20 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

While folk music these days seems to have forgotten all the traditional songs that make it the music of the folk, some artists are remembering the old songs that sound as vibrant today as they probably did when they were performed first. Directing Hand know what they are up to when it comes to traditional music, there is a reverence for these songs yet no fear of adding the sound of a new generation to the pieces. Combining these dusty old tunes with improvised pieces of their own, this album is a true new folk music; it sounds like the here and now.

 

Dancing Wayang

There are two sides to this album (both literally, it being an LP, and figuratively); soft, pastoral folk songs of the kind that Shirley and Dolly Collins have spent their lives cataloguing and recording sit next to furious explosions of free improvisation, tumultuous drumming and ecstatic singing. From the first two songs this dichotomy is plain to see. The gentle pulse of the harmonium (and the squeaks of it being pumped) that begins "The Temptation" provides a warm blanket for Lavinia Blackwall and Alex Neilson's vocals, both of them singing in a high register, coming in clear over the music. This blanket is then swept off, fully exposing the music to the elements in the form of "Speed Agreement," Blackwall's unearthly singing sounding like it is coming from mythical creature.

Throughout What Put the Blood there are countless magic moments where both musicians go beyond just playing together and meld into a perfectly symbiotic unit, feeding into each other to bring the music up to another level. Just when I think that Blackwall has hit her peak in a song, Neilson's drumming picks her up and they smash through whatever barriers might be there. Their version of "My Lagan Love" pushes the song far beyond its limits, six minutes go by before any recognisable melody or lyrics appear. This is by far the jewel in the album’s crown, a mighty combination of free drumming and sleepy Irish ballad.

The album is housed in a gorgeous sleeve; a silhouetted drawing in black, white and bright blood red. The stark and vivid imagery very much suits Directing Hand’s approach to the traditional song. Inserts with a short essay on the group by David Keenan are reminiscent of the type of albums the aforementioned Collins sisters released, words trying to capture the je ne sais quoi that runs through such powerful traditional music (although the focus is more on Directing Hand's improvisational skills with copious references to Albert Ayler and the likes). Although these are just trappings (albeit beautifully done) surrounding what is a wonderful, wondrous collection of songs.

samples:

• The Temptation
• My Son David
• My Lagan Love

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14 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Ever since the release of his first cassette on the renowned and legendary Cologne-based label Entenpfuhl in 1993, Jo Zimmermann aka Schlammpeitziger grants an international audience insights into his private cosmos. The musician, graphic artist and tireless inventor of increasingly strange song titles with a ribald as well as subtle humour has been coining a highly distinctive style for these last 15 years. On his new album he demonstrates how to combine artistic development and remaining true to oneselves' style.

 

On "Schwingstelle für Rauschabzug", Schlammpeitziger discovers deep frequencies and pulsating beats. And all of a sudden, his tried and tested combination of eloquent melodies (which more often than not seem to lead a life of their own) and lively rhythms acquires a completely new pull. With this album, Jo Zimmermann pulses his listeners (and surely himself) into hypnosis. This new quality transforms Schlammpeitziger's music in a remarkable way: it remains friendly and weird, but gains in seriousness and depth. And in physicalness. Where we used to nod with our heads we are now inclined to exercise our pelvic floor. Beneath all those subsonic donnybrook basslines and the synthlines which stimulate our laugh muscles, each track has a second and a third level to be discovered. It’s always a joy to realize how cunningly Jo Zimmermann palms his musical depth off on us. This kind of club-suitable pop music (or radio friendly club music?) possesses hidden qualities which readily disclose themselves on a second or third listening. And all of a sudden, one is confronted which a wholly new piece of music. This musical "double entendre" was already hinted at on the last album "Everything Without All Inclusive" (sonig 32CD/LP). Now it has become Schlammpeitziger's new musical trademark. Still, each track is capable of telling long and complex stories (which are often triggered by their titles). Still, the listener is caught up in a net of intricately woven melodic lines. And we still love to dive deep into the depths of Schlammpeitziger’s three dimensional sound vaults and his sturdy beats. "Schwingstelle Für Rauschabzug" is mixed by Andi Toma (Mouse On Mars/Von Südenfed) at St. Martin Tonstudio, Düsseldorf. Track 10 (on the CD) is a remix by Pingipung's Springintgut who recently released an album on City Centre Offices. Furthermore the CD contains a beautiful video to the track "Rastplatz Rastlos" by video artist Ulrike Göken (responsible for Schlammpeitziger's live visuals & other music videos).

