Being thankful for an earful.
Brand new music by Marie Davidson, Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry), CEL, Marisa Anderson and Luke Schneider, Stina Stjern, Carmen Villain, Murcof, A Lily, and Far Golden Pavilions, with music from the vaults by Tomaga, Ozzobia, Jan Jelinek.
Sushi photo by Lindsay.
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Body and voice, the two oldest iinstruments known to humankind, are the only ones featured on this album. The group, which is all female by the way, uses rhythmic call and response chants to give archaic stylings to contemporary performance art. The concept in of itself is great, but the Boys' rejection of songwriting makes for a repetitious listening.
Having never been to any of their "legendary" live shows, I decided to look up photos and video to give me an idea of what the group was all about. From what's available on the internet, it seems like watching them in person would be a ball. Their act incorporates dance, costumes, set design, and audience interaction. Far more interesting than watching some dude peer into his laptop for a half hour, I'm sure. Unfortunately, none of this excitement transfers over to Sacred Vacation.
For an a capella album, this one has little in the way of actual words to wrap your head around. Each song is constructed around a repeated chant, which is often just moaning, grunting or cooing. Clapping and stomping sits in for percussion. Occasionally, the women will harmonize or shout out lines like "You are my sweet potato!" or "You gotta boyfriend, you gotta husband!", but even those pieces seem thinly arranged. The group claims everything from diva-dom to Baltimore doo-wop as inspiration, but they ignore the strong lyrical tradition in those genres. Far from limiting the group, I think focusing on songwriting and oratory would open them up to new themes and influences. Only so much can be expressed by babbling.
I don't want come down too hard on the Lexie Mountain Boys. Their theatre and vocals approach to music-making could offer a good antidote to the dude-centric, technology obsessed status quo in experimental music, at least in principle. But to live up their promise, they'll have to release a CD that can stand by itself outside of a live context. They easiest way I can think of is for them to actually sing about something. As beautiful as the unadorned human voice is, the appeal is lost if it says nothing.
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Wire is proud to announce that it has completed work on its 11th studio album, continuing the momentum that began with the band's 2006 reactivation and Read & Burn 03. Dubbed 'Object 47' - 47 representing its position as the 47th release in the Wire discography - the album finds Wire utilising the core writing partnership responsible for Pink Flag, Colin Newman and Graham Lewis. The latest release is described by the band as having "tunes with zoom", and this is best illustrated by the melodic and textural development already suggested by elements of last year's Read & Burn 03.
The full track-listing for the album is: One Of Us; Circumspect; Mekon Headman; Perspex Icon; Four Long Years; Hard Currency; Patient Flees; Are You Ready?; All Fours.
Object 47 will be on sale later this year, direct from PostEverything and via record stores worldwide. A final release date will be announced shortly, and so sign up to the mailing list to be the first to find out when the album will surface.
Released the same year as Nature Unveiled, Current 93's second full-length record is more uneven than its predecessor and less coherent. Time has been kind to Current 93's debut, but Dogs Blood Rising feels a little like Tibet's leftover thoughts and ideas forced onto record. It nonetheless boasts of several outstanding moments and marks Tibet's first obvious movement away from the trappings of the so-called industrial culture.Everything Nature Unveiled expressed with brevity and eloquence is unnecessarily confused and extended on Dogs Blood Rising. All the familiar symbols and references to Christianity, Satan, redemption, fear, human impotency, apocalyptic trauma, and positive biblical fables are present, but without the strength of a unifying esthetic. "Christus Christus (The Shells Have Cracked)" begins well enough with looped chants, abstract and breathy tones, and a sense of direction. It is an invocation of Christianity's dark side, a dimension characterized by death, burning, God's terrifying judgment (who will be saved?), and humanity's capacity for evil. "Falling Back in Fields of Rape" continues that promise of a new direction by solidifying it with a distinct meter, evenly recurring and reversed percussion loops, and a seductive chant deep in the background. Nature Unveiled was not without its structure, but at the beginning Dogs Blood Rising seems more thoughtful and coherent by virtue of its more conventional form.
