18 January 2004

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Albums and Singles

Die Stadt
The fourth CD release from Asmus Tietchens and Thomas Köner's collaborative project Kontakt der Jünglinge, nis the duo's strongest work to date. Like their other releases, thedisc is drone-heavy, consisting of one 40+ minute live improvisation,dominated by huge bell tones and what sound like recordings of rushingwind, delayed, looped and exploded along a slow evolution. Whileprevious efforts warranted descriptors like "barren" and "bleak," basedon their preference for more acute, concr?te-associated sounds orsparse assembly, n is the first Kontakt der Jünglinge releaseto which these words apply in a comprehensive way. Tietchens and Könerwork together in seamless fashion, arranging sounds that define theboundaries of spaces rather than concentrating on details or eventswithin. The piece succeeds in avoiding the more recognizable orassociative sounds that appeared on earlier releases while creating arich, more easily inhabitable sound-world, in this case something likea vacuous region of deep space. The title, a break from the lineartitles of the first three collaborations (1, 0, -1),also suggests that this fourth disc deals with sounds of a moreelemental nature or offers a purification of the ideas posited by itspredecessors. Just words, yes, but very few things can fill a room likethis.

samples:

• (00:00-01:00)
• (15:00-16:00)
• (37:00-38:00)

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18 January 2004

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Albums and Singles

Bronson Unlimited
Devoted followers of cult obscurantist acts like Nurse With Wound havebecome accustomed, over the years, to their favorite music being issuedin absurdly limited "special" editions, created to be hopelesslyobscure within a month of their release. I couldn't recount all of theinstances when I have heard of a new release being offered in alimited, numbered edition of 100 handmade copies on transparent vinyl,with unique art objects, the first 10 orders including an exclusivebonus 7" smeared with the artist's bodily fluids, and one extra specialcopy containing a golden ticket entitling the holder to visit theartist's home and take liberties with their pet. As frustrating asthese ultra-limited releases can be, ardent devotees still hold out thehope that with vigilance, cunning and a fair amount of cash, they canpossess their own piece of the dream. Now, the lovely, talented andextraordinarily perverse folks at Bronson Unlimited Records have justupped the ante and blown all hope into the stratosphere with therelease of one of the more unique limited editions in recent memory. Goat Woundis a tribute to the work of Nurse With Wound - 25 artists from aroundthe world anonymously contributed an original untitled piece as anaudio tribute to Steven Stapleton. The tracks are divided among six 3"compact discs with individual, reversible interlocking puzzle panelcovers, a Goat Wound postcard and a pewter goat statue, all ofwhich is housed in a handmade, art inlaid wooden box. The catch: Thisis truly a one-of-a-kind tribute to Steven Stapleton, and only StevenStapleton. As unbelievable as it sounds, Goat Wound is limitedto only one copy, which was shipped directly to Cooloorta Farm upon itscompletion. No one, not even the label itself or the artists involved,will ever be able to own a copy of the set. In addition, the 25 artistshave each relinquished all copyright claims to the work on Goat Wound,freeing Steven Stapleton to use the music as raw materials for futuresound sculptures, should he choose. The only relic that remains for thecurious public is Bronson Unlimited's fantastic Goat Wound website,which in addition to photographs and information on the unique project,contains one minute MP3 extracts from each of the tracks, as well as an"exquisite corpse" patchwork of all 25 one-minute samples sequencedinto one long track. The sounds on Goat Wound traverse astaggering number of techniques, from the haunted mental echoplex ofthe first track to the murky, industrial soundscapes of track six.Elsewhere, artists use minimal electronics and dusty drones,primitively recorded vocal ululations and Negativland-styleplunderphonic radio broadcasts. Many tracks take a cue from Nurse WithWound, focusing on surrealistic sound design and ambient soundsculptures which are by turns cold and clinical, whimsical and amusingor tense, hallucinogenic and frightening. Track 22 is a highlight,utilizing recordings of what seems to be the voice of Mr. Stapletonhimself, snatches of conversation that segue into a vibrant summersound collage of barking dogs and children at play. I admire theartists and creators of Goat Wound, and the enormous amount ofcare taken in anonymously producing such amazing sound art that theyknew no one would ever hear, save one oddball farmer in Ireland. If youcan't live without your own copy, I suggest you start planning a covertoperation to liberate it from Cooloorta Farm. Just imagine how muchmoney you could auction this for on E-bay.

