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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To be frank, I am somewhat astonished that I like this album so much, as the combination of muted house beats and synth-based ambient music seemed like it could not be anything but lethally boring at this point, as the ship has definitely sailed on that particular niche.  However, it is impossible to overstate the importance of skilled execution.  In the wrong hands, great ideas are doomed, while the right artist can turn something seemingly dubious into something wonderful.  In this case, Tim Gray, recording as Ethernet, is the right artist.  It is hard to isolate exactly where all of his talents lie, but the most obvious one is that Tim is a truly excellent producer.
This second Ethernet album for Kranky is a curious continuation of an ongoing quest to détourné dance music rhythms into hypnotic, inward-reaching ambiance.  There are many, many ways for such an experiment to go badly awry, but Tim Gray deftly sidesteps nearly all potential perils to find a near-perfect balance between minimal techno and lush, softly hissing dreamscapes.
Gray's production genius is evident from the first notes of "Monarch," as the warm synth tones gently blur together and undulate like a thick mist.  The actual music seems deceptively simple, as the song is essentially built upon a few swelling chords, a slowly throbbing bass, and a fragmented, delay-heavy melody, but Tim transforms those components into something that feels alive, oceanic, and utterly absorbing.  This is the sort of song that warrants descriptors like "amniotic" and "womblike" and the remaining five pieces do not stray far from that template at all.
Ethernet's other area of expertise is a bit more vague, but it definitely originates from his in-depth studies of meditation, trances, and brainwaves: this is actually quite a hypnotic album.  Most of that is probably due to the slow-motion pulse of the kick drum, but it goes much deeper than that, as the omnipresent hiss and swelling, swaying chords seem to effectively mimic relaxed inhalation and exhalation. Aside from the production, that feat of illusion might be this album's greatest strength, as everything is so fluid and organic-sounding that it is very easy to forget that this is a laboriously constructed, multi-layered work that was painstakingly perfected a man in a room somewhere.  Instead, it sounds  like something spontaneous that just flowed out of my speakers.
I am a bit conflicted about most apparent flaws of Opus 2, as they could just as easily be interpreted as challenges that Gray managed to overcome.  Naturally, I was not thrilled to hear a four-on-the-floor thump in every single song and the rare appearance of cymbals was a bit distracting, but that omnipresent pulse seemed absolutely necessary in maintaining the album's dreamlike reverie and continuity.  I will say that I found the beat most effective when it was stealthily buried, as it is in "Cubed Suns,"but is hard to imagine the album working as effectively without that constant throb.  Also, some of the individual songs can drag a bit (particularly the lengthy "Pleroma") or get too pastoral in places, but they generally work well within the context of the entire album and there is enough unpredictability and dissonance to mostly keep things fairly compelling.  I suspect this album could have been massive if it had been released in the late '90s, but it is still a surprisingly enjoyable anomaly in 2012 that fits quite comfortably within the Kranky aesthetic (Loscil being the closest kindred spirit).
 
Koen Holtkamp and Brandon Anderegg return with yet another meticulously constructed suite of warm, partially acoustic soundcapes. Not much that will surprise longtime fans (though a pair of live pieces are atypically harsh), but a few of these pieces are quite beautiful. This, of course, is exactly what I would expect from a new Mountains album.
"Sand" begins Centralia on an absolutely perfect note, as a lazily repeating chiming note is gradually joined by low tones and warm waves of oscillating synthesizers.  Sadly, the spell does not last forever and it loses me a bit by the middle, as it eventually morphs into a burbling neo-kosmische analog synth workout.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not nearly as beautiful as the song's opening (or its droning, cello-centric ending).  Also, the recent synth revival avalanche has made it nearly impossible for me to enjoy anything that sounds '70s and space-y.  Thankfully straight-up synth worship is not generally what Mountains are about: Holtkamp and Anderegg are at their best when they balance their electronics with organic instrumentation like acoustic guitars, strings, and piano.  When they stick to that, the results are often quite impressive, as they are on the album highlight "Identical Ship," which elegantly marries rolling acoustic arpeggios, twinkling piano, and oscillating, hissing synthesizers.
