21 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Lets just ignore the hype surrounding doom/black/dark/atmospheric/etc. metal for a second and pretend that this approach to making music is a powerful musical tool. A tool akin to an epic-maker in a can.

Alien8 Recordings
 
There are plenty of copycats using that tool, a few innovative performers, some entertainers, and then there are those writers on the fringe that seem to be a part of the scene but ultimately don't fit satisfyingly into its machinations. Aidan Baker's affair with abstract music places him somewhere in that final group, a group far more interesting than the often proclaimed masters of the genre.

It wouldn't make any sense to place all the slow, dark music of the world into the same category that Sunn0))) or Khanate reign over. In fact, I think the two bands are dissimilar enough to warrant questions about why they are even considered part of the same musical sensation (despite sharing members). In wouldn't make any sense and it wouldn't be fair. Despite the imitators and all the sensational hyperbole chucked at certain groups within the doom world, there are some genuinely fantastic albums being made full of visceral and mental appeal. Nadja's contribution to this style of music isn't, fortunately, just another slab of tombstone metal fixated on sounding evil. Their fifth effort since 2005 has plenty to offer to would-be listeners and manages to sound fresh despite the veritable avalanche on doomish metal released this year.

Yes, Truth Becomes Death is only three tracks long and yes all three are over ten minutes in duration. One is actually closer to half an hour long. So maybe Baker and Leah Buckareff are using that can-o-epic to their advantage; each track sprawls out like a metropolis ready and waiting for victims and appreciators alike, each is about as heavy as it gets, and each prominently features guitar hum, feedback, or distortion in large doses. It works fantastically, though, because Baker and Buckareff combine all that noise with the attitude appropriate to most drone architects. Less focused on the black heart of the human soul, Nadja's sound is refined and careful, treading carefully where most other bands would simply let short circuits or unpredictability take over and do the work for them. Less noise, more melody, and slowly evolving themes carry Truth Becomes Death from beginning to end. That's actually enough to make it stand out among its peers in most respects, but the album also boasts a mostly non-repetitive structure; it is organic, combining the buzz of sheet metal vibrating in the wind with seemingly random guitar strokes layered over one another. Baker and Buckareff have a script and, instead of wondering aimlessly without reason, they exact their plan relentlessly, making each second of the album seem necessary and firm.

This is a dusty record, grainy to the touch and modeled after the shifting of deserts. As it slowly blows itself apart, Baker unleashes his monstrous, deep vocals and leaves them to find a home among all wavering melodies and blasted percussion. Baker and Buckareff work with their music like it is a narrative, in accordance with the stories that inspired the lyrics. Letting the music move in the same way the stories must've for them, these songs move step by step, logically, without any attempt at abridging the ideas the stories inspired. If one of the tracks is 23 minutes long then it is that way because it had to be. Without the time afforded these song, the duo couldn't have executed them with that sense of loneliness and intrigue.

Truth Becomes Death is perhaps more relaxing to me more than anything else. While I wouldn't want to listen to most doom metal while laying down, Nadja's slowly chugging music is more appropriate for quiet times and sounds more like a meditation than a screaming, helpless twitch. Not only that, but the complete lack of image, the complete separation from metal that Baker's past musical accomplishments makes possible helps Nadja seem less silly, less trifle, and somehow less laughable. I was once playing a doom metal record for a friend and he kept telling me that it sounded like cartoon Halloween music, but when I played Nadja for that same friend, his first reaction was, "I feel like this is going to swallow me up." Without all the posturing, those more infamous musical genres that Nadja draw from turn out to be affecting, which is a lot more interesting than all that faux-horror shit that seems to come with the metal label.

samples:

• Bug/Golem
• Memory Leak
• Breakpoint

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20 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Effacement is quite a divergence,and I think an improvement, on the work I’ve heard from Korber.  Like so many Swiss and Viennese before him,Korber is most easily lumped in the microsound category: digital music rifewith microscopically-distanced sound fragments and closed silences, though lesspulverized towards a glitchist all-over-ness than instead dissected andlaboriously sutured into a celebration of nuance, the notes of the noise ratherthan the noise between the notes.

