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A perfect assemblage of absurd clichés has been collected here by Organum's David Jackman. The cover and title both suggest something of both the dark and sinister mindsets: 'Verhalte Dich Ruhig' translates to English literally as 'Keep yourself calm,' but more aggressively could be referred to as 'Duck and cover'. The picture, on the other hand, may have been taken in an abandoned concentration camp or some completely harmless old house in Germany, but you'll never know for sure.
The old tactics of anti-information are omnipresent here: artist, title, catalogue number, label name and that's it. Everything else is grey aside from the picture (which gets repeated in the inlet once more in case you've accidently spilt your cup of coffee or your young niece made it look nicer with the addition of crayon-drawn flowers). Unsurprisingly, the disc is limited and the total playing time (of just about 30 minutes) is properly split in two parts of equal length. (This could have been perfect for a multi-color 10" vinyl release, but the value-for-money question arises once more. But is it only the length that counts?) At first I thought the music was some fooling around with neo-classical recordings but after listening more closely, I'm pretty sure it's taken completely of some of Hollywood's Golden Era. Perhaps it could be Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps something completely different - I can't tell exactly. All the kitsch, the pathetic over-emotional glory, drama and the unreal passion is displayed for the sake of entertainment and it actually works as a quite comforting soundtrack to various daily duties as any good pop music should do. The same music packed in some nice baby pink and light blue artwork with some lighthearted design of 1940's girls or movie scenario would have made more sense. However, this is probably his special sense of humor which isn't meant to reach everyone at first, or, as I said above, he just wants to point his finger on the current avant-garde cliché and have a laugh on his own.
 
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As a listener, one of the more celebrated things about some prolific independent artists gaining more deserved recognition would be the availability of previous material that may have originally been issued in limited quantities, or else did not have as wide a distribution as present. Formerly released as a three-track twelve inch EP limited to 1,000 copies, the Scott Herren project of Delarosa + Asora's 'Crush the Sight-Seers' has recently materialized on CD through Chicago's Hefty Records, home to Herren's Savath + Savalas. In keeping with the added value of some reissues, a bonus track has been included. The recurring distorted keyboard chatters and metallic percussion sample of the opening track "OSSABAW" blends into a sub-bass progression and laid-back, half-time groove with the odd break to mark off sections of the tune. The two-and-a-half minute "OSS.BW" is a multi-layered piece of eerie drones, synth squelches and chimes that could be the equivalent of sound painting through channel surfing at a mixing console. "Airbrush (clogged)" builds from distorted vocal snippets and reverbed static to a cordial bass line and mid-tempo electro-percussion groove with a gradually building back beat. Eventually it all falls away leaving the distant sounds of distorted keyboards and squelchy tape shuttling. "Vs. Boah" skitters from static pops, sound layers and vocal samples to a dark sounding danceable groove which builds in intensity after each lengthy break. A shift in the key signature makes from a great release from all the tension the track builds. Dropping out just shy of the five minute mark for two-and-a-half minutes of silence, the music returns with an echo to the drones and hisses of "OSS.BW" to close off. While this disc may be an acquired taste as it's not as groove-oriented or melodically friendly as other Scott Herren projects, I'd have to say that it still makes for a great listen for just those reasons too. As mentioned in the liner notes, another good thing about CD reissues of unmarked RPM vinyl is hearing the tunes at the speed they were intended to be played at without any doubt.
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Using vinyl as an anachronistic commentary on technology and culture is all too common these days, but on this release, Loren Chasse takes a far more low-level view of the medium. He explores the detail inherent in the surface noise of records—kind of an analog representation of the digital "glitch"—and also juxtaposes it with similar sounds found in nature, such as wind, leaves, fire, and surf. The first of four untitled tracks combines layers of quiet cracking and popping with some distant-sounding music that's probably also coming from the record. The vinyl noises, spread throughout the stereo field, are continuously changing, and though they're simple and commonplace sounds, their combination with the soothingly indistinct music is warm and hypnotizing. The second track is significantly more aggressive, with louder, more distorted surface noises mixed with the sounds of wind and the ocean. There's considerable detail throughout the piece, but at times it's covered by such a thick wall of noise that close attention becomes necessary. What's fascinating is that this storm of sound, that at first seemed to overwhelm and mask the piece, holds in itself a deep level of richness and complexity. The third track is more dynamic, starting with some electronic hissing and buzzing and a little bit of crackle fading in and out, along with more barely perceptible music. It ebbs and flows while building up, like the tide that it samples, until it finally grows into a tumultuous roar. The final track is my favorite, as it features the best arrangement of the quietly melodic music submerged under what sounds like sand falling and the buzzing of a few really scratched up records. In all, 'Hedge of Nerves' is an interesting album with some moments of great subtle beauty. Though it may not be the best record for casual listening, it isn't too "conceptual" to be entertaining. According to Anomalous, it was designed in part to be used to make "virtual scratchy records" by mixing it with other sources, and it definitely succeeds in that and more.