In general, it tends to be the more guitar-heavy pieces that stand out, such as the darkly rustic "Tilt" or the gently shimmering "Living Lens."  However, there are a couple of anomalous live pieces featuring additional musicians that also make an impression of sorts.  The shorter of the two, "Liana," is something of a standard issue burbling and twinkling kosmische homage that ends with some unexpectedly jarring distortion-heavy guitar.  The considerably longer "Propeller" offers a similarly heavy climax after much synth noodling, but its distorted crescendo feels much more cathartic and well-earned.
Unfortunately, while I love some individual pieces, Centralia can be quite frustrating as an album.  With few exceptions, nearly every song boasts at least one motif that I wholeheartedly enjoy.  The tragedy is that that motif is always fleeting and that Mountains have an exasperating compulsion to steer every song into bubbly, candy-colored synth-based artificiality.This drives me insane, as Koen and Brandon can be so great when get the contrast between spaciness and earthiness just right.  They can even be great when their synths are employed to evoke an actual human mood, but too often the mood they seem to be aiming for is "very synthy" or "cloyingly cheery." I suspect people with less deeply ingrained hostility towards retro analog psychedelia may find a lot more to love about this album than I did, but "Sand" and "Identical Ship" are well-worth hearing in any case.
 
(Possibly) the final record by Broadcast featuring the late Trish Keenan, this is less of a proper follow-up to ...Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age than it is a sparse collection of novelties and scraps assembled for the movie it was scoring. Berberian Sound Studio does tend to follow faithfully in the same path that Broadcast's previous records set out for them, namely the increasingly ambient moods which pulse throughout, but I can't help but feel longing for what could have been.
Amidst the detritus, there lies scarce moments of composed music on Berberian Sound Studio: percussion and organ stabs at the beginning and middle, on the "Equestrian" tracks; brief, catchy and almost immediately over. Likewise, on "The Sacred Marriage," a simple melody is broken up by chimes ringing out. Apart from those songs—similar to "The Be Colony" from Witch Cults—this album is a funeral dirge dominated by somber drones and bursts of sampled noise. The music is interred in its subject matter; I have admittedly not seen the film that this is soundtracking, but it's clear from the scattershot organization of these songs that they thrive on context within the film, and outside of it there is little to latch onto.
Although I can find plenty of pleasant moments to enjoy—brusque synths, extracted audio bits and distant conversations, BBC Radiophonic Workshop homages, James Cargill's adept production—I can't really name any "songs" to highlight. Obviously it's a soundtrack, so some repeating motifs and themes are expected, but a large portion of the attention given to this comes from Trish Keenan's death, and the subsequent affirmation that this is one of her "final recordings," which means it is getting dressed up as if it were a fully realized album. In actuality, there's barely any of Keenan's presence to be felt here. Where her voice appears, it's all vowels, and it goes by so fast that it can be easily missed without paying attention.
As an exploration of haunting sounds and horror cliché turned on its head, this album is a quirky but honored effort which takes every measure to assure verisimilitude to the films which inspired it. But Broadcast were a band splintered apart by tragedy in the peak of creativity, and this doesn't do them justice as a final release. Hopefully something more complete is in the works that will serve as a proper send off.
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This is the 15th Annual Brainwashed Readers Poll: the longest running poll from a digital publication that allows the readers to both nominate and vote for the best and worst of the year. The writers don't all necessarily agree with the placement and rankings, but we have our last word in the comments we have provided.
Thanks to everyone who participated in both rounds and we wish you the best for 2013.
