Matador
Finally, after a year and a half, the mercury prize for album of theyear, a stabbing, and endless amounts of hype-slipping across theAtlantic Ocean about a true slice of the U.K. Garage scene (unlike theamusing, but hardly definitive Original Pirate Material)landing stateside and demolishing the anemic backpacker underground,Dizzee Rascal has arrived. While it's difficult to say that anythinglavished with so much unyielding praise could ever live it down, Boy in Da Cornerdoes quite a bit to support it. It is a brilliant collection of bangersthat can be at times furious and frothing, and other times insightfuland contemplative. Rascal doesn't' fall prey to the run of the mill hiphop clich?, giving issues like violence and sexuality their due with amore sensitive eye than most. When others fall prey toself-contradiction and self-involvement, Dizzee finds a consistency andbalance, a sense of control-not bottled or volatile but reigned in,precise and deftly employed. His tracks are punctuated with off kilter,upside down beats that sound like they're coming from water damageddrum machines and synthesizers. They fall on top of each other in afilthy collision of thin, piercing claps of metallic shards and wobblynotes with a thick and heavy low end. The thick East London accent thatdominates his delivery decimates the sleepy flow of mainstream rapperslike 18 Cent as well as the squeaky bleats of American undergroundcounterparts like Aesop Rock. Rascal doesn't cop out and slack on hisbeats for the sake of his lyrics or mumble his way through his tracksto show off his production. His voice is ingrained in the music, asaggressive an instrument as the concussive pipe bomb percussion thatpropels him. "Stop Dat" is a knives-out assault, spitting lyrics acrossan adrenaline-fueled crush of ominous clashes and crunches. Everyslit-eyed glance and sized up plot comes across in his venomous accent."I Luv U" pairs Dizzee with the clearly annoyed vocals of JeanneJacques, trading chorus lines Positive K style over throbbing IDMbeats, and shows that Mike Skinner wasn't exactly telling the truthwhen he said "round 'ere we call 'em birds / not bitches." Along with"Jezebel," this track explores the male female interaction with askeptical and critical eye, lampooning careless sex andirresponsibility while bemoaning the devastating (and cyclical) resultsof teenage promiscuity. "Do It" is a sincere, contemplative piece whereDizzee reveals himself, going deeply into personal insecurity, fearsand doubts and closing with the decidedly upbeat notion that "you cando anything." Boy in the Corner is a devastating salvo thatwill leave Rascal's contemporaries (particularly those in the UnitedStates) shell shocked and dazed. This record will sit at the head ofthe pack and give everyone a target to aim for, whether it is toemulate it's successful formula or kill it with something even moreforward looking and fresh. Hopefully his example will provoke otherhip-hop, rap, garage, grime innovators to come forth and show whatthey've got, and serve as a warning to all those who are alreadystagnant that it's time to fix up and look sharp.