Cut

Past Korber releases, like his last Cut title, Momentan Def. or the MassProduction CD-R from last year, tend toward denser soundfields: up-frontfeedbacking, clustered guitar wranglings, or machine drones and rhythm trackscreating relatively lush environments that, despite their abstract tensions,always struck me as kind of soothing. 

This new composition, one of the young artist’s few solo releases, isproduced with a depth of field as great as anything of Korber’s I’ve heard, butwith compositional structures reduced to contrastively minimal degrees wheremore often one formal constraint alone guides each of the six tracks, ordivisions, for its full length.  Thepalette is a familiar lattice of motorik clicks and whirrs, banks of surfacenoise, and pristine guitar playing, but these come now to a point of refinementwhere easy blending makes a never-gratuitous display of extremes possible.  Korber’s guitar sounds more like a guitarthan on any of my other listenings, shaken into amp-quaking, almost earthyovertones, but with a brilliant restraint that somehow keeps the moody distanceof the mix’s softer parts intact.  The interplaybetween soft and penetratingly loud, organic and synthetic, up-front orimmersed, creates quite an addictive drama within such a sparse andunidirectional composition.   

The process of Effacement calls tomind the consciousness of a surface left behind, an essence whose importance isderived by its own lacking.   And whilethis is a concept  that surrounds all artistsdealing this heavily in silence and super-small sound bits, I find in Korber’splay of extremes a method of engagement potent both in its theory and itsaesthetic  The end result I think ismusic that sounds more in place,certainly more tangible than most else in its immediate genre.  It is not at all improv, but shares theaccess and the excitement of that kind of setting.    

samples:

• Fred Austere
• Que les Jours Sen Aillent
• Too Thin a Skin

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20 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

The first time I popped this in I thought to myself, "Oh great, the Japanese have their own version of Bjork." After another ten minutes I was convinced this duo was constructing more than just pseudo-adolescent hysteria for fans of electronic pop.

Fat Cat
 
Tujiko Noriko's voice might be reminiscent of Bjork's flighty presenceat time, but after just a couple of tracks it is clear her silkydelivery has more nuance and sensuality to it than Bjork could everhope for. The music she has released on Mego, Sub Rosa, and Tomlabmight be familiar to some. Her partner, Aoki Takamasa, might befamiliar to others as he has released music through the ProgressiveForm label. Their combined history with glitchy music shows on thealbum, but isn't overwhelmingly experimental or particularly shocking.In fact, the melodies on the album take precedence over any studiotrickery. The skipping, warped beats, and heavily processed soundeffects simply add a dimension that does more to develop a mood than todraw attention itself. And while 28 is an electronic album, it bares more of a relationship to rock or pop music than anything else, albeit a slow, slowly boiling version of pop.

 The album contains two "Fly" songs, one, I assume, is a variation of the original song of the same name that the duo produced upon their first meeting, and the other must be a kind of sequel to that track. As the inaugural song, "Fly 2" seems a little out of place. It's focus is less on Noriko's voice and more on the production and mood the rest of the album carries with it. It's a drifting, dreamy piece of pulsing keyboards and looped vocal effects, but on the whole it doesn't seem to represent the relaxing element of songs like "Vinyl Words" or "Alien." Once Noriko's voice strikes on "Vinyl Words," however, all bets are off and a sweet, sometimes clumsy lilt takes over. Noriko engages in call and response lyrical games and the duo's shared musical duties demonstrate a knack for constantly shifting melodies and toy-like percussion.