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14 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

 
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. Vinyl limited to 300 copies.

Tracklist is as follows:

01 Roctrum
02 Rosa In A Light Speed Vessel
03 Caribbean Circuitry
04 Bleasure Pastique
05 Every Detail's Matter
06 Noo Non M Oon
07 A Generation Without Conent
08 Mound Magnet Pt.1 Remixed By The Allophons
09 Fahrtenheit
10 Concretemess And Absaction
11 Serendippo
12 Baliation

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

The looming silhouettes of the pyramids on the cover give some idea of what to expect on Sam Shalabi's latest release. Born in Egypt and finished in Canada, Eid is an eclectic and ecstatic album. Each track sounds like it was pulled from a local radio station in Cairo yet no two pieces sound like they came from the same station. Shalabi fuses Western and Arabic music without straying into trite, watered-down fusion territories.

 

Alien8

Given the recent explosion in interest in Arabic, African and Middle Eastern music thanks to labels like Sublime Frequencies and the almost rabid reissue schedule of '70s Turkish psychedelica, it is hard to not compare Shalabi to these seemingly never ending scores of artists. I must admit, he compares quite favourably as he hits a lot of buttons that a lot of these other releases do not. Firstly, the quality of the recording is obviously far superior and secondly, the druggy nature of the music captures my ear to a far stronger degree than many of the Turkish bands that have been unearthed in recent years.

"Jessica Simpson" takes the white hot guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix and White Light/White Heat era Lou Reed and transposes it to another continent. (Take the quotation marks out of that sentence and you get a dizzying thought.) I do not know if Shalabi himself plays this solo, as there is a list as long as my arm of performers in the sleeve notes, but whoever is hitting those guitar strings knows what they are doing. This is followed by "Eid," a very different piece altogether. Repetitive melodies go in and out of sync with each other, stringed instruments sounding like they are bending space around them. The effect is mesmerising on a number of levels.

Unfortunately, the album dips in quality with a couple of somewhat pedestrian pieces. In fairness, anything coming after that title track is always going to come off worse. However, it is not all downhill as Shalabi brings things back on track with "Billy the Kid." Elizabeth Anka Vajajick's vocals sound strong but in danger of falling apart, like there is only so much emotion that can be forced through a human throat.

Overall, Eid is a patchy but frequently brilliant album. When it is good, it burns like an immense bonfire and at its weakest it at least still gives off enough light and heat to keep the listener close. Its huge cast of players (over 30 contributors) is both its greatest asset and its downfall; dozens of styles and instruments are used but even if this approach works, it causes the album to stumble from time to time. Still, it is difficult to let these faults mar the better points of Eid. On the strength of its best tracks, this album is well worth investigating, even if it is a track by track dissection from an online download vendor.

samples:

• Hawaga
• Eid
• Billy the Kid

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Before I even got around to playing this album I was intrigued by the album's packaging. The red fuzzy sleeve contains both the CD (obviously) and sleeve notes printed on a thin, Styrofoam-like material. The different textures of the materials are at first baffling but then a certain kind of logic begins to emerge while listening to the album. The music itself changes texture persistently, from soft to rough, from hard to gooey; by the time I adjust to a piece I am lost again. It is a wonderful feeling, like being a little drunk in a foreign town.

 

Soleilmoon

Aranos is no stranger to variety, his music constantly changing shape from moment to moment and the pieces here do not break from this mold. The bizarre and repetitive barbershop of "New Boyfriend" is sandwiched between completely different styles. Preceded by "Awaking Horns," a very minimalist style composition that sounds almost like the run-off of a vinyl groove, and followed by the amusicality of "Some Clowns are Not Funny,"  "New Boyfriend” sounds like an island of melody in a sea of atonality. However, the island is nice enough to explore but the real fun is taking a dip in that sea, getting lost in the different sounds that make up "Some Clowns Are Not Funny." The creaking noises and the sound of hailstones on a hard surface are like the most exquisite coral and brightly coloured fish.

The first seven tracks fly from the stereo like scattering bullets, ranging in size from just over a minute to just under ten. Then Aranos throws another curveball. Not content with jumping styles, he includes too very long tracks at the end of the album. After the bite size chunks from earlier in the album, these two pieces are daunting to say the least. "Towards Glittering Warm Dumplings" is the sound of strange percussive scrapings, what sounds like guitar strings and some other heavily processed scrapes. Slowly Aranos adds other layers of rhythms and slight melody to the piece, the overall effect is like some of Faust's tape collages; something both familiar sounding but also completely warped. Mother of Moons Bathing finishes with the sublime "Invisibility Cloak of Time," featuring all soft drones and haunting ambiences. After the varied and sometimes frenetic music that has come before, "Invisibility Cloak..." is an unexpectedly calm end to a fascinating album.