Album of the Year
Swans, "The Seer" (Young God)
Scott Walker, "Bish Bosch" (4AD)
X-TG, "Desertshore/The Final Report" (Industrial)
Andy Stott, "Luxury Problems" (Modern Love)
Om, "Advaitic Songs" (Drag City)
Earth, "Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II" (Southern Lord)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, "'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" (Constellation)
Windy and Carl, "We Will Always Be" (Kranky)
Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin, "Instrumental Tourist" (Mexican Summer)
Dead Can Dance, "Anastasis" (PIAS)
Vatican Shadow, "Ghosts of Chechnya" (Hospital)
Myrninerest, "'Jhonn,' Uttered Babylon" (The Spheres)
Single of the Year
Burial, "Kindred" (Hyperdub)
Live album/vault recording/reissue (or otherwise not really a "new full-length album")
Swans, "We Rose from Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head" (Young God)
Porter Ricks, "Biokinetics" (Type)
Antony and the Johnsons, "Cut the World" (Secretly Canadian)
[V/A]
"The Minimal Wave Tapes Volume Two" (Stones Throw)
Boxed Set
Can, "The Lost Tapes" (Spoon/Mute)
William Basinski, "The Disintegration Loops" (Temporary Residence)
Pauline Oliveros, "Reverberations: Tape and Electronic Music 1961-1970" (Important)
Act of the Year
Swans
New Artist of the Year
Goat
I totally missed the Goat phenomenon this year, but now that I've heard them, I'm glad they got this. World Music nailed every key psych/space rock trope with vibrancy and style while avoiding the misguided self-seriousness that plagues most of their peers. -Anthony D'Amico
Overlooked Staff Picks
Nazoranai, "Nazoranai" (Ideologic Organ/Editions Mego)
I love Keiji Haino and this year was a great year for anyone with an interest in his work. Between Fushitsusha not only releasing two full albums and touring along with his own solo work (see the earth-shatteringly good soundtrack to the new documentary on Haino for some amazing solo and Fushitsusha jams), it was his other collaborative efforts which caught my attention most. This live album recorded with a new trio featuring Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley was probably the highlight for me, there was nothing that approached the intense gravity and power of this performance. What a sound, what a noise and what a rush! - John Kealy
Steve Hauschildt, "Sequitor" (Kranky)
While Spencer Yeh's Transitions is definitely the most egregious snub of the year in my eyes, I think Hauschildt got quite a raw deal himself. A few of the more space-y and atmospheric pieces tend to drag a bit, but Sequitor's poppier moments are pure kitschy, lush, burbly fun (and unexpectedly soulful besides). "Constant Reminders" is easily the best song that Kraftwerk never wrote and I cannot stop listening to it. Also, it seems like a bizarre negative image of Emeralds'Just to Feel Anything, replacing the drama and moodiness with warmth, lightness, and an endearing sense of playfulness (and being a more enjoyable album for it). -Anthony D'Amico
Christian Wolff/Keith Rowe, "ErstLive 010" (Erstwhile)
The ErstLive series got four outstanding additions this year: one emotional and mind-blowing solo set from Keith Rowe, an excellent rendition of Antoine Beuger's S'approcher s'éloigner s'absenter, a mind-bending, ultra-minimal set from the duo of Taku Unami and and Radu Malfatti, and this first-time collaboration between Rowe and Christian Wolff, which I listened to the most. It's an under-appreciated and overlooked improv set from two legends who are still making incredible music more than forty years after they began. Wolff and Rowe's performance is subtle, sensitive, and totally engrossing. It points to a lot of fascinating ideas about the similarities between composition and improvisation and it encourages a kind of interactive listening that I don't always get from other music. But I love that I can turn it on and enjoy it for all its restraint and quiet beauty too. This was a pivotal record for me in 2012 and among the very best I heard all year. - Lucas Schleicher
CS Yeh, "Transitions" (De Stijl)
C Spencer Yeh'sTransitions proves that the casual brilliance of his debut single "In The Blink of An Eye/Condo Stress" was no fluke. He covers Stevie Nicks with a straight face, and his re-imagining of "Rooms on Fire" as a goth-synth piece is one of several tracks here that I have played continuously throughout 2012. This is an avant-pop album full of crisp guitar, sonorous vocals, bubbling synth, a little distortion and bold instrumental squiggles all of which put me in mind of Arthur Russell and the early solo records of Brian Eno. The original brainwashed review mentioned Robert Wyatt and Slapp Happy and "short punchy songs packed full of meaty bass lines, kitschy drum machine grooves, and a host of amusing curve-balls like horns, wah-wah guitar, and crude 8-bit-sounding synth textures." Yeh writes simple and enticing lyrics but his sketchy approach keeps their exact meaning tantilizingly just out of reach, oblique, and mysterious.Transitions even rehabilitates the line "on a dark desert highway" for which we should all be grateful. I am gobsmacked that this album was not included in the 100 Best and can only conclude that the world has finally gone mad. - Duncan Edwards
Horseback, "Half Blood" (Relapse)
In an overwrought marketplace of artists experimenting in a metal framework, Jenks Miller is one of the few that both manages to reach for new and different sounds while still maintaining a listenable, even sometimes catchy, overall sound. Minimalist in the La Monte Young sense, there is a clear, but tasteful repetition throughout. Plus, the idiosyncratic pairing of southern rock twang with ugly metal touches makes for a record that sounds like no one else. - Creaig Dunton
Fontanelle, "Vitamin F" (Southern Lord)
