Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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An entire summer passed without me publishing a single album review forBrainwashed, or any other site for that matter. Compact discs andpress releases arrived via post regularly, typically finding a home inpiles at the far end of my desk, next to a dust-collecting drummachine. Call it a lack of motivation, call it laziness, yet, on this unseasonably warm autumnnight, I have returned. It took thebest album of 2005 to accomplish that.
Merciless and astounding, Degenerate is a shock to theproverbial system, a savage hate crime against the softened eardrums ofwimpy dance rock hipsters and trendy techno fashionistas. The duobehind Vex'd conjure up an unflinching and bleak industrial vision ofelectronic music, the likes of which havent been seen since Scorn's Greetings from Birmingham.The solitary opening bleeps of "Pop Pop V.I.P." resurrect the elatedtones of Sweet Exorcist's pathbreaking classic "Testone" beforeerupting into a grisly cacophony of neck-snapping snares andstomach-churning rumbles. "Thunder" slashes the tempo right in half,leaving only an eviscerated aural carcass. The twisted uptempo rhythmsreturn on "Angels," a sub-bass monster specked with a particularlyghastly film sample. This dancefloor-accessible style of low-endworship dominates the album, from the dubby inflections of "Venus" and"Fire" to the unstoppable breakbeat monoliths of "Gunman" and "LionV.I.P." A notable deviation from this effective formula comes on "Cold"with its distant strings and gurgling, groaning synthy squelches,presenting an atmospheric, more pensive and, atypically, beatlessversion of the now undeniable Vex'd sound. As if an entire album ofsuch power weren't enough, Planet Mu thankfully includes a second discof bonus tracks culled largely from previously released 12" records.The original version of "Lion," a highlight among this shorter set,digs a distorted bleepy melody out of the crates that might tantalizeformer ravers longing for the sounds of forgotten warehouse parties.
To approach Degenerate as the product or even arelative of the U.K. dubstep/sublow/grime scenes would do it an immenseinjustice, as Vex'd truly have compiled a peerless document that speaksto our grim, chaotic, blood-drenched world without hardly saying aword.
Albums built around a concept of exploring an imaginary land don’t comealong too often and it’s an even rarer occasion when it looks likethey’re worthy of more than a cursory holiday.Black Sun Productions member Drazen brings to life an audio journeythat defies the awkwardness of the concept and demands repeat visits onthis his debut solo album. Black Sun Productions
While the album’s tracks are titled, recorded and programmed on CD aseight different pieces Visions Ov Anarcadia is best enjoyed in onesitting as a single flowing voyage. Although it’s not really until suchand such minutes in on “Somethings Valley” (also known as track three)that the album title really begins to make sense.
The song’s combination of controlled lushness, lengthy processed pipemelody and the creation of an expansive area brings to mind vividmental pictures of open spaces. This bare melody comes in waves,undulating almost like its being blown across hills that aren’t there.It’s the sensation of movement here from the warm techno core that gives the impression of travelling throughAnarcadia without moving. But with this is an icy sliver of sadness inthe realization that Anarcadia doesn’t really exist, at least on thisphysical plane.
From there the album explores quietly clattering Coil prayer menacewith “Mount Coum,” and wanders fog-bound along the distantly murkyshorelines of “Cape Cock,” whose highlight is a sinister baroque gothictheme which rises only once from the song’s depths like Kubrick’smonolith. A heartbeat and “Ov Arc”s wavering moan of breath-like soundleads slowly into the tribalistic and surprisingly powerful technofinale of “Mount Smegma,” which drives as much for the head as thefloor. This album’s combination of innocence, darkness, sadness andexploration is further proof of the Black Sun stamp as a mark ofquality in an unreliable but predictable musical climate.
