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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For those Hototogisu fans that are sometimes unlucky enough to miss out on limited editions, this Important Records release is a godsend. Some Blood will Stick takes tracks from both 2004’s Swoon Scream and 2005’s Awful Symmetry (both editions of 100) and it’s unlikely you’ll stumble across one of those for less than thirty pounds these days. The addition of an unreleased track makes this a compulsory purchase for any fans of Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/Zaimph).
There are few bands that lean as heavily towards the pure sound of ritual as Hototogisu. Skilled in both the simplicity and heaviosity of drone, this album reeks of brimstone and the sweet smell of burning oxygen. Their ability to sound thematic without actually giving in to following these threads leaves their music open to interpretation, or better still open to engagement.
The black metallics of their feedback-styled orchestral layers insinuate a cracked cathedral dome sound. Swirling screams of ritual slaughter and the panning between the tinkling and the clanging of meathooks. His work as Hototogisu is utterly distinct from his other main projects, Skullflower and Sunroof!, the music having become an inverted hurricane, spinning out Indian drones like expanding brain stems.
Bower’s fag ash demonic throat shredding climbs over lift shaft hydraulic rushes, a single thunderclap pulse failing to keep time in the storm. At times its possible to distinguish the great swathes of guitar as melody, grand strums of six string over etched whitened and tensed tones. This six-track compilation is yet another definitive example of why Hototogisu is Bower and Bassett’s most revered project.
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This is Jandek's first album since releasing the live document of his performance with Richard Youngs and Alexander Neilson in Glasgow, Scotland. I had feared that some of the mystery that made him so appealing was going to disappear with his emerging worldly presence, but Raining Down Diamonds is as baffling as his legacy and far darker than one might expect from a musician who recently invited his audience far deeper into his house than ever before.Corwood Industries
In 2003 Jandek debuted his use of the bass on The Gone Wait. It was described as a nice contrast to all the squalls and screams that he'd been pulling from his guitar at the time. Two years later, Jandek seems to be approaching the bass again, but in a confusing way as it seems like both a bass and an acoustic guitar on being used on Raining Down Diamonds.There's no mention of a second musician and, furthermore, the twoinstruments mimic each other rhythmically throughout the album, neverfaltering or falling out of sync with one another.
Jandek might havehis guitar tuned down to create a muddy, bass sound or he mightactually be playing a bass. Songs like "Your Visitor" make it verydifficult to distinguish exactly what's being played and, at somepoint, the two instruments seem to bleed together and dispel any ideathat Jandek might be employing more than one musician on this record.
The musical haziness is consonant with the lyrical topics. Jandekbegins with a statement so strong that it cannot be confused foranything but the subject of the entire album: "I don't know wherethings are / It's so dark I have to feel my way around." His voicedrones low, imitating the hum and ramble of the music, but it standsout among the throbs of sound, punctuating the music and providing theheft of the album more so than the instrumentation. The album containsa strange take on suicide or death ("It's Forever"), a dedication tothe food gods ("You Ancient"), and the strangest love song in all ofmusic. The album ends with a kind of triptych; three eight-plus minutesongs, one of them being a new version of "Take My Will" and the othertwo being the kind of Jandek that might freak some friends out if youplayed it for them at night, under a full moon, in the middle of thewoods.
"Your Visitor," however, sounds like Jandek trying to explainwhy he loves someone. He's drinking wine and recalling his life andsimultaneously paving a new one ahead where he is waiting for his love.His delivery is confusing because it's impossible to be sure of anypunctuation or structure; his voice simply buzzes along, full ofresonance and sadness. The last lines say everything about the Jandekmystery and, at the same time, cast the nature of this love into doubt:"You've got all kinds of every love / And your visitor lasts so long /So listen and find me if you can / I'll be all around your loneliness."
I was so sure he was talking to me the first time I heard the recordthat I had to restart it, I was afraid I'd missed something, like I hada better chance of finding him because he'd performed at a concert,revealed that he was the man on the covers, and even let us know thathe couldn't possibly have been a hermit his entire life. I was wrong:Jandek is still hiding. He's receding and expanding and, in allhonesty, there's no knowing who he is or why he writes hisdistinct music. Listening to Jandek, however, is fun precisely becausehe's been such a damned enigma throughout his 42 albums continues to beone without any apologies or signs of slowing down.