After a decade this supergroup returned with an absolute scorcher of a record. It's a monstrous fusion of dirty funk, jazz, and electronics contained within seven excellent pieces. Without hip, pretty faces or a mega tour, it's no surprise the album went relatively unnoticed. For those unconvinced, have a listen to the song featured in one of the most recent Brainwashed Podcasts. - Jon Whitney
Lifetime Achievement Recognition
Michael Gira
Through Swans, The Body Lovers/Haters, The Angels of Light, a solo career and back to Swans again, Michael Gira has charted an inimitable and intimidating path across the face of music. The last few years in particular have seen him rejuvenated and riding the crest of a wave I hope never breaks. The Seer is a monument to his will and integrity, the reformed Swans being far from a crappy cash grab. Like Neil Young’s return to Crazy Horse or Keiji Haino’s resuming of Fushitsusha, his act of bringing back Swans has opened up avenues that he has not tread in years and to find new routes that we have never seen before. The intensity, the power and the honesty at the center of his performances in any situation remain strong. Gira has put his life into his art and his art pulses with life, never lagging and never relenting. - John Kealy
Gira is an institution and a testament to perseverance. Could you have predicted anything close to his current career trajectory from the first time you listened to Filth or Cop? He's fared so well in these past few years since reforming Swans and touring constantly, and he seems more inspired and aggressive than before, like all he needed was a break to catch his breath. Being younger than most of the people I know who love Swans, I feel an odd sort of mirror image evolving for me, sharing the same exact feelings about the band they had felt years ago like they were brand new. Seeing them live last year and watching The Seer unfold was revelatory; I witnessed first-hand proof of a man who had stayed irreverent, resourceful, and forward-thinking well into his 50s and never stopped putting out incredible work all the while. The idea of a musical legend eluded me until I saw one in person. That is Michael Gira. – Adam Devlin
Michael Gira's mark on the world of music is immeasurable. For three decades he has been a beacon of all that is pure emotion musically: unfiltered, unapologetic, and uncompromised. Swans alone have influenced numerous careers spanning multiple genres. As a businessman, Gira has supported some incredible and diverse acts through Young God Records, releasing some fantastic albums, dismissing all limitations of sound or style. Gira hasn't ever resorted to self-reinvention; he has always been himself, and has never had to rely on self-parody or capitalized on any nostalgia. Michael is one of the hardest workers in the business and is always respectful and generous to his fans and supporters. He continues to make music available for those who take the time and effort to listen and invest. This year saw a massive three LP album and a live compilation—both heavily funded by overwhelming fan support—and more exhaustive touring. The younger people who weren't available to see Swans in the '80s or '90s are not getting some group of old guys paying tribute to their heyday, they're getting the real thing. The proof is, and has always been, right there. - Jon Whitney
I am a bit of a casual Swans fan by Brainwashed standards, but my appreciation for Gira as a bulwark of integrity, passion, will, and perfectionism in recent years cannot be overstated. Since Swans' return in 2010, he has seemed like a man possessed, delivering absolutely brutal live shows and releasing albums that threaten to eclipse everything he's done before. With The Seer, he may have actually succeeded in that (though I personally still stubbornly cling to Soundtracks for the Blind as favorite Gira album). After three decades of making and supporting great and uncompromising art, he is not merely one of the last men standing from the '80s underground, he is actually thriving. (Also, Young God is responsible for bringing Fire on Fire into my life, for which I am eternally grateful.) -Anthony D'Amico
Swans contributions to heavy, difficult music for the past three decades is undeniable, but Gira has shown himself to be an artist that can not sit still, and is never afraid of completely changing his sound at a moment's notice. In recent years, he has shown no signs of relenting, and besides curating the Young God label he managed to resurrect Swans with the same power and complexity that they had during their entire career. Additionally, his funding of these recent two albums was essentially embracing "crowd sourcing" before it became common knowledge, on his own terms and quite successfully. Adding that to a relentless touring schedule playing intense shows that artists a third of his age could only dream of doing, and I think his recognition is more than appropriate. - Creaig Dunton
Worst Album
Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra, "Theatre Is Evil" (8ft Records)
Animal Collective, "Centipede Hz" (Domino)
David Byrne and St. Vincent, "Love This Giant" (4AD)
Artist: Schloss Tegal
Title: Oranur III "The Third And Final Report"
Catalogue No: CSR174CD
Barcode: 5060174954092
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Dark Ambient
Shipping: Now
Based on the work of Wilhelm Reich and his encounters with UFOs, this influential album has been remastered and reworked from the original recordings, with new bonus tracks and new remixed versions. Originally released in 1997 on CD by Tegal Records (Ltd x 1000) and LP by Artware Productions, Germany (Ltd x 1000), all of the original subject matter has been taken to a new level with this digital recording from the analogue sources. This is the third and final warning to the sleeping beings of the earth. This album influenced many other electronic artists and has been hailed as one of the first recordings to be labelled “dark ambient”.