Steven Ignorant's opening lines a few minutes into the song arrive unexpectedly, breaking the song's established vocabulary, and with his words Stapleton simultaneously increases the audio frenzy. The sequence of audio events presented in a short time is impressive. A metallic and vertiginous crash realizes the act of falling suggested in the song's title, then there is a moment of near silence before the now familiar words "In a foreign town / In a foreign land" are delivered. Ignorant's tone is initially narrative-like and it maintains the structure suggested by the song's opening moments. However, his delivery is quickly made ferocious, his voice reaches a feverish pitch, and in no time at all the music becomes equally crazed. The song is then transformed and a child's voice becomes the focal point, and then again another change occurs as a deranged and slightly forced growl makes its way into the mix, and then yet another change. This time a woman recites various cruelties to which humans are subjected while an organ slowly drones away beneath her voice. Over and over again the song mutates without warning, almost as though it were punishing the listener for expecting any kind of order. An unnecessary drum machine briefly makes an appearance before Tibet's dry and unnerving voice enters the fray, calling to mind his performance on I Have a Special Plan for this World. Unfortunately the song attacks the listener almost too literally, inspiring frustration more than fright, sympathy, remorse, or any other emotion. What could've been a new direction for Tibet and Stapleton instead devolves into a less powerful version of everything presented on Nature Unveiled.
Neither "From Broken Cross, Locusts" nor "Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept)" improves the album much. The former is a consistent song in both tone and structure, but it quickly becomes dull. For much of the song Tibet simply repeats "Antichrist" over and over again; his voice is amplified, distorted, and extended in various ways with little more than a martial and repetitive drum-beat to accompany him. The latter is, for some reason or another, dedicated to Japanese author, playwright, poet, philosopher, essayist, nationalist, and imperialist Yukio Mishima. Perhaps Mishima's literary and personal emphasis on the body inspired Tibet, but making any definite connection between him and the album is nearly impossible and suggests that Tibet was, at the time, juggling too many influences to make anything definite and powerful of them. Most interesting is the concluding piece, "St. Peter's Keys All Bloody." In a conversational tone Tibet greets darkness by way of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence." It's an especially interesting musical reference considering the song's generally accepted message, which touches on the absence of love in public life and lack of communication between individuals, public or private. In any case, the song also signifies Tibet's interest in more structured music, especially folk music. As the lyrics to "Scarborough Fair" while away beneath Tibet's scathing delivery I'm reminded of Tibet's synthetic sensibilities on Nature Unveiled. It's clear to me now that while Tibet worked initially within an industrial (or at least experimental) mode, he was from the start trying to break away from it. Simon and Garfunkel were almost the complete antithesis of what was happening in London's more underground venues in 1984, yet their influence appears on this record.
Also included in the first 1,000 copies of this reissue is a complete album remix by Andrew Liles titled Dogs Blood Ascending. It is in every way an improvement upon the original. The sudden and unappealing shifts of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape" are transformed into a unified and explosive expression of anger at the loss of innocence. The song, in its remixed form, begins with the child-like voices that populated the middle portion of the original and then proceeds to Ignorant's spite-filled diatribe. It's as though, by a simple rearrangement and some improved atmospherics, the entire album is given a perspective and force that it originally didn't have. War is clearly declared on the evils of the world, the pounding of drums that were previously wimpy synthetic thuds assume a meaningful dimension that they couldn't have had in the original, and all the musical changes that bogged down the original are given new life because of Liles' determination to maintain some semblance of unity within the song. The percussion on "From Broken Cross, Locusts" also benefits from Liles' careful hand. Instead of being monotonous and ineffective, they achieve a truly martial status that reminds me more precisely and fully of a fascist dread marked by the terror of marching and perfectly polished boots. Tibet's Antichrist-chant is invigorated by various effects and benefits from being truncated slightly. The song is thus made into the whirlwind of hatred I suspect it was intended to be. "Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept)" is given the most radical transformation. On Dogs Blood Ascending it is a quiet, subdued piece, emphasizing the somber quality of Christ's sacrifice. It's a real tribute to Liles' talent that he managed to latch onto the record's major themes and improve upon their presentation without rendering the album completely unidentifiable. It also shows that all the necessary pieces to the puzzle were available to Tibet in the crafting of this album; they were ready to be assembled in a powerful way, but simply weren't realized as well as they could've been. The remix ends with "St. Peter's Keys All Bloody," but this time a musical accompaniment that approximates "The Sounds of Silence's" melody is the main feature. Tibet's vocals appear, too, but the contrast between the toy-box melody and his pronounced groans adds a depth to the song not present in the original.
