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10 August 2008

Matthew Amundsen

Albums and Singles

The Antripodean Collective is an ever-changing group of Australian improvisers that create music without the limitations and responsibilities of a bandleader. While the musicians in this incarnation had all previously played with each other in various groups, this was the first time that this particular quintet had played and improvised together. The title suggests that it was a grueling process, but the results were clearly worth it.

Extreme

Pianist Paul Grabowsky is probably the biggest name in the group, having played with such greats as Chet Baker and Art Farmer, but the other musicians-Scott Tinkler, Philip Rex, John Rodgers, and Ken Edie-come with their own impressive resumes. Even though most of these players come from a jazz background, the resulting music is as much influenced by classical music as jazz, an impression reinforced by the addition of a violinist.

The group strays quite a bit from the jazz idiom and seems instead to rely on instinct as its guiding force. Rather than playing riffs or motifs, the players attack their instruments to elicit new sounds from them. For example, the groaning trumpet on "Conference of the Baboons" sounds alternately like an elephant and a chair slowly scraping along the floor while the double bass throbs in sympathy. The title track is the most frenzied cut, the violin in particular becoming nearly violent in its expression. There's definitely some fat that could have been trimmed from this recording.

The first few songs sound like the group was merely warming up, and they're not really clicking until halfway through the third track. Even so, there's plenty of ferocious and innovative playing all over this album to erase any of its flaws.

10 August 2008

Matthew Amundsen

Albums and Singles

Sakana Hosomi and Masaki Narita's fifth album as Maju finds them exploring meditative territory with electronics. While much of the material is atmospheric, they also use textural layers to give their compositions a captivating emotional resonance.

Extreme

The album gets off to a slow start. "Line" meanders with clicks, feedback, and awkward thumps before settling into a subtle melodic loop. Unfortunately, the monotonous preamble blunts its effectiveness. "Meguro" is better with its wavering drones and simple yet elegant recurring melody, but the pops and clicks that dot the track are too distracting for it to be completely enjoyable.

However, the album gets a lot better starting with "Fbk1," which uses prolonged hums, distorted sounds, and hazy pitches to create music that's peaceful and absorbing. "Fbk2" uses similar ingredients but the result is more like an underwater dream. "Recaptcha" is the album's most frenetic track with its rapid looping melody, yet it still retains the contemplative beauty found on the album's better compositions.

The best parts of the album weave together effortlessly. While the first two tracks seem out of place, the rest of Maju-5 is nearly flawless.

10 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

This disc of Norwegian psychedelia is much different than the kind other countries put out. Instead of sloppy stabs at slow repetition, there is instead four sprawling tracks of constantly shifting musicality that show obvious influences of psychedelics, new wave, classic and post-rock. However, the actual result isn’t as bizarre as it could be.

Rune Grammofon

When the title track is listed as a “suite,” there’s a good bet that there is some level of pretense going on here, and there is a bit of that whole “we like odd time signatures and complex structures” thing going on, but within reasonable boundaries. Not quite Coheed and Cambria, but Motorpsycho does flaunt their obtuseness. “Suite: Little Lucid Moments” opens in a very conventional way with its guitar/bass/drums structure and clear, unprocessed vocals that seem out of place on any song with a 21+ minute duration. The changes become pretty obvious though, as the track segues in and out to its four specific parts, some more overt rock, others purely experimental.

“She Left on the Sun Ship” leans a bit less of a focus on the complexity and more focus on simply 'rocking,' with its hard rock color and more basic structure: front half of the track is the heavier rock material, while the latter part is more sparse and mellow in comparison. The overall sound of it is not drastically different from the first parts of the first track, but it tends not to change up very much.

The overarching post-rock (emphasis more on 'rock' than 'post') vibe is not unsurprising on an album of 4 long tracks such as this, but the execution is more conventional and predicable than bands of a similar ilk. One of the overall flaws about this work is that, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t push the envelope as much as it could. There are good ideas here, but as a whole it stays too close to normalcy rather than going out in left field, which would have served it better.