Tracks: 1. Oranur III “The Third And Final Report” / 2. Dark Eyes / 3. L5 – H.O.M.E.S. / 4. Coital Affirmation / 5. D.O.R. Manifestations / 6. Beyond The Wall Of Sleep / 7. Orop Desert EAS 1954-1955 / 8. Orena “Orop Terria” / 9. The Core Men / 10. We Just Got Tired “The Emotional Plague” / 11. You Can’t Wake Up
Artist: RMEDL / K11
Title: Chthonian Music
Catalogue No: CSR176CD
Barcode: 5060174954122
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Ritual / Drone / Dark Ambient
Shipping: Now
Reissue of an extremely limited 2010 release (x50 private copies). This multi-dimensional collaborative opera (audio installation and concept album) is a bridge between the conception of sound within the contemporary art scene, post-industrial culture and the avantgarde black metal musical scene. It focuses on creating a dialogic development between radical forms of concrete music, unorthodox sounds, conceptual arts and experimental recording practices of acoustic phenomena. The following artists participated on the release:
Aderlating, Andrea Marutti, Burial Hex, Christina Kubisch, Deadwood, Francesco Brasini (Sevenguitars), Francisco Lopez, Gianluca Becuzzi, L’Acephale, Luciano Maggiore, Massimo Bartolini, Nordvargr, Philippe Petit, Seth Cluett, Utarm, Y.E.R.M.O..
Tracks: Mvndvs / 2. Katàbasis Pt. I / 3. Katàbasis Pt. II / 4. Katàbasis Pt. III / 5. Katàbasis Pt. IV / 6. Katàbasis Pt. V / 7. Nuktèlia
This album from Egan Budd's solo noise project is one that comes together splendidly at the intersection of a multitude of sounds, approaches, and structures, although the mood remains consistently dark throughout. While at times the bleak atmospherics at times become a bit too much, overall it is a strong and aggressive album.
Opening with "Abortion Rites," a mess of slowly undulating and distorted tones, there is a sense of restrained malignancy, like a dark apparition closing in.The addition of mangled strings and increasing volume builds upon this tension until it is engulfed by a grinding layer of digital noise, pairing the distortion with an almost hymnal layer beneath.The closing ends up a battle of dark synth passages and unrestrained power electronics harshness taking turns in bludgeoning one another.
"My Time Will Never Come" has a different approach, mixing keyboard passages with metallic, clattering objects that alternate between pure dissonance and structured melody, carried over into a pairing of distorted electronics and an insinuated rhythm.The closing passage of tolling bells and keyboards results in something that leans a bit too far into goth cheesiness for my liking, however.
"What You Believe" is less about hinted melody and more focused on atmospheres.Rhythms that resemble an idling engine mixed with booming, reverberated thuds and crashes results in an expansive, although bleak ambience that begins to be filled with creaking objects and humming electronics, eventually collapsing into an abyss of junk percussion and overdriven noises.
The final track, "Breathe," is all about pulsing electronics and lower frequency passages.What sounds like pieces of indecipherable words and electronic passages become darker and heavier with time, again insinuating malignancy more than being outwardly aggressive.The latter moments bring back the overdriven electronic squalls and harsh feedbacked bits, but with a certain level of restraint that keeps things from becoming a full on noise fest.
On each of these long pieces, Budd plays a compelling game of juggling atmospheric, at times melodic bits of electronics with unmitigated distorted outbursts.While there are times where it occasionally drifts into cliché "dark" territories, those spots are few and forgivable within the overall context of the album.