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5/28/08 DC9 Washington DC
5/29/08 Pianos New York NY
5/30/08 the Saint Asbury Park NJ
5/31/08 The Khyber Philadelphia PA
6/1/08 TT the Bears Cambridge MA
6/3/08 TBA Baltimore, MD
6/4/08 Local 506 Chapel Hill NC
6/5/08 The Rocket Asheville NC
6/6/08 Barley's Knoxville TN
6/7/08 The Earl Atlanta GA
May 27, 2008
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK005
All the Saints are: Matt Lambert - Guitar/Vocals; Jim Crook - Drums; Titus Brown - Bass/Vocals
Produced by Ben H. Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, P-Diddy, Christina Aguilera) and All The Saints.
Don't be fooled by the piss-stained mattress on the cover, the debut from this Alabama-raised Atlanta-based power trio is moderately clean for one of Atlanta's most thunderous groups. All The Saints not only commanded their control of volume and intensity, but with their debut album have proven their abilities in composition and arrangement. These ten songs often flow together, creating a fully-realized conceptual album, without being a "concept album." The stellar production of Ben H. Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, P-Diddy, Christina Aguilera) compliments their abilities as players and singers. Reference points include Loop, Gun Club, Verbena, In Camera, Federation X, and Swans. The band has earned fans in groups like Deerhunter, Battles, and A Place To Bury Strangers, and will embark on a small East-Coast tour upon the release of Fire On Corridor X. See their Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/allthesaints for streaming songs, videos, and live dates.
"Sounding like a mash-up of The Stone Roses, Dinosaur Jr. and 400 Blows (the band, not the Truffaut movie), Georgia's All the Saints come marching in with amps set to "stun." A "power trio" par excellence, the boys ain't afraid to dip into some psych-doom-blues a la a bands like Cactus or Pentagram or Blue Cheer, either. Sherman may have burned Hotlanta down first, but don't get the flammables too near these fellers."-CL, Charlotte (Davis)
"Sinewy acid-psych thrum that ebbs and flows." - Independent Weekly, Chapel Hill
"Atlanta's heavy psych traffickers... local killers." - Creative Loafing
"For a three-piece, All the Saints sure make a hell of a lot of noise." - Atlanta Music Guide
"Simply put, they're loud and they rocked the joint." - CableAndTweed.com
"Driving, psychedelic-influenced rock relying less on hype and more on substance." - DeadJournalist.com
"All the Saints have a brand new, six-song, self-titled CD that'll melt your face off. The psychedelic hard-rockers come off like Blue Cheer and Mudhoney playing tonsil hockey. Earplugs and blotter may be prevalent tonight." - Stomp and Stammer
"I tracked their MySpace page down. Before I could even rush to the speakers to turn the volume down I was completely blown away by what I was hearing. I wanted to know everything about this band. I wanted everyone I know to listen to this band and be amazed. There isn't a track on their album that doesn't warrant listening to." - KISSatlanta.
"Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeedback, and then… All the Saints play faithful Sabbath meets Nirvana, in sebagos, with a giant metal fleur de lis. They are loud, sludgy, and intense." - GoldenFiddle.com
May 27, 2008
US CD Killer Pimp PIMPK006
Music by Jan St. Werner
CD contains 1 bonus track not on LP or MP3 download
MP3 download available from Fina Music
LP available from Sonig
"Elevations above Sea Level" is the second Mound Magnet part from Lithops aka Jan St Werner, 1/2 of the prolific duo Mouse on Mars, 1/3 of last year's surprise collaboration "Von Südenfed" with the Fall's Mark E Smith and 1/2 of the dsp group Microstoria. Though he is a prolific producer he seems to have a fascination with rollover dates (he cancelled mostly every Lithops gig in the last 5 years) does that spill into a fascination with cycles of nature? No! Actually he's more interested in the cycling by man-made machines, as expressed in the Mound Magent sequel. "Elevations above Sea Level" gives us aural diagrams of a large, hypermodern cities with futuristic vehicles moving around. The electrical ticking of fluorescent advertising panels, a thwappy airiness of the ventilation system, the rattles of trains and chopped up hums of distant roads, the mechanical groans that maintenance machinery starts up with, rain drumming on the stretched glass roofs of urban malls, the howling groans of motorcycles on city highways. It's not an ambient record by any means, nor is it purely musique concrete. It's rather an acid fulled hallucination of how to detect an idea of the future in the noises that surround us. Though he uses some of the sound editing methods like his contemporaries (and his own other groups), this doesn't mass into huge pools to make a statement; the basslines, hums, jolts and whooshes divide and multiply into sections like buildings and streets are divided, from sub-basements to rooftops, alleys and boulevards, by stories. Lithops' narcoleptic programming has a precision which holds the listener completely captive -- difficult, haunting and highly enjoyable. The limited vinyl version is available on Sonig.
