this stage. - Gary Suarez
The culmination of two years of work and employing synthesizers, other electronics, and a 15 piece classical ensemble; N°3 is an ambitious and expansive work that is completely congruent with Vantzou’s aspirations. Lush and complex, the bulk of these pieces lie between epic drama and quiet intimacy, but are never anything but beautiful and compelling.
Throughout much of N°3, Vantzou employs a hybrid of both classical and electronic elements blended together into gliding, rich tones.Occasionally, some of the specific instrumentation comes to the forefront, most notably the bowed strings of a cello and the twinkling notes of a piano (or synthetically derived equivalent), but for the most part neither dominate the mix but instead are weaved together by Vantzou into a glistening tapestry of sound and tones.
On pieces such as the opening "Valley Drone" and "Entanglements," she places the orchestral elements more significantly in the spotlight.On the former, the bowed strings are utilized to create both gentle drones and dissonant, rattling and doomy passages of sound, intertwined with one another.The lighter ambient space that is generated by the electronics is contrasted by the infrequent but effective heavy drum thuds, resulting in an odd yet exceptionally strong balance.
The back-to-back sequenced "Moon Drone" and "Shadow Sun" both complement each other, unsurprising given their thematically linked titles.On both she places emphasis on piano sounds, combined with lush and gorgeous electronics.The former has an appropriately darker, colder quality to its structure, with electronics echoing from a dark cavern, while the latter has a more open, airy mix and glassy, music box like notes resonating outward.
Most of N°3 is consistent with Vantzou's previous compositional strategy of working from largely improvised and unstructured material, creating beautiful order from what could otherwise be chaos.The three "Pillar" pieces, however, mark a new development in which she composes based on more rigid, mathematically based structures.Even with the more specific structural underpinning, the songs fit in brilliantly with the remainder of the album.That is not to say they are indistinguishable from the other songs, exemplified by the mysterious, varied textures throughout "Pillar 3," and the more commanding, creaky strings-heavy "Pillar 1."
The aforementioned "Entanglements" is mostly defined by the layered electronic drones and strings, but moments of digital flute accompaniment come dangerously close to the Windham Hill new age bargain bin clichés (I blame it on a Yamaha DX7).Not quite as blatant are the 1970s sci fi modular synthesizer twitters and bleeps that appear on "Laurie Spiegel" and "Robert Earl," but those bits of electronic noodling simply stand out too blatantly compared to the rest of the compositions.
These moments are very much isolated incidents amongst the 14 compositions that make up N°3.On the whole, it is a beautiful record that draws from orchestral and electronic worlds and features Christina Vantzou adeptly borrowing from these differing sounds and threading them together seamlessly.This is such a multifaceted record, one that features such beautiful natural and treated instrumentation to excellent effect, and despite a few odd moments, one that does not drags during its 71 minute duration.
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After seeing it performed by Phillip Bush, Greg Stuart, and Joe Panzner at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater in downtown Los Angeles, the complexity in Michael Pisaro’s A Mist Is a Collection of Points cracked open. Scored for piano, percussion, and sine tones, the recorded version of A Mist presents itself transparently as a three-part composition with clear melodies and sharp edges. The piano is prominent, the sine tones thin and exact, the cymbals and crotales metallic, concentrated, centered. Their sounds are, in some ways, measured and containable, the opposite of a mist, which slips past the senses and confuses them. But watching Greg Stuart bow his crotales in the first section, seeing him react to Phillip Bush’s playing in the third, and searching for the places where the sine tones began and the acoustic resonance ended—that displaced and de-centered the entire piece. It turned its apparently fixed points into movable objects and transformed the music into a suspension of atoms and waves, detectable, though masked, in the superbly recorded and mastered document released by New World Records.
Attendance of a live performance isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying A Mist, but visualizing it doesn’t hurt. The November 18th Los Angeles debut looked like this: Phillip Bush sat stage right and away from the audience, his grand piano open for inside manipulation. At stage left was a vibraphone, also set back from the audience. Front and center were four cymbals placed on the ground atop newspapers, a set of crotales, one of which hung from a string, and a pair of music stands laid flat to hold two containers of rice.