The best way I can describe Mother of Moons Bathing is that it is an adventure. Dropped into it without much of a map (just a stanza of poetry in the sleeve notes), it is wonderful to just wander through it, not knowing what is coming next. As I am getting more used to the album's twists and turns, it allows me more time to pay attention to the immediate surroundings of the music. The textures are not just limited to the materials making up the sleeve; it is almost possible to run a finger along the sounds themselves.

samples:

• New Boyfriend
• I Saw Women's Rising Fry
• Invisibility Cloak of Time

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Although collaborators since the early 1980s, Raw Powder marks the first official release from this duo (excluding self-released CD-Rs) that encapsulates some 18-plus years of rock and roll into a sprawling, slap-dash collection of 24 tracks, intentionally raw and rough around the edges.  While many may know Denham more for his/her connections to Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Greater Than One, and other integral bands of the era, s/he proves here that his musical sensibilities are just as noteworthy as his paintings and artwork.

 

Blossoming Noise

Even within the first few tracks that open this disc, the microcosm of rock and roll becomes immediately apparent:  "Move Like A Tiger" is immediate and grippingly pure glam stomp, right down to the slide guitars segues into the folk rock of "Universe" and then into the rapid fire dance drum machine pulse of "Shine" that apes the likes of the Happy Mondays and others of the so called "Madchester" scene.

Other reference points are even a bit more specific, such as how "Spit Me Homage" and "Ship For You" pull off an excellent imitation of early Rolling Stones, from the rhythms to Denham's very Jagger-esque vocals.  Perhaps the most odd is the hip-hop elements that come up in the beats to "Judas Fish" and even into the vocals somewhat on "Individual."

Some of the work eschews the rock sensibilities entirely for experimentation that is more consistent with Denham's early connections to the then burgeoning industrial scene, "Real World" and "Doncha Fear A Thing" are built on abstract rhythm loops and pure experimentation rather than conventional rock frameworks.  The deep filtered vocals, processed rhythm loops and fuzzed out guitar of "Hang/Candy Bomb" seems to just exist on its own, not easily labeled into any specific genre.

As a whole, the disc is intentionally raw and rough:  according to the liner notes it was recorded entirely to four-track cassette and largely improvised on the spot, which makes the music all the more compelling.  In some cases the lo-fi nature brings parallel to other dissimilar artists:  the somewhat lighthearted lyrics and rough guitar work of "My Hangover" could be something from The Pod era Ween, and that is a compliment.

The disc has an overarching sense of fun and whimsy that is so rarely represented in the more esoteric forms of music so many of us are fond of.  Sure, across 24 tracks some feel more like filler and less notable than others, but taken as a whole, it is more good than "ehh."   It is nice to hear something that can be both captivating in the musical sense, but also playful and lighthearted and seemingly created out of the sheer joy of making music that definitely feels "rock," but on Val & Oli's terms. 

samples:

• Move Like A Tiger
• Doncha Fear A Thing
• Hang/Candy Bomb

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13 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

The premise alone sounds should be enough to get people's attention: a folk "supergroup" featuring members of Yellow Swans, Deerhoof, Six Organs of Admittance, and Charalambides, among others.  Considering the pedigree, it is safe to assume that it won't be folk in the conventional sense.  Instead of the "overly sensitive guy in the coffee shop with an acoustic guitar" folk sense, it's more of an ethnography of early Americana music.  It is dense, rich, and more than just a bit sinister in nature.

 

Xeric/Table of the Elements

How this record got lumped into anything allied with the "freak folk" movement is a bit confusing to me, as it has little in common with the likes of Devendra Banhart or other such luminaries.  No, rather than acoustic guitar and out there vocals and lyricisms, it is a work that captures the sense of early American folk music in the pre-recording technology era.  The entire work is steeped in a sensation of isolated, rural Appalachia, the sound filling the cool autumn air as the sun starts to set and things start getting a bit creepy.

The tracks are awash in a thick, oppressive reverb that sets the mood throughout.  On most of the tracks a bit of plaintive guitar pushes through the reverberation, sparse and sharp, but gentle and isolated.  Often the guitar is played in a simple, rhythmic fashion, such as the minimal strums that make up "Mountain Wine" and "Duet," the latter accompanied by a decrepit sounding organ that may have been on its last legs.