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On his third album as Bionulor, Sebastian Banaszczyk has made an even greater leap into personalizing his sound. While he still focuses on the use of processed and recycled sounds, here there is a sense not only of consistency from piece to piece, resulting in a cohesive album of material, but also a more personal touch, a human element all too often missing from this sort of music
Erik is based entirely upon the composition "Gymnopédies" by Erik Satie,throughout the 15 pieces that make up this album, Banaszczyk keeps with a recurring motif of backward melody from the original composition. The results come across like a childhood memory that has never left.The cover sketch of his hometown seems to round out this piece of nostalgia.
Pieces like "ST.001" and "ST.008" add to the vintage feel of the album.The former's aged crackles obscuring melody and miniscule changes result in an overall intimate sound, while the latter's use of silence with processed melody comes together with a complexity that belies its overall basic structure.
"ST.007" leans more into conventional music sounds, with mangled tones providing the foundation for mostly untreated piano and a dissonant, unidentifiable accompaniment.Similarly, "ST.004"'s seemingly random outbursts of static and music come across like the dying pulses of a radio tower, covering a lot of ground in its rather short duration.
The longest piece, "ST.009", makes good use of its extended duration.Fragile melodies rise and fall before being mangled and pulled together, resulting in a more dissonant, but not overly raw piece.This becomes a cyclic process that keeps a high level of diversity throughout.The following piece also exemplifies this greater sense of complexity, bouncing extremely tiny sounds around a mix together resulting in a piece that feels a bit more collage-like in comparison, but not sloppy or inconsistent.
The only tracks that come across as less engaging are the ones that show little change or variation in their structure, such as the third and final pieces.However, given their short lengths it comes across more like an interlude or a brief experiment rather than an attempt at a fully realized track, so it does not detract from the album as a whole.
I compared the first Bionulor album to the earlier works of Aube, but on Erik, Sebastian Banaszczyk has developed a much stronger identity and personal sound.While the extreme processing and dissection of preexisting sounds can make for an interesting experience, it does not necessarily make for an enjoyable one, but on here it results in a pleasant, but also bold album that hits all the right notes for this kind of sound art.
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Performed, composed, and recorded over a period of 14 months, Crosshatches is a massive and exquisitely constructed 85 minute piece stretched across two compact discs. On it, Pisaro and Tsunoda sketch and blend non-musical sounds into musical ones, erasing the seemingly natural distinction between them as they go. The vehicle for that transformation is crosshatching, which the duo elegantly transforms into a musical mode.
Hatching is a technique used in the visual arts that consists in placing roughly discrete parallel lines next to eachother at various distances. Cross-hatching is a similar technique. By varying the angle, closeness, thickness, and lengths of their lines, artists such as Albrecht Dürer used it to create the illusion of volume, texture, and contrast in his drawings, woodcuts, and engravings. I keep thinking about these qualities when listening to Michael Pisaro and Toshiya Tsunoda's Crosshatches on Erstwhile. Beside the pleasure of hearing the album, which is subtle, sometimes delicate, and quite beautiful, I've enjoyed thinking about the ways Pisaro and Tsunoda translate this visual technique into a musical one.
Crosshatches is made up primarily of sine tones and field recordings. The field recordings come both raw and in a manipulated state, whether they're chopped, looped, distorted, or otherwise. Guitars are used briefly in a few passages on the first disc, and a piano shows up near the end of the second. I assume that Michael plays both and that Toshiya provides the field recordings, but there are no credits to confirm that suspicion and no other information online. Static, interference, and possibly other sources are also used.
Initially, the music sounds one-dimensional. Michael and Toshiya's contributions bleed into one another, forming a hard, smooth surface. It's the musical equivalent of seeing a polished marble block or rolling a glass bead around in your hand. With time, variations and contrasts emerge. Instruments rise above the surface and draw shapes in the air, and tiny imperfections, little details previously unnoticed, come into focus. I hear people laughing in the distance, insects, and maybe the shuffling of equipment in a studio. The music branches out, diversifies, and confuses simultaneously. There's a beautiful crescendo on the first track of the first disc that culminates in little bursts of guitar and a heavily plucked bass. Buzzing tones continue underneath, but I can no longer distinguish which of them are recorded and which are performed, and I can't even be sure that the guitars themselves aren't a kind of modified field recording—maybe just the sound of someone warming up.