Topically par for the course with the bulk of modern roots, The Most High finds Daddy Rings constantly and affably singing praises for Empersor Haile Selassie and the virtuous tenets of Rastafarianism. Those unfamiliar with this music might be put off by these spiritual and heavy-handedly judgmental verses, conveniently located in an uncharacteristically fat booklet. Still, any dedicated reggae fan will recognize the talents of this practiced performer on songs such as "African Glory" and the cautionary "Cut Off."
Not committed to any particular style, Daddy Rings revels in the joys of variety, as with the saccharine pop ditty "Hard Road," replete with lilting backing harmonies, and the rugged Mavado-like dancehall militancy of "Rise With Jah." As someone more than appreciative of ganja anthems, "The Weed Song" just about exceeds my expectations and, in my estimation, surpasses the socio-politically apt though musically dated "Herb Fi Bun."
With contributions from heavyweights Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, along with several other producers and session players, The Most High doesn't surpass leading lights like Luciano or Sizzla, though it certainly reminds that modern roots music doesn't begin and end with the more prolific ones. Daddy Rings' return to the full-length album format was well worth waiting for.
The youthful group's impressive chart success in their native country might not translate to similar appreciation stateside, though listening to these sensational, emotive, and often electrifying tunes, that hardly seems relevant.
Foals make a joyful though secular noise throughout Antidotes, from the percolating opener "The French Open" all the way through the duo of exclusive bonus tracks which Sub Pop has astutely chosen to include. With some of the best usage of horns in rock music this side of The Stooges, the band constantly raise the bar for other post-millennial indie upstarts with the splendid singles "Cassius" and "Balloons," the latter having practically burnt a hole in my now-deceased iPod from excessive repeat play. The multitracked vocals of Yannis Philippakis mount the sturdy rhythms and quirky melodies of quality tracks like "Olympic Airways" and the spacious, arena ready anthem, "Big Big Love."
Somewhat famous already for rejecting the initial production work done by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio, Foals have little need for name-checkable collaborators, as these intelligent, angular party tunes more than compensate for their neophytic status. Ignore at your peril.
The immediate aftermath of Jane's Addiction's disbanding yielded an even split of its membership into two unusual projects. Flamboyant frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins formed Porno For Pyros, darker and even more psychedelic than their former band. With far less popular success, bassist Eric Avery and guitarist Dave Navarro started Deconstruction, a one-time project with the former taking on vocal responsibilities.
Despite the pedigree and undeniable talent of these performers, Deconstruction's self-titled 1994 album proved no match for Porno For Pyros' own eponymous debut released a year before, which boasted the quirky, blithely apocalyptic alterna-rock classic "Pets." Avery's quasi-gothic tone starkly contrasted Farrell's anti-commercial, yet nonetheless familiar, over-the-top vocal presence, and, quite possibly, the fickle marketplace simply may not have desired two post-Jane's acts. Curiously, when Jane's Addiction opted to reunite later on in the 1990s, the co-founding bassist passed on the presumably lucrative opportunity, much to the dismay of many dedicated fans. After a few years of operating under the radar of the increasingly commercialized and undermined alternative music scene under the moniker Polar Bear, Avery seemingly withdrew from public life, resurfacing occasionally and under odd circumstances, perhaps most notably auditioning to replace Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in the unintentionally hysterical documentary Some Kind Of Monster. In recent years, his former Californian cohorts have stayed in the news if not in the charts, with Farrell devolving more and more into a hippie punch line and Navarro starring in his share of reality shows, including an embarrassing behind-the-scenes series chronicling the lead-up to his doomed marriage to Carmen Electra. It is unsurprisingly though commendable that Avery chose to return to the scene with dignity and self-respect when he could have just as easily taken up residence on some VH1 D-list celebrity atrocity. Uncompromising and independent, Help Wanted sets just the right tone for his reemergence from the shadows a startling seventeen years later.
