24 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

I have fallen in love with Bob Mould again. I had the amazing opportunity of seeing Hüsker Dü as a teenager on their final tour and Mould's first two solo albums have a lot of outstanding songs, but for me it wasn't until Copper Blue that I became more in touch with his music. Twenty years ago, Mould was able to thread a collection of great songs into something much more magnificent. With Silver Age, he has finally, for me at least, been able to do this again.

Merge

I have always admired Bob Mould as an incredible songwriter and player, singing straight from his bleeding heart, pulling no punches. Each album since the demise of Sugar—yes, this is 18 years in a row—seems like an experimental new direction. Bob got tired of the "rock" thing and made the eponymous hubcap album, got tired of the "rock" thing again and vowed to stop playing loud after The Last Dog and Pony Show. After discovering techno and loading albums with too much material, he found a vocoder, making his last release, Life and Times, almost completely unlistenable.

With the 20th anniversary of Copper Blue, perhaps he has rediscovered how much a simple and direct rock record with a lot of guts, hooks and melodies, threaded together with appropriate transitions works masterfully. He did do it before, so it's not as if he can be accused of ripping himself off. Silver Age is once again an extremely personal statement, as almost all of his songs are presented with the angst of a vicious rocker in the prime of his life, even though, at 18, Bob enters his own silver age.

It is impossible to avoid comparison to Copper Blue, as it follows the exact same trajectory: open with a slow, but driving introduction—"Star Machine" provides an "Act We Act" type intro—before launching into a sequence of three prime-time-ready hit single types, reaching cilmax in the middle—"The Descent," a "Changes"-caliber gem—and coming down to close side one on a slow, but majestic loud masterpiece. "Stream of Hercules" probably won't find as many worshippers as "Hoover Dam," but it sure is a fine contender.

Side B once again isn't as much of a hit factory. For me, the second half gets progressively better, with the last two songs leaving the largest impressions. It's no surprise that a song bearing the title of "Keep Believing" is probably the song most reminiscent of Hüsker Dü that Mould has possibly ever made in his career since. Closer "First Time Joy" has a cadence like a memorable final sequence in a tense but enjoyable film and over the few months of listening to this album, it has been strong enough to make me start again from the beginning numerous times.

Silver Age has not worn thin on me in the last since I first got it, and it has most definitely earned my admiration as one of my top albums of the year. What I do miss is having the physical album, looking at the lyric sheet, but that's probably more of a time issue than an actual physical product issue. (The most time I spend with these days is spent commuting, rather than attentive at home or out in the live scene.) I would like to feel as intimate with the album as I have been with many of Mould's other records. With that in mind, it's almost a disservice writing this review before I have truly soaked it in as much as I want to. This will take some more time, however, but it will at least be an enjoyable time.

24 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

While some of Collins' works have leaned a lot into more guitar-centric sounds and traditional structures, on Tenebroso he goes for a more understated, cinematic approach. Bleak and dark, but without any trite cliché elements, the resulting disc is a wonderfully unsettling one.

Handmade Birds

Collins works heavily with silence and quiet bits throughout this album.After its initially noisy opening, "Scythe" drifts slowly into sparse piano, initially fragmented notes that slowly become more elongated and sustained into longer passages, conjuring a creeping tension until its conclusion.

"In Valleys" also leads off with practically silence, eventually coming together in a clattering mass of what sounds like far off strings and wind chimes that stays pretty open and arid throughout."What You Are Now We Used To Be" also begins in mostly quiet, like howling winds in the distance, but eventually builds to a swarm of insects, the audio equivalent of pestilence ravaging the land.

"What We Are Now You Will Be" allows for some minor bits of melodicism to come forth, cavernous resonations echoing beneath massive, sprawling tones.The closing "Devil" encompasses it all, initially a minimal, distant hum that ends up aired with an organ ringing away somewhere deep beneath the earth.It does not take long before the silence is removed, ending the disc on an especially shrill, harsh noise outburst that sounds distinctly evil.

It is almost a shame that the whole Mayan apocalypse thing did not happen, because Tenebroso would have made the perfect soundtrack for it."Tapeta Lucida" perfectly encapsulates destruction, from the rush of winds to burning fires to creaking noises like the Earth breaking apart.As far as conveying darkness, William Fowler Collins has created a work that rivals Lustmord's Heresy as a piece of captivating, but sinister audio.

samples:

• Scythe
• What You Are Now We Used To Be
• Devil

 

24 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

While the recent Gustafsson album Bengt saw the prolific saxophonist working with extreme restraint, here with the Norwegian trio Ich Bin N!ntendo he is doing anything but. A short, but fierce live performance captured and mastered by Lasse Marhaug, it lurks somewhere between free jazz, punk, and noise and makes for a unique, if slightly painful experience.