One of my favorite sections is on the second track of the second disc. It is, as far as I can tell, a mostly untouched recording of a storm. The recording captures the sound of rain, wind, and the whipping of tree limbs; I can close my eyes and half imagine the bushes outside my window bending and dancing in the downpour. Only after listening to the album a couple of times did I notice the sine waves shimmering at the edges of the storm. They were there when the recording started, but I thought they had disappeared. Were they invisibly present the whole time? Or deftly re-inserted into the mix? It isn't easy to tell and since the wind and waves pair so well I can't be sure what would happen if any of the elements of the recording were taken away. I also can't be sure there aren't more invisible elements swimming quietly in the background.
There's a corresponding section in "1.1" where Toshiya and Pisaro combine apparently random static with more obvious field recordings. Listening to the static closely, it sounds like a heavily modified version of the storm recording; the rhythmic character of the water is at least intact. There's some fun in trying to guess which sounds come from which sources and I enjoy the way the music draws connections between cricket sounds and the crack of water on the ground, or between plucked guitar strings and the sound of far off voices. But that says only a little about why the album is beautiful. The way the sounds are combined and folded into each other is pleasing in its own right, as are the moments of near silence and melody that dot the album under different guises.
As with any piece that uses crosshatching, the music on Crosshatches is spun out of elements that are invisible from a distance but discernible with attention. I think of Albrecht Dürer's engravings and notice that his lines rarely call attention to themselves. I notice the subjects in his work first: the people and the shading, the scene and the illusion of depth. Only later do the lines come to the fore and only if I choose to look. Nearly the same thing happens on Crosshatches, except Pisaro and Tsunoda also work with duration, so elements of their work pop in and out of focus over time. Translating a visual technique into an musical one forgoes the unveiling of a completed work. Unlike Dürer, Michael and Toshiya don't build up familiar images with their lines. What we get instead are illusory scenes that converge and fall apart; the coming and going of sounds produced, recorded, rent apart, and blended together again.
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The trajectory of Natural Snow Buildings continues to amaze me with each new album, as Mehdi and Solange seem to grow more and more inventive and skilled at composition every single time they surface.  Mehdi's last solo effort, the drone-heavy Then Fell the Ashes... was one of favorite albums of 2011, but Bogyrealm Vessels is a completely different (but no less wonderful) animal: an enigmatic and weirdly beautiful song-based concept album involving a space invasion, schoolgirls, and giant plants.
One of the more endearing aspects of Natural Snow Buildings is immediately evident here: while this is musically a Mehdi Ameziane solo album, Solange Gularte's cover art is absolutely crucial.  In fact, what little I can piece together about the album's concept is taken almost entirely from the accompanying art (though the evocative song titles help a bit too).  I wholeheartedly appreciate how cryptic Bogyrealm Vessels narrative is left, as it is an intriguing challenge to try to figure what it all means.  Also, I generally hate rock operas and concept albums, so I would probably have flung Bogyrealm across the room if Mehdi had done something as uncharacteristically ham-fisted as spelling everything out with clumsily expository lyrics.  I am a huge fan of vague, unexplained menace though, so this approach works just fine for me.
Curiously, most of that sense of menace stems from the album's apparent narrative, as the actual music is much less heavy and dark than I historically expect from Twinsistermoon.  Also, when Mehdi sings, the lyrics that I can make out would not seem disturbing at all if decontextualized from the art and song titles.  That lighter touch works beautifully here, as Bogyrealm Vessels has the gently hallucinatory feel of a deeply strange, warm, and beautiful dream that seems fragile enough to dissipate at any moment.  That perfect surreal reverie is threatened slightly by the brief, but relatively straightforward, acoustic balladry of "Bogyrealm" and a few other moments, but Mehdi is otherwise infallible in keeping me fully immersed in his alternately uneasy and blissful alternate world.
Roughly half of the album is still devoted to drone pieces, but they are uncharacteristically short and shimmering, acting mostly as pleasant interludes between the folkier "songs."  The sole significant exception is the grindingly heavy "Interferences From Extincts," which favorably recalls some of Mehdi's more crushing work from the past.  All of the drone pieces on Bogyrealm Vessels are quite good despite their brevity.  That came as no surprise to me, as Mehdi has long ago proven himself to be a master of the form.  However, I was caught off-guard by how much I loved some of the vocal pieces.  While Mehdi's singing does not depart much from the eerie child-like dirges of past efforts, his lazily cascading and off-kilter guitar playing on pieces like "In Deep Waters" and "Prisms" is absolutely ideal for the album's dreamy, not-quite-there fantasia.