While there are some unique contrasts in this album, the overall feel is one of sameness, which hurts it as a whole. The odd combination of '70s classic rock guitar that opens “The Alchemyst” being mixed with a rhythm section that has more in common with early '80s post-punk makes for an interesting contrast, but the compelling moments are too few and far between overall. The skill and execution are definitely here, but the ideas just seem to be lacking somewhat.

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10 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

Although many (myself included) have accused this duo of being overly prolific and simply releasing every bit of recorded material that exists. While this is still a debatable case, this new full length album feels much more fleshed out and conceived when compared to some of their other works, and the addition of live drums on a few of the tracks doesn’t hurt either.

Crucial Blast

I must admit in most cases of being a fan of the ol’ drum machine. There’s something about repetitive, stiff beats that usually catches my ear. In the case of some of Nadja’s previous work, the monotone rhythms clashed with the often frozen, stagnant guitars and thus slid into a rut of repetition that felt as if it never went anywhere. The live drums that cover most of the first half of this disc would stop that from happening, because the shifting, more idiosyncratic rhythms give the tracks greater propulsion than earlier works had.

This is not quite as necessary as it could have been on previous stuff, because although the elements of drone are clearly present, the tracks are more apt to switch up instrumentation and layering to give a greater dynamicism: “Sign-Expressions” clocks in as one of the longer tracks, but the layers of treated guitar continue to vary throughout, so although it is based on significant amounts of repetition, the subtle changes go a long way.

There is also a notable amount of divergence from the norm and variety going on, the aforementioned “Sign-Expressions” opens with a sluggish rhythm section from an early Swans record, but picks up the pace as the track goes on an adopts an almost jazz quality that is definitely different, but still fits in nicely. The shorter “Affective Fields” is an even greater stab at trying something different, as it is almost entirely focused on the bass and drums, the guitar and noisier elements remaining hidden deep in the mix, giving the track more of a dub quality than most.

The last two, “Uneasy Desire” and “Deterritorialization” are more “traditional” Nadja, and from the sound of things they dusted off the drum machine for these two. However, the programming is appreciably diversified, and the careful layering and looping of guitars and effects are more varied and composed than other works. The latter even delves more into abrasive industrial textures that are more overt than on other tracks.

Admittedly, I’d still prefer a slightly different color to the guitar effects: they remain too caught in the mid-frequencies and just feel a bit anemic, that is purely a matter of personal preference, and in this case it is hardly a detriment with so much else going on around it. While I approached this album with some cynical trepidation, I definitely came out proved wrong in a good way.

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10 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

It’s hard to believe maybe, but Cornelius Waldner of Sagittarius started out his musical career playing in a black metal band, Hailstorm. Like many in that genre, he has felt the need to explore other avenues of musical expression and Sagittarius is one such exploration. Songs from the Ivory Tower is essentially the first proper release on a big label from him, delivering fifteen songs showcasing his quietly melancholic, small-scale songs and neo-classical instrumentals.

Cold Spring

Songs from the Ivory Tower is an entirely appropriate title for this disc. It is an extremely introspective and reflective album, portraying a distinctly solipsistic ‘ivory tower’ insularity and isolationist vibe. Above all, this broadcasts a feeling that the artist has secreted himself away from the prying eyes of the corrupt modern world for a very long time, and has developed some circular mental pre-occupations as a consequence. Despite that and the closed-in feeling of the songs, it nevertheless possesses an icy beauty along with a sense of mystical detachment and nostalgia.

Piano, acoustic guitar, and strings form the main musical accompaniment, along with the occasional bit of flute. The songs, which are based on the work of the poets Stefan George, Bernhard von Uxkull-Gyllenband, Gottfried Benn, Ludwig Uhland, and Timo Kölling, are slow sorrowful reflections, akin to looking into a still black pool of water, and are sung in a mixture of English and German. As can sometimes happen in real-life, the thoughts expressed here, born in isolation, have closed in on themselves. I often felt a sense of tight claustrophobia creeping in, and significantly, the repetitive nature of some of the instrumental lines, rather than detracting (or being distracting), further enhance the feeling. Additionally, it underlines the circularity and restricted orbits of the songs.