Va Fongool

Broken into three tracks totaling about a half hour, the fidelity of the recording is rough at best, but the rawness adds to the overall feel to the album."Start First" launches right in, its shrill brittle guitar distortion cuts like a dull serrated knife.Between that, the clapping drums, and piercing horns, intense barely begins to describe it.With the acidic sax and overdriven bass, it vacillates between chaos and order, occasionally locking nicely into taut grooves that resemble a messier version of John Zorn's Painkiller.

"End" oddly sits in the middle, and at only three minutes it jumps right in as an explosion of sound, wasting no time getting down to business.It briefly settles into an understated groove, but that hardly lasts long. "Second" actually makes up more than half of the disc, and demonstrates a bit more organization to the performance.Opening up with extended guitar riffs, the drums, bass, and sax eventually come into more of a shamble rather than a blast.The quartet actually slows down a bit here and there though, opening up the mix a bit to allow more subtle, echoing guitar passages, but still retaining that scorched earth, burnt out quality to it.Subtlety is of course relative here, and even at that it does not stay calm for long, quickly going back into the full on noise skronk to finish out the performance with the same intensity it started with.

Overall the collaboration may sound like a free jazz album, but the combination of the performance and the appropriately nasty recording quality give it much more of a fitting, snotty edge, which comes together quite well.Given the juxtaposition of Gustafsson's earlier work this year, it definitely shows his range of playing, and the Ich Bin N!ntendo members, who I am otherwise not familiar with, manage to hold their own nicely in this brilliantly unhinged work.

samples:

• Start First
• End
• Second

 

21 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

It certainly does not seem as if it has been seven years since Ciphers + Axioms, but it has, and Even if it Takes a Lifetime is the first music Anatomy of Habit have released since then. The heaviness that pervaded their previous two albums and debut EP is here for sure, but there is also a greater sense of melodicism, spearheaded by band leader Mark Solotroff’s (Bloodyminded, The Fortieth Day) vocal approach. The album still sounds like the same band, but one that has solidified into a pummeling, yet nuanced machine that is as complex as it is heavy, resulting in their best work to date.

Self-Released

The album opens with "A Marginal World" and, at less than seven minutes, is the shortest song the band has created so far. With the limited duration the band wastes no time launching in to a heavy chug by rhythm section Skyler Rowe and Sam Wagster, nicely complemented by Solotroff's bandmate in Bloodyminded Isidro Reyes' metal clattering accents. Solotroff's booming voice comes right in quickly, his stentorious delivery as severe as ever. Rapid fire snare and cymbals soon come in, upping the tempo and giving a slightly less doom laden feel compared to their other work. There are a lot of transitions given its short length, but it leads to a complex, yet immediate sound from the start.

"Your Pure Breath" blends right in from "A Marginal World," leading from a droning tone into sparse guitar.Bass and dramatic vocals eventually come in, and then the heavy, pounding drums and squalling guitar.It is certainly heavy, but not overly oppressive, and the slow depressive flow highlights the squalling guitar and subtle metallic percussion.The structure towards the end is especially notable, hinting at some of the band’s less overt post-punk influences via Alex Latus' guitar work.

Album closer "Now We Finally Know Ourselves" clocks in at 19 minutes and thus feels most in line with previous works from the band.It beautifully shifts from subtle echoing guitar, pulsating electronics, and understated metal work before locking into that insistent throb the band does so well.There are multiple phases of heavy pound versus open reflective passages, keeping the dynamic fresh and varied.There is even a bit of lush organ thrown into the mix.For all its dour heaviness, there seems to be an almost positive, uplifting end with Solotroff singing the title of the song, sounding almost like a new beginning.Compared to previous works (and his other projects), Solotroff's lyrics seem more personal this time around, with an emphasis on love, loss, and relationships with others.

Solotroff's commanding, declarative voice is certainly present, but he has obviously has added a bit more melodicism that complements the music perfectly.It is still undeniably him (and Anatomy of Habit), but it is an added depth that makes Even if it Takes a Lifetime unique, congealing into something more song-like and musical compared to the relentless heaviness that defined their previous works.There is a second album pending that was recorded at the same time, and I am certainly curious how it compares, but even just more of this would be fine by me.

Samples can be found here.