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Forgive me for not being excited that one of the Wolf Eyes guys has another record out. It'd be a surprise if one of them, or Wolf Eyes themselves, didn't have a record out once every month or two. While Bad Dreams is not one of those must-have records for mad collectors and noise lovers everywhere, it is a good piece of quiet noise that refuses to enter the "sounds like everyone else making annoying music" field.Dilloway presents four untitled tracks, each of them densely-layered works which focus on one or two central themes and runs with them. Undeniably analogue and mostly generic in their delivery, there's nothing special about any of the tracks. Sometimes rhythm of a very shadowed sort propels the songs along and, at other times, there's just a lot of machine noise screaming out of the speakers, sounding like the all too typical malfunction. Unsurprisingly it's loud and there's a good deal of fun sounds to be found, but after a while it's hard not to think that this is just more of the same.
What saves Bad Dreams from the fate of sounding repetitive is that the relatively short tracks that surround the massive 25 minute piece in the middle have enough variation in them to warrant some repeated listens. The hazardous waste, wind-swept desert feel of the album lives up to its title and makes for some fairly imaginative trips down ambivalent lane, but it fails to sound like anything that I haven't heard from someone else. Most appallingly, Bad Dreams is a record I can ignore at will.
The second, untitled track starts off nicely but then dissolves into a series of ambient noise sections that relies mostly on metallic buzz and rather dreary noise pulses that do nothing more than draw out its already epic length. There are some psychotic episodes placed throughout the disc and, on the whole, the album isn't terrible because the source material isn't bad, Dilloway simply fails to use the source materials in any way that makes me want to hear the album more than a few times.
I suppose I could put this on if I wanted some sounds to listen to in the background while performing day to day tasks. I might even be able to go to sleep to it, but I'm not compelled to give it too much of my attention.
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Guitar has long been a male dominated instrument. For as long as Les Paul strapped electronics to the supposed heartbeat of rock and roll, it has been considered an extension of the male psyche; a supercilious sex organ meant to lure women. Yet, as time unfolds and sexual and musical roles are consistently redefined, the guitar has become something of a throwaway. It's a one-trick pony that has been rendered impotent by a swatch of talented femme fetales who have transformed the male extension into a tool of progress. The sinewy manipulations of Sarah Lipstate (AKA Noveller) continue to re-imagine the guitar. Desert Fires, Lipstate's proper sophomore release, not only goes so far as to erase gender boundaries, it casts guitar in a light so few have been able to achieve throughout the instrument's storied history.
Beginning with the haunting, oddly still "Almost Alright," Lipstate carves out a new path for her Noveller ethos. Always mindful about excessive manipulations, those distorted moments of drone and melody are scaled back even further as Sarah's confidence blossoms in her playing skills. Each repeated strum is more fragile than the next as an e-bowed swoon sweeps across the arid landscape. The stripping down of guitar to its essence remains at the heart of Desert Fires. "Toothnest," dedicated to friend and visual collaborator Chris Habib, is no more complicated than the repetitious notes that bounce above the monochromatic growl stretching across the piece's until Lipstate's piercing guitar bends grab it like ravenous incisors, ripping the flesh from the bone. It's a pattern repeated by follow-up, "Three Windows Facing Three Doors," and yet the differences in delivery and sound continue to startle.
It may be a slow decent into minimalism but Desert Fires proves well worth the patience. Sarah Lipstate's continued evolution as an artist is most pronounced on this, her sophomore release. If there were hints to this brand of mantra cool, they have been well masked. It's not that Desert Fires is so far removed from her previous album, Red Rainbows, or her smaller releases, it's that the leap in quality and confidence is stark. Desert Fires brims with a confidence in delivery as well as style, proving that Lipstate is just as brilliant with her compositional skills as her male compatriots. More startling, this is just the beginning of a career where innovation and experimentation will continue to beguile the future Noveller aesthetic.
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The influence isstill there in the form of clever, wordy lyrics, eccentric and extravagantpop gestures, and a richly emotive delivery. But Harding's sense of humouris infinitely warmer and more inviting that Costello's sardonic hauteur everwas. And Harding lacks the layer of schmaltz that too often made Costello'swork unbearbly bathetic. ST. ACE has sexy ballads like "After the Fact,"soaring powerpop in the form of "You in Spite of Yourself," and serioussilliness in tracks like "Humble Bee" and "Old Girlfriends." The cheeryincest subtext of "Bad Dream Baby" would make both Edward Gorey and RoyOrbison shudder in their coffins. Harding's cheeky "Goth Girl" will make youwant to slip into some tattered velvet, smear your mouth with black lipstickand go out prayer-dancing just like you did all those years ago.