The production is excellent, investing the songs with lushness while at the same time keeping the sparseness very much to the fore. Songs such as the plaintive piano and guitar opener “Nihil Arisen,” the simple musical scaffolding emphasising the philosophical despair in Waldner’s voice, definitely benefit from the Spartan approach. The same can be said for the short “Der sommer, den die erntezeit gekrönt,” lone piano chasing Waldner’s German-sung paean. The anger is barely contained, bubbling broodingly just below the surface. The simplicity underlines that emotion far more effectively than any amount of bombast could. Moreover, the whole album is heavily informed with that species of dark and heavily brooding emotion, hanging over it like thick black thunder- and rain-laden clouds.

Meanwhile, the instrumentals display a broad Germanic classical influence, especially in “Menuet von Johann Krieger (für H.E.R.R),” a piece which wears its 18th century chamber music stylings proudly. The ensuing track, “Cupio Dissolvi,” is a stately waltz of neo-classicism, sweeping and swirling around a be-columned ballroom. Perhaps this classicism is yet another expression of the hermit-like mind, a yearning for things past simply because they are somehow deemed to be better. Concomitantly I felt a strong infusion of nostalgia pervading this album, lending a distant and lost loneliness entirely befitting the delivery and style of the music.

I have a love/hate relationship with the neofolk/neoclassical genre, however this example shines through on many levels. While it is very introspective and very inward-looking, there are enough chinks in it that allow for more than a glimpse of the nostalgic world that Waldner inhabits. Make no mistake about this, there is a sepia-tinted nostalgia present here. The instrumentals reminded me somewhat of Bad Neuschwanstein in Bavaria for example, the fantasy castle of the Dream King, Ludwid König, with its hint of an aristocracy on the way down. However, even without the instrumentals, there is still a sense of years past, that somehow the modern day has lost its direction. It’s an emotion that many in these troubled times can identify with.

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06 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

Kranky and Moongadget artists, Praveen & Benoît, debut first collaboration on Music Related August 26th.

New MP3: Embers

It's all in the wires. Praveen Sharma and Thomas Meluch (aka Benoît Pioulard) have met only a handful of times and have never resided in the same city, but over the course of two-plus years they have been quietly assembling Songs Spun Simla, a brief but luminescent collection of pieces driven by Praveen's inventive arrangements and Benoît's lush vocal harmonizing.

Praveen released his remarkable debut Backed by Spirits on the now-defunct Neo Ouija imprint just as Benoît emerged with the Enge EP on Michigan's Moodgadget label in early 2005. Through mutual contacts they found that each was an admirer of the other's work, and the seeds for a casual collaboration were sown. Not long after, Praveen returned from a profound journey through his family's native India with a minidisk full of field recordings and voices, forming the basis of opener "The Tunnel is Still There". As he continued creating new songs with an ever-expanding palette of instruments and digital effects, Benoît arranged lyrics and harmonies, driven by the unfamiliarity and excitement of the process. Various ideas arose concerning the fate of these works, but once a record's worth had been amassed, their friends at Music Related expressed interest in a proper release.

Songs Spun Simla is named in honor of the village in India from which Praveen's family originates - it's inseparable from his musical inspirations yet still distant and shaped largely by memory. His compositions exist on a fitting scale, then; from the stunning, expansive lead-in of "Death as a Man" to the incredibly detailed percussion of "To Scale", there's a sense of worldliness, history and nostalgia placed in a crucible with technology and innovation. Much like a travelogue, the six movements of Songs Spun Simla abut soaring highs with passages of quiet, intimate beauty to create a deeply affecting whole.

Praveen Sharma has been making music for most of his life, and has contributed releases to AI, Neo Ouija, and Expanding Records. He also runs Percussion Lab, a hub for underground electronic music and exclusive DJ sets, in addition to being an avid live performer and event organizer in New York City.

Thomas Meluch (aka Benoît Pioulard) began playing piano at age five and has been recording music and field sounds with various devices for nearly as long. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he recently finished the follow-up album to the highly acclaimed Précis (2006) for the indie stalwarts at Chicago's Kranky.

03 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

When everything went quiet in the Tindersticks camp a few years ago, Stuart Staples released a couple of solo albums, Dickon Hinchliffe started doing soundtracks and I was worried that the group was no more. A couple of Tindersticks compilations were released (a greatest hits and a BBC sessions double CD) but these felt like posthumous releases, nails in a coffin I was hoping did not exist. However, despite losing half its members, the band continues and has returned with a wonderful album that sounds like it could have been by the full line up in their prime.