I could go on at length about how well each of these songs meld, howevery track seems to blend seemlessly into a melodic dream, but theeasy going mood that reigns over the record is the most attractiveelement of each song. The never-ending flux of the album never allowsfor a moment of boredom. Closing my eyes and listening to the album isenough inspiration to paint a series of highly ambiguous Rorschachstudies, each one a constantly evolving blob of phosphorescence bent ontaking shape but never quite getting there. Transparent shapes andamorphous, not quite developed creatures stalk the landscape, itself amulti-dimensional plain that's never quite bent into a definite geographicplan. After awhile the whole associative sound game becomes addictiveand replay becomes necessary. Without the interaction 28still stands on its own two feet quite well. Earlier I said that thewhole thing sounds like a slowly boiling pop record, but in actuality Ithink the music is far more than that, less reliant on catchy hooks andmore dedicated to a process of seduction.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any plans for Takamasa andNoriko to tour outside of Europe or, more to the point, in the UnitedStates. Perhaps that will change when their own particular electroniclusciousness catches on and gains enough momentum to warrant a trip tothis side of the ocean.

samples:

• Vinyl Words
• Fly - Variation
• 26th Floor

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20 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Ever since the recent, baffling critical legitimization of metal, agaggle of new black/death/doom metal bands, or bands coyly playing withthe same techniques and aesthetic concerns at several removes of irony,have been ushered into existence.

Important

Every independent label in the USA and Europe suddenly finds itselfscrambling to sign and distribute bands and that only a few years agowould have been cruelly mocked and ridiculed for their self-consciously"dark" posturing and indulgently formulaic music. But everything old iskitsch again, no matter how boring and insulting the whole contemporaryscene of detuned, slow-motion stoner metal bands duplicating the Earthand Sunn O))) sound has been.

These groups are capable of capitalizing on the metal trend notbecause of their talent or originality, but because they draw lazily ona familiar archive of lyrical imagery and sludgy, oppressiveatmospherics, and this shared metal past does all the work for them.They have apparently become involved with the metal scene merelybecause of its sudden trendiness, and as soon as the current indiemetal mania dies down, no doubt they'll be gone with the wind to fairershores. Retrospectively, bands like these can claim to have beeninfluenced by classic black metal acts such as Bathory, Mayhem andBurzum, but this is more indicative of the new culture of quick andeasy file-sharing downloads than evidence of core allegiance.

Like many in this new wave of metal, Ocean do not seem to come armedwith any special history of involvement in, or knowledge of the metalscene. Like so many of their contemporaries, they enter the world ofmetal as outsiders, and take a cautious step onto metal shores. Part ofthis "outsider" stance usually involves a certain amount of ironicdistance and disengagement with some of the more embarrassing stylisticconceits of traditional metal - the long hair, corpse paint, Klingonwardrobe, etc. Also, there is generally a calculated step back fromsome of the more extremist tendencies of the music itself. Many ofthese bands attempt to marry some of the more obsessive aestheticconcerns to slightly less genre-specific styles, often theslow-building instrumental grandeur of bands like Mogwai or GodspeedYou Black Emperor.

No exceptions here: three lengthy, slowly churning dirges packedwith relentlessly crushing riffs, battering ram drums, loads of basssludge and guttural screaming. Though he attempts valiantly to sound likehis black metal heroes like Malefic or Count Grishnackh, Ocean'svocalist tragically suffers from the all-too-common metal malady ofCookie Monster vocals (which you can read all about by clicking here).Another problem is the band's willful meandering and lack of structure,not necessarily a bad thing, but when you're swimming around in themidst of a 25-minute trudge, it's nice to be able to find yourbearings. Ocean offer no buoys or milestones, no hooks or melodies, andthey lack even the slow, dramatic builds and climactic centerpieces ofGYBE. The songs just begin, they overstay their welcome, and then theyleave.