Stuart started the concert there, seated with a bow that he used to tease the crotales. Judging by the recording alone, the sine waves might as well have come from the stage too. They are omnipresent and omni-directional, originating from nowhere in particular and cutting across every aspect of the piece. Live, they were generated by Joe Panzner (who mastered this album) and projected from speakers throughout the theater. He was seated behind the audience, emphasizing the ubiquity and anonymity of the resonance that is one of the works’ central features.
As the music begins and Bush strikes the piano’s keys and strings, a series of high-pitched sine tones arise. Stuart selects a crotale and bows it. When he does, the sine waves wobble in the air. It seems obvious that Greg is affecting their sound, playing a tone very close to the one generated by the computer off stage. Yet, as he returns the crotale back to the table, further interference undulates throughout the room. Greg selects another, larger crotale. He bows that one, the sine waves change again, and again he stops only to reveal that the sine waves are still teetering between frequencies, beating and becoming more unstable. Are the sine waves changing and multiplying of their own accord, or is Stuart responsible for their instability?
During this interplay, Bush is steadily building a drone, holding the sustain pedal down and playing one melody after another. The attack of the hammers on the strings are definite and strong, the ensuing hum a layer of rhythm pulsing against the pronounced percussive character of the piano. These two streams bleed together and the two central points on the stage, Phillip and Greg, slowly lose their place. As in a mist, where locations and details become fuzzy, the musicians themselves lose their locality.
From time to time during the show, Stuart appeared to bow his instruments without creating a sound. His actions were subsumed into the points of harmony and reflection shimmering around him. These interactions are there on the recording too, clear as can be once one knows to look for them. The difficulty in recognizing them has more to do with the identity of the instruments, with their construction, than anything else. The piano has a sharp attack throughout. The crotale splashes at the end of the first section are clear-cut, as are the voices of the vibraphones and cymbals in the second and third sections. None of them are placed in one channel or the other, nor should they be, but the visual sense of position helps to recalibrate the ears for the effects they produce together. With Joe missing, with Greg getting lost in the exchange of what Jennie Gottschalk’s excellent liner notes call shadow tones, and with Phillip’s subtle distortion of time and space at the keyboard, orientation and confusion slowly gain significance, replacing that feeling of solidity and definiteness.
The second and third parts emphasize that turbulence in different ways, with lyrical phrases, instrumental mirroring, and with a dramatic finale that sees Greg dropping rice onto cymbals, first in heavy streams, then in slow, uneven bursts, until one by one, the piano, sine waves, and percussion take shape, just on the edge of silence. They haven’t exactly disentangled, it’s more like the music offers a brief image of them before they float away with the mist. The forces that hold A Mist together inhere the decisions the performers make, not necessarily in the score, which only suggests the possibility of coherence. There is a symmetry in the way the audience responds as well. Making sense of the confusion necessitates careful listening and navigating the piece’s many collisions as they drift, drawing patterns and disorder into the same space.
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Originally released in 1987 and first reissued in the mid 1990s on CD, Ecobondage is one of Merzbow’s seminal works, and also one of my earliest experiences with his vast discography. Presented as a double LP reissue (with included CD), the album feels like an appropriately deluxe edition that captures a high point of Masami Akita's too often overlooked, but superior junk noise era.
As I have surely mentioned in previous reviews of his albums, my first exposure to Akita's work was Venereology.Like many a suburban teenager, my curiosity was piqued by the claim of it being "the most extreme album you’ll ever own" that Relapse used for marketing purposes.I was underwhelmed once I heard it, however, and while I have developed more of an appreciation for the album now, it still pales compared to others.But not long after that first exposure, I found a copy of Ecobondage on the shelves of a record store and gave Merzbow a second chance.Revisiting the album nearly 20 years after first hearing it (and a more sizable chunk of his catalog), it still makes for a high water mark of his work.