"A Much Better Tomorrow" takes the 1996 "A Better Tomorrow" EP, remasters it and fleshes it out with previously unreleased tracks from the same era into an inexpensive full length cd. If you're a fan of the Dr. Octagon LPs with Kool Keith, then this is a must have as 6 of the 11 tracks are from the same sessions and feature Keith in his Sinister 6000 alter ego. Nakamura's varied approach to hip hop deftly weaves together samples and laid back, big ass, jazzy beats as backdrop for rhymes on all but two tracks. Keith ditches the silly medical mumbo jumbo here in favor of old skool silliness and braggadocio. Neph the Madman and Poet handle the MC duties on a track apiece and DJ Q-Bert adds scratches to another. This may be 4 years old - an eternity in the world of hip hop - but it doesn't sound dated. Dan is the man. An even cheaper EP with just the new tracks is also available from 75ark.com for those who already own the original EP. How cool is that?
"Live at Radio 100" is a limited edition of 500 that comes in a neat silver and blue carton box with slip off top. It features a single 42 and a half minute track that documents a live performance for the Dutch pirate radio show "Earbitten". Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) mans a turntable and electronics and is joined by Bara on turntable and some bizarre vocals, Reiko on theremin and 'guest' Radboud Mens on turntable. This unique DJ team spin a non-genre specific assortment of records (the only one I can positively identify being Louis Armstrong), sometimes simultaneously, and carve it up with swathes of sound effects and electronic noise. The result is, yes, noisy and chaotic, but much of it is quite subdued with a trance like atmospheric quality reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle's "In the Shadow of the Sun" soundtrack. A sense of humor also prevails too through the eclectic choice of sound sources and the way in which they are obliterated. Overall "Live at Radio 100" is very entertaining and listenable, especially by Merzbow standards. I'm somewhat surprised at how 'musical' the piece sounds considering it's a live collaboration. I hope there's more stuff like this in the Merzbox, which I've yet to seriously delve in to. Now ... where's my aspirin?
And not boring in the good way, like Philip Glass' funwith monotony or Low's sublime minimilist architectonics or even StephinMerritt's clever zen-inflected loop songs (see his glorious THE HOUSE OFTOMMORROW ep) that prove repetition can be a dircet path to pop nirvana.Rather, Sea and Cake's new disc is all about the non-event: nothing happens,and nothing ever will happen. And as you sit there like a character in someexistential vaudeville skit, listening to its tastefully tedious keyboardsand drums and noodly guitars and breathy, indistinct vocals < for what seemslike an eternity < you'll suffer in paraysms of boredom. And wonder why thehell anyone who likes music actually likes this stuff. If this is thealternative to alternative rock, I think i'd rather listen to the airconditioner. Just say "NON!" to OUI. John McEntire fans will want to checkout the fine new Aluminum Group album, PELO, which shows his skills asperformer and producer to a fine advantage. The Navin boys have abandonedtheir fey, soft-rock ways for electroplated dance tracks, and McEntire is adefinite asset.
In some senseVicki Bennett's work could be seen as companion volumes to Neil Postman'sincisive mid-eighties critique "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse inthe Age of Show Business". Her assemblages of found samples and oddballartifacts, punctuated by peculiarly catchy little synthpop interludes, arepopulated with all the random and irrelevant crap with which most of us arebombarded daily, skillfully crafted into preposterously pointless exchanges andeasy-listening jingles which slyly undermine the intention and substance oftheir original forms. Bennett has an uncanny ability to transform the trivial,ephemeral, boring and banal into deliciously naughty indictments of ourmedia-saturated culture. In this her work is not unique; artists likeNegativeland explore similar territory, and it could even be said that mockeryand pastiche, as hallmarks of the post-modern, have become something of a staplegesture. What is truly singular and surprising about her work, given itspenchant for deconstruction, is simply its overwhelming gentleness towards itssubjects. Never smugly clever or bitter, Bennett's real human warmth manifestsin the strangest places, moving what would otherwise be searing sarcasm towardsa genuinely fun and good-natured laugh at ourselves. Ultimately it is herkindness that gives her work both its distinctiveness and its effectiveness:while her commerical Muzak jingles at times lead you to believe you are beinglulled into a bludgeoning, her manipulations and surreal juxtapositions arenever cruel, offering instead an uplifting glimpse into the possibilities ofmeaningful communication within (or despite) a sea of chitchat, of real emotioninside the sentimental, and ultimately of an ennobling critical method which isengaged, insightful and diabolically effective without being condescending oroverly self-confident. "Thermos Explorer", her ninth solo album, is my favoritePLU to date. Each listening finds me singing along and grinning like an idiot.Why is listening to this so much fun? It's like having a sleepover with yourhilarious best friend, where everything they say makes you giggle-behind all themusic is the irresistably sweet Vicki Bennett, and you just can't help but likeher.