17 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

Winter is the most fitting season for Deupree's music, a distinctive blend of cold, sparse spaces mixed with warm, melodic passages. Faint is no different, an album consisting of five long pieces that capture the stillness of nature, the coldness of electronics, and the warmth of organic instrumentation.

12k

The two opening pieces, "Negative Snow" and "Dreams of Stairs," put an extra emphasis on the sometimes hidden but always gorgeous melodic elements of Deupree's sound."Negative Snow" initially hides amongst what sounds like a slowly rushing river and small, delicate noise fragments that twitter about.Eventually an organic, almost breathing melody comes out of the abstraction, adding a human warmth to an otherwise cold piece.

Taylor employs some unidentifiable clattering object as a textural element on "Dreams of Stairs," is mixed with insinuated guitar and fragile xylophone like tones.There is a sense of spaciousness that pervades, even as it builds up to a slightly more forceful conclusion, but for the most part it comes across like a warm, misty morning.

"Thaw" and "Sundown" instead choose to showcase the textures rather than the melodies.The former is a slowly expanding wall of sound that is more static and drifting than the sounds Deupree usually works with, resulting in a meditative, frozen piece of music."Sundown" opens with a droning, organ like passage that again channels a vast expanse, aided by quiet, crackling textures that stay very minimal throughout.Infinitely stretching tones rise and fall at differing intervals, but help close the otherwise sparse piece in a dramatic swell of sound.

Between is a single track performance recorded on a recent tour of Japan, with Deupree alongside Simon Scott, Corey Fuller, Marcus Fischer, and Tomoyoshi Date, all artists that compliment one another, but each take their own direction in terms of sound.Working with a combination of electric and stringed instruments, the amount of caution and restraint used by each performer is admirable:sounds are kept hushed and quiet, each conveying a sense of intimacy as if being in the room as the recordings were taking place.

Droning tones meld with minimal percussive pings, sounding neither like a traditional instrument nor a random sound, but somewhere in between.At times a ghostly melody, at other times a found object scrape become the focus, with attention slowly drifting between the two.The latter half brings in a bit more electronic instrumentation, mixed with the delicate, natural textures of before.The little clicks and pops that spring up are reminiscent of elements of the so-called Lowercase sound, but here they compliment a soft melodic drift rather than a cold passage of electronic music.

samples:

• Negative Snow
• Thaw
• Between

 

17 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

Embracing the world of niche analog formats, Albany, New York’s Century Plants—the duo of guitarists Eric Hardiman and Ray Hare—have just put out this lathe cut 7" and one sided LP of new material that differ drastically from one another in style and sound, but have the same undeniable level of depth and quality that I have come to expect both from this project and from the requisite multitude of side-projects they are involved in.

Tape Drift

On the 7" single, "Illuminate the Light" is the more stripped down of the two, with Hardiman and Hare playing mostly undistorted, intertwined echoing guitar passages, making for a somewhat subdued sound. It gets offset, however, by slightly menacing swells of feedback that keep things at a pleasant state of unease."Blackout the Night" goes for a bit more of a psychedelic feel, throwing in some reversed guitar tones and a more complex, almost jazz influenced guitar duality.Unfortunately, being a lathe cut slab of vinyl the fidelity is a bit lacking, but the included CDR of the same material makes that a non-issue.

The one-sided self titled LP is a different beast entirely.Somewhere between a cover and tribute to Discharge's "State Violence State Control," it retains the duo's psychedelic leanings, but with extremely different results.Recorded live last year with Phil Donnelly on drums, it makes for a spikier, slightly nastier performance.Moving along at a moderate, but solid pace, it captures the best moments of space rock with a snarling, punk edge.There really is no delicate guitar playing or understated melodies to be heard here, just big fuzzed out riffs, Hare's aggressive vocals, and Donnelly’s steady, yet complex rhythms.

I never have any idea what a Century Plants release from will sound like, but I love this. Other than the unifying psych rock elements, the sound can be completely different from one track to the next, exemplified by this pair of simultaneous releases which sound like drastically different projects.

samples:

• Illuminate the Light
• Blackout the Night
• State Violence State Control

 

17 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

There are very few musicians that can craft a genuinely compelling album from just a few sustained tones or chords and most of them (Catherine Christer Hennix and Eliane Radigue, for example) seem to have records on Important.  With the eerie and evocative Secret Photographs, Rutger Zuydervelt has decisively earned his place in that highly exclusive clique.