Beggars Banquet (EU)/Constellation (NA)

Hinchliffe’s departure is felt most keenly on The Hungry Saw. His violin playing and occasional vocals were the perfect foil for Neil Fraser’s guitar work and Staples’ baritone voice. The sweeping orchestral arrangements, that made Curtains and the two self-titled albums the masterpieces that they were, are largely gone. The string embellishment on “The Other Side of the World” being the exception rather than the rule. What has happened now is that the guitar has come more to the fore to replace the violin, most notably the fantastic tremolo effected guitar on "E-Type," one of the best parts of the album. The utilisation of a brass section is thankfully still a feature (and now supplemented by some woodwind) so the feeling the band now captures is the gritty and bitter love songs of the earlier albums mixed with the focus on country music from Staples’ solo albums.

The Hungry Saw does not swing as strongly as the classic Tindersticks albums but it is stronger overall compared to Waiting for the Moon or Can Our Love..., perhaps a massive shift in personnel was needed to get the song writing muscles back into shape. From the opening piano intro up until the end of the album, each song captures the heart and soul completely. Staples’ lyrics are as wonderful as usual, mixing the humdrum with the most potent emotions to create the kind of songs that are something much more than simple melodies and rhymes.” Yesterday’s Tomorrows” and the title track stand slightly above the other songs as being particularly great but really it is impossible to pick out favourites from such a stellar choice.

That a band can continue after so many years and such a dramatic loss of members as has happened with Tindersticks and still come out with an album as polished and good as The Hungry Saw is no small feat. As a long time fan of the band, I am of course delighted to see them back in any form and with any luck they will continue long into the future.

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03 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

I would have to consider the title of this disc either a misnomer or an intentional joke. As a recording, it is definitely warm and inviting, and though almost entirely based on looped elements, has an organic feel unmatched by most similar projects.

Barge Recordings

The album has a dark, earthy feel that is only enhanced by the layer of audio grime that is intentionally placed over almost every track here. Every piece has a layer of crackling like old vinyl surface noise or decaying tape that gives the entire work a well worn, familiar feeling. When I say “dark” I don’t mean in the scary or black metal sense, but more in the ambiguous, unclear sense. The layers of loops that build from track to track make each piece more disorienting, but never to the point of absolute chaos. Instead, restraint is exercised.

Even though most of the tracks are built upon layered loops, the source of the loops is pretty much organic and is often guitar or piano. The opening “My Lowville” runs along with noisy analog elements and backward melodies, but the plaintive guitar loops above it provide a gentle counterpoint. As the layers of guitar and effects pile on, the track reaches a crescendo of chaos that rivals the best of the old shoegaze bands. “Auto Show Day of the Dead” follows a similar pattern, but leaning more on piano and tremolo guitar loops that begins to get more noisy towards the second half, but take on a digital sheen that is somewhat out of place with the remainder of the disc.

The subtlety of “Fucking Milwaukee’s Been Hesher Forever” is contradicted by its title, because the piece is probably the most gentle of the ones here. It doesn’t build to the same chaotic climax as some of the others do, but stays more subtle throughout, focusing on the gentle guitar loops that make up the bulk of the mix. “Re: We’re Again Buried Under” is not really any more aggressive, but is more abstract, seemingly based more on synth and other electronic elements, thus giving it a more sci-fi feel that’s enhanced by the warbling noisier spots.

The closing “The Surge Is Working” begins with guitar that has, of all things, a southern rock type vibe to it before the guitar gets louder and more chaotic than it did on any of the previous tracks. The entire piece has a more aggressive, forceful tone to it that culminates in some unexpected blasts of noise near the end, before retreating into the sounds of the vinyl surface noise that was omnipresent throughout.

An odd amalgam of electronic drone, cut and paste abstraction, and post-rock experimentation, The Fun Years have put out an interesting record here that doesn’t sound like much else. The odd thing is, for all its uniqueness, the overall atmosphere is one of familiarity and comfort, even though there’s no easy comparisons to draw.