Wire's sudden reactivation in the early part of the 2000s was quite a welcome one. While the sporadic live shows they played during that time were refreshing, the new material that appeared with the release of the first Read and Burn EP demonstrated a true "revival" of the band, which culminated with this album. Now, seven years later, it is reissued with a second disc of harder to find and unreleased material, and sounds just as vital as it did in 2003. It also marks the end of Bruce Gilbert’s tenure with Wire, and perhaps the period with his most significant contributions to the band.
It seemed as if post-1977, Wire were doing all they could to escape "12XU," which endeared them to punk rockers who cared little for anything else they did during their first phase of existence.Most famously, they excised the bulk of the track from Document and Eyewitness, the audio documentation of the show that closed their first era of activity in 1980.Once it was finally released in full on 1996's Turns and Strokes, it was easy to hear the snide, sarcastic performance that was precipitated from obnoxiously yelling punks in the audience.Once into their second, more electronic pop tinged period in the 1980s, the song was all but forgotten, replaced by their then-signature song "Drill."
However, the track was once again embraced in 2001 with the "Twelve Times You" single.Presented here on the second disc, it appears in a deconstructed techno form "12 Times U" and a studio polished live take from 2000, "12 Times X."Both embraced the thrashy elements of the original, which arguably was one of the impetuses for hardcore punk, and used that energy as a blueprint for the two subsequent Read and Burn releases of new material.Not only that, but it almost seemed as if they embraced the full on adrenaline rush of Minor Threat's infamous cover of the song, as the subsequent material was some of the fastest and most dissonant material they have ever done.
Those first two Read and Burn EPs were a way for Wire to test the waters, with both being released in relatively small numbers and initially just direct from the band-run label, limiting their exposure to mostly just Wire’s core audience.Send, on the other hand, was culled from those releases, with a few tracks exclusive to its initial release.The electronic, dance oriented pop sound started with mid 1980s Wire and continued into the '90s as Wir was all but gone, replaced with a much spikier, aggressive approach that rivaled the energy of Pink Flag some 26 years before.
Most of the material here was borne out of direct collaboration between guitarist/vocalist Colin Newman and guitarist Bruce Gilbert, who both were polar opposites within the band.Geographically, this made sense, since both resided in the same city, while Graham Lewis was in Sweden, and thus contributed to a lesser degree via mail and occasional visits.Newman has never shied away from a pop song, as his solo work and Githead project clearly demonstrate.Gilbert, on the other hand, leans towards the abrasive and noise worlds, exemplified by his solo work such as In Esse, a disc that could easily be filed next to Merzbow when it comes to sound.The result is an album that shows the influence of both, and the domination of neither.The material is raw, aggressive and dissonant, but shaped into memorable, catchy songs.
Even the opening "In the Art of Stopping," which is one of the more pop-focused songs here, pounds along with a relatively simple over-driven three chord progression, Colin Newman's snide vocals, and the occasionally discordant electronic treatment, keeping it away from the traditional song structure.The superficially restrained "Mr. Marx's Table" is actually a mess of crashing digital guitars once Newman’s rather gentle vocal is pulled away.