The two 30 minute-plus pieces are split in half for the vinyl portion of the release, and presented as unbroken compositions on the CD.The points in which they are split are rather insignificant, as both parts are dynamic, ever shifting collages.A mix offound sounds, junk rhythms, and tape manipulations jump around rapidly from minute to minute, making any discernible divisions a moot point.Even now, I am not exactly sure where Part 1's "Ecobondage" ends and "Prison of Takaou" begins, nor do I feel that I really need to.
The first part (including "Ecobondage," "Prison of Takaou," and "Blow Up") immediately encapsulates what Masami Akita circa 1987 sounded like.Opening with scraping sheets of metal and rumbling, heavy electronics (possibly the credited contributions of then-frequent collaborator Kiyoshi Mizutani), the mix soon has Akita introducing recordings of dogs barking and clattering, junky tape loops.The piece heavily features lo-fi treated found sounds, taped and manipulated music, and other elements that are even more difficult to pin down.During its duration, it becomes a wall of cavernous metal banging and crunchy undulating patterns, transitioning from chaos to pseudo-rhythmic structures and back again.
The second portion (made up of "Ha Ha Ho Bari (Mari)," "Balloon," "Contraction," and "Ending")follows a similar blueprint:a dizzying array of what seems to be randomness but is anything but.At first it is comparably more abrasive:squeaking, shrill noises, covered in reverb and laser-gun like synthesizer passages.Even with this harshness, the variation and depth of the sounds employed by Akita keep it from becoming too dull or unpleasant.As it continues, undulating heavy bass slips into tumbling metallic chaos, like a rampant bull in a metal factory.The closing moments become more percussive and rhythmic, constructed from what resembles an improvised gamelan and random metal objects.
The presentation of Ecobondage is worth noting, too.While I am not usually one to unnecessarily extol the virtues of analog over digital presentations, the sound benefits from the vinyl presentation, which captures the warmth of the original analog source material better than the CD, which sometimes becomes a bit too sharp and harsh.Similarly, the record's visual presentation is strong as well:not only does it revert back to the original LP artwork (which was not included on the original CD reissue), the sleeve is stuffed with inserts (some reproduced from the first version of the record) and flyers that hearken back to those early noise releases that I am rather fond of.But no matter how it looks, the familiar yet unrecognizable noises captivate in their complexity and variation, culminating in a record that has an undeniable depth and breadth, and is just as great as I remember it from 20 years ago.
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Illinois trio Oakeater has been active for the past decade, but Aquarius is only their second full length release, with most of their other work being splits, collaborations, and mini-album releases. This diverse array of release have allowed them to hone a distinctively dark, yet diverse array of sounds that draw from most of the expected places (metal, noise, dark ambient, etc.), work those elements in their own way to create a unique, if bleak, suite of songs.
The band, consisting of Alex Barnett, Jeremiah Fisher, and Seth Sher, are all rather well known for their other projects:Barnett as a solo artist and frequent collaborator with Faith Coloccia, Fisher as part of Panicsville, and Sher as a member of Coughs.Their work together as Oakeater stands entirely on its own, however, and is decidedly different as a sum of its parts.
Opener "Wishful Beginnings" presents the project’s influences rather clearly.The distant unsettling rhythms and slowly shuffling malignance instantly calls to mind the more ambient moments of SPK’s Leichenschrei with a bit of TG's "Hamburger Lady" to ensure the creep factor is off the charts.The short "Hatchet" sounds like it is built around a rhythm created from clattering aluminum cans, but with an exceptionally dark cello-like bass drone to increase tension.
"Maps" is another piece of dark, creaking ambience and low, lurking rumbles that would not be out of place on a horror film score.Expanding synthesizer passages and occasional outbursts of heavily processed voice flesh out the piece, coming together with an undeniable, but hard to pin down sense of eeriness."All that is Sacred" would be the closest the trio comes to pure noise on Aquarius.Sweeping layers of electronics and subtle percussion are mixed with shimmering cymbals and odd found sounds.With the inhuman voices added in, the trio pushes the piece brilliantly between space and dense dissonance.