Vocals make their appearance on a few of the tracks, notably on "The Crops That You Tend" and "Mountain Wine" and in those cases are exactly the type of vocals to best suit the music:  multiple vocalists, layered, and heavily effected.  The chanting cadence of them lends an otherworldly disembodied sensation that fits the music.  The vocals are there, but they sound as if they’re coming from somewhere just out of sight. 

The instrumentation manages to somehow be both sparse and thick, which sounds like a contradiction for obvious reasons, but there really is no other way to describe it.  Layers of ambience that permeate most of the tracks and are featured in a few short instrumental passages such as "Whichever" and "Snowballs for Reuven," and as backing elements for most of the other tracks are thick and notable, and balance the more plaintive guitar/violin/organ elements nicely.  There are a few moments of pure on electronic noise squeal as well; the droning elements of "We Are All Hopeful Farmers" and especially the opening of "Grow Your Hair" are nice contrasting elements to the more gentle moments.

The production of this entire work is noteworthy, as it is extremely murky in the best possible way.  Not murky as in muddled or poor, but like a thick mountain fog that covers the entire album in a sheen of ambiguity.  The sounds are somewhat familiar, but they're obscured by layers of echo and reverb that places the listener in recognizable, but mysterious territory, all of which adds to the underlying tension and malevolence that seems to hide just below the surface of the music.

This collaboration has produced a work that is greater than the sum of its parts.  It is a great, tension laden slab of darkness that outcreeps most noise and metal albums that have been released thus far this year.  A wonderfully moody work that is extremely filmic and stands on its own without the need of images to go along with the sonics. 

samples:

• Goodnight Sweet Rabbits
• Mountain Wine
• Grow Your Hair

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12 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Exploring the limitations of an instrument can be more enlightening than obsessing about perfect tone or versatility. On Everydays, Onda and Licht use the button noise and trashcan fidelity of cassettes as a tool rather than a handicap. The results range from bucolic chatter to full on noise assault.

 

Family Vineyard

Some music doesn't benefit from quality recording. I doubt the crashing piano on the opener "Tick Tock" would be as abrupt and nauseating had it been pristinely sampled. The overdriven roar and whir of the tape spools is what really puts the ears off-ease. Not all the tracks are that spastic. The squeals and chirps on "Tip Toe" seem lifted straight from some interstellar aviary. Oscilators join the birdsong, undualting like a North Sea swell. 

I could have listened to "Tip Toe" for the duration of the album, but Onda and Licht had different ideas. Everydays has a unity of approach, not mood. The closer, "Be Bop", tears the mellow vibes asunder, cassettes all spewing raw static and hissing shrieks. Squalls of feedback rear up and then disintegrate in coughing spasms. This CD does not die gently.

The main appeal of Everydays is the diversity. Onda and Licht tease out every disposition they can from their instruments. No small feat. When using tapes, noiseniks often shovel out an undifferentiated muck, without peaks or valleys to challenge the listener. Onda and Licht opt for a more surprising, anarchic experience. Everydays is definitely not for the fastidious, but there's something in there for just about every other taste.

samples:

• Tip Toe
• Chit Chat
• Be Bop

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12 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Mountain Battles sounded like a superficial hodgepodge with few promising moments. Desperately seeking positives, I sought a suitable listening venue and found one with a Breeders fan: my hairdresser.

 

4AD

Heather gives a relaxing head and neck massage before all haircuts. Unfortunately, not even the pleasantly relaxing effects of that can disguise the fact that opening song "Overglazed" and also "Walk It Off" say next to nothing, nice or otherwise. The pace picks up during "Bang On" (at least if her tapping foot and nodding head are anything to go by). Then, during "Night Of Joy" it is time to decide "what I want doing." This presents no problem at all for someone who has had the same hair style for at least two decades. The song puts Heather in mind of going to the beach, whereas it makes me seriously consider the possibility of getting a shaved head and joining a monastery. One with a vow of silence.

Our opinions are even more overtly divided about "Here No More." I feel it points to a dark countryesque sound that might give The Breeders a well defined and substantial direction to pursue, and that their voices have the right balance of purity and grit to carry such slightly sketched tunes. Heather remembers "Drivin' on 9" from Last Splash, but scoffs at my idea with some snipes about her grandparents' speed, a cattle drive, and the word "pardner." For a few moments I seriously consider asking for a more radical "do" than usual.