Ocean are competent as a group, are proficient players,and the album is well produced, but there is nothing to set their particular brand of homogenizedpseudo-metal above that of their contemporaries. Also, theirnondescript choice of name is forever destined to get them confusedwith another very similar outfit from Germany named The Ocean, whoserecent album Fluxion has been compared to the very same musicaltouchstones—Isis, Pelican, Corrupted. Here Where Nothing Grows is the band's debut album, but it contains very little that will serve to distinguish it in an already overpopulated genre.

samples:

• First Reign
• Salt
• The Fall

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18 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

I can't think of any experience in the world more emotionally painfulthan a parent losing a child.  No matter the circumstances (accident,disease, etc,... ), one experience is common to all survivors: the need to seek somekind of closure, which nothing can bring.  A gaping emotional voidremains.  Fans and friends looking for closure with the final studioalbum from Coil are not going to find it here.
Threshold House

Only recently have I realized how appropriate the name John Balancereally was. Geff/John undeniably brought an equal (and extreme) amountof joy and pain all those he touched. He was extreme, and although hisdeath was blamed on his alcoholism, if it wasn't that it would havebeen the drugs, and if it wasn't that it would have been something else: he wasan extreme person who with manifested extremes of personality.

The Ape of Naples is a very painful album: it was conceivedin pain, it was recorded in pain, it was completed in pain. Many of its songsdate back over a decade to when the working title was Backwards.Peter Christopherson—along with the supporting cast of Thighpaulsandra,Ossian Brown, Cliff Stapleton, Mike Yorke, and others—has pulledtogether songs from different sessions, recorded at different times anddifferent parts of the world to piece this together. The packaging islavish but delicate. A glued insert folds out into a poster, containinglyrics and images by Ian Johnstone, but the card stock in which it isconatined is not something to be left in places where it can be damagedeasily.

One of the intentions seems to have been not to make something like anUnnatural History (Coil's compilation series of previously issued singles and othernon-LP tracks), so everything here is previously unreleased, more or less. The songschosen, or the versions presented have never been issued. Fans willappreciate finally having the music recorded in that infamous NewOrleans session and earmarked for that Trent Reznor-curated imprint ofInterscope Records long ago. Six of the 11 songs come from there.

"Fire of the Mind," which was also a working title of this album atone point, opens the record with the rich choral and organ based beautyreminiscent of the Musick to Play in the Dark series. It'saccented with the hurdy gurdy playing of Cliff Stapleton, who was arelatively new addition to Coil. (The other new additions to theensemble are the marimba and vibraphone playing of Tom Edwards and thepipe and duduk playing from Mike York, both of which featureprominently on other tracks.)

The first line is striking for coming from a recently departed man'smouth: "Does Death come alone or with eager reinforcements?" Along withother lines like "I don't expect I'll understand how life just trickledthrough my hand" on the equally touching "Amber Rain" hint that Balance could have known theend was near for him, however, I think he has always toyed with deathand the concept of the end. (See: Horse Rotorvator, whose working title was Funeral Music for Princess Diana,lines like "Most accidents occur at home" in "Sex with Sun Ra," and "theworld is in pain, we all must be shown, we must realise that everyonechanges and everything dies" on "Blood from the Air").

Balance's most political statement, "A Cold Cell" first appeared on a compilation from The Wiremagazine. "I Don't Get It" was a Song of the Week given away on theBrainwashed Coil website, however it was originally named "Spastiche."Both of these songs have been reworked into completely new versions.While the sound on "I Don't Get It" has been expanded with vocals andmore sound effects, "A Cold Cell" is more stripped and abbreviated.

"It's In My Blood" was also the title of a song dating back to theinfamous Backwards demos, but that song surfaced as "AYOR" on thosecompilations which first appeared in Russia before being issued throughThreshold House. On this album it is an entirely new song, yet Balance'spainful wailing remains. Similarly, "Heaven's Blade" here is acompletely different song than the song of the same title whichappeared on the unfinished demos.

Some might not appreciate how much material has been recycled,despite the fact that everything contained are indeed radically new versions. Songs like "The LastAmethyst Deceiver" and "Teenage Lightning 2005" stick out in particularas they have been issued so much.