The album closes on a strong pairing of songs, ones that capture the Oakeater sound exceptionally well."Aquarius" immediately stands out with its oddly treated, multifaceted rhythm that propels the piece throughout.Swells of darkness are weaved in and out by the trio, as screamed, almost black metal styled vocals cut through like a dull, rusty knife.The song builds tension brilliantly, with the band adding more percussion and soaring guitar towards its dramatic conclusion."Respite", however, ends the album on a restrained, yet menacing note.Bizarre percussion and distant metallic bashing pierce through the funeral synthesizers.Eventually the synthetic rhythms become more aggressive and rapid-fire, leading to an abrupt and jarring end to the record.
One of Aquarius' strongest assets is the fact that it sounds like no one else in recent memory.The touchstones are rather clear:the chaos of harsh noise, the bleak darkness of early industrial, and the pained, inhuman vocals of heavy metal, but Oakeater use these standard features in anything but standard ways.It makes for an impenetrably bleak, yet not at all cliché record of sinister music, with a healthy dose of ambiguity that contributes to an unsettling, at times uncomfortable, but always powerful piece of music.
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Composed as part of a 2012 installation at a former East German prison, it should come as no surprise that Isolation is at times an intentionally off-putting, disturbing, and unpleasant piece of music. The prison, housing political prisoners and using more than questionable methods of interrogation, was in operation from 1956 to 1989, and stands as a testament to the darkness that pervaded Eastern Germany during the Cold War. Bretschneider’s work is an attempt to capture the sense of isolation and disorientation caused by the prison in audio form, and it is a resounding success.
Bretschneider utilizes a variety of compositional techniques in these five pieces to symbolize the multitude of experiences that lengthy incarceration and state sponsored "enhanced interrogations" could generate.On the opening to "White Light," he does this via extreme frequencies and their associated psycho-acoustic properties.The first few minutes are a tinnitus-like buzz that could induce migraines at a loud enough volume, and mixed with a low frequency rumble that gives just the right amount of uncomfortable physical vibration.
"Cycle/Circle" also features extreme sub bass that, on a loudspeaker set-up are more easily felt than heard, and via headphones lead to an odd sensation that is almost akin to dizziness.But I should be clear that, even though Bretschneider is using these heavy frequencies to convey physical sensations, these are still pieces that bear the mark of a true composer.Even though "Cycle/Circle" is all heavy vibrations and physical sensations, he weaves in understated tones and sounds that add a distinctly cold and austere sense of beauty.
Another technique he utilizes to great effect is passages of silence or near silence that enhance the titular sense of isolation, such as the hushed first half of "Neon Night" that, while not empty, it is extremely sparse.The 11-minute "Vertical Time" conjures the timeless monotony of incarceration via subtle hums and mechanical drones that result in an intentionally mundane, yet complex bit of repeated tones and vibrations.The concluding "Oscillation/Feedback" is completely descriptive in its title, with the first half being shimmering oscillations of high-pitched noise similar to that of "White Light".The concluding minute and a half, however, is a blast of pure digital noise that sputters apart brilliantly, akin to the final moments of insanity that could precede this sort of solitude.
Frank Bretschneider's Isolation is intended to be a disquieting, at times disturbing, piece of sonic art, and he accomplishes this wonderfully.Not in the sense of being a harsh noise endurance test, but something far more conceptual and composed.When listening (as recommended) via headphones, the work does an exceptional job at conveying the unpleasant experiences of a lengthy incarceration via repetition and unpleasant frequencies, at least as well as a CD possibly could.
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Sound sculptures and gongs by Harry Bertoia unite the sides of this split LP from Tara Jane O'Neil and Eleh. Packaged in deluxe letterpress printed jackets in an edition of 800. The first 300 copies are on metallic gold vinyl.
O'Neil's composition was commissioned by Venessa Renwick for her Medusa Smack video installation (originally screened in 2012 at the Oregon Biennial). The piece is partially comprised of sounds recorded by Harry Bertoia on his own Sonambient sound sculptures, as well as a recording Tara made of Athanasius Kircher's Bell Wheel at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
Eleh's side consists of 100 gongs synthesized on a Serge modular system to honor the centennial of Bertoia's birth in 2015.
More information can be found here.