Water Music The story goes like this: David Lynch wanted to use This Mortal Coil's haunting version of Tim Buckley's "Song to a Siren" for a pivotal scene in his classic film "Blue Velvet." Something about Elizabeth Frasier's ethereal, wavering voice and the echoing acoustic guitar was perfect for a particular scene in the film. For the rights to use the song, 4AD wanted a figure that was half the budget of the film he was making. Deeply disappointed that he could not afford the song, he asked the film's composer, Angelo Badalamenti, to write and produce a track that had a similar "feel". Badalamenti found a singer with the voice of an angel, Julee Cruise, an unknown who had been working off-off-Broadway, and with lyrics penned by Lynch, they composed the song "Mysteries of Love". Although not quite the equal of "Song to a Siren", they saw a lot of potential, and eventually Lynch and Badalamenti teamed up to write and produce an album for Julee Cruise. Lynch wrote the lyrics and guided the sound, and Badalamenti filled out the sound with his excellent ear for composition. The classic album "Falling Into the Night" is a pop treasure, combining 1950s rockabilly guitar with darkly atmospheric synthesized strings and Cruise's angelic, overdubbed vocals. The Lynch/Balamenti/Cruise collaboration went on for several years, and the songs ended up in Lynch's "Twin Peaks" and Wim Wenders "Until the End of the World". There was a follow up album a couple of years later, 'Voice of Love'. It wasn't nearly as good, but it still captured the sound that had originally inspired Lynch/Badalementi. They even built a huge rock-opera spectacle around Julee Cruise, 1989's "Industrial Symphony No. 1". Not satisfied to wait for Lynch and Badalamenti to write her another album, Julee has chosen a different group of collaborators to work with for her new album 'The Art of Being a Girl.' If anyone had any questions about how much input Julee had into her music all these years, this album should clear everything up. She had no input at all. Lynch/Badalamenti were using Julee as an instrument, a breathy "little-girl-lost" voice to accompany their atmospheric tracks. This is the first album where Julee has co-written songs, and it is an incredibly average affair. Her collaborators (Mocean Worker, Khan and some guy named J.J. McGeehan), have used a lot of trite studio tricks in an attempt to distract the listener from the fact that the songs are boring. Julee makes the error of trying to recreate herself as some kind of world-wise feminist diva. It feels really forced, and the album sounds like every other downtempo "sexy" electronic pop album with faceless female vocals. Several of the tracks attempt to mimic Julee's guest star turn on Khan's awesome track "Say Goodbye" from last year's 'No Comprendo'; none of them live up to these aspirations. The compositions are tired and riddled with cliché. The laughable, non-sexy spoken word segments in many of the songs don't help at all. As a final insult, there is a hidden track, a new version of one of Julee's best songs from the Lynch/Badalamenti years, "Falling" (recognizable to many as the opening theme of Twin Peaks). This tepid version adds nothing to the original song, and it just serves as a reminder of how great the song sounded when it was in the hands of more talented collaborators. Julee Cruise's talent is serviceable in the proper context, when the songwriting and production is top-notch. However, this underachieving album pales in comparison to her previous work as a bit player in the grand Lynchian musical drama.
This latest 45 rpm 7" single from Kieran Hebden is a two-part tune in which the theme/motif/progression plays through in cycles with various changes in instrumentation, grooves and breaks.
"Part 1" is driven by a mid-up tempo, choppy, hip-hop style beat with dance underlings. The chord progressions are arpeggiated at first by a distant electric guitar with the bass holding down the fort, which then blends seamlessly with sampled vibraphone, synth, treated sounds and backwards masking, making for some great and subtle listening. As mentioned, "Part 2" has a "more of same, only different" approach with a surprisingly different outlook as most of the elements of "Part 1" are arranged with slight variance. The absence of a definitive back beat in the groove helps to highlight the tune's orchestration and focuses more on the clever leading of the chords and their qualities in relation to each other. 'I'm on Fire' is worth searching out.