Returning to a musical life in the shadow of band as monstrously popular and revered as Jane's Addiction would be daunting for any musician, especially with this much time having passed. Yet within the two minutes of epic album opener "Belly Of An Insect," its unsung bassist has clearly returned reinvigorated with an edge that his former cohorts’ most recent efforts (Farrell’s Satellite Party, Navarro and Perkins' The Panic Channel) excruciatingly lack. Based on the lyrical content of many of these songs, the years haven't brightened Avery's life all that much. On "Beside The Fire" the hypnotic rhythm section briefly make room for tortured, almost paranoiac self-evaluation "I don't know why sometimes I lose my mind / When everything seems just fine" before soaring guitars and creepy organs overtake the mix. His impressive, sincere voice channels Ian Curtis and Peter Murphy without the pretense of today's so-called gothic artists, as on the bluesy single "All Remote and No Control" and the moody yet often bombastic "Unexploded." Avery gives up the reins occasionally for a few notable guests, not the least of which being Shirley Manson of Garbage, who lends her typically unmistakable pipes to "Maybe," a slow burning and stirring ballad. Picking up the tempo a bit, "Porchlight" shifts from folksy comforts to Southern rock between verse and chorus, repeating with great effect.
Sharing Dangerbird's small but respectable roster with Silversun Pickups, a band with more than their share of reasonable comparisons to nineties' acts, Avery appears to have made a wise strategic decision. Dangerbird, in turn, surely benefit from releasing this album mere days before Avery agreed to reunite with his fellow bandmates as Jane's Addiction is dubiously honored by an overrated British tabloid music publication best known for defaming Morrissey and attempting to portray drug addict/occasional musician Pete Doherty as a tortured genius a la Shaun Ryder. Still, this win-win situation should be viewed not as cheap tactical marketing but, rather, serendipity. Help Wanted is by far the best thing to come from the Jane's Addiction breakup this century, and an outstanding release in its own right.
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This slice of progressive folk music from the summer of 1970 is a charming recording by the duo of David McNiven and Angie Rew augmented by a rhythm section of Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, on loan from Pentangle. What's so funny about youthful possibility and childhood memory?
The constant stream of rediscovered legendary lost releases can be wearing for those of us who feel that many of those works were lost for good reason: they weren't up to much in the first place. The Strange Tale of Captain Shannon and the hunchback from Gigha deserves a chance, though, not least for the sincerity and openness of the singers. Their songs hail from a period in modern Europe (and maybe in the lives of McNiven and Rew) when everything seemed freer and permissible; an era of full employment, a loosening of gender roles and sexual morality, and cheap continental travel. The simple inspiration behind each poetic song is also made clear in the copious liner notes. The material is good enough to stand this transparency and the fact that the writers have woven some childhood experiences into song merely adds to the allure. The notes also give off a strong whiff of earnest late night philosophizing—the kind that some artists might choose to hide under a veil of cynicism.
The record opens with "Hymn to Sylvia," concerning McNiven's chance meeting with a female biker in England after he walked across Northern Spain and hitchhiked the length of France. This song and the closing title track (set on a remote Scottish island) are epic, immersing pieces that, along with Danny Thompson's upright bass and Terry Cox's drumming, give the album a solid yet flexible spine. Apart from a few small sections of forgivably pretentious gibberish (it was 1970 after all) the psychedelic or acid aspect to the music is so low-key as to be virtually non-existent. By which I mean that it sounds hypnotic and transporting without being wrapped in obvious elements that have come to be misheard as representative of psychedelic music.
Of course, not everyone will swallow the wide-eyed optimism of lyrics such as "So draw your magic circles in the sky/Take a chance on all your dreams before they die," and those who enjoy the naturalistic production may be outnumbered by those who find it wooden. I find that, along with the nimble clarity of the guitar work and richness of the voices, the "flawed" lyrics and "dated" production are actually the strengths of this recording. And the fact that the duo still live in the landscape of Scotland lends an air of resilience to their music. After all, anyone could be a hippy troubadour in the Californian sunshine, right?
Previous member Carolyn Davis is featured on one song and her voice bears a pleasing resemblance to that of the great Lal Waterson. There is an affecting breeziness to Rew's voice and McNiven's has a sensitivity akin to that of Lindisfarne or (the vastly underrated) Ralph McTell. McTell is best known for his recurring hit single about the plight of London's homeless people, but it's worth hearing The Boy With A Note (his album about Dylan Thomas) and Kenny the Kangaroo and (the imaginary village) Tickle on the Tum are among the best albums of genuinely innocent songs ever made.
The group take take their name from a 1950s Italian movie, a romantic comedy. Captain Shannon… was originally intended for release as a double with Bread Dreams and Love's Amaryllis album which is also just reissued by Sunbeam Records.
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