samples:

• Untitled Track 1
• Untitled Track 9
• Untitled Track 22

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18 January 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Shadoks
Of all the tracks included on the Brazilian volume of the excellent Love, Peace, & Poetrypsych comp series, Sound Factory's "Let's Go" is by far the strangest.The song tries at a fairly generic, surf-influenced groove, but comesoff sounding more like a cautionary tale against heavy acid use, ahideously top-heavy mix capped off by singer Kevin Brennan's falsetto,so bad it's honestly not even funny. The song is a sad but perfectintroduction to the band's single, thoroughly obscure album, reissuedlast year by Shadoks. Sound Factory cannot be explained away asan amateur psych record or even as a novelty for the collectors marketalone. Something about the group protects them from seeming either tooincompetent or too generic for the adventurous listener. Seven of thesongs are covers (Cream, Traffic, Jefferson Airplane, and Blind Faithamong others), lending the automatic charm that comes with foreignersborrowing so directly (and almost exclusively) from theBritish/American rock canon. Portuguese accents get bent awkwardlyaround Robert Johnson's wail, and a Tropicalian lilt is brought to thestodgiest of thick, white rock, shoddily-played and cheaply-recorded;while it might be easy to call this music unoriginal, it's impossibleto say it's no fun. Missteps like "Let's Go" transcend camp valuebecause they are almost too obtrusive or annoying for even a committednovelty enthusiast to stomach. Novelty gets left behind for a stranger,more rarified appeal, as if the group's unintentionally off-kilterapproach prevents them from being so quickly placed or dated. A fewmoments of truly exceptional musicianship further complicate things.The guitar and bass players are undoubtedly skilled, their inventiveparts frequently coming into odd juxtaposition with clumsier sections.Brennan's solos are at times masterful Hendrix-isms, made more enticingby their frequent burial deep in the mix, and drummer Trajano's shakycroon gives two Steve Winwood classics a fragility that, professionalor not, lends a new beauty to the tired songs. The result is a recordcharming for its amateur-ish exuberance but also thrilling in the waythe band conquers its limitations, managing an addictive, ifidiosyncratic sound. - 

samples:

• Restless Time
• Whithering Tree
• Let's Go

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18 January 2004

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Albums and Singles

VHF
For 20 years, Matthew Bower's Skullflower has been widely influentialin the noise scene, evolving a signature sound over time to incorporatethe amplified drones, repetition and ?ber-psychedelic noise thatcharacterizes the recent works. Bower's sister group Sunroof! usessimilar distortion-pushing strategies, but serves as an outlet forgentler, trancelike, even transcendent applications of dissonance andnoise. Cloudzis perhaps Bower's most meditative album yet, taking a clear step backfrom atonality and adding fuller instrumentation that threatens to addmelody and rhythm to the abstract sound sculptures. 2003 was a banneryear for Matthew Bower, with the release of Skullflower's trance-metalmasterpiece Exquisite Fucking Boredom, the subsequent tour with Vibracathedral Orchestra, and now Cloudz, which is probably Sunroof!'s strongest album yet, with the possible exception of 2001's double-album Bliss. Cloudzclimbs into a rarefied strata; noise that is blissed-out and beatific,but also intense, shamanistic and loud as hell. "Machine" creates acushion of distortion that lifts a scattered piano melody into the jetstream, before transforming into a maze of electronic blurps, redolentof the giant god-computer in the sky detailed by Philip K. Dick in hisGnostic exegesis. Further into this astral temple of cumulonimbusgnosticism comes the urgent dot-matrix rhythms of "Grasshopper,"followed quickly by the ratcheting beats and lysergic reverberations of"Viva." "Zero" is a bright evocation of Krautrock, something like aNeu! track scrubbed with steel wool: motorik beats smeared withhigh-pitched glitches and squiggles. "Universal Acceleration" is afloating steam calliope bubbling up into the heady, stoned atmosphereon a pillow of Nintendo sound effects. "Tornado Rose Canoe" is thehighlight, a senseless electric guitar solo that shoots straight forthe third-eye and throws off all manner of hallucinogenic streamers."Silver Nazi Suicide" is this set's most challenging track, a richlydetailed 12-minute excursion into carnivalesque bells, horns andshakahuchi that absolutely hypnotized me. The insect drones of"Primavera" and the clean, hicupping digital washes and vocoderizedchanting of "Silver Zero" end the disc on a note of futuristic nirvana.After being pushed into the loftiest firmaments of this heavenly templeof drone, I've been ushered into a binary landscape of mantra-spewingrobot gods. After a few more spins of Cloudz, I hope to master their language. 