"Tattooed Man," "Triple Sun," and "Going Up" are the newest songs,revealed only through live performances over the last few years. Theversions here might have been assembled through both archives of liveshows and in-studio recordings of the group. The first two being muchshorter than the noisier, elongated versions the band did live, whilethe last is based on the theme for the BBC's Are You Being Served? and features the wonderful soprano falsetto of Francois Testory.

The brevity of the majority of these songs actually do an effectivejob of conveying the notion of unfinished business, leaving everybodywithout that sense of closure they seek, but, as Balance says in thevery last line, "it just is."

samples:

• Fire of the Mind
• Amber Rain
• Going Up

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18 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

The fourth effort from this side project of better-known group John Brown's Body, BassChalice is a come-down in THC talk for 10 Foot Ganja Plant, when filed next to the previous two albums titled, subtly, Hillside Airstrip and Midnight Landing.

ROIR

Loosely defined, a reggaetune is roots if it speaks to the heart of the movement: Rastafaripaens to Jah, songs of freedomand peace, and big clouds of ganja smoke. Think vintage Burning Spearor Peter Tosh crying out for equality, King Tubby and Lee Perrynoodling with basslines in the studio, or even that guy named Bob whenhe hadn't yet escaped Jamaica. Bass Chalice has all this, and it's pure pleasure at first listen.

The band is versatile, handling slow and mysterious dub-tunes anduplifting, sun-evoking numbers with equal aplomb. The orchestrationshows a true appreciation and understanding of dub as well as roots,and the songwriting shows political awareness: "Suits and Ski Masks;" as well as a spiritual side, "To Each." Bass Chalice purports to be roots,which is deliberately unfair—immediate comparisons with the grandmasters arise, and 10 FootGanja Plant's nothing like the heavy hitters mentioned above. It's got a glimmer of the same spirit,but it's less urgent. It's inspired, but with less of the indignant righteousness that made in the 70s. There's no Spear-like howl or Prince Far I growl to move and shake the masses. Too muchsampling of the plant? Maybe, but it's more reggae for reggae's sake: no crime, certainly.

Thebiggest problem is also the most forehead-slappingly ironic: Bass Chalice isn't organicenough. The recording itself is too slick. While this may just be an indication that 10 Foot GanjaPlant used a legitimate studio and serious engineer to record their album, it's another forgottencritical element. A softer, less polished sound is the hallmark of roots reggae. Think Tosh's Legalize It verus his No Nuclear War. While the latter won the Grammy, it's the former believers still play. But that's no real beef. Bass Chaliceis nowhere near the overproduced, synth-heavy trainwreck that is thelatter, and the record ought to sound good—this is after all 2005,the digital age. Such small stuff aside, this record should end up onany list of the 10-15 best reggae/dub releases of the year.

samples:

• To Each
• Blood Money
• Deliver Us, Jah

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18 December 2005

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Albums and Singles

Try as it may to convince us otherwise, rap is a silly thing. So muchso that it becomes self-defeating, too: rappers swagger and boast,strutting like peacocks as they spin fantastical yarns and spendcountless hours in comical self agrandizement so farcical you'd have tobe a suburban adolescent to swallow it all. And all this in the name ofrealness.

Epitaph

It's lucrative, but still silly and absurd—cartoonish, even.Perhaps it was with this in mind that Cartoon Network commisioned The Mouse and the Mask—a collection of hip hop songs inspired by the sublime Adult Swimlineup, crafted by two of the underground's true characters: on themic, the bemasked tongue-in-cheekiest MF Doom, and on the beats, DangerMouse, finally starting to forge an identity outside of "that cat whoflipped the Beatles."