 She is similarly unimpressed with the language variety of "German Studies" and "Regalame Esta Noche" and, indeed, these attempts to add breadth do seem awfully flimsy and dull. Thankfully, "Istanbul" does not draw any questions about my travel plans for the summer, we agree the vocals are redundant, but while she enjoys the evocative music, I find it trite. With the scissors close to my ears and eyes I keep my own counsel as she says she loves the lyrics "no counsel, no grand strategy, no sword to fall on" from "We're Gonna Rise." This song makes her happy and she digs the carefree, refreshing, style of expression. She also likes the chorus to "Spark" which is just as well since the line "clouds were bruised when the day broke" is relentlessly repeated. "Spark" is the most sensuous track on the album, and the slow crunching bass line and agonized vocals contrast with a slow, clean, sparse, guitar line. At last some clarity and conviction. (It probably helped, too, that the electric clippers were buzzing on the back of my neck; not as good as the massage but my next favorite part).

I have to remind Heather that cutting my fringe too short would really be a mistake, because when listening to "It's the Love" she begins a vague pogoing movement without actually leaving the ground. Thankfully she resists any punky gobbing while she's snipping away and singing along: "It's the love, love, love, love, love"…. She favors the rawness of "No Way" over the slower closing title track, during which she makes a comment that includes the word "suicidal" (though it sounds just fine during my shampooing ) and I make a mental note never to play her any late period Nico.

It's possible to argue that, for their return, The Breeders have chosen repetition and minimalism,  but there's a nagging and familiar sense that they just don't have too many ideas. Recent gigs have drawn praise: obscure but revered UK critic 'Whispering' Steve Mills memorably complained that the show at Sheffield's Leadmill was so good he was late for dinner and his onion bhaji's were cold! The vocals on Mountain Battles have a refreshingly calm appeal, the guitar can sound crisp and distinctive, and yet the majority of the record is not what I would have asked for. Heather admits she won't be adding it to her collection. I go home and have a shower to take the loose hairs off my neck. Later, I think that at least The Breeders are not trying to update their style drastically, or disguise their flaws like someone might comb over thinning locks. I kind of wish my hair grew faster, not least as I do enjoy our chats. I remind myself that she is getting paid. Later I think about Roy Harper giving the kiss of life to a sheep, and listen to Richard Youngs' album "Autumn Response."

samples:

• Spark
• It's  the Love
• Here No More

 

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12 April 2008

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Albums and Singles

Fans of the post-punk shouldn't let fear of diminishing returns dissuade them from checking out The Lines. While Memory Span is not a proverbial lost masterpiece of rock and roll, the songs collected display enough nuance and diversity to separate the band from usual glut of also-rans and could-have-beens.

 

Acute

The Lines had an auspicious beginning. Their first single, the mid tempo creeper "White Nights" was well received by Slash magazine among other punk tastemakers. In the song, singer Rico Conning (who later went on to remix songs from Depeche Mode, Sting, Frank Tovey, and Coil's "Anal Staircase") coos about a midnight rendezvous while dual guitars chime and churn like streetlights drifting in the distance. As good as the single was, it could have been the band's swan song. Soon after its release, Conning flew off to explore America and the band was put on hiatus for a few years.

Following their singer's return to England, The Lines resumed playing and recording, but they were a much different entity. The music now had a manic edge. Conning's voice lost its cool confidence, and his singing acquired a stained, nasal pinch. The chorus of "Dance to a Drop of Blood" is practically sneezed out. Fortunately, the band worked their way out a stylistic rut, immersing themselves in the dubbed out, post-disco zeitgeist of late '70s Britain.

Like their peers on Mute and Factory, The Lines inverted the simplicity and anger of punk-rock into a mechanical, introspective sound. Rhythm and atmosphere began to take precedence over vocals or melody. Thumping bass lines or percolating drum machines now anchored the songs while trumpet, chiming guitar, and echoed sound effects floated about. The lyrics became even more abstract and impressionistic, often focusing disillusionment and neurosis. Conning's voice still strained and buzzed, but seemed more of piece with the songs, rather than a reflection of his limitations as a singer.

Despite their lack of commercial success, the Lines ended as a better band than when they began. They played with notables of that era, among them Fad Gadget, The Cure, The Birthday Party, and Bauhaus. They may have lacked the notoriety (posthumous or otherwise) of their fellow travelers, but it was not from lack of trying. Whatever their limitations were, the band continually changed their sound for the better. They kept innovating, and held their ears open to what was new and important. So many great things about a band are out of the artist's control, but you can at least credit The Lines for working in the right direction.

samples:

• White Night
• House of Cracks
• Barbican

 

 

 

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