samples:

• Universal Acceleration
• Tornado Rose Canoe
• Silver Zero

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18 January 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

North East Indie
So far, this split series has been a smorgasbord of tasty morsels thatleft me coming back for more. It had to happen sooner or later thatthere would be a dish that I'd want to pass on, and that's the casewith Life & Times.The Shoal have gotten the closest to becoming one with the other bandon this edition, but the results are not particularly remarkable ornoteworthy. In fact, a lot of it comes off like filler, or a perpetualwait for something that may or may not ultimately arrive. The firsttrack, though featuring some nice atmospherics and vocal effects, isnothing more than an introduction of what the listener is about tohear, as well as a thank you for listening thus far. It's unnecessary,as most are probably buying the EP on the name recognition of CerberusShoal alone, and it's a bit heavy-handed in areas, like a long-windedSunday gospel about the importance of holding your head up. After that,the music assumes the shape of a low gurgle and whisper routine, slowlyraising over a low chirp into the peaks and valleys of various melodicexperiments. I had grown fond of the bombast of previous collaborationsand thought maybe this was just a temporary departure, but it continuesfor the whole release, never quite forming a congruous whole. There ishope on the third track, "Continuumed," as structure seeps in and atrue song emerges, but then the fourth track offers more of the samesonic tinkering. Unfortunately, the end result sounds like just someknob twiddling and experimentations with effects and small chordprogressions and melodies rather than a true collaborative effort onsweeping compositions like the previous CDs in the series. I was leftmissing the latter, and though their is obviously a great deal ofcreativity and talent at work, it just didn't affect me the way I'dhoped it would. 

samples:

• Pre-face
• Respoonced
• Continuumed

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18 January 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The story of this release is something to the effect of this: Mark Bellhad these songs on a tape for a friend, who loved them so much, heencouraged their release. From the get-go, that should be a signal thateven Mark Bell would probably not disagree that these songs aren'tcompletely finished. There's no question in my mind about theproduction talents of Bell. From the first minute of Sheath,LFO's first full-length release in seven years, the instrumentation issharp, vibrant, captivating, and pleasing. However, the melodies allthroughout are dull, repetitive, forgettable, and almost alwayscompletely lacking a good sense of motion or counterpoint, somethingLFO was quite capable of doing on 1991's legendary breakthrough Frequencies and spots on 1996's Advance.Basically, unlike any great duo who once had an amazing formula, MarkBell needs Gez Varley (G-Man). It's all too remeniscent of popular1980s duos when one member left and the remaining member continued touse the name (OMD wasn't the same without Paul Humphreys and Tears forFears wasn't the same without Curt Smith). I do, however, agree withthe decision to keep vocalists out of the studio. It's often a sign ofan instrumentalist giving up when they decide their melodies aren'tstrong enough to stand on their own. The closest the album comes to astrong number is the single track "Freak," where Bell's Speak-And-Spellfrom "We Are Back" gets dusted off for the electronic voice's return.It's fun and has a lot of bumping bass kicks but as with the rest ofthe album, could use a driving lead instrument melody of some sort.

samples:

• Blown
• Freak
• Nevertheless

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18 January 2004

Michael Patrick Brady

Albums and Singles

MIO
Hindsight is 20/20: wide-eyed dreamers of yesteryear once marveled atthe thought of flying cars that would dominate our world's skyways andfreedom from the ever-present red menace that threatened to consume orway of life. How na?ve, they were. Today we lurch around in behemothsport utility vehicles and the followers of Lindon LaRouche still annoyus at many urban street corners. Now, those fantasies seem somewhatoutmoded, antiquated, and quaint. So too, I feel, is much of the realmof progressive rock that cropped up in the 1970s. What aspired to finddepth and insight in what had before been trashy rock music too oftenmushroomed into purple prose and exercises in rambling fantasy imagery.Case in point: Kyrie Eleison, yet another compilation of recordingsfrom a "lost" band, overlooked in its time and ready for their momentto shine. Rather than coming off as an artifact to be studied andappreciated, The Complete Recordingsreveals itself to be much more of a fossil, thin and desiccated,utterly without context, and to put it simply—with no meat on itsbones. Tentative, Phantom of the Opera organ tones lull along the slowmelodies that buffer up against distorted guitar and thick thuddrumming. Nothing particularly remarkable stands out, even in theirgrandiose solo sections where the members launch into perfunctory apingof obvious influences like early Genesis. The lyrics are mystifying,but not in a majestic way, merely in that they don't seem to have beenworked with much. The influences now seem more akin to Led Zeppelin's"Ramble On" and "Gollum, the eeeevil one." On "A Friend," they blow thelid off of this whole civilization sham with lines like "You know you're caught in the trap / A trap of human beings / Calling yourselves society / A trap," a decidedly dark albeit banal claim that they fail to back up with the preschool sing-a-long style lines that follow: "If a friend is happy / It's pleasure for you / If a friend has lost something / It's a loss of yours too."Anarchy and fraternity all in one song, it's something that most bandswould not be able to pull off—and Kyrie Eleison is one of those bandsthat can't. They stumble further in their quest to encapsulate what iswrong with our societal trap on another track, declaring "You can hate the world / It will hate you / 'cause it's wars is hate / And hate is a war / You are a wonderer."(I copied that from the lyric sheet, that's not a mishearing.)Somewhere in the middle it seems to lose any kind of syntax or meaning.From "Reign": "I'd like to kick you in your bums / But brothers would take their giant guns / Shoot brutality into my brain." For sure a daft line, but not a terrible capsule review of this overblown compilation. The Complete Recordingsseems like another example of basement diving music archivists lookingto pass off the chaff of its era as a maligned work of wonder. Trackdown the lyrics sheet if you can, as it can be rather amusing. - 

samples:

• Thoughts on a Gloomy Day
• A Friend
• June

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16 January 2004

Rob Devlin

Albums and Singles

Thalia Zedek is a true original, with a voice hewed by years on the road fronting aggressive outfits, her musical stylings born out of influence but still uniquely hers. Her latest is a dynamo: a strong step forward on a new label and a powerful piece of work overall.

Thrill Jockey

Recorded at the godspeed-famous Hotel2Tango in Montreal, these songs represent the natural coagulation of the performer to her backing band after two years of touring. The album was recorded and mixed in eleven days, utilizing only analog recording techniques, so there was little room for error. It appeared not to make any difference, as the core group plays seamlessly, with a force that defies description. Zedek's voice is in fine form, as usual, and the musicians drive on without reservation as she digs deep within to pull out some refreshingly honest and personal subjects. Since the dissolution of Come, Zedek seems to have delighted in taking chances here and there, displaying a willingness to explore or stab towards something besides pure bombast. On these songs, the explosiveness starts to win again, as the mournful instrumentation grows in volume and density, and her cries rise to meet it all. "Ship" starts the record in a slower vein, but it is not to last, as the song suddenly shifts into a modified shuffle, with plaintive suggestions to one about how to proceed with life. Everything slows at the end again, almost as a release: with these words off one's chest, the calm returns. But each song returns to plumb the same territory, with slower somber moments being blown away by the strength and weight of the music and the words that follow them, right up until the shrieking distortion of "Hell is in Hello." Even when it seems like it's been sung by Zedek before, even earlier on the same album, all is forgiven as it is still a pure, raw and honest performance. Most of all that is Thalia Zedek's mark: she is herself, through and through, and that invitation into her innermost thoughts is getting more and more dangerous and thrilling as the years go on.