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03 August 2008

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Albums and Singles

Chef Menteur’s second full length retains the sense of a group setting obscure crossword clues while working out what their equipment will do. The sound is deeper and tighter but doesn’t completely abandon post-space-drone- audio-collage.

Backporch Revolution

Alec Vance and Jim Yonkus remain from Chef Menteur’s 2005 debut, We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire. That’s all well and good, but Dan Haugh’s drumming and (on one track) Brian Abbott’s banjo and sitar, bring fresh energy and discipline into the mix. Not that either of them seems responsible for the biggest surprise: the first bars of this album feature Vance simply strumming an acoustic guitar. Given the band’s previous catalogue and performances it’s as unlikely an opening as if they’d covered “Do You Think I’m Sexy?”

However, The Answer’s in Forgetting does not completely kick out the jams. “Parasitic Oscillation” goes back and forth between darkness and nothingness in a pointless manner before providing perfect contrast to ”Tonalli,” which swings in on percussive breaks and a lovely piano figure. “1491” scorches along like the comet of that year which came closer to Earth than any other. Again the track provides neat contrast when it bleeds into “I.E.D.,” a Mogwai-esque excursion that shows the benefit of Haugh’s dynamics and actual melody in the guitar lines. If they keep this up they’ll write an actual song with verses and a chorus! As if to scratch that thought, the subdued drone of “Goodbye Callisto” follows— an ode to sandals, a nymph, a moon, or more likely a tribute to Xena’s nemesis. “OT III” ends the disc in a brief punchy swirl of banjo, sitar and synth which perhaps references the band’s “Oceanic 23” track from a WTUL radio compilation, or not.

Some of the pieces here rival Chef Menteur’s finest earlier track “W.A.S.T.E.” which used the voices of New Orleans trash collectors as the basis of a sublimely rhythmic nod to Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Given a pleasing penchant for the obscure it can only be a matter of time before they title a piece “Remembering the Octahedron”.

For now the band eschew lyrics but, given that they (or possibly just Vance) enjoy linguistic puzzles and literary references, that too could change. Best keep a dictionary handy, anyway, as they understand the value and fun of naming a track “Trebuchet” rather than, say, “Shoebox Diorama.” With The Answer’s in Forgetting and Potpie’s Potpie Plays the Classics the back porch revolution continues to gain momentum.

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03 August 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Every once in a while something extraordinary manages to come my way with a power that is hard to deny. Such is the case with this London-based band's debut album, a stratospheric collection of musically mature, beautifully crafted, and subtly layered compositions that refuse to remain earthbound. This is the vision and brainchild of just one individual—Oliver Barrett, only in his early 20s and literally fresh out of University.

Tartaruga

BHN’s music is built up of deeply harmonic sedimentary drone layers of cello, simple piano lines repeated to create a beguiling complexity, cascading guitars, feedback loops, noise, and the whole occasionally augmented with understated vocals that seem to inhabit the interstices of every note played. Furthermore, noise and accident play an equal part, and occasional scrapes of fingers against strings and the creaking of chairs can be discerned. These have been deliberately left in; Barrett believes that each and every one of these noises forms an integral part of the performance. These undoubtedly introduce new textures and a unique aesthetic to both the creative and recording processes employed here. However, rather than feeling that I was listening to some kind of rarified intellectual construction whose understanding stood way out of reach, I felt instead that every nuance was physically seeping into my consciousness and making me part of the experience. As a part of that experience I felt that the mundane world was left far behind, and I was floating in the skies of another world entirely.

The album crashes in with “BHN,” a thick miasmatic cacophony of cello that wouldn’t be out of place on some psychedelic noise album. After this introduction, any preconceptions I harbored were devastatingly, not to say pleasantly, confounded when out of the fog emerged the slightly out-of-tune piano figure of “As If Yearning Was All and More than Enough.” Cello and stabbed piano chords underline and punctuate, deepening the mood. Gently following on from that is the spine-tinglingly and shatteringly beautiful “Black Glass,” the piano and layered cello interplay being perfectly complemented by the subtle and quietly harmonized male and female vocals. I found it difficult not to be affected by the simple power and strength of this song. My mind soared to beautifully crisp and clear winter nights at twilight when the stars are just beginning to peek out from behind the thick veil of day.