Important

Notably, Secret Photographs is a soundtrack to a Mike Hoolboom film that has not yet been completed.  I say "notably" because I generally avoid soundtracks, as by their very nature they are not meant to stand on their own–they exist to provide coloration for a visual component.  It is very rare for one component of a multimedia work to dazzle me when decontextualized from its intended whole.  The infrequent exceptions tend to occur with experimental cinema where music tends to either drive or share supremacy with the images.  Hoolboom's unfinished film certainly seems to fall within that category, but it probably does not hurt that the music was completed before the film.

It probably also helps that the film sounds quite fascinating, which no doubt played a role in inspiring Rutger to compose some of the most beautiful music of his career.  Essentially, the completed film will be an unfolding series of still photographs by Alvin "Creepy" Karpis slowly dissolving into one another.  Karpis was a key member of Ma Barker's infamous gang in the '30s and a former Public Enemy #1 to boot (no small accomplishment).  After a long incarceration and some time exiled in Canada, he spent his final years living in Spain where he developed an intense obsession with photography.  He never showed these photographs to anyone, but they eventually surfaced on eBay and Hoolboom wisely pounced on them, thus beginning the chain of events that led to this album.

Each of the three pieces here spans roughly twenty minutes and maintains an overarching aesthetic of fragile, lonely shimmer and near-static, glacial pace.  The degree of Zuydervelt's ultra-minimalism varies quite a bit from piece to piece, however.  The most minimal of all is the opening "Part One (Black and White)," which is based entirely upon the shifting harmonies of a few artfully blurred and slowly changing tones.  Notably, I cannot tell which instrument they may have originated from, which imbues them with a rare beauty and purity.  Normally, that also comes with a loss of character, but that does not occur here, as the evocatively drifting and forlorn atmosphere is perfect just the way it is.  Also, Rutger deftly employs quiet field recordings of ambient outdoor life and distant cars to provide a very real sense of (lonely) place.

The second piece, "Part Two (Colour)," is a bit closer to what I normally expect from Machinefabriek: a slowly unfolding and melancholy guitar figure that ultimately coheres into a swelling drone.  As such, it is not nearly as revelatory as the other pieces on the album, but it provides a very necessary contrast  and is quite good for what it is.  Also, if I listen extremely closely near the beginning, I can hear something that sounds like a very menacing pack of barking dogs, which changes the whole mood of the piece for me.  It is so buried, however, that it could easily be any number of other things, ranging from a distorted, distant television to simply a processed loop of Rutger's fingers sliding over his guitar strings.  I like mysteries and hidden nuances, especially if they can be construed as somewhat disturbing.

Zuydervelt saves his most inspired piece for last, as "Part Three (Black and White)" is essentially a reprise of the opening piece, but arguably more brilliant and definitely more disquieting.  The changes are quite small in scope, but have a dramatic cumulative effect on the overall mood, which decisively drifts into rather hallucinatory and nightmarish territory.  As near as I can tell, the various tones simply cohere into uglier harmonies, giving rise to subtle pulses and oscillations.  Also, the tones are slightly more harsh and distorted and the natural sounds of "Part One" are replaced by undulating swells of hiss and crackle.  It is quite a mesmerizing and haunting piece in its own right, but works even better within the context of the album, ending the dreamlike drift of Secret Photographs in impressively uneasy and disturbed fashion.  I especially enjoyed the soft "pop" at the end, which seems like Rutger breaking his surreal spell by simply and matter-of-factly turning off his amp.

Within the context of Zuydervelt's sprawling discography, Secret Photographs is probably not the best place to start, as several other Machinefabriek albums offer much more in the way of immediate gratification.  Artistically, however, this album is an unquestionable highlight and absolutely essential for existing fans of Rutger's work (or of innovative sound art, in general).  Very few albums reward attentive listening as richly as this one.

• Part One (Black and White)
• Part Two (Colour)
• Part Three (Black and White)

 

17 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

Digitalis head Brad Rose has been a wildly prolific and varied artist for years, but his heavy drone project The North Sea has been the longest-running of his many musical endeavors.  Lately, however, he has a adapted the more synth-centric guise of Charlatan as his primary outlet, so Grandeur & Weakness marks the end of an era and does so beautifully.  In some respects, this effort is not radically different from Charlatan's recent Isolatarium (they use very similar tools), but the difference in density and atmosphere is dramatic, as futuristic unease is replaced by buzzing, bristling monoliths of menace and dread.