The premise isn't as absurd as it may sound: hip-hop appears onAdult Swim frequently, whether it's snippets of Madvillian in betweencommericals, or Ice-T appearing on Spaceghost Coast to Coast. Predictably,the album is a hoot - able to be legitimately funny without a cringe-worthymoment. Guest spots from Adult Swim personalities pepper the record—including a freestyle from Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force—but thetrue star is, as usual, Doom's flow. As usual, the lyrics are chock-full ofarcane references rhymed line-on-line with puns, inside jokes andnewly-coined words and phrases, all spat out with the now-typical rapid-fireease that should have made Doom a national name long ago. And, in a firstsince Grey Album days, Danger Mouse's instrumentation nearly steals theshow, rising above merely solid beats through a tantalizing blend of soul andR&B samples chopped with loops and snippets culled from the Adult Swimcatalogue. Inevitably, the record will collect sneers: it's just too silly orchildish to be a rap record. Those who get the irony—like the surprising guestMCs Talib Kweli and Ghostface Killa—will know the truth: Danger Doom'sjust old school like that, and the most laughable rappers are still on BET's106 and Park.

samples:

• The Mask
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force
• Old School

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30 November 2005

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Albums and Singles

An incredibly fertile and industrious musical world is going on right beneath everyone's noses. While this or that magazine is busy trying to pin down the next 10 big bands or the next big scene, musicians like Darren Tate of Monos and Andrew Liles are busy making music, lots of music, and nearly everything they release tackles some new sonic territory.

Twenty Hertz
 

They refuse to be any one thing except consistent, producing a prodigious amount of work. Yet they don't receive as much coverage as they should, much of their work going ignored even by those publications claiming to bring their audience the cutting edge in musical innovation.

Cinematic probably best describes the work of Andrew Liles, though a term like that fails to hint at all the nuances that make his music so intriguing and fun. Darren Tate, on the other hand, works with Monos, a group comprised mostly of him and Colin Potter. Their work reaches further into the world of drone music, populated as it is by layers and layers of dense electronic sound and warped samples. Unlike some collaborations, it is actually possible to hear the merging of these two approaches on Without Season. The notes claim that Liles was just the conductor and that Tate, along with guest Kathleen Vance, worked on most of the source material. If this is true, it just goes to show how unique Liles approach to music is. His trademark humor and strange understanding of horror are all present on this disc along with Tate's thick sound and careful use of variation.

Everything from piano and the sound of candy wrappers unfolding to an accordion and the use of bird calls can be found on this album. Nothing is too exotic, strange, or out of place for either of these guys. Want to tie together the sound of birds, running water, a fat man moaning, and the faint ringing of crystal glasses? These guys will do it and they'll convince you that each of these sounds are out to kill you while they're at it. That or the distinct possibility of being suffocated will come to mind and all the claustrophobic nightmares everyone has will somehow come to life and finally deliver on their promise.

Carried out as a single piece in five parts, Without Season builds, recedes, and recycles itself without bothering to stop or take inventory of where it has been. Its 40 plus minute duration is over far too quickly, feeling as though it passed in ten. At times the record is beautifully dreamy, almost as though it were sewn together using silk and nothing more. Even the abrasive parts, especially the awesome hum that opens the album, sounds smooth and fine as it rumbles outward.

The album closes with a simple melody played out between vague environmental sounds, an accordion, and a piano and its wandering rhythms end up portraying the whole of the album perfectly. There's a sense that Tate and Liles set out to get lost on this record and to bring back all the details no matter how illogical they all might turn out to be. This particular meeting has produced an exceptional and strange record. It stands out among many of the other collaborations I've heard and marks another high point for both Tate and Liles. 

samples:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 4

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30 November 2005

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Albums and Singles

Each song on this record illuminates a sense of loss, like leaving Chicago was akin to losing a lover whose influence was indispensable and comforting. Employing violins, guitars, trumpets, pianos, vocals, harmonicas, and a whole host of instruments I won't bother naming here, McBride has produced a symphonic record that may well suck most audiences right in and cast them into orbit.