Subtle layers of shimmering feedback and strings prevail on “A Nest,” wrapping and cocooning. This is an eight minute track of minutely-building blissed-out drones, totally enveloping the body in a warm blanket of pure tones. More than that though, the harmonics lazily but playfully chase each other throughout its entire length. “Discovering Abandoned Houses” injects a hauntingly melancholic and isolationist element here, while “Finding the Door,” starting off with harmonised voice, soon breaks out with uplifting piano and sweeping cello lines.

This is a marvellously complex album, displaying a compositional maturity usually garnered through decades of experience and learning. In some respects, Barrett has indeed compiled a couple of decades of musical exploration already, having started learning cello at age four. What singles him out, though, is the fact that rather than staying within the rigid confines of classical music, he broke out into rock in his teen years. Couple the taking on of all those influences with an additional delve into the experimental end of the spectrum, and it could be concluded that his musical education has inevitably become broader than many. All these seemingly disparate elements coalesce and merge together here, and what results is a startling album that certainly in my view stands head and shoulders above many a debut.

Samples

03 August 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

By all accounts Bryn Jones of Muslimgauze was a prolific musician, as any glance at his discography will confirm. Even nigh on a decade after his untimely death, new (or rather previously unreleased) material is still emerging steadily into the light of day. Jah-Mearab is one such, bringing together unheard material originally recorded in 1998 and simultaneously inaugurating a whole series of archive CDs to be issued by his European label.

Staalplaat

It is intensely difficult to separate the music of Jones from his politics, now more so than ever. Today’s fragile political climate somehow makes his music more relevant, given the Western hemisphere’s seeming paranoid obsession with ‘radical’ Islam. It would be fascinating perhaps to see how his music would be received today, whether he would be branded a terrorist sympathizer simply because of his espousal of the aims of the Palestinian peoples and his support for Hamas. All that however is by the by; as inextricably and tangibly bound up as the music of Muslimgauze was in the miasma of politics of the Near East, it yet retains an independent flavor all its own.

Jones was able to bridge the gulf between the Western and Eastern hemispheres, spanning (and understanding) the more traditional forms of Arabic music, as well as styles of ‘eastern’ music built upon Western foundations. The difference though is that Jones brought with him a deep respect for the music of that region, and he never allowed his interpretations to fall into cheesy bastardizations. What he managed in some respects was to make the fusion with Western hip-hop and dance rhythms, for instance, seem like nothing more than the next logical evolutionary steps from their traditional antecedents, and this is emphatically underscored on this album. For instance, “In Search of Sudan Nerve Gas," is a hip-hop cut-up based around a stuttering beat and a repetitive vocal loop, interspersed with stabs of noise and micro-snatches of instrumentation. Despite the span of a decade since it was recorded, it’s still fresh and vibrant. Similarly, the album opener and title track, “Jah-Mearab,” a laidback trip-hop piece overlaid with market-square voices and song punctuated with rasps and scrapes, sounds as newly-minted and up-to-date as anything released today. Moreover, despite the Western inflections, the two pieces are heavily marinaded in the radical ferment and political flavors of the region. The often calamitous intersection of Eastern and Western politics, and their very different priorities, is brought home well by the fusion of styles here.

Contrastingly, track nine, “Jar of Salahuddin," is very much staking out traditional terrain. Heavy Arabic-style percussive rhythms provide a solid backing for a traditional wailing male refrain, the whole focusing nicely to create an oriental redolence with which we can all identify. However, it’s the furthest thing from being just a mere cultural appropriation. It carries with it a deeply felt sense of authenticity that gives it some weight of authority. Furthermore, even within the more Western-tinted interpretations, there is still that vein of authenticity coursing through them strongly. Regardless of the means that he uses, Jones always manages to aim the message straight for the target.

Jones was an intensely shy, private, and awkward man, someone who obviously preferred to let his music do the talking. That every note he played and recorded was infused with his passionate beliefs and feelings is immediately apparent from even a cursory listen. As an introduction perhaps to his breadth of musical style and vision, along with his strength of political passions and beliefs, Jah-Mearab can be considered a good starting point from which to set out on an exploration of Muslimgauze’s legacy.

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