Finally, after a year and a half, the mercury prize for album of theyear, a stabbing, and endless amounts of hype-slipping across theAtlantic Ocean about a true slice of the U.K. Garage scene (unlike theamusing, but hardly definitive Original Pirate Material)landing stateside and demolishing the anemic backpacker underground,Dizzee Rascal has arrived. While it's difficult to say that anythinglavished with so much unyielding praise could ever live it down, Boy in Da Cornerdoes quite a bit to support it. It is a brilliant collection of bangersthat can be at times furious and frothing, and other times insightfuland contemplative. Rascal doesn't' fall prey to the run of the mill hiphop clich?, giving issues like violence and sexuality their due with amore sensitive eye than most. When others fall prey toself-contradiction and self-involvement, Dizzee finds a consistency andbalance, a sense of control-not bottled or volatile but reigned in,precise and deftly employed. His tracks are punctuated with off kilter,upside down beats that sound like they're coming from water damageddrum machines and synthesizers. They fall on top of each other in afilthy collision of thin, piercing claps of metallic shards and wobblynotes with a thick and heavy low end. The thick East London accent thatdominates his delivery decimates the sleepy flow of mainstream rapperslike 18 Cent as well as the squeaky bleats of American undergroundcounterparts like Aesop Rock. Rascal doesn't cop out and slack on hisbeats for the sake of his lyrics or mumble his way through his tracksto show off his production. His voice is ingrained in the music, asaggressive an instrument as the concussive pipe bomb percussion thatpropels him. "Stop Dat" is a knives-out assault, spitting lyrics acrossan adrenaline-fueled crush of ominous clashes and crunches. Everyslit-eyed glance and sized up plot comes across in his venomous accent."I Luv U" pairs Dizzee with the clearly annoyed vocals of JeanneJacques, trading chorus lines Positive K style over throbbing IDMbeats, and shows that Mike Skinner wasn't exactly telling the truthwhen he said "round 'ere we call 'em birds / not bitches." Along with"Jezebel," this track explores the male female interaction with askeptical and critical eye, lampooning careless sex andirresponsibility while bemoaning the devastating (and cyclical) resultsof teenage promiscuity. "Do It" is a sincere, contemplative piece whereDizzee reveals himself, going deeply into personal insecurity, fearsand doubts and closing with the decidedly upbeat notion that "you cando anything." Boy in the Corner is a devastating salvo thatwill leave Rascal's contemporaries (particularly those in the UnitedStates) shell shocked and dazed. This record will sit at the head ofthe pack and give everyone a target to aim for, whether it is toemulate it's successful formula or kill it with something even moreforward looking and fresh. Hopefully his example will provoke otherhip-hop, rap, garage, grime innovators to come forth and show whatthey've got, and serve as a warning to all those who are alreadystagnant that it's time to fix up and look sharp. samples:
Yeah is one of two new platters of tasty wax from DFA Records, certainly the most name-checked label since anyone gave a shit about Warp Records. James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem hasn't released a new 12" single since 2002's "Losing My Edge," even though private edition tracks like "Tribulations" and "Where Is Love?" have been popping up on file-sharing services over the past year. Rather than officially releasing one of the aforementioned tracks, Murphy's Soundsystem has crafted a new track aimed straight at clubs: a massive, obnoxious punk-disco meltdown destined to be the set-closing favorite of DJs everywhere in coming months.
Robin Saville and Antony Ryan return with their fourth album (and thirdfor Morr) since their inception in 1996. In keeping with their previouswork, Meet Next Lifecombines warm textures with cool soundscapes to create a thoroughlybalanced album of lush, often touching instrumental melodies that arenever overwrought. While their last record, Lucky Cat wasslightly more minimal, their latest finds the band carefully expandingtheir horizons, particularly in terms of diversity. The first track,"Birds Over Barges," brings crystalline acoustic guitar to the mix,adding a gauzy dimension to the sounds of the analogue synths. Fromthere, the songs slide and drift languidly into one another, andalthough the overall sound of the album is subtle and understated, ISANmanages to avoid lapsing into monotony. "One Man Abandon" and"Snowdrops and Phlox" are winsome lullabies, while "The Race To BeFirst Home" is winsomely playful with its jubilant xylophone sounds.The haunting title track, which brings Meet Next Life to a close, is strongly reminiscent of Brian Eno's Apollo.The best of the bunch, "Gunnera," amazingly brings all these elementstogether in what is definitely the signature piece of the album. I findit apt that ISAN chose black and white butterflies to adorn the coverof Meet Next Life as it speaks volumes about their gossamer simplicity. It is a record that is as elegant as it is modest.
Arthur Russell died in 1992, leaving an enigmatic body of work that took in avant-garde composition, Indian classical music, atmospheric cello-driven pop, and most crucially, a handful of mysterious and entrancing 12" disco sides. The term "mutant disco" and "leftfield groove" had to be invented to pigeonhole Russell's forays into the embryonic NYC disco scene of the late seventies and early eighties.
I can think of no instrument capable of drones as complex, distinct, orprimitive as those generated by the pipe organ. The experience ofsitting below a great organ's clustered form, letting its breath washthe length of a cathedral, can be compared to viewing one ofRembrandt's late self-portraits, watching as each square-centimeterteems with an infinity of golden life, an inner millennium findingperfect equivalent in the sustained blast of an organ note. As if itstextural prowess and sacred acoustics were not enough, the organrepresents also a milestone in the mechanization of musicalinstruments, making it a prime target for this kind of tribute, avirtual who's-who of Touch's roster, some of the most recognizablenames in electro-acoustic music, all willing to shed their respectiveskins and make some music created with, or inspired by, organ sounds.Thankfully, most everyone included manages to come at the pipes in athoughtful and largely unique way, making Spirean endlessly interesting, if not always enjoyable compilation. Therange of different approaches, which in many cases depart significantlyfrom their composers' tested styles, proves both a blessing and acurse, where the sequencing of the two discs inevitably interferes withthe enjoyment of the individual tracks. Many interesting pieces seem toend prematurely or appear dwarfed by the enormity or lavishness oftheir surroundings. The contributions of Philip Jeck and Leif Elggren,shorter tracks focusing on solitary, largely unadulterated organblasts, fail to stand out among the longer, similarly fundamental orminimalist approaches of Biosphere and BJNilsen. Likewise, some of themore concept-oriented inclusions end up sounding much better on paperthan on disc, one example being Finnbogi P?ursson's "Diabolus" in whichthe artist's homemade single-pipe organ creates a low-frequency toneinterval that in Medieval times was referred to the "devil in music"but is barely audible here. In contrast, other loosely-conceptual worksmake for some of the best material, like Z'EV's woozy "If only thatlove let's letting happen," based entirely on samples of Bach's organmusic found via a Google search, and Toshiya Tsunoda's ambient"Layered," produced by a homemade shortwave radio organ set outside ona midsummer night. Generally, tracks on the second disc make for themost enjoyable pieces because they are long enough to become thicklyatmospheric, to fill the room with the same arresting, monumental calmthat great cathedral organs produce. BJNilsen (aka Hazard) actuallycomposed "Breathe" for performance at St. Mary's Church in WarwickEngland. The half-hour piece, a simple, unfolding drone spanning hugeintervals on organs constructed as early as 1898, is one of Spire'smost spare works and one of its most impressive. Other highlights fromthe disc include an Oren Ambarchi and Tom Recchion piece originallyreleased on a limited IDEA 7"; it makes sense here because Recchionplays Hammond on the track, though it is admittedly more in line withAmbarchi's solo work that anything particularly "organ-inspired." Spireends with new music from field recording guru Chris Watson whose windrecordings become an allegory identifying the organ with the elementalor divine act of harnessing the air, as well as associating theinstrument with a image of majesty that seems wholly justified at theclose of such a compilation. 
A single exposure to the brainstem-severing breakcore experimentationof Xanopticon's debut album led me to ask a vital yet curious question:Who needs drill 'n bass anymore? At this point on the electronic musictimeline, the recent output of once innovative and influentual artistslike Aphex Twin and Squarepusher pales in comparison to their earlierwork, creating a demand for new blood to take their place in thespotlight. Like his Hymen and Mirex labelmates Venetian Snares andFanny, Xanopticon's Ryan Friedrich seems poised to join, and perhapseven lead, this new world order. The dizzying array of spastic loopsand patterns on Liminal Spaceare composed of fractured beat shards and subtle atmospheres onceburied in the pit of a rogue sampler, but now unearthed. From the firstsquirming bleeps and belching kicks of the opener "Constant," itbecomes remarkably clear how the next 53 minutes are going to turn out.With a crisp and serious sound more akin to Autechre than Mu-Ziq,Xanopticon spews barrages of ferocious percussion at breakneck temposwith few reprieves along the way. Not suprisingly, melody plays asubtle and often subdued role here for the most part, taking a backseatto the hard pounding drumwork. There is little time to catch yourbreath during the microsecond-long dark ambient pauses that peppertracks like "These Days" and "Drunxpla." However, "Symphwrak" standsout as the true highlight of this release, starting off with a eerieminute of chilling chord progressions that serve as precursor for thenow-standard Xanopticon mayhem. Along the way, bizarre buzzing swirlingsynths force themselves into the forefront of the track for as long asthey can, overall truly embodying what could possibly be classified aspost-acid music, if I were to create a new subgenre on the fly. As Isaid here back when I first heard his contribution to 2002's Masonic compilation, Xanopticon is the new Venetian Snares. Hell, I think he might be even better. - 
There's a level of innocence and melodic clarity present on this discthat makes me wonder why it hasn't received more recognition. Then thedetermining factor hits me: this is too sweet, almost comical in itslazy strolling. Greg Davis obviously has an ear for gorgeous sounds anthe ability to craft elegant stretches of sound, but unfortuneately itseems as if he doesn't have the ability to create a coherent record.All the instrumentation is from traditional (i.e., non-electronic)sources and then warped and rearranged in various manners by way oflaptop. The heart of each instrument is present in the mix so eachinstrument is readily identifiable; the sound of rain, birds singing,and other environmental sounds make their way behind the instrumentsand then... nothing. Almost all of these songs have absolutely noprogression and if they do, it takes six minutes or so for any movementto happen. "Improved Dreaming" begins with the charming sounds of a toymusic box chirping away above the sounds of a cartoonish galaxy full oftwinkling stars and wisps of astral dust and then flows into the soundof woodwinds sighing out an exquisite melody... over and over and overagain. The whole thing runs six minutes plus but it could've had a morestunning effect at perhaps half that length. One track wouldn'tnormally bug me so much, but there's so much excellent happening thatit angers me at how dull it becomes because of repetition. And theproblem is infectious. I could do without the singing, too. While thealbum might intentionally have a whimsical feeling, the vocals don'tadd to that, they simply sound cheesey and a bit out of place. Curling Pnd Woodshas a lot of excellent spots, but those excellent spots wear offquickly. I recommend it in small doses; two tracks at a time is morethan enough too keep the sweetness level low and the monotony at aminimum. These tracks could've captivated me had they been released asa series of EPs or singles.
Prolific sound artist John Duncan's newest disc finds him in a kind of half-collaboration with Asmus Tietchens, whose readings from two E.M. Cioran texts become sources for the voice manipulation that has characterized Duncan's work as of late. Cioran's name should sound familiar to Tietchens listeners, as quotes from the modern philosophe/aphorist frequently appear on the musician's sleeve notes. Duncan's notes here, however, express a clear distaste for the fatalism that dominates Cioran's philosophy, a kind of a-philosophy often abbreviated in cheeky, opaque aphorisms like the one displayed on Tietchens' new FT+: "It is simple to be "deep," just follow your own false bents."
For the uninitiated, Dwelling craft music based on Portugese Fado, apoetic and emotive folk singing style that usually deals heavily inthemes of sorrow or love. Dwelling's approach is through acousticstring instrumentation begun by Nuno Roberto and the powerful andlovely voice of Catarina Reposo, who sings both in English andPortugese. Strangely, their music has also gained them a very largefollowing in the goth and metal communities, though the music rarelyapproaches anything resembling hard core or aggressive. This does notmean the music is not at all powerful, however. Humanais the ensemble's first full-length, after releasing an EP in 2000, andthe very least I can say is that their hearts are very much in thismusic. This is very much the motif of Fado, so it's not surprising, butthe guitar interplay and addition of violin are exquisitely played withsuch passion and life that there can be no doubt this group loves whatthey do. I found it especially interesting that there is no percussion,nor is any necessary. These songs are just fine the way they are, likea troupe of travelling minstrels entertaining the courts of manydignitaries. The borderline flamenco guitars, the fluid and stabbingviolin, and the voice of Reposo are captivating and hypnotizing. Not tosay that every song is a work of art, though, as I honestly prefer whenReposo doesn't sing in English, as it adds that layer of mystery, andEnglish with this music just smacks of wanting to reach a largeraudience. The overall feel is still incredibly moving, and fans of darkcompositions will find a lot to love here. - 
