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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I had been doing an excellent job of ignoring the constant trickle of unnecessary Muslimgauze vault scrapings for the last few years, but the surprising amount of excitement surrounding this one enticed me into grudgingly giving it a chance.  I am glad I did, as Feel The Hiss's mingling of heavy dub and sound collage is probably my favorite of Bryn Jones' myriad stylistic threads.  The album still falls prey to the usual "Muslimgauze vault" curse of sounding like endless slight variations of the same goddamn song, but in this case the song being endlessly replicated is actually good enough to warrant it.  This is the best Muslimgauze album to surface in a long time.
Feel The Hiss is a rather unique entry in Staalplaat’s ongoing vault-clearing/reissue campaign, as it is basically a complete album that Jones never got a chance to put the finishing touches on.  He recorded these nine pieces live to tape, labeled it "Zilver tracks," then never revisited them.  Unexpectedly, that "unfinished" aspect is one Hiss's biggest selling points, as these pieces have a raw immediacy that would probably have been smoothed over if Jones had gone through his normal production regimen.  Also, the degree of unfinishedness is quite a lucky one, as Hiss does not feel particularly lo-fi, nor does it feel like anything is missing.  Instead, everything just feels a lot sharper and crisper than it normally would, particularly the many prominent snatches of dialogue and field recordings strewn all over the album.  I suspect that a "finished" version would have pushed the sound collage elements much deeper in the mix and punched up the bass, if other Muslimgauze albums are any indication.  I suppose that would be cool too, but less so: I am very much a fan of this "garage rock" version of Jones' artistry.
While there are ostensibly nine (untitled) pieces comprising Hiss, there are actually only three distinct and significant ones due to the distinctly Jones-ian repetition of the core music, though they are thankfully all long enough to carry the album.  There is not a hell of a lot distinguishing the three variations from one another in a concrete sense, as all are basically built upon an unchanging bass line and a slow dub-reggae pulse embellished with a buzzing tanpura drone and an occasional kanun loop (Jones kept the music fairly minimal and laid-back with this one).  Despite the extreme similarities, however, the minor differences between the bass lines and the tempos still provide each of the three discrete pieces with their own individual feel.
The best of batch is probably "Zilver One," as it boasts the most tense and propulsive rhythm.  That kind of makes all the difference with this material, as the field recordings and dialogue in the foreground are always a chaotic and mysterious collage of angry voices, non-angry voices, prayers, singing, interviews with snipers, sudden crashes, pouring water, clattering metal, monkeys, birds, trains, and whatever the hell else Bryn felt like piling on.  It is all very compelling and deliciously disorienting and evocative, but it is also very abstract, unmelodic, and occasionally harsh, so it works best when bolstered by an appropriately strong and hypnotic groove.  "Zilver One" hits that mark most successfully.
"Zilver Two" and "Zilver Eight" combine to constitute another distinct piece, differing primarily from the first piece by being significantly slower.  While that sacrifices some momentum, the trade-off is an appealing one, as it leaves more space and shifts the focus more strongly to Jones' hallucinatory web of overlapping voices and street sounds.  The third distinct piece is kind of a trilogy, as songs four through six essentially blur together into a single work that stretches for nearly 20 minutes.  Again, this one is slowed down to a druggy reggae crawl, which again allows Bryn to make the most of his arsenal of voices, which in this case includes a lot of snatches of devotional singing that overlap and pan around pleasingly.  The best part, however, comes in the latter half, as Jones allows an ominously quavering drone to take center stage to mesmerizing effect (which, of course, makes the occasional bursts of shouting, crashing, and door-pounding seem even more meaningful and startling).
I suppose the sole real flaw with Feel The Hiss is that the remaining three pieces legitimately do feel unfinished, particularly "Zilver Three," which is little more than a beat and would have me leveling some serious "shameless Vatican Shadow rip-off" accusations had it not been recorded back in 1995.  On the bright side, it is only two minutes long and serves as a palette cleanser of sorts before the next substantial piece.  The other two non-songs are even shorter, but range from a recording of wind chimes ("Zilver Seven") to an apparent studio experiment where Bryn just messed around with echoing tablas and blasts of white noise until he lost interest ("Zilver Nine").  The rest of the album is great though and quite singular within the vast Muslimgauze discography (I have seen comparisons to the busier, more industrial Minaret Speaker album, but that album has a very different feel).  Feel The Hiss is as close to a straight-up dub album as anyone could hope for from Jones: spacious, uncluttered, unhurried, and swirling with an immersive world of curious sounds and snatches of dialogue.