Kranky
 

Tension is a quasi-necessity in the musical world. Without it music can sound painfully empty or end up entirely boring because it just doesn't have that ooomph so many feel when listening to good music. Plenty of music pretends to produce friction or emotional weight in the content of its lyrics or through the thickness of its instruments, but there is no great difficulty in discerning the pretenders from the genuine article. Listen to the radio for a little while and then grab a Stars of the Lid record and draw a comparison between the two. One will sound flighty, packed full of fraudulent significance and pressing seriousness, trying way too hard to dig into the meat of adolescent trials and the other will be hypnotic, purporting nothing other than the nudity of its sounds and the real stress generated by the interaction of the instruments. It's a world of difference hearing real tension in a song, especially when Brian McBride is responsible for all the weight and gravitational pull on a particular song, let alone a full-length album. When the Detail Lost its Freedom was conceived as McBride made a move from Chicago to Los Angeles.

His sounds push and pull, generating a feeling of desolation and unnecessary pain not unlike the feeling I get when standing at the precipice of a large and open space. I could get lost in such a space and do often get lost inside this album. The way these sounds play off each other, the way one enriches and imbues the other with new meaning and significance, evidences how carefully much of this record must've been put together. Some of the signature Stars of the Lid techniques are to be found throughout, especially when the album opens and "Overture (for Other Halfs)" unfolds like a blanket of warm air. The shimmering, muffled timbre of violins isolates everything else, dreams them all away, and completely surrounds every thought that might threaten to invade the sanctity of the moment. It's a completely submissive experience because it is impossible to get away from the space the album opens up.

Once the shining, less compressed strings wind up out of the darkness it's impossible to get away from the album. It's a lonely and powerful experience that only a talented musician like McBride could deliver. Despite its more classical leanings and tight structure, the album feels free and absolutely organic. Had McBride been around to talk with Kubrick during the make of 2001,some of this material might've found a home in the movies and in space.It's finally that natural, human element of this album that become mostdistinct and most attractive. Without flashy production, without aflashy image, and without a super-fast riff or commercial hook, McBridemanages to create all the gravity in the world and tug on all theemotions related to loss and reflection.

samples:

• A Gathering To Lead Me When You're Gone
• Our Last Moment In Song
• Silent Motels

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30 November 2005

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Albums and Singles

There are a number of pieces of music that have attained mythical status. Cage’s 4’33” is the first to come to mind but Satie’s Vexations is another one of those musical legends. Consisting of an instantly forgettable piano motif that lasts about one minute, repeated 840 times, Vexations is a work of endurance for both the performer and the audience.

LTM

In his original instructions to this piece, Satie wrote: “In order to play this motif 840 times in succession, one should prepare oneself in advance by maintaining complete silence and keeping absolutely still.” In this performance there are only 40 repetitions so an intensive preparation for listening is not required. Vexationsis one of those pieces of music I had only read about. It sounded greaton paper but I was sceptical whether or not it translated into actualmusic. While I haven’t stuck the CD on repeat for 24 hours I do thinkit works fantastically. The music is written to be nearly impossible toremember, no matter how many times I listened to it I couldn’t find myplace in the motif.

Alan Marks has done a marvellous job here (well he did a marvellous job nearly 20 years ago, this is a reissue). Unfortunately the liner notes don’t mention whether he performed the full 840 repetitions or just enough to fill a CD. The “action” in this piece is hidden in the slight emphasis variations and changes in expression that the performer brings to it. Marks’ playing does subtly change throughout the 70 minutes. He seems comfortable with the piece whereas I feel most performers would feel like they were in a musical straightjacket. A problem with Vexations is the recording quality. I felt it was lacking a bit, there seems to be a fair amount of hiss in the background and the sound of the pedals on the piano is a little intrusive.

Alan Marks’ rendition of Vexations is a nice introduction to Satie’s infamous work. However given current technology I think it’s about time someone recorded the full 840 repetitions to hard disc and released it in that format.

samples:

• Vexations (extract)

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