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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Sometimes L/A/B makes thrashing electronic hums andhorrifying factory sounds, other times their tracks sound like effectspulled from a science fiction film made in the 1950s, but theirproduction is always pure and direct. Whether or not a pulsing rhythmexists in the song or a definite effect populates the majority of thetrack, every song on Psychoacousticsis brooding, monstrous, and delivers a healthy dose of tense,atmospheric malady. To their credit, this isn't mindless noise pumpedup to maximum volume or noise so loud and intense that it borders onthe un-listenable; each song sounds carefully constructed and dedicatedto illuminating some dark and grueling scene right out of a horroranthology. After the four "noise studies" that occupy the middle of thealbum pass by, Psychoacoustics begins to illustrate some signsof continuity and blossoms with a greater range of sound sources andstructural design. "2050 ¡C" is composed of a distinct rhythm and anear-melodious bass melody until a gorgeous ringing tone fluttersbackwards and forwards over the slowly fading sounds of the percussion.It's a lovely moment on what might be taken to be an ugly recording.There's a little bit of everything on this album and, as a result, itends up being simultaneously alienating and inviting. I've listened tothe last five songs over and over again for about the last two hours,but the first half sounds a little too disconnected and unsure ofitself, as though it wanted to go somewhere but forgot how to getthere. The sounds on this album aren't as immediately deadly as somesounds on noise records can be and so it is easier to appreciate andbecome accustomed to these tracks. There's a good mix of sounds, ideas,and songs on Psychoacoustics, but it ultimately feels more likea primer to L/A/B's work and to their range of sonic output than arecord meant to be heard from beginning to end. On the other hand,those last five tracks are as addictive as can be and they alone haveimpressed me more than many other noise acts ever have within the spanof an entire discography. samples:
The trouble is that no one on this compilation is astranger to hip hop, as hip hop's place as the world's dominant youthculture paradigm makes a concept like this a laughable afterthoughtunless its executed with brilliance. Unfortunately, it isn't. Mosteverything here is a rehash of the last couple of years of Bip-Hop,~scape, and Force Inc. releases and the already myriad spin-offs andimitators. One track has a little bit of dub, another goes for theminimalist click and drone, another cuts up standard hip hop loops withquirky but highly predictable laptop tomfoolery—it's fairlyworkmanlike. And while not everything on the disc is a waste (in fact,a lot of the tunes are quite well-put-together,) the whole thing feelslike an excursion into the very well traveled. It's like going on anexotic vacation to the mall: you can pretend to be curious andinterested in the cultural zoo, but it's really just a bunch of peoplebuying crap and it's about as lame as imaginable. If nothing else, Teethmakes a good case for these (mostly Scandinavian) artists to break outand do their own thing. This same group of artists working with anassignment like "make electronic music from the theme of Bluegrass"would probably be at least worth checking out just to see the cultureclash. There's a lot to like about Teeth in a superficial"these are nice beats" kind of way, but it has about as deep anunderstanding of hip hop culture as a DJ scratching in a sodacommercial. samples:
Various piano loops are layered and layered upon each other until newmusical phenomenon emerges and echoes over the original loops.Sometimes the pieces are arranged such that the original loops are hardto distinguish and other times a solo piano part will roll through amess of muddy and claustrophobic production before being submerged innew melodies and effects. The problem with this recording isn't thatthe pieces aren't always entertaining, but that there's just too muchmusic to sit through. After the first CD is over with, much of thesecond CD sounds too redundant to be worthwhile and the crushingemptiness of these depressing sonatas becomes all-encompassing. I enjoyseveral of these tracks enough to be glad that they were released, butto unload eight pieces as heavy as these into one release is overkill.One listen to the first half of Variations...is enough to reveal a monotony that is hard to look past; listening tothe second CD only reveals the shortcomings of that monotony to agreater degree. The production is amateur at best, which isn't bad inand of itself, but the same production values appear on each track andreveal an obsession with pianos more so than a real attempt at craftinga listenable album. As a musical artifact these two collections revealthe origins of Basinski's work with loops and emphasize the emotionalweight his recordings always demonstrate. As a double album it failsdue to an actual lack of appealing variation and serious compositionalconsideration. Too much of the same thing can be ruinous and thisrelease is illustrative of that fact. One or two of these tracks wasenough to get the point across; I don't need eight to get the picture. 
