Brian Foote has been operating the Outward Music Company out of Portland, Oregon for a few years. Their small number of releases have included some singles and full-length releases by Signaldrift, Solenoid, Pulse Programming, and Strategy. Nudge is the result of Foote's collaborations with members of those bands along with people from other Portland-based groups like Fontanelle, Jackie-O Motherfucker, and Nice Nice. While I have to admit that my impression of the outputs by the aforementioned artists and groups have always been rather lukewarm, the combination assembled here far supersedes any expectations.Tigerbeat6
I'm always a big fan of crosssing musical styles, and here, electronic software-based sounds are combined with the musicianship and direction of experienced improvisationalists. The ten songs each exhibit new directions in songcraft, dismissing expectations of how voice, rhythm, and basic instrumentation interact. In a similar move like breakthrough albums by Lamb and Dntel, vocal tracks, like the opener, "Blue Screen," have a very progressive pop sensability, without ever being abrasive, noisy, or too busy. The sweet sounds of Honey Owens voice appropriately match guitar-like distorted delays and less rigid tracks elsewhere on the disc. Instrumental tracks make up the bulk of the record, infrequently utilizing guitar, trumpet, bass, vibes, drums and percussion. Songs like "'Til the Sun Expands" are subdued and subtle, while others like "Love-In Accident" are modern grooves primed for cinematic theme music, never stepping over the top to sound like a music college school jam band. There's plenty of abstract noise and unconventional slightly arrhythmic patterns to keep the humanity intact. One of the things I have actually liked about Outward's output has always been the artwork, and the diagram inside which illustrates the players on each song I must admit is quite clever — with geometric shapes, color coded with letters correspondent to the instruments used.
On their last album, A Silver Mt. Zion grew to the Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band. This time around the players are the same six stalwarts, and they've added a choir for some extra flavor. As the name and roster grows for Efrim's ever necessary ensemble so also does the music become more and more powerful and damaging. Their songs seem to be getting closer and closer to the gy!be motif, with delicate, fluid, and lovely passages that explode into pounding earthquake-threatening dirges of grandeur. The only main difference is the increasingly awkward Efrim vocals, though it feels like at least he is more comfortable with them on each song, even if they're not any easier to listen to. Constellation
This is Our Punk Rock sounds exactly like what the title implies: the DIY philosophy applied to the usual Silver Mt. Zion routine with just the right mix of aggression and social commentary. The choir has just the right effect, chilling and soaring at the perfect moments, and spilling out whenever possible. It is not an organized choir by any means, and that's what makes it all the more endearing when paired with the clumsy Efrim lead. In fact, there are areas where the whole ensemble sounds dangerously close to Cerberus Shoal, with the theatrical firmly in place. There's an overwhelming feeling of complete remorse and decay in these songs, from the pained wail on "Babylon was Built on Fire/Stars No Stars" and the elegy of "Goodbye Desolate Railyard," a song expressing the band's remorse for the artistic death around their homebase in favor of an increased commercialism. There are some odd lyrics ("pus-capped mountains"?), but it's all delivered with the same calm resolute stance. Finally, there appears to be a cohesive and plaintive acceptance of their place in the world with the Silver Mt. Zion crew, with songs that blend into each other and work together as a whole. No stumbling, no slipping off the beam, just plain grace, even though it's a grace in the destruction of everything they hold dear.
Sometimes people just have to be cruel, especially when they're asked to listen to the worst album they've heard in a decade. Anyone who writes reviews will eventually get used to reading all kinds of press releases, from the useful detailed biographic ones to the amusingly erroneous ones to the ones that are quite clearly ridiculous hype for vapid old rope with no substance whatsoever. If The Fly magazine is calling a band genius then any music lover with any aesthetic sense whatsoever will see red hype alarm bells flashing. (The Fly is a faux-fanzine, set up by London based PR wafflers and is given away free at various venues throughout the UK, so that drunk faux-indie kids have something to use when the toilet paper runs out.)
 
Mower prove that even if you make the shittiest most talentless retro crap excuse for rockpops, some idiot somewhere will call it genius. The band try to rock but just don't. The singer can't sing. If he was someone interesting with original ways of deploying the limited range, this