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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
23five While pushing the normally suppressed and inaudible whirs and clicks of the mechanical innards of your favorite turntable into the foreground, Michael Gendreau has curiously pushed the attention on the actual sound output of his recording to the back. My zen-like state of concentration aside, it was virtually impossible for me to listen to the opening piece (one of two long tracks that makes up the album) without wondering where the sounds came from, how they were recorded, and what this all said about listening to the playback device instead of the playback. The use of a turntable to produce sounds other than those reproduced from a vinyl record is far from novel, but Gendreau spends a full 16:18 trying to beat the idea of these hidden sounds into our head. A constant drone that could be the inside of the tone arm amplified to a low roar, reminded me a great deal of the results of a naive experiment I once conducted by placing a microphone in front of a fan and letting it record for half an hour. It's interesting for about two minutes, then you realize that your ears have intentionally filtered this kind of sound out all of your life for a reason: it's boring. The second (and longer) of the two pieces finds Gendreau more actively affecting the results of his micro-scale recordings. Clocking in at 35:45, it's still not a piece for anyone deeply engaged in the Nintendo Generation, and the piece could easily be broken into smaller, more digestible segments. Structurally, it works like listening to a record as the record player's various internal sound quirks are explored episodically like grooves in a record that isn't there. The absent needle and wax are referenced in the way the track picks up an idea, exploits a sound or natural rhythm for a while, then drops the idea and skips onto the next. After nearly an hour of listening for the compositional touch that Gendreau added to make these more than simple field recordings, I came to realize that maybe the music was not, in itself, the point. The only question that remains for me is this: why wasn't this released on vinyl?
Electro-acoustic compositions that work with or without a contextual background.
Hushush The Hushush label website refers to the latest release from Vromb as "the first chapter in an electronic opera for ultratonical machines." If that works for you, by all means, go for it. While there's a narrative background to this release that is expressed vaguely in the artwork and printed inserts which accompany it, I can't help but wonder if such accoutrements sometimes detract from otherwise interesting music. After all, it's the sound here that we can all experience without the cultural baggage of language, theories of music, and so on,... Structurally, the songs here build as one might imagine: generally growing from a small, discrete set of sounds into a much louder and less easily defined set. Distant hums and hisses grow into swelling storms of overtones and drones. Rhythm is provided alternately by the natural pulse of tones and by looping effects employed to stretch discrete sounds over time, causing the album undulate as the energy is pulled in and released. Vromb's digital collage can transform from a mild ambient rumble like a radio left on in another room to high-pitched skree not unlike I would imagine a cranial drill would sound in short time. The ebbs and flows here work to keep anything from being too much of a particular thing for long. The tracks with a stronger rhythmic sense employ repeating synthetic patterns which echo a minimal techno aesthetic, whereas the quieter moments recall any number of electroacoustic compositions of the last several years. While the idea that there is a story that underlies this album might add to the repeat-play value, it is ultimately not a factor in determining what Vromb is after here: namely a thorough excursion through the realm of digital microsound, with a focus on the dissonance of that sonic landscape. If any of that, (or the story of Professor Heurel Gaudot) interests you, this is probably a good record to add to your collection.
hymen Mick Harris has helped to define more genres than many artists can claim to have released respectable albums. From his longest running moniker, Scorn, devotees have come to expect a certain formula: mix equal parts sparse electroacoustic ambience with driving, fractured breakbeats. Add woofer-thrashing bass frequencies and spoon out with a dash of painfully dry humor. Scorn's work has been one of a gradual stripdown of all that was non-essential on early albums like Colossus and Evanescence, and the move towards minimalism has alienated many in its wake. Scorn's last full length for Hymen, the blisteringly straightforward 'Greetings From Birmingham' showed that Harris had all but exhausted the possibilites with dead slow beats and low-end rumble. With 'Plan B' however, Scorn returns to form in a way that's a bit unanticipated. While stripping down to just the barest of bones, 'Plan B' manages to merge Scorn's minimalist anger with something that had been left behind somewhere around 'Evanescence;' the groove! 'Plan B' is a constant head-nodder from its opening assault of speaker-blowing bass feedback to the finale that stops abruptly like someone ending a strenuous workout by hopping off the exercise bike. You'll need a decent pair of speakers or headphones to really make sense of this, as a great deal of the depth comes from the way Harris manipulates the low-end often in nonsensical ways. Melodies are carried by fluctuations in filter cutoff, looping piano figures, and the occasional tonal scrape or stab. Meanwhile, Scorn's sense of humor remains in-tact. A lesser artist would take this formula and add a 'spooky' sample from Aliens, but Harris cuts the assault of beats and bass with occasional samples that lighten up the work and relieve it of the deadpan seriousness that so much of this kind of music adheres to. Equally at home in a set of post-industrial beat mayhem or an underground hip hop dj set, 'Plan B' might just give you an excuse to shake it a little.
This memorable live collaboration between one of the world’s most explosive drummers and a titan of the UK jazz scene bizarrely came about from a random meeting at an airport in Portugal during Corsano’s lengthy tour with Björk. As expected, the result is some absolutely incendiary free-jazz flame-throwing, but with some unexpected surprises thrown in too.
Identical Sunsets opens (rather unusually) with a brief solo bagpipe performance by Dunmall. It's quite an odd and unrepresentative way to begin the album and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it, even after several listens (maybe Chris wasn’t either, since he sat it out).It is certainly a bit fascinating and unique to hear an incredibly talented musician furiously shredding on a damn bagpipe, but it is not an instrument that lends itself particularly well to rapid flurries of notes—it can get a bit shrill.
Thankfully, Paul sticks exclusively to his saxophone for the remaining three songs and things get a lot more exciting.Corsano, characteristically, puts on a skittering and rumbling tour de force and Dunmall holds his own quite nicely (no mean feat).It must be extremely tempting to resort to atonal skwonks and howls when there is such a volcanic percussionist absolutely leveling the place behind you, but Dunmall remains in complete control throughout.His runs are appropriately frenzied and cathartic given their backdrop, but generally still quite melodic and intelligently connected.The rare quiet moments are quite compelling too—particularly the section in "Living Proof" where Paul coaxes ghostly multiphonic moans and overtones from his sax.The duo display quite an intuitive connection throughout their set, as they always seem to shift gears before any passages begin to drag, seamlessly flowing back and forth between visceral raging and ominous simmering.
Of course, the downside to two guys wildly improvising at some club in Cheltenham is that it still ultimately sounds like two guys wildly improvising at some club in Cheltenham.An album like this probably won’t have much cross-over appeal for people that don’t already like free jazz (bagpipe fans aside), though Corsano is considerably more frenzied and muscular than most other jazz drummers.This is certainly well-traveled stylistic territory, but it is rarely done with such a perfect balance of musicality and go-for-broke intensity.Chris and Paul both deliver some truly impassioned and virtuosic performances here, making for one very impressive and satisfying album.