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Forgive my cliché use of a metaphor, but I somehow feel that when I listen to this disc, I'm looking at a fairly decorative car that simply doesn't go anywhere. Spaceheads have been churning out this same formula for years: a dubby pretense, a small amount of recycled and reused, two-bar repetitive sequences, some live drum playing and trumpet with loads of delay effects. The formula's getting old. While their music is undoubtedly pleasant enough for an escalator ride, and the band has earned a wide amount of respect as a performing duo, I've never felt their music was compelling enough to simply toss on the hi-fi and either bop along or pay much attention to. The rhythms and melodies exit the song in the same way each and every one of them came in, and the only lead instrument, the trumpet, does a lackluster job as tour guide. By the time this album reaches the fifth track, I swear I'm hearing remixes of the same song, over and over again. If it weren't for the insulting guitar riff on "Fog," or the horrible, tacky electronic drum fills and cheap 1993 Aphex Twin-ripoff on "Storm Force 8," I may have recommend using this music for quiet studies, creative writing, or other mentally requiring activities. Instead, I'm left thinking this album's only practical use could be to underscore a stuffy documentary on the British Rail system or a trip to the paper mill. Maybe lots of drugs might help my experience, but I just don't have enough cash to try that out right now.
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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? Read More
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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. Read More
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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. Read More
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.
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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.
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This reissue of ACR’s Factory Records swansong captures the band at the height of their popularity and influence, spearheading (along with New Order, Quando Quango, and others) the dancification of the celebrated Manchester indie scene. While inventive, funky, and certainly a proto-Madchester touchstone, it doesn’t hold up quite as well as their Simon Topping-era earlier work (perhaps because dance music evolves a hell of a lot faster than punk). Of course, I am very much predisposed to "tense and brooding" over "funky and fun," so I may not be the target demographic here. Still, I suspect that this is probably the sort of classic album where you had to be there to fully appreciate it.
When I listened to Force for the first time, I was reminded of an amusing scene in Until the Light Takes Us in which an exasperated Gylve from Dark Throne patiently explains to an interviewer that he knows exactly how he wants Dark Throne to sound and the fact that he loves underground dance music does not mean that it will wind up on his next album.At this point in their career, A Certain Ratio exemplified the exact opposite of that sentiment—they were a band of post-punk magpies, exuberantly gobbling up and assimilating new influences as fast as they appeared.Whether or not this approach worked for them is pretty contentious, as this album garnered rave reviews from the mainstream British music press (Melody Maker proclaimed it "a glorious achievement") and certainly made a lot of people happy on Manchester’s dancefloors.To my ears, however, it is merely another frustrating step way from their excellent Sextet album.
There are three big problems here.The first is that doing things first is a relative achievement, rather than an absolute one.Being one of the earliest British rock bands to incorporate Latin rhythms, jazz, electro-funk, hip hop, samplers, and NYC dance music into their sound was undeniably fresh and hip in the early ‘80s, but just sounds kind of primitive and dated now.Secondly, the actual songs are not especially great.A lot of effort clearly went into the beats and the arrangements, but the lyrics and vocal melodies are often pretty weak ("C’mon, c’mon, c’mon- get ready!") and it sometimes sounds like vocalist Jez Kerr can’t decide whether he wants to sound like Joy Division or Wang Chung.Finally, the band seems extremely fixated on making sure that the beats are as rib cage rattling as possible.This means that almost all of the songs are mid-paced stomps and that the slapping and popping bass lines are perfectly synced to the drums, rather than being allowed to flow or propel the groove.It’s certainly tight and packs some punch, but also makes the songs sound pretty similar and sacrifices fluidity.I strongly prefer the looser, more laid-back grooves of Force’s predecessor, I’d Like to See You Again.
Nevertheless, A Certain Ratio definitely achieved something here.If Force is a bit of a well-intentioned but clumsy Frankenstein of an album, it’s still a pretty inspired one. Fans of their darker early work will probably only like "Naked and White" (the outro of which boasts some absolutely spectacular drumming), but the band shines brightest on funky instrumentals like the muscular single "Mickey Way" and frequent show-closing Latin dance party "Si Firmo O Grido." Those two vamps have a sense of fun and vitality to them that makes it obvious what the band would rather be doing.Unfortunately, that particular direction was never fully explored, as Force was the last album to feature one of the band’s main creative forces (and strongest musician), as keyboardist Andrew Connell was pulled away by the demands of his more commercially successful Swing Out Sister project.Though the passing of time hasn’t been especially kind to this conflicted and transitional effort, it was nevertheless a very forward-thinking album (in its context) and played a significant role in the evolution of the Manchester sound and dance music in general.Which, of course, is much more than I've been doing lately.