The strongest moments are those where any sense of subtlety is ignored in favor of full on hardcore blasts.The infamous "Comet" is a simple, intentionally dumb slab of punk that belies the artistic depth of Wire, which is what makes it so great.How anyone could dislike a song about an apocalyptic event where the chorus is "And the chorus goes….ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang" is beyond me, and said persons will probably never be my friend.The following "The Agfers of Kodack" represents a thematic continuation of sorts, with Graham Lewis' vocals once again from the perspective of a war reporter (see Pink Flag's "Reuters" and "The First Letter" by Wir for other variations on the theme).The song has all of the heaviness of "Comet" but an entirely different vibe to it."Spent" is my favorite of all the aggressive tracks here, and on my short list of all time favorite Wire songs.Opening with Newman's snarling, vitriolic voice and layers of guitar slowly being placed, one atop another, until Robert Grey's drums fully kick in about a third of the way through the track.It comes across as so raging and disgusted, but with such intricate layering and processing to the sound, it’s far more than just pure aggression.
Not only are there the aggressive tracks, but those that are the thorny, abstract blobs that exist between the "songs"."Nice Streets Above," for example, is based on a loop taken from a live recording of "Drill" on which guitar that doesn't sound like guitar is piled, resembling a harsh electronic collage (with a beat).The painfully short "Half Eaten" has some extremely uncommon Bruce Gilbert vocals, heavily effected and buried in a swamp of nails and battery acid, resulting in a song that owes more to the work he and Lewis did as Dome than anything else on the album.The long closer "99.9" works nicely as a culmination of the album:initially building on the slow burn of a synthesizer and Newman’s vocals, which go from calm and restrained to fully unhinged when the piece brings in Grey’s pounding drums and even more pieces of spiny, distorted guitar.Traditionally, Wire albums had at least one long, difficult moment, and on this one it was "99.9."
The first disc is the exact same, content wise, as the original issue from 2003.This is not a good thing.Surprisingly, that album had a noticeable share of mastering issues, specifically a lot of digital clipping from being mastered too loudly.The bass swells in "Nice Streets Above" is one of the best examples of this:on Send it clearly becomes distorted from clipping, while the recording on Read and Burn 2 does not.I was hoping that this (and other related issues) would be fixed on this newer edition, but they linger.
The second disc, in addition to the aforementioned "Twelve Times You" single, compiles the Read and Burn songs that didn't make the cut for Send, but none of which are lacking."I Don't Understand," from the first EP, is cut from a similar cloth as "The Agfers of Kodack," but with the disgusted thrust of "Spent."How this ended up on a Victoria's Secret commercial still baffles me some three years after the fact."Trash/Treasure" was left off the album because it is far too pretty of a pop song to fit in with all the dissonance and thrash.From a melodic perspective, it owes a great deal to A Bell is a Cup era Wire, but with the ambience of Send.The short "Raft Ants" is one that could have fit nicely on there, however, with its machine gun pace and noise guitar.Given Newman's free association lyrics, it does sound like Motörhead covering "Kidney Bingos."
The newly released material shows gives some good insight into the development of what became the album."Artificial Gravity" is an instrumental (with the exception of Newman growling the title sporadically like a German Gabber DJ) that sounds like the nascent idea behind "Nice Streets Above" but more repetitious with a bit of the melody of "Trash/Treasure" thrown in.This ended up being reworked into "You Can’t Leave Now" on the album, which is a drastic change."DJ Fuckoff" is a 2000 performance of "Drill" mutilated into a sample collage with a techno beat.It's understandable why it never really evolved past what it is, but that doesn't stop it from being entertaining.
Two songs that eventually appeared on the post-Send Read and Burn 3 EP were in their demo form at this time:"Our Time" is a more rudimentary mix with a bit more breathing room than the final take, but is almost fully formed."Desert Diving" has a similarly complete feel, though it appears here with more of an ambient techno synth backing.It doesn’t drastically differ from the completed take, but I still prefer the final one.
I do wonder what spurred this project on, considering the relatively relatively recent appearance of Send, at least compared to other albums in Wire’s discography. To their argument Send did slip out of print however the aforementioned mastering issues weren't addressed.Extremely devoted Wire fans will probably already have almost everything here.I personally missed the 7" and Read and Burn 2 due to being completely broke when they were released, and not being able to track them down reasonably priced since then, so I was glad to have good recordings of them.Personally, I'd really like to see some of those rarities from the 1970s made available again, such as the singles/B-sides that were pulled off the recent remasters of those albums, or perhaps some unreleased 1980s material.As it stands, Send is still a brilliantly acerbic disc and, although the more pop oriented Object 47 has grown on me in the two years since its release, I still favor the more challenging material here.
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