Kompakt Both experimental electronic producers and tech-house DJs alike show a reverence for the highly-imitated Cologne sound. The same respect applies to the city's own Kompakt label, which continues to put out slabs and discs of dubby analogue deepness. For the fourth installment of the Total series, some of the previously-released tracks from the past year are compiled alongside cuts from upcoming singles. Though I enjoy the tech-house sound quite a bit, most of the material on here is forgettable, not to say that those songs are necessarily bad. From a DJ's perspective, there are too many "transition" tracks that can help keep a set moving along, but really fail to give it any luster or polish. The exceptions, however, are the type of tracks that make labels famous. Jürgen Paape offers "Mit Dir," an unusually Germanic-flavored slice of neo-disco that left me equally puzzled and entertained. Similar to Vladislav Delay's work under the Luomo moniker, M. Mayer's "Falling Hands" features near-whispered vocals ("I'm falling in love") over a deep bassline, delay-treated kicks, and airy strings. Autobianchi's "All Around (Everybody's Kissing)" is driving vocal house worthy of play alongside recent stormers like "Nightclubbing At Home" from MRI. The sex appeal that emanates from this song recalls ecstasy-fueled orgiastic foreplay in a club or at a rave, the kind that only ever happens in late-night movies and the fantasies of confirmed perverts like myself. Though there are some genuine disasters here (namely the dismal electroclash craze cash-in cover song from Superpitcher), 'Total 4' holds its own as a decent, though often boring, collection of one region's current contributions to the ever-growing international tech-house scene. These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Plug Research With his well-received debut album "Approximate Love Boat", Danny Zelonky emerged as Low Res with experimental electronic music in a style all his own. Low Res takes samples of a broad range of instruments and creates engrossing yet completely disparate music with them. It's clear that Zelonky, like a recent wave of electronic artists, believes that the best music is created through this approach, not through cheaply synthesized recreations that never sound genuine. But it's the way he accomplishes this goal on his second LP "Blue Ramen" that is truly ingenious. Even with real instruments at his disposal - including real drums and percussion - nearly every beat and sound is programmed on these songs. The instruments were not recorded the way they are played and then assembled in a collage with beats. Every note is placed there in a systematic piece-by-piece approach. So what escapes from the speakers sounds at once improvised and freeform, like a group of musicians playing together, when in fact every part of it is structured meticulously by Low Res to help end the "cheap karaoke" sound of synths and samplers. The results are interesting, but a bit of a grab-bag. Different rhythms and tastes abound - from the Latin-tinged album opener 'Shaftasia' to the almost jazz shuffle of 'Inverse Shift' - which gives the release a schizophrenic feel. Low Res just seems to create whatever music he wants, with no regard for a common theme or style. "Ramen" also features the debut of a rather strange electronic wind instrument, one Zelonky calls the "ersax", and abundant strains of Low Res' favorite instrument: the organ. It makes your toe tap in areas, makes your hips shake in others, and makes your brain hurt in still others, but never all at once. The songs are a rather disjointed listen, which is unfortunate considering the skill and creativity involved. It's rumored that Low Res intends to assemble a live band to tour behind "Blue Ramen", and that would be a treat. For the record, though, it would work so much better with a common theme or genre to give it backbone. Still a fine effort from a talented musician.
Raster-Post The first release in the new Raster-Post series from Raster Noton, this CD is unsurprisingly eye-catching, at least in its limited-to-1000-pieces form. (It comes in a matte-black card case held closed with a black elastic cord, a distinctive red dot, and subtle black and stark white type.) On the one hand, it is a truly beautiful recording, both musically and, importantly for this sort of abstract, minimal electronica, in its production, which is occasionally stunning. On the other hand, it's a perfect example of genre music, with virtually nothing original about it. Instead, it imitates the classics of post-Oval glitch music to the most slavish extent: there are what could only generously be called "echoes" of Oval, Microstoria, Fennesz, Vladislav Delay, and Pole, to name the most obvious. More often than not the originals seem to have been sampled. It's all brilliantly done and very, very listenable, but ultimately derivative. My initial reaction was that that's shame when the artist's ability with sound is so apparent as it is here. But why is it called 'Temporary Music?' Is it meant to be an ephemeral tribute record? Is it a conceptual take on the current strain in experimental computer music that samples or modifies "conventional" recordings, made by the likes of Stephan Mathieu, Ekkehard Ehlers, and Akira Rabelais—just taking next step and having micro-music reprocess itself? No idea, but if you want orginality above all else, look elsewhere. If you're happy listening to this sort of music and want to welcome a new name who does exactly the same thing as everyone else (albeit with a possible explanation for why he's doing it) look no further.