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The album starts with a soda can being opened: the click of aluminum as the tab is pressed down, the tsssh sound of carbonation being released into the air, the hissing fizz of cola. It ends with the sound of the can being crushed and thrown to the ground with a rattle and clunk. In this caffeine-fueled, densely layered and politically charged audio collage, we are taken on a ride through the billion-dollar advertising campaigns for Pepsi and Coke, the vagaries of the cola wars, celebrity endorsements, and torture. While Negativland are not generally known for their catchy hooks, upbeat rhythms, and memorable lyrics, Dispepsi remains a great "pop" album.
Negativland are known best for their visceral reinterpretations of the media sphere. Their sample-based masterpieces, heavy on the spoken word, are gathered from every conceivable source: broadcast radio, television, movies, commercial and promotional recordings, homemade family tapes and other even more obscure sources. These are handled with the same meticulous precision as a surgeon or forensic pathologist. The metaphor of pathology is an apt one as much of their creative energy has been used to dissect the psychotic and antisocial tendencies of gun toting capitalists, corporations, and media conglomerates. When Dispepsi came out in 1997 it was a focused critique against the advertising campaigns and policies of soda giants Pepsico and the Coca-Cola Company.
On the cover and spine of the album the title "Dispepsi" is not displayed coherently. The letters making it up were discombobulated into anagrams including "Pedissip" and "Ideppiss." A 1-800 phone number was given in the liner notes that had a recording where the proper name of the album could be heard. All this was a safeguard, albeit a thin one, against trademark infrigement and the possible law suits that might ensue had they shown the actual title. Amazingly enough this is one album the copyright critics didn’t get sued for.
While there are plenty of moments of noise, weird sounds, and chaotic collusions on the record, the majority of songs are marked by strong hooks and catchy melodies that get stuck in my head as easily as the advertising jingles they mimic and mock. I am glad Negativland are engaged in subverting corporate messages. They have spent so much time denouncing the culture of advertising that they have a thorough grasp of its mentality. This psychological knowledge could have been more profitably channeled towards selling useless products, instead they spent two and a half years crafting an album that has given me countless hours of pleasure. I listened to it repeatedly just after it came out, and I still put it on a few times a year even now. When initiating new listeners to the vast territory that Negativland has explored this is an album I always start with.
"Drink It Up" paints in the greater landscape of pre-packaged beverages with lines like "when Diet Rite to me is wrong, my Country Time’s expired, my Minute Maid is an hour long, my Maxwell House won’t get my wired, when my pet milk turns on me, and my Five Alive is dead…" on through numerous other permutations. Then the triumphant chorus rings in, "and my mind just turns to Pepsi, and I think of it a lot, my Swiss Miss wasn’t pure, and Kool Aid isn’t hot, when a wall of smoothies rough me up, I’ll turn to a bigger cup of Pepsi, drink it up." One of the main themes on the album is the use of celebrities in advertising to sell products. This starts on "Why Is this Commercial?" with the voice of Michael J. Fox saying, "Hi I’m me, I’m using this to sell you this." It loops and repeats, lodging deep in my mind. The song continues to describe the corporate policies that determine how advertisements tend to use African-Americans in only traditionally perceived roles that are by extension racist—hence Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima—that white people can remain comfortable with, but not in those that expand the parameters. It continues with a sample of athlete Herschel Walker and ends with a quote that Michael Jackson was paid five million dollars to star in two 90 second ads.
The cult of celebrity is explored in even more depth on "Happy Hero," a song that was remixed and included on the thematically related Happy Heroes EP. Thanks to Mark Hosler this tune has an almost country-western vibe that casual listeners would find appealing. The lyrics, however, reveal a deep concern with how superstars and other famous people can be convicted of atrocious crimes—both public and private—while still retaining the naïve loyalty of a fan base who are always willing to overlook the fact that these people beat their wives, have sex with underage children, or commit murders. "The Greatest Taste Around" has a wonderful children’s rompous room beat as the voice of Dick Lyons, reads out fun lines like, "I got fired by my boss" and then a loudly sampled "Pepsi" interspersed, before saying "I nailed Jesus to the cross" all in a happy tone that makes me thirsty for soda. Another highlight of the album is "Aluminum or Glass: The Memo," where the Weatherman poses as an ad exec coaching his underlings on how to shoot the perfect commercial, or what he calls "a heightened reality vignette." The videos made for some of these songs on the DVD Our Favorite Things are likewise continuously entertaining.
At times the music of Negativland can feel suffocating as it is so saturated with media samples. I can only imagine how painstaking the process assembling it all together was for the band, but it was certainly worth the effort. Other ambitious concept albums have floundered, this one remains strong, and its artistic statement ever more pertinent in a world flooded competing commercial messages. Dispepsi has a smooth and satisfying finish that has yet to go flat truly making it "the choice of the Negative generation."
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