Rubber City Noise

High-concept noise albums have always amused and fascinated me, as grinding cacophony inspired by, say, deforestation often tends to sound an awful lot like grinding cacophony inspired by serial killers, terrorism, or giallo films.  Of course, the packaging in all those cases would be radically different, but the intended message is usually hopelessly buried or lost in the squall.  What truly matters, of course, is the quality of the music that the subject material inspired.  In this case, the topic is Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and the psychology of colonialism, which is a rather unexpected, abstract, complicated, and ambitious muse to choose.  Rose was up to the task, however.  While he ended up spending longer on this record than any of his others, his efforts paid off in thematic cohesion, cathartic power, and quality.

In fact, Grandeur & Weakness begins with one of the better and most unexpected album openings in recent memory, as Rose's shrieking, howling, twinkling, and bursting synthesizer squawks in "Disease Vector" cohere into a very credible aural approximation of a kick-ass fireworks display.  Or, more likely given the colonialism angle, an artillery barrage.  Either way, it sounds awesome, as does the equally audacious second piece,"Peasants," which incorporates some brutally heavy African percussion into its ferociously clattering and grinding roar.

Brad does not have any other striking set pieces of that magnitude left up his sleeve for the rest of the album, but he does not need them, as his mixture of densely oscillating synth beds, harsh distortion, heavy mechanical textures, and snatches of brooding and melancholy chords is quite a potent one.  Also, the album benefits greatly from its inspired sequencing, building gradually towards the grinding crescendo of horror that is "Violence is a Cleansing Force," then ending on a disquieting and eerily ambiguous note with the very brief and perversely calm and melodic "Colonized."  Given the title, that feels like a wickedly pessimistic and black-humored way to end this project's final album: everything is fine now because the strong are finally done crushing the weak.

Of course, there are still a few imperfections here and there, but they are relatively minor in an otherwise very impressive and elegantly constructed whole.  For example, the arpeggios at the end of "No Petty Delinquents" sound melodically and structurally out of place in such an otherwise abstract context.  Also, Rose's songs tend to betray roots in improvisation a bit too readily, taking one idea and gradually fleshing it out with increased density rather than evolving in a way that incorporates multiple movements or parts.  Often that can be very frustrating, as a great idea can either fail to cohere into a great song or can simply overstay its welcome.  Grandeur & Weakness largely sidesteps those potential issues though, as these 8 pieces are relatively short, vibrant, and varied and cohere into a very effective narrative arc as a whole.  Given the shear volume of Rose's output, it is impossible to definitively state that this is one of his finest albums, but it is certainly a crushingly heavy and satisfying exclamation point at the end of an oft-excellent project.

• Disease Vector
• Vagrant
• Violence is a Cleansing Force

 

16 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

It's tough to know what to expect when dealing with the output of musical mastermind Brad Rose.  Under a plethora of different guises he has stamped his mark on just as many genres, yet Isolatarium, his second under the Charlatan moniker might be his most focused to date. Dispensing with the jerky 808-led shimmer of its predecessor Triangles, Isolatarium makes its case with cold, digital synthesis and buried 4/4 pulses. The searing noise of Rose's output as The North Sea is still audible somewhere in the mix, but the key to this record is restraint, and any clouds of white noise are tempered by cascades of sizzling FM synthesis.

While album highlight "Kinetic Disruption" gives a nod to the outsider dance moves of Actress, Rose manages to push his clatter even further into the ether with a shroud of grinding oscillators and grimacing tape noise. It almost sounds like a devastating new take on the delirious experiments of Maggi Payne or Suzanne Ciani, but with the added hoarse cough of 21st century pessimism. Rose makes his best case with the album's closing track "Terminal Zero," and as the clanking percussion and drunken tones spiral into spluttering computer malfunction there's no doubt that he has hit on his richest seam to date. Sometimes to move forward we have to take a couple of steps back, and in doing this Rose has struck upon something lonely and undeniably beautiful.

More information here.

16 December 2012

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Albums and Singles

What started out as a personal challenge to make an album in 7 days grew into something else entirely.  Over a year in the making, and expanding his trademark guitar sound with drums, strings, bells, organs and synthesisers, And It Was So features contributions from fellow label mates Field Rotation (violin) and Petrels (cello) along with tour partner Jordan Chatwin (drums/percussion) and long time collaborator Anais Lalange (viola).

If last year's album Descent Into Delta was reminiscent of plunging into the murky depths, his latest offering And It Was So evokes the expansiveness, dynamicism and density of the cosmos.  Attempting to find order in chaos is something Talvihorros has been striving to achieve over the past three albums and he has never balanced these elements so beautifully.

More information here and here.