Composed from a FrankensteinedNES-turned-synthesizer that I won't even try to understand or describe,the EP's central conceit is that the NES is its ONLY sound source: noeffects or processing were used to gussie it up. This adherence to anarbitrary albeit admirable formality gives the record its charm whilealso hamstringing it as a novelty. The limitations of the soundcapabilities of the NES' native sound processor mean that while thecompositions are more interesting than a lot of standard game music,they nevertheless can't sound like anything BUT game music withoverly-loud lead melodies and a sometimes grating dynamic range. NakedIntruder and Mile 329 wouldn't have it any other way though, and forthat, the record scores major points for the fun little curio that itis, and not stacked against what it 'could' or 'should' be. The musicitself is rich in melody and plays darkly against game music's usualpalette of silly, chirpy sing-songiness. It's hard not to smile wheneach track uses the exact sounds I've heard thousands of times whileblasting aliens with a flamethrower, but uses them in a new and purelymusical way. There's a surprising amount of bass in the tracks, and therhythms while stiff are about as funky as one can probably coax out ofthe Nintendo's sound chip. To cap it all off, the 3" CDR is housed in aclassic Nintendo game cartridge that's been gutted and slapped with aNaked Intruder label. Even if it's the kind of thing I only listen to ahandful of times, the NES cartridge with Naked Intruder on the spinewill be a great conversation piece for my CD collection for years, andfor $6, I can't ask for anything more.samples:
Ben Chasny's debut album for Drag City is the culmination of all of his work as Six Organs of Admittance up to this point. I first saw Chasny perform as Six Organs at 2002's Terrastock festival, and heard his album Dark Noontide soon after. I was struck at that time by his intuitive technique on the acoustic guitar, and the fuzzy blanket of drones that rippled underneath his extended instrumental excursions. Each release since has been stronger than the last, but every one of them seemed oddly transitional, as if Chasny hadn't yet settled on a comfortable repertoire of techniques.
While 2003's Compathia introduced Chasny's vocals and more approachably melodic pop songs, last year's expansion of The Manifestation contained two sidelong experiments in seething psychedelia and avant-folk noise. For School of the Flower, Six Organs synthesize all of these approaches into a varied and rewarding album that contains gentle folk songs, droning instrumentals, extended psychouts and unique combinations thereof. The opener "Eighth Cognition/All You've Left" begins with a noisy improvisation between Chasny's electric organ and Chris Corsano's drums, but abruptly shifts into a sweetly melancholic folk song with hazily distant vocals. Chasny's fingerpicking skills have improved by leaps and bounds since his early albums, and he now sounds as adept at composing and performing complex guitar figures as his obvious influences like John Fahey, Robbie Basho or Sandy Bull. The superlative "Saint Cloud" pits expertly picked acoustic guitar against soft, nonverbal chanting and layers of encroaching noise. "Procession of the Cherry Blossom Spirits" and "Home" are a pair of outstanding tracks that repeat this formula. Here, the stellar studio production lend a tangible presence to Chasny's guitar and the undulating textures of drone. The title track is a 13-minute bohemoth based around a hypnotic, cyclical melody that is played with trancelike repetition as Corsano reappears for an extended improvisation on percussion. The song reaches a crescendo at about the eight-minute mark, as Chasny overlays a mindbending solo on electric fuzz guitar that wouldn't sound out of place coming from space rockers Comets on Fire, of which Chasny is also a member. Six Organs pay tribute to one of its heroes, the criminally unsung Gary Higgins, with a cover of his song "Thicker Than a Smokey," which was the lead track from the singer-songwriter's 1973 Red Hash LP (unfortunately yet to be released on CD). It's a lovely song, and though no one could top Higgins' haunting rendition, Chasny captures the song brilliantly. School of the Flower is truly a great album and shows solid proof of exponential artistic growth.