This has been a very perplexing and curious year for the historically prolific Dots, as they have maintained a constant stream of updates about new releases without ever quite releasing anything substantial–just an endless flow of live vault releases, outtakes, cryptic collaborations, cryptic solo albums, digital-only holiday surprises, teasers for upcoming albums, and a few extremely limited (and instantly vanished) records on small European labels.  It was starting to feel a lot like I was receiving ghost transmissions from a dead planet, but before I became completely convinced that the Dots were either dead or had never actually existed in the first place, they unexpectedly produced the deeply abstract, surreal, and fragmented Five Days.  While a bit too amorphous and diffuse to rank among their best work, it is certainly complex and hallucinatory enough to temporarily sate my hunger for new material.
To my credit, I am not nearly obsessive enough of an LPD fan to try to figure out if there is any link between Five Days and 1990’s Four Days, though the link could easily be something as simple as just another prosaic statement about how long it took to record.  I am also not obsessive enough to try to figure out if the narrative thread that runs throughout this album ties into any other albums within the multifarious Edward Ka-Spel-verse, but I am absolutely certain that the storyline is enough of a kaleidoscopic fever dream that it would not matter at all if it did.  While it is ostensibly a concept album with plot and characters, those elements seem to exist primarily just to give some structure to an otherwise totally disorienting and lysergic trip down the rabbit hole of Ka-Spel's mind. In fact, I wonder how knowingly involved the rest of the band even was (there are no credits), as Five Days sounds like it could easily be a mountain of unrelated studio scraps weaved together as the backdrop for a phantasmagoric, fitfully narrated plunge into abstract experimentation to fill the time between more substantial projects.
Regardless of how Five Days was created, there is no denying that Ka-Spel knows how to collage together an impressively crafted and distinctive vision.  This album is basically a mirage built on shifting sands, as I am never quite clear what is happening nor do I ever fully remember what has happened before, as there are no hooks, grooves, or noticeable recurring themes (or much in the way of human warmth or recognizable instruments): the only real thread holding all of the endlessly morphing electronic fantasia together is Ka-Spel’s voice.  Almost everything else seems completely fleeting and illusory.  The beauty of that approach, however, is that occasionally strong themes surface to surprise and captivate me, most notably Ka-Spel's languorously sing-song and menacing pronouncements in "In Search of the Golden Crest" ("Bad news, friend: you failed the test").  Another highlight is the brief interlude in "Shades of Sorrow/The Oxygen Tent" where the piece briefly blossoms into a chattering hum of overlapping voices.  I also quite enjoyed the blearily queasy poetry of "Thou Shalt Not Grow Old," and the drugged and hazy chamber music of "The First World Flag."
If Five Days has any serious faults, the primary one is that it is just not a memorable album, though that is at least partially by design.  The other is the omnipresent brooding synths and half-spoken/half-sung storytelling sounds extremely familiar at this point.  It is not entirely fair to critique Legendary Pink Dots for sounding exactly like themselves, but they have already recorded a mountain of material in a very similar vein, so the only parts that make my ears perk up at this point are those that depart somewhat from business-as-usual.  There is admittedly a healthy amount of such moments strewn throughout Five Days, but it is still not quite enough to warrant excitement on my end.  There is quite a lot of water-treading happening here–not exactly filler, but nevertheless a lot of waiting for something transcendent to emerge from the numbing familiarity.  While I personally prefer this abstract/experimental side of LPD's aesthetic to their more song-based material, it has definitely been better done elsewhere (and often), so this will probably not be an album that I go back to very often.  Given that Ka-Spel and his bandmates have been treading this territory for more than 30 years now, it is hardly a surprise that they occasionally find themselves in a holding pattern rather than in the midst of a major creative breakthrough.  Completists and die-hard fans will probably still find plenty to enjoy, I imagine, but Five Days is at best a solid and mostly unexceptional entry into the LPD oeuvre.
Note: Curiously, there is an instrumental companion EP available for this already mostly instrumental album (Five Days - The Instrumentals).  It feels mostly like additional material that was not quite good enough to make the proper album rather than like anything resembling alternate versions.  It is far from essential, though the 16-minute centerpiece "Weekend" has some impressive flashes of inspiration near the end.
 