Also, I do not think any sane person ever expects a perfect Muslimgauze album, as Bryn was by nature too restless and self-cannibalizing to dwell on a batch of songs long enough to make that happen.  Jones did not make as many albums as he did by worrying about sequencing or about putting his best foot forward at all times–he did it by tirelessly and obsessively moving forward to keep up with his endless flow of ideas.  Some albums captured him on a particularly inspired streak and some did not.  Feel The Hiss is most definitely one of the former.
 
Continuing a strong and consistent period of activity that began in earnest with the third installment of the Read & Burn series, the legendary band's 14th album is yet another high water mark in their expansive (and extremely impressive) discography. Primary songwriting duo Colin Newman and Graham Lewis provide 11 all new songs that blend their artistic obtuseness with catchy songwriting and melodies, the type of sound that made Chairs Missing and The Ideal Copy so brilliant. With Robert Grey's steady drumming and an expanded role for guitarist Matt Simms, Wire is full of moments that are weird, sometimes challenging, but always fascinating and memorable.
The last album proper, 2013's Change Becomes Us, did not sit too well with me then and even now; two years and multiple listens later, I still have mixed feelings about it.The 2010’s shiny, polished incarnation of Wire taking on the confrontational Document and Eyewitness material, with all its bootleg quality harshness felt like an uncomfortable combination.Between that, and the slightly less-Wire Red Barked Tree, which at times was more reminiscent of a Colin Newman solo album, I was not sure what to expect coming into this one.
The first few songs reminded me more than a bit of Red Barked Tree, in that they were catchy and poppy songs, but not significantly memorable."Shifting" has Newman in his A Bell is a Cup era vocal style paired with light guitars and a nice melody.It is pleasant and enjoyable, but when it was over, it did not stick with me.The same goes for "Burning Bridges," with its mid pace and slightly processed vocals."Blogging" fares better with its killer Graham Lewis bass lead and synth flourishes, but lyrics rife with internet namedropping paired with Biblical references comes across as mix of clever and too clever.
The lyrically obtuse "In Manchester" is where the album picked up for me.The airy vocals and productions mixed with the faster pace immediately made me think, at least structurally, of "Follow the Locust."With Lewis taking the lead on lyrics on this album (although sadly he does not have any full length vocal performances here), "In Manchester" and many of the other songs are as lyrically abstract and surreal as the best of Wire’s output.The song blends nicely into the pulsing keyboards underscoring the sub-two minute "High," which has a similar structure, but a wonderful, infectious flow that simply ends too soon.
Released as a teaser for the album, "Joust & Jostle" is another winner in which the pacing of something like "Spent" or much of Pink Flag is flirted with, but in more of a restrained, pop-focused structure.On "Swallow" it seems like the band is looking back at "Heartbeat" as inspiration for the opening, though the finished product is not nearly as sparse or minimalist."Octopus" features an always-appreciated bit of Graham Lewis backing vocals, and has the lighter feel of the album, while still blending in some more dissonant elements both sonically and structurally.
I was most pleased by the two lengthy pieces placed roughly at the middle and end of the record."Sleep-Walking" hints at the sonic mystery and intrigue of "Ally in Exile" but with a more unconventional approach to the rhythmic structure compared to the remainder of the record, and an overall obtuse structure that was heavily sourced from improvisation.The concluding "Harpooned" takes on a more dirge-like pace, with an uglier guitar sound and a more sprawling arrangement that harkens more to the early days of Wire.While it is not as 'out there' as something like "Crazy About Love," it is the closest they have been in years.As I have mentioned in many previous reviews, I like my Wire weird and obtuse, while still being catchy and melodic, and both of these two manage to do that in a way that has been absent from recent albums.
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Jon Borges, who also records as half of Pedestrian Depot, has chosen a project name that is only partially fitting for the sound he creates. While the Loneliness part is most fitting, given its isolated and depressing sound, the Everyday part maybe not so much. False Validations is a standout within a field of frigid waves and minimalist drone, the sound of beautiful depression.
This is clearly a "genre" record that is focusing on, and embracing a very specific style and sound.In this case that sound is a suite of beautiful, yet lonely stretches of sparse electronics.The sparseness can be highly misleading though:"What Doesn't Belong" has a lengthy and constant sound throughout, but Borges builds the piece layer by layer, going from a thin drone to a heavy, rich piece that emphasizes all ends of the sonic spectrum.
The 11 minute "Pretender" has Borges using its duration to build from a cold, shimmering passage of sound into a more complex, heavy composition that manages to be simple, yet gripping.As my attention drifted in and out on my first time through the record, each time it came back I was struck at how much the piece had evolved and expanded from only moments before."No Permission Sought or Given" is still a beautiful piece of sound, but darkness enters the picture here.What sounds almost like echoing crashes in the far off distance is blending with ominous, humming electronics.Here the loneliness is enhanced by an additional ambiguous bleakness, with just a hint of evil.
The final two songs are no less isolating, but become darker and more dissonant as they conclude the album."Stasis Interlude" is still just as minimalist as the rest, but a hint of distortion enshrouds the electronics, at times a passage resembling a jet plane flying far off in the distance.The concluding "The Source's Ghost" is pushed further into darkness during its few minutes.Compared to the remainder of the album, it has a murky, sinister sound at first, and then becomes richer, heavily filtered and layered while still staying powerfully simple.Borges again cautiously utilizes distortion and noise to give texture to the piece, without offsetting its lonely and beautiful sound.
False Validations is not an easy record, being two vinyl sides of sparse, yet lovingly treated electronics and minimalist structures.It is not abrasive or harsh as a whole, but it is also the type of record that requires attention to fully appreciate.When given the intention, it is a gripping and intense, if somewhat depressing experience that is, as suggested, best experienced alone in a dark room.
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Cascade and The Deluge are variations on the latest tape-loop and delay composition from the inimitable William Basinski. Cascade is the CD/Digital variant, and The Deluge is the vinyl LP companion.
In Cascade, a single ancient lilting piano tape loop repeats endlessly carrying one along in its tessellating current.
In The Deluge, the same loop is processed through a series of feedback loops of different lengths, creating a spiraling crescendo of overtones that eventually fades away to silence. In the denouement, a series of limpid piano loops leads to an urgent orchestral theme that builds and gradually dies.
More information can be found here.
"I traced
the convolutions of
turf, laid out by men,
& made new windings with the mole
through undisturbed
barrows."
(Ronald Johnson, "The Book of the Green Man")
Belated Movements for an Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984 is Richard Skelton's second album as The Inward Circles, following 2014's Nimrod is Lost in Orion and Osyris in the Doggestarre. If his previous offering hovered "between the empyreal and the subterranean," Belated Movements is resolutely earthbound, beginning at ground level and slowly moving ever downward. The title is a reference to "Lindow Man," one of many bog bodies discovered in northern Europe in the twentieth century, and continues an archaeological theme which first surfaced in his 2013 *AR collaboration with Autumn Richardson, entitled Succession. In particular, it is the last composition from that album, Relics, which can now be seen as starting point for much of Skelton's future work as The Inward Circles. But whereas Relics dealt with the pollen remnants submerged beneath tarns in the remote Cumbrian uplands, Buried Movements evokes a distinctly funerary landscape.
The first piece, "Petition for Reinterment" begins in familiar terrain - a slow, solemn string elegy - but it gently begins to disintegrate, to distend and rot, as if the music itself is being subsumed in soil and subjected to the natural cycles of decay and renewal. It is interesting to note that, whilst the skin of bog-bodies is often very well preserved, the bones undergo a process of decalcification - they literally dissolve from within. But exhumations such as "Lindow Man" are now artificially preserved behind museum glass, removed from time, from earthly contact and the inexorable progress of nature itself.
By contrast, the music of Belated Movements continues its inner transformation, and "To Your Fox-Skin Chorus" divulges more of its innards, revealing hitherto unheard melodic, rhythmic and textural material. The reference to fox-skin, borrowed from Edmund Gosse, alludes to the fox-fur arm-covering found on "Lindow Man," and, more obliquely, to the fox as a psychopomp - a soul guide - which formed a central theme in Skelton's recent Feræ Naturæ book and exhibition.
The album concludes with a further downward delving to the bones of animals long made extinct in England by humans: the wolf, lynx and bear - animals that haunt the popular imagination. Here the music is at its most restless and forbidding, as it ends with an urgent call - Canis, Lynx, Ursus: Awake, Arise, Reclaim. There is a palpable sense, with its almost unbearable crescendo, of a rising up, a return to the surface, and a threatening quiet.
BELATED MOVEMENTS FOR AN UNSANCTIONED EXHUMATION AUGUST 1ST 1984
by The Inward Circles
1. Petition for Reinterment
2. To Your Fox-Skin Chorus
3. Canis, Lynx, Ursus: Awake, Arise, Reclaim
Total Running Time : 60mins
More information can be found here.
2015, and the silence has been broken with Simple Songs. Jim O'Rourke is ready to talk to you again. First, he wants you to know he's not dead...yet. But you're not, either-and really, what have you done lately? Certainly not made your first pop album since 2001-and even if you had, it probably wasn't any good. Meanwhile Simple Songs is more than just a first of anything since whenever! It's an amazing record of musical song entertainment-because Jim O'Rourke knows what he wants and how to get it...musically, that is. The rest of the world is still a mystery and a bottomless source of aggravation for the old boy. What do we care? We get a great new album out of it.
Yes, Simple Songs is an album of songs sung by Jim O'Rourke
All the way through! It has been ten years since Jim's voice rang out from a new album. What Simple Songs sounds like.... At this point, the range of sounds and songs that have turned Jim's head are numerous enough to have crushed together into something that is unmistakably his-the vast, glossy and glittering
O'Rourkian (yes, like Kervorkian) wall of sound. The music's got OCD quality, played so immaculately by so many instruments, and most of them by the creator's hand. This time's really the widest screen yet for Jim's popular song-style, truly breathtaking! Simple Songs was worked over, from source material to finished mix, for five years or more now.
Jim's writing is kinda rooted in the approach of Insignificance-frosted pop tarts that leave a darkly bitter aftertaste.
Let Simple Songs seep into your brain, as a musical expression on May 19th! Most of all though, don't hate this or he'll go away again for another decade!
Jim's got just what the world needs now-but who needs you?
More information is available here.
Backwards is very happy to announce the NEW My Cat Is An Alien studio double-album!
From the extended foreword insert by David Keenan: "What are we to make of My Cat Is An Alien, the duo of the brothers Roberto and Maurizio Opalio, titling this new extended sound work The Dance Of Oneirism? [...] None of the tracks have titles; instead we feel our way by number, by movement. Our co-ordinates are fixed, or more properly suggested, by the listing of instruments. Self-made double-bodied string instrument, handmade pocket harp, pedal effects, wordless vocalizations, modified analog drum machine, mini-keyboard, alientronics. But even here nothing is straightforward; everything is invented, shrunken, self-built, inchoate: alien-ated. The session was recorded – instantly composed – in MCIAA's "Alien Zone," situated in the Western Alps, and it sounds it. The central fact of MCIAA's music has always been space but they have never sounded quite so far away, so removed. [...] The music is extremely sensual. The rhythms have a contrary cold/organic quality to them, the feel of the pulse as the breath is held, but soon even that dies down and we are left with an extended, timeless moment, the space between one breath and the next. Occasionally there is the sound of strings, strange steel resonances that populate the music like ghosts, the ghosts of Roscoe Holcomb's high, lonesome sound, of Dock Boggs and the sanctified steel of Washington Phillips. Ash Ra Tempel met Timothy Leary in the Alps [...] The transmissions are fuzzy up here and at points it makes for a music of almost terrifying quiet. It is minimal, sure, but MCIAA are not so much interested in repetition as in eternal expansion. [...] The Dance Of Oneirism is a music of unknowing, a dance with a phantom, the letting go of a dream. It is MCIAA's greatest long form work. It has tributaries that run deep into the past, ghost channels that facilitate two-way travel, even as its destination, in the words of the late Conrad Schnitzler, is determinedly future, future, future." - David Keenan
Includes a photographic Art Book by Roberto Opalio. Silkscreened image by the artist on Side D. In first 80 copies LP1 and LP2 come each in different colours.
More information is available here.
Re-issue of the AMM tape recorded between 1981 and 1985 by JD Emmanuel, a new age composer who has received a lot of praise from people like Lieven Martens and John Olsen.
These recordings signify Emmanuel's praise to the course of the day. Starting off slowly, with morning synth meanderings, walking through midday, running in the evening and closing the day with midnight meditation.
"Somewhere hidden in the deepest part of the Self is that special place, where One can go within to the most ancient part of one's Self and connect with the origin of Self. Ancien Minimal Meditations reaches into that special place of creation of the Self and its Oneness with the Creator of All."
Side One:
Morning Worship (5:26)
Midday Attunement (12:33)
Side Two:
Evening Devotional (7:12)
Midnight Meditation (10:27)
Recorded using three Sequential Circuits Pro-One synthesizers and a Yamaha SK-20 Poly-Synthesizer.
More information is available here.
Enigmatic faces stare out from tableaux on walls and caves.
Impenetrable and mysterious they haunt the mind.
On the last edge of vibration they cross.
Unwelcomed and uninvited. A murmur in a shadow.
A last breath.
They have a tendency to walk through walls.
Wheels of fire spit flames into the night.
A dark road echoes.
The stars vanish.
A face in darkness shines.
A ribbon on a trace weed.
The last curl of smoke.
Eyes wide and seeing.
They came.
More information is available here.
ÜTOPIYA? not only continues Oiseaux-Tempête's first album, but it extends it. The travels move this time to Istanbul and Sicily providing the food for its urgent energy and indomitable drive. While the structures still hint at moments of post-rock, they go further now, almost into the area of free-jazz yet without losing a directness rooted in punk (highlighted perhaps by the presence of G.W.Sok from The Ex). In addition, the bass clarinet of Gareth Davis references both the roughest of experiments of Akosh Szelevényi and of The Stooges Fun House.
More information can be found here.
All art, whether by design or by accident, contends with time. But music’s relationship to it, like cinema’s, is pronounced, as is evident in the case of Anjou. On their Kranky debut, ex-Labradford members Mark Nelson and Robert Donne join Haptic’s (and Innode’s and Pan•American’s) Steven Hess for eight melancholy preludes focused on form, color, light, and time. Their songs are short, no longer than nine minutes, and expressionistic, dotted with half-heard rhythms and implied melodies orbiting a tonal center. They issue into the room in suspended animation and hang there mysteriously, heavy like a storm cloud. In them, the passage of time ceases to mark minutes and seconds and instead denotes the availability of different perspectives. Sounds are typically thought of as moving through spaces, but in this case spaces move through sounds, guided in their course by a trio of directors with an impossible view from above.
When it comes to melody, Anjou is all dark, thickly applied colors. It makes more sense to talk about the album’s latent melodies actually, as many of its songs, like "Lamptest" and "Readings," begin and end in nearly the same place with minimal development happening in between. They don’t move along linearly, from left to right, they vibrate in place or hum from top to bottom, congealing ultimately as textures, not as melodic lines. What distinct melodies there are generally fall by the wayside, usurped by stereoscopic radiation that bleeds out into fields of deep red, blue, and purple, all reverberating on an imposing black canvas.
A sense of darkness and of concealment permeates the entire album, from the structural level down to the instrumental, where fragmented or otherwise murky sediment constantly works to disguise the music’s formal features. The structure of each song is easy enough to spot. There is the looped synthesizer, the guitar feeding back on itself, the electronic drums beating softly in the background, static interference, live percussion, and sudden, solitary chords that open up in the noise like valleys opening up in the mountains. These are repeated, subdued, emphasized, distended, or otherwise modified in different ways, just enough to create a sense of movement, a sense that something is about to take shape. What that is never becomes clear, however. The shapes turn to shadows, the shadows to blurry movements, and the movements themselves to doubtful illusions.
The song titles all point in this direction either directly or obliquely: "Lamptest" and "Backsight" in the sense of shining a light on things and peeling back the dark, or at least trying to; "Readings" and "Adjustment" in the sense of interpreting something unclear; and "Sighting" and "Inclosed" in the sense of what can and can’t be seen, no matter how hard one looks. Because Anjou is so strongly visual —and because it is so effective at focusing the ear on a place where melody, rhythm, and texture meet— time is frozen and highlighted, made conspicuous in its subordination to space, color, and light. These songs don’t unfurl, they shift focus, as if a camera were recording them by moving up and down the length and width of a musical object. What we hear is just a small section of some endless unknown thing vibrating out in all directions. In this way time is made equal to space. It becomes an extra dimension and not just a series of hash marks reminding us that something was here once, but is now gone. Music has always made time available to the ears. On Anjou, Nelson, Donne, and Hess transpose it for the eyes.
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