Ambush With the recent rise in popularity of such abrasive artists as Venetian Snares and Somatic Responses, now seems like a perfect time to revive the scene formerly known as digital hardcore/breakcore. Ambush has always been a major player here, dropping releases of "hazardous sounds" from kingpins like Panacea and DJ Scud for some time. Fans of the aforementioned acts will surely enjoy the grim vibe of Noize Creator. This twenty-eight minute EP contains seven rather indistinguishable tracks of beats, noise, and dark ambient atmospheres. The significant downside to this CD is how sonically similar it all sounds. Noize Creator uses the same formulaic elements throughout, but randomizes them in such a way that they're supposed to be separate tracks. However, I've been listening to this on-and-off for weeks, and if you quizzed me on which song was which, I certainly couldn't tell you. That being said, the material itself is fierce, fast, and furious. Heavy industrial sounds merge with mangled drum loops (often with unclear, changing time signatures) on DJ-unfriendly tracks like "Hate Cops" and "Per Thousand." The beats hit with brute force and achieve maximum results though a sound system that can handle the bass. There are two remixes on here which both keep with the album's distorted sense of flow. "NBK (South London mix)" combines Rotterdam gabber with neck-snapping breakbeats and abrupt chord changes. "Hate Cops (remix)" charges ahead with the intensity of the original, but with an even greater sense of chaos. All in all, 'Deferred Media' is strictly for the noiseheads, and definitely not for the uninitiated.
Melodic The debut solo album by Aidan Moffat, one half of Glaswegian duo Arab Strap, was born out of insomnia. Unable to tolerate most "chill-out" music, Moffat assembled pieces from sounds he found to be conducive to sleep. The result is a record luxurious in sound, yet straightforward in construction. 'Hypnogogia' is surprisingly diverse for an album intended to induce sleep. Both "Angels on Your Body" and "Shatterproof" are sultry mixes of sensuously melancholy strings and slow, bassy beats. Meanwhile, "Nurse Flamingo", with its bizarre, charming silliness, sounds as if it would be right at home in a Terry Gilliam film. The pieces run the gamut from exotic, tribal vocals to opera samples over echoey piano notes. Moffat meticulously compiled the track order so that each side of the vinyl version of the album allowed the listener to relax gradually and then drift off to sleep at the end. "The Heart of All That Is" and "Bedwomb", tracks five and ten on the CD (the last tracks on either side of the vinyl version) have the ability to leave the listener in an oneiric suspension between wakefulness and unconsciousness. The man behind Lucky Pierre has surely succeeded in his mission, as I sit here listening to the album come to a close, with my eyelids fluttering, feeling the magnetic lure of my down comforter.
Cenotaph Some bands like a little variety on their releases. They don't mind if one song on the album sounds like a different band than the one before or after it. They don't even mind if every song sounds like a different band. Other bands use different albums or EPs to try out different concepts. In the case of Arco Flute Foundation, the members started another band entirely to put out this music. Arco Flute Foundation is the same principals who are in Meisha, but recording as such because the music is that much removed from their former selves. Meisha are languid, slight, and melodic with a subdued energy, recording instrumentals that are lush and captivating. Arco Flute Foundation, on the other hand, is more interested in loud, boisterous, loose instrumental rock. 'Everything After' is their third release on Cenotaph, and it is their most adventurous yet. More electronics, more Slint-like guitar antics, more distortion, and more ambient noise appear on these songs than have in the past. These passages are still unfocused and raw, however, with the band members seemingly exploring the space around them with these compositions. There are two tracks under the four-minute mark that seem to be the more structured songs (more accessible?), but beyond that the Foundation just let it bleed, adding and subtracting elements as the song progresses, trying to find their happy hunting ground. Honestly, it has some very interesting elements, but the two shorter songs are the best tracks solely because of their structure. The album's closer, "Seymour Uncle Billy," approaches what seems like the true sound of the band, a balance between the structure and improvisation, between the noise and the music. Now that they seem to have all of the instruments and sounds they want to explore, that should be the next area to perfect. Which means the next Arco Flute Foundation release could be a fine one, indeed.