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04 January 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Acute
The world was probably not quite ready for the french electro punkgroup Métal Urbain in 1977. Not only were lyrics in French probably ahard sell outside of their native country, but a punk rock band with adrum machine couldn't have been the most popular sound with traditionalpunk rock nor anti-punk crowds (too many guitars for the ThrobbingGristle/Suicide/Cabaret Voltaire fans and too electronic for SexPistols/Wire/Clash fans). However, with gritty, blistering guitars andbrutal confrontational vocals, it's a sound and a formula echoed in the1980s by early Pop Will Eat Itself records, Pussy Galore, andespecially Steve Albini's Big Black. Still, no efforts were made bypeople like Shimmy Disc or similar labels to curate obscure tributealbums making Métal Urbain cool again. In fact, even their secondrelease, the 1977 7" single of "Paris Marquis"/"Clé de Contact," (RoughTrade's catalogue number 001), has ironically yet to appear on any ofthe bazillion Rough Trade "punk"/"post-punk" compilations released inthe last few years. Thankfully neither the group nor Carpark's newsub-label Acute aren't going to let them be completely forgotten. Thegroup reformed last year and played dates in both NYC and Montréal andhopefully plan to play some more this coming year now this collectionhas surfaced, collecting everything the group released before theirsplit along with some unreleased tracks for the first time in NorthAmerica. It's always interesting to find out which band's release wasso strong that it made somebody launch a record label and when I heardof this reissue, I pulled out my record of Les Hommes Mortis Sont Dangereux,an LP +7" collection released posthumously in 1981, to find the USCelluliod release catalogue numbers CEL1 and CEL2! Anybody who owns Les Hommeswill probably note that this disc is almost a complete reissue with thesame cover artwork. Groups like this who chose not to sound like therest of the pack (there's two guitarists, no bass, and a drum machine),while didn't achieve the widespread popularity in their day have aunique ability to sound completely fresh nearly three decades later.Catchy tunes like "Lady Coca Cola" and "Hysterie Connective" areperfect examples of how this band had the ability to be both viciousand infectious at the same time. Even the unused tracks like "LittleGirl of Love" could easily pass for a bitchin' Sigue Sigue Sputnikprototype with its fuzzy rockabilly guitar riff. This is a fantasticreissue that can serve as an example for well thought-out reissueprojects, spanning their entire recorded career on one disc with abooklet of fascinating stories, pictures, and details of each of the 24songs. In 2004, Acute is threatening CD reissues of two post-MétalUrbain projects, Dr. Mix and the Remix and Metal Boys. In the meantime,it's never too late to play catch-up with the original lineup. 

samples:

• Lady Coca Cola
• Futurama
• Panic (instrumental)

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04 January 2004

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Load
2003 ended too abruptly for me to get in a review or even a mention ofwhat has slowly become my favorite noise record of that year, thusnamed because it resists any academic sub-classification, remaininghighly listenable, though irreducible. The delay was due, ironically,to my inability to describe Royal Paintwithout making it sound entirely derivative. I could compare Mr. Kites,whoever this solitary and staunchly anti-technologian (no computers,keyboards, effects) abuser of arcane electronics may be, to Amps forChrist as he does incorporate his share of garbled folk and naïve popreferences. It would be easy, also, to write about the layered enginedrones that characterize several tracks, and while these are impressivein their assemblage, and charming by way of a persistentone-dimensionality, there is nothing to make Kites stand out against somany artists who've treated the same sounds to more elaborate, deeplyinvolved investigations. Kites' exploits the code of homemade ethics bydismissing obsolete technologies that even the most whitebread ofDIY-ers have grown to accept, but he does this without coming off likethe Jandek of his particular niche. Royal Paint includes someof the blind Jandekian resilience, but it's also a compelling listenthroughout, neither in spite nor because of its simplicity. Thenine-minute opener, "Staring into the Sun," works as a kind ofpurifying ritual, a screaming match between feedback generator andprickly static (Kites' weapons of choice), my ears as helplessmediators. Seven minutes in and the disc's ragged logic begins to takeshape; these fluctuations and skewed intervals trace the skeleton of apop song. The following three tracks, moving from a neo-pagan campfirestomp through a bit of faux-Celtic acoustic plucking with a few sheetsof white noise to cleanse the palette, only support my suspicions; thesongs offer the directness of pop with none of its easy rewards. Whilelabelmates Hair Police use traditional instruments to destroy the"song" from the inside-out, Kites works through his own bizarreprimitivism to reconstruct it. This is not noise for noise's sake. Thecomfortable or recognizable moments on Royal Paint do not allowfor a sarcastic tone or some humorous bent, dampening the truly painfulparts, of which there are many. The occasional sing-a-long bit andmelodic tinkering set up bizarre juxtapositions to make their shrillcounterparts seem more complex and hard to ignore. It might seem easyto dismiss Kites as just one more jaded punk cashing in on the homemaderenaissance, but Royal Paint gives this "simple" music a colorful and intimidating face.

samples:

• Cry For the Death of a Crazy Man
• Call Out Your Real Name
• Milkweed Arrows

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