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Battiato's career spans from the 1960s through the present but theoutput in the 1970s is arguably the most influential. 1970s Battiatomusic ranged from short pop tunes to drawn-out pre-prog primitive synthmelodies, and from minimal soundtracks to cut-up mayhems that obviouslyhad a strong influence on some of the best early Nurse With Woundmaterial. It's strangely appropriate, for me at least, that Volcano theBear both opens and closes the album, as it was at Aaron Moore's housethat I first heard, and was completely hooked on the Italian greatFranco Battiato. Since then, I've had Moore buy many Battiato CDs forme—since they're next to completely unavailable and undistributed inthe USA—and I have not been disappointed one bit. Moore eagerly tacklesthe task of singing in Italian on "Da Oriente a Occidente," originallyreleased on the 1973 masterpiece Sulle Corde di Aries as thepulsing vibrophone provides both the beat and main melody. It shouldcome as no surprise that modern psych-rockers Kinski, Cul de Sac, andAcid Mothers Temple can all be found on the collection, eagerly tryingtheir hand at other Battiato tunes, yet rarely do they wander faroff-course from the original tunes. Multi-instrumentalist, musicalgenius, close friend, and unashamed showoff Keith Fullerton Whitman,arguably mis-represented by his Hrvatski alias, fearlessly takes on theItalian vocals with his rendition of "Plancton," complete with flawlessacoustic guitar and nasty analogue synth playing, but even he keepsthings relatively conservative. It's not until fellow Italians Zu vs.Okapi and Jennifer Gentle that the musicians actually take a bit ofliberty with the music, each taking a more aggressive percussiveapproach, and it's probably because these people most likely know theoriginal music more inside and out than anybody else. (I'm going to sayit also helps to fluently understand language the words are in too!)Staying relatively conservative is not a bad thing in this case, as,with any luck, a collection like this could open up some new ears tothe genius of Franco Battiato. Well, we can hope anyway. samples:
The band is Albrecht Kunze and Ekkehard Ehlers, who should beimmediately recognized as having one of the more idiosyncratic bodiesof work within experimental and electronic fields, combining everythingfrom laptop-cut classical compositions to sampledelic drone-outs, tothe occasional micro-house cut. The diversity of Ehlers' previousoutput anticipates März's music not only in the colorful andcross-pollinated nature of the songs but in the playful postmodern waythe duo borrows from its most potent pop predecessors. Few peopledidn't recognize the Nick Drake sample that opened their 2002 debut Love Streams,or the Nico samples that formed the cleverly-named "Chelsea Boys." Ason Ehlers' gorgeous reworking of the Beatles' "Good Night" from Plays John Cassavetes,März samples become more than simple allusions. Their immediacy workswithin the musicians' patient and minimal mood-building to become akind of dreamwalk through hand-picked pop history. The mood of März(German: March) is a bitter psychedelic breath, a walk in the park aswinter is starting, carried through a synthetic orchestra of lapsteel,trombone and double bass. Ehlers' superb tech-house beats guide a vocalof frosty feel-goodisms, drifting into the stylized kitsch lyrics of Love Streams, but remaining triumphant and genuinely comforting. Wir Sind Hier is März at the height of their pop enthusiasm, though stripped of Love Streams'clever appeals to pop mythology. There's even one here called "The PopSong," a perfect un-ironic crack at that golden ideal, as concise andbrilliantly catchy as anything on the band's debut, without giving upthe air of mystery surrounding them. Extroverted though it may seem, Wir Sind Hierstrives for obscurity as well, its increased production levels workingas if in spite of themselves to blend anti-pop elements like theincidental sound clatter and pastoral field recordings thatcharacterize Ehlers' solo work. His tech-house tendencies take over ona few tracks, notably "Blaue Faden," though length and repetition donot harm the album's flow or its pop sensibility. Instead theseextended reveries show Ehlers' and Kunze's talent for making simplemelody sound instantly anthemic, and the duo's willingness to exploitthis becomes part of their unique appeal. Lazy folks will call März'folk-tronica', but the group means so much more to me. Their twoalbums are some of the most essential listening from recent memory,progressive music deeply rooted in the pop tradition yet explodinghelplessly outward toward a loosely-defined, though definite future. samples:
Although I usually prefer vinyl, this is one case where adigital transfer has actually greatly improved the listeningexperience, as even the most pristine vinyl copy will ultimately havesome surface noise. This is music that is best heard with eyes closedor lights out, allowing one to get lost in the environment evoked bythe sounds. The nature of the music of the core Mirror duo of ChristophHeemann and Andrew Chalk (here joined by Andreas Martin) requires fullimmersion in the landscapes they create, and audible sounds made by thetangible object itself only serve to bring the listener back intoreality. Drawn out passages of long shimmering tones are a backdrop forsearing bowed metal groans on the first of five untitled pieces. Theelement which sets this album apart from the many solely drone-basedMirror projects is the unexpected use of rhythms during tracks two andfour. Track Two introduces these shifting, clicking rhythms and letsthem pitter-patter back and forth without adornment for close to threeminutes. These slightly out-of-sync patterns sound more akin to theticking of a clock than any familiar percussion instrument. After thesix minutes of low rumbling and high moaning pitches that make up TrackThree the same rhythms return and are combined with shimmering,tremolo-inflected guitar playing during Track Four. This recurring useof rhythm gives the album a sense of balance. The final piece is atrademark 25 minute drone-scape, with all manner of long tonesreverberating around what sounds like a cavernous space. Hopefully thisreasonably priced reissue will serve as a model on which futurereissues will be based. Much of Mirror's discography is made up ofhard-to-find releases which are only available as expensive, small-runart editions. While the existence of these objects is certainlyjustified by the nature of the music they contain, it would be nice ifeasily obtainable counterparts were offered as well. This music issimply too beautiful to remain unheard by most of the people who wouldenjoy it. samples:
Along with Liz Payne (part ofboth Pillow and Town & Country), he has succeeded in shaping astrange hybrid of awkward noise and creeping drone work that sometimesborders on sounding improvised and sometimes speaks of carefulconsideration. "All Afternoon Part #1" begins the record like a wake-upcall, sirens buzzing and wailing along with a playful melody thatchimes away underneath the cacophony. What immediately follows is "KindLight," an aptly titled symphony of bell hums marked by Vida's lightvocalizations and a soothing bass accompaniment. From this pointforward all the music takes on a shadowy form, moving between nocturnalinsects, clouded moons, and uneasy consideration. Vida highlights hispieces with the sounds of natural events, faded laughter, instrumentalnoodling, and quiet transformations. It isn't always clear when onetrack begins or the next ends; once "Green Inferno" buzzes into itsslow churning of tribal percussion, the album condenses, expands, andflutters as if it had a mind of its own. "Always/Never Sleep Part #1"and "Part #2" fall out of "Green Inferno" as though they were thenatural evolution of the themes introduced by their predecessor. Theorgan sound on "Part #1" is blissfully relaxing and stretches throughtime like some dense fog of jazz and free association, while "Part #2"prepares the way for the next songs via its near-silent cascade ofreversed effects and lullaby melodies. The whole album, even with itssuddenly jarring moments, feels like one thinking mass of soundevolving before my ears. Vida does limit his sound palette justslightly, preferring to arrange some of the album via reoccurringsamples. Instead of returning to already covered ground, he could havetaken Green Infernoa bit further into the netherworld of hovering music introduced on thefirst half of the record. "Morning/Evening" and "Landlovers" areexquisite pieces, however, the former having an enchanting vocal partthat is secreted away beneath the movement and buzz of violins thatcompose most of its body. The album ends suddenly and makes me wish itsmiddle portion lasted longer, but it keeps calling my name andsurprising me with new sounds every time I listen to it. samples:
With Parker and company presenting morejazz/rock fusion-styled compositions on The Relatives in comparison to his first outing, Like-Coping,the electric keyboard quickly becomes an integral part of the group'ssound. That, and a slightly gritty guitar tone reminiscent of a youngerJohn McLaughlin. Having used the "f" word earlier on to describe anelement of this disc's style, it's not a great surprise thatcomparisons to the dormant Isotope 217 come to mind, seeing as how bothParker-lead projects present fusion in its earliest, rawest and perhapsbest form: before the soprano saxophone and crazy-assed time signaturesbecame the norm. "Mannerisms" chugs along to double-time rhythms ofunison, quirky guitar/bass/keyboard melodies that crash with tensechords on the cyclical breaks throughout Parker's exploratory soloing.Bassist Chris Lopes' catchy "Sea Change" spirals with ostinatos againstdrummer Chad Taylor's tasteful polyrhythms, providing a steadyfoundation for the tune to switch back and forth with a half-time vamp.The wonderfully slick treatment of Marvin Gaye's "When Did You StopLoving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" stands out on the disc not onlyfor its jazz interpretation, but also for the group's solid andcomfortable performance in the more traditional idiom that conveys agreat sense of buoyancy. There are certain elements in Parker'scompositional style and musicianship, highlighted on The Relatives,that indicate just how much his contributions with Tortoise's haveshaped their sound over the past few years. By the same token, thereare moments on this disc where it sounds like he may have worked someslightly angular arrangements in their spirit. Not to be mistaken for ajazzy Tortoise disc, The Relatives is the outlet for Parker's playful, free jazz spirit to stretch beyond the collective's boundaries with tasteful results. samples:
For the meeting ofthese two master percussionists, one could be forgiven for expecting analbum composed equally of competitive drum solos or hippie rhythmcircle music. What Wydler and Dammit do instead is create a variedalbum of exotic pop instrumentals that neatly defies any easycategorization. While Morphosa Harmonia is undoubtedly andunashamedly heavy on the percussive side of things, Thomas and Tobyalso tackle Buchla synthesizers, vibraphones, electric piano and bass.Contributions from guest players Jochen Arbeit (of EinsturzendeNeubauten), Chris Hahn (of Angels of Light, Martin Peter (of Die Haut)and Beate Bartel (of Liaisons Dangereuses) add further layers ofcompositional complexity to the album. The album's title gives asubstantial clue as to the sort of sound Wydler and Dammit are aimingfor; the krautrock of Musik Von Harmonia and the Cluster &Eno albums is clearly evoked in the album's floating, psychedelicatmospheres. In fact, the pair even recruited Ingo Krauss, the engineerfrom Conny Plank's legendary studio, to mix this album. Perhaps becausedrummers are often the most maligned member of any given band andfrequently the most ignored element of rock music, Toby Dammit opts toplace the percussion of utmost primacy in his music, forcing the restof the elements to follow the lead of the drums, cymbals, gongs andbells. As a listener, I was placed right next to the drum set, a uniqueperspective from which to experience this collection of chuggingpsychedelic pop songs. Most of the tracks on the album are eclectic andwhimsical, combining Martin Denny's high-fidelity exotica with EnnioMorricone's kitchen sink compositional style. Each track is built fromthe rhythm down, with eerie birdcalls, chants and synthesized choirsweaving in and out of the beats. Canny use of echo, reverb and phasingkeep the album in a constant state of dreamy psychedelia, adding bonghits to bongos, as it were. The packaging is an intriguing mystery,filled with watercolors of cats and nude females. (Kitties and titties?Pussies and pussycats?) Whatever the intention was, its a suitably oddjuxtaposition for a fun and goofy little album that quietly pushes theboundaries of percussion-based music. samples:
