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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Mute are pleased to announce the release of the long-awaited Fad Gadget by
Frank Tovey project on 11th September 2006.
The 2 DVD and 2 CD package features a specially made documentary covering
Tovey's life and career up to his untimely death in 2002.
It will also include rare and unreleased tracks and live footage of
legendary performances, as well as classic songs recorded under both his own
name and his alter ego Fad Gadget.
This release has been put together by Frank's family in conjunction with
Mute, utilising the Mute and family archives.
Full details of the tracklistings for this package along with sound and
visual clips will be available in the coming months.
www.fadgadget.co.uk
www.franktovey.de
This is the best musical recording Rjyan Kidwell has ever taken part in. Collaborating with seven other players including both members of Nice Nice, Actual Fucking is an achievement. Unfortunately the lyrics and singing get so bad sometimes they're painful to my ears.
So many bands are incestuous that using a term like "supergroup" seems meaningless more and more. Nick Castro's third album utilizes the likes of Joolie Wood, Jon Contreras, Brian Dyson, and B'eirth. All in all, representatives from Current 93, In Gowan Ring, Damo Suzuki's Network, and Cul de Sac make an appearance, but the recorded outcome of this gathering is less than super.
Strange Attractors
Continuing the annoying trend of "free-folk" hipsterism is Castro and his medieval band of merry marauders. The Young Elders come from a wide array of musical backgrounds and one would expect this fact to influence the sound and continuity of the record. Instead, Castro sticks to using unconventional instruments in familiar ways. There's a reason that knights in shining armor and damsels in distress come to mind when this album fires up and it's not because the record is imaginative. In many cases it mimics stereotypes about some period music that everyone should be familiar with. Hollywood has made it easy to recognize what some sounds are supposed to emulate. It is impossible to create genuinely medieval music because we aren't living in medieval times and, as a very smart man once said, all music is folk music because all music is made by people. As a result, these songs can be nothing more than new voices looking back at stereotypical examples of music most people never got to hear anyhow. These two facts situate this album somewhere between fanciful adoration for a series of instruments that belong most strongly to a certain period and poor reproduction meant to express the ideas of a musician who lives in the 21st century.
I'm quite familiar with the fact that Current 93, Six Organs of Admittance, and many other bands I enjoy use "folk" music and "medieval" conventions to mold their sometimes unique sound, but there is a difference between someone like David Tibet and Nick Castro. While Tibet joyfully exudes his love for histrionics and period instruments, he also leaves an impression of himself on the music that gives it character, a shine that is impossible to find elsewhere. Castro, on the other hand, merely reproduces what everyone is already familiar with. The music is absolutely gorgeous, the musicians involved have all had their hand in performing lovely ballads, intricate instrumentals, and shimmering bits of harp and recorder driven melancholy. Aside from that beauty, however, is nothing new with which to become enamored. A song like "Altar" sounds festive, bringing to mind all manner of fairs, competitions, and heavy drinking, but it also reminds me of Robin Hood in a bad way. This brings me back to the whole "free-folk" association: Castro is neither free nor folk. His music is emulative, an attempt to incorporate the past with the present and a stab at tackling some very well arranged music that positively shines with beautiful melodies and unusual instruments. There are no free form jams nor drones of guitar work that claim to have their heritage in jazz music. There's plenty of unusual instruments that feature elegant performances and soothing bits involving cello, oud, harmonium, and harp, but there's nothing particularly experimental or unusual about any of it. It all sounds very, very familiar most of the time.
If any of the names on this record float your boat, then chances are this record will be of interest. The songs aren't bad, they aren't poorly written, and with all the talent in the band it goes without saying that everyone plays quite well together. I can't help but feel that this is just another album in a long line of "folk" records, though. "Folk" records that have absolutely nothing to do with folk music (as in Nick Drake) and even less to do with free form music (as in John Coltrane and Derek Bailey). It's pretty, but there's plenty of it to be found everywhere.
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This is the best musical recording Rjyan Kidwell has ever taken part in. Collaborating with seven other players including both members of Nice Nice, Actual Fucking is an achievement. Unfortunately the lyrics and singing get so bad sometimes they're painful to my ears.
The albm consists of eight songs, all of which named for cities where either Rjyan Kidwell or each of the eight players have most likely lived at some point. The title, Actual Fucking seems to be a reverse euphamism: explicit sexual words used to describe something non sexual. The musicians engage in playing with each other, moving together in rhythm, making sounds they wouldn't be making alone. Live drumming, live guitar playing and digital manipulation jam on tunes which are both far from cliché and fun to listen to. The music grooves from the first minute and during the instrumental breaks the musicians break into some hot action.
For me, the route chosen on Being Ridden would have been great, as I would love to hear an instrumental version. I don't like the spoken/singing that Kidwell is doing on nearly all the songs and whoever the girl is singing on "Denton" is bordering on unbearable. The string sounds and acoustic guitar interplay on "Chapel Hill" is gorgeous while the lone instrumentation of a multitracked guitar on "Ybor City" after the phone message is endearing. "Covington" opens the second half of the record and grooves like a top notch Nice Nice track and Rjyan's vocals and lyrics are enjoyable, but not sing alongable nor memorable. While he's both rapped and sung in the past, he's proven himself capable of words both amusing and catchy. When the lyrics are simplified, like on "Chicago," with repeated refrains and direct melodies and muliple singers, the execution is a bit too show-offy. It's like everybody involved wanted to make an LCD Soundsystem record but didn't quite achieve effective results. A stunning instrumental, "Tucumcari," closes the album on a beat-less Moon and the Melodies-ish (Cocteau Twins clearly -with- Harold Budd) feel, and if this is purely the work of Cex, then I'm eagerly waiting the forthcoming release on Temporary Residence. If it's the work of the rest of the lineup then I'm gonna start a letter campaign to get all the players together again.
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While it may sound like an entire Balkan gypsy orchestra playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat marches, Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar, is largely the work of one 19-year-old Albuquerque native, Zach Condon, with assistance by Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw). Horns, violins, cellos, ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiels, drums, tambourines, congas, organs, pianos, clarinets and accordions (no guitars on this album!) all build and break the melodies under Condon's deep-voiced crooner vocals, swaying to the Eastern European beats like a drunken 12-member ensemble that has fallen in love with The Magnetic Fields, Talking Heads and Neutral Milk Hotel.
Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves is the Legendary Pink Dots' 25th anniversary album (and in the running for best album title ever). It's hard to believe a quarter century has passed since the Pink Dots first unearthed their complex vision where fate and whimsy cast stones at each other on some hazy, polluted playground. LPD's unusual legacy of psychedelia, industrial gloom, and textural madness has made them a constant presence on the innovative fringes of cult music, and has earned them near-universal respect from critics and peers. It was this legacy that shaped much of the album:
The actual theme of "legacy", "the consequence of past and present action on the future", has consciously informed much of
this release. In some ways, it's been a central-core-theme of all our songwriting these last 25 years. - Phil 'The Silverman' Knight
Twenty-five years later, the Dots have hardly paused for a breath. Edward Ka-Spel, The Silverman and company (Niels Van Hoornblower, Raymond Steeg & returning member Martijn de Kleer), still make boundlessly weird, beautifully disturbing music.
This is an album about mortality & immortality, about time ticking away mercilessly, about seizing the moment and damning the consequences. Your victims are lining up on both sides of the corridor, unborn yet forgiving. We are all pitifully human and we all want to take everything with us at the end, but there is no end...just a darkening endless horizon...
- Edward Ka-Spel
In addition to the 25th anniversary album, the Dots will embark on a massive North American tour this June to celebrate this landmark occasion. Then they'll disappear into the ether...until their next haunting.