This is a very unusual effort within the Twinsistermoon oeuvre due to its lightness and relative insubstantiality, but I see both of those traits as definite assets.  This is a great album, all the more so because Mehdi avoids both repeating his previous successes or plunging too deeply into the sadness that pervades some of his earlier work.  As aforementioned, a few of the songs here do not quite sustain Bogyrealm Vessel's lysergic trance as well as they could have, but they are easily eclipsed and forgotten by the album's end.  It is funny to think that an album this deeply weird can be considered "accessible," but it feels like it is...comparatively, anyway.  While I personally prefer some of Mehdi's heavier, long-form drone pieces to any of the individual pieces here, this is a strong candidate for Twinsistermoon's finest complete work.  At the very least, it is the most endlessly listenable.
 
Ben Chatwin's latest effort is an experiment gone awry in the best possible sense, as his initial plan to make an album in a single week ultimately turned into his spending more than a year trying to abstractly replicate the creation of the world using The Seven Days of Creation as a guideline.  Unsurprisingly, the resultant album is considerably brighter than its brilliant predecessor (Day One being the creation of light, after all) as well as more structurally complex and dynamically varied, but Ben's compositional talents thankfully seem to have had no trouble matching his daunting ambition.
With this album, it no longer seems right to describe Ben Chatwin as a guitarist anymore, as he has most definitely made the leap to "composer."  And It Was So is certainly still guitar-based, but Ben also prominently plays organ, synthesizer, and bells and enlists a number of other musicians to contribute strings and percussion.  Also, Chatwin's most impressive achievements here are overcoming the production and compositional challenges inherent in such a massive and difficult undertaking.  After all, the Genesis creation narrative is all about nothingness and entropy gradually taking shape.  Evoking nothingness in a compelling way is not easy.
For the most part, Chatwin wisely chooses to depict that unformed chaos with murky, moody synths and darkly gnarled guitars, which reprises a lot of what he did so wonderfully on Descent Into Delta.  He does it wonderfully again here, but I was most impressed with how varied and multifaceted some of the drone sections are this time around.  The opening "Let There Be Light," for example, creates its droning bed from a number of divergent textures: brooding and throbbing synths, twinkling guitar shimmer, distantly chattering voices, and harsh distorted strums.  Also, the whole complexion of Ben's drones changes dramatically from song to song.  For example, "The Two Great Lights" is built upon a restrained, melancholy organ motif, while the following "Swarms of Living Souls" has a much harsher bed of buzzing and grinding guitars.  Despite their similar bases, none of these seven pieces have the same atmosphere at all.
Of course, what makes Talvihorros so great is that Chatwin is not content to merely make an excellent drone album: the real magic occurs when form emerges from the chaos.  Interestingly, it is generally not the emerging motifs themselves that make And It Was So so mesmerizing, as most of them are too understated to make a strong impact as melodies (this is by design).  Rather, the beauty lies in how the new motifs wrestle and contrast with the underlying thrum or in how the songs' original musical thread seamlessly falls away altogether.  This feat is executed most dazzlingly in "Let There Be Light," as Ben uses Hecker-esque crackles and stutters to make it seem like the titular light is actually tearing through the previously existing music.  That success is not a wild fluke though, as many of the other songs develop in equally inventive ways, such as the slowly emerging and abruptly warping synth pattern that builds within "The Two Great Lights."
Chatwin has made a near-perfect and wholly unique album, all the more impressive given its bold scope.  No one else could have made this.  My sole critique is more of a personal preference rather than a shortcoming: sometimes the rare appearances of drums or an actual riff remind me that there are actual people in a room somewhere playing this music, which  causes the dreamlike spell to flicker a bit for me.  That is an extremely minor quibble in the face of such a massive accomplishment though.  And It Was So is truly a compositional tour de force, seamlessly weaving seven individually impressive narratives into one wonderfully absorbing and listenable arc.  Whether it is actually a better album than Descent Into Delta is hard to say, but this is unquestionably Chatwin's artistic zenith to date.
 