TRACKLIST: 1) Count On Me, 2) No Matter What You Do, 3) Stigmata (Part 4), 4) Feathers At Dawn,
5) Please Don't Get Me Wrong, 6) Peace Of Mind, 7) The Island Of Our Dreams, 8) Bad Hair,
9) The Made Man's Manifesto, 10) A Silver Thread, 11) Your Number Is Up
PREVIOUS RELEASES ON ROIR: The Whispering Wall (cd - cat#RUSCD 8286)
All the King's Men (cd/lp - cat#RUSCD/LP 8278)
Under Triple Moons (cd - cat#RUSCD 8231)
PRESS QUOTES:
"Since 1980, LPD have created some of the most enigmatic and challenging compositions in modern music. The uniqueness of their work is due in large part to its omnivorous ability to consume and transform a variety of styles into a new, cohesive entity. The introverted folk of Nick Drake may be found here, as well as the graphic cyberpunk nightmares of Frank Tovey (Fad Gadget), not to mention the rhythmic permutations of Philip Glass. From Beefheart to Brahms, the sources of LPD's quicksilver soundscapes are myriad. What holds them all together is Ka-Spel's dense lyricism and grim obsessions." - ROLLING STONE
"Proceeding out of a hodgepodge of gloomy/fringey/hippie antecedents -- Joy Division, Syd Barrett, Faust, etc. -- but adding a classical sensibility, involuted mythology, found-sound sampling weirdness, plus all sorts of stylistic cross-mingling and experimentation, Edward Ka- Spel (vocals, lyrics, keyboards), Phil Knights (aka The Silver Man; keyboards) and a shifting collection of associates have turned the Legendary Pink Dots into an open-ended adventure. Although certainly prone to enigmatic risk-taking, the enormously resourceful LPD is a mellifluous and dynamically restrained proposition: this is one dip into the rock netherworld that won't send you running for cover. The lyrics, however -- a disturbing onslaught of doom, violence and apocalypse -- are a different story." - TROUSER PRESS
This is the second in Fovea Hex’s Neither Speak nor Remain Silent series. It is a logical continuation from Bloom but it is more dramatic and beautiful than its predecessor. Clodagh Simonds, the centre of the Fovea Hexverse, has outdone herself this time; it is truly an astonishing work.
Simonds' words are concise and dense. These aren’t just lyrics but carefully constructed poetry. On paper they take up little space but on the CD she instils a mighty power in them when she sings. This is especially evident in “Huge (The Joy of Trouble),” which opens the CD. It takes up from where the previous volume left off. Simonds is joined again by Brian Eno but this time Roger Doyle and Hugh O’Neill have been added to Fovea Hex’s ranks. The music is subtle and multidimensional. Doyle and Simonds both play glass which gives a fragile and ethereal sound and complements her vocals wonderfully.
The Hafler Trio’s Andrew McKenzie also makes a reappearance on “A Song for Magda.” This instrumental track (well it features voices but their effect is atmospheric as opposed to lyrical) is positively chaotic by Fovea Hex standards. McKenzie’s doesn’t hold as much sway on this as he did on Bloom. Colin Potter joins the group as a performer here and it is his influence that comes to the fore here. The music keeps shifting; it never stays still long enough for anything concrete to take hold. The only constant in the piece is Percy Jones’ remarkably deep fretless bass.
The final track on Huge, “While you’re Away,” is exceptional. Doyle plays more glass on this piece to create that delicate atmosphere again. Simonds plays a gentle rhythm on her harmonium and a small choir of herself, Laura Sheeran and Sarah McQuaid sing blissfully. The lyrics evoke the freedom and the greenness of the countryside: “I’m with the fox and goose my feet run wild and my tongue is loose.” Further adding to the beauty of the piece are the strings arranged and played by Cora Venus Lunny (daughter of the legendary Donal Lunny). Her arrangement is simply gorgeous. The song finishes with crystal clear recordings of a marsh warbler and a dipper, adding a stronger pastoral feeling to the music. I cannot get enough of this piece.
For the lucky few who got Huge early on, there is a bonus disc called “The Discussion” with McKenzie reassembling the material like he did with Bloom. The result is drastically different to what I encountered on the other disc. Whereas Simonds’ music seems very much to be based on earth, looking up, McKenzie’s reinterpretation of the material sounds like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey should sound. It is celestial and magnificent.
Reading back on what I’ve written, the above could look like gross exaggeration. Huge is an absolutely stunning release which I urge people to get on board about. The one drawback is its brevity: at just under 20 minutes it is gone far too soon. However, being such a rich composition, it lends itself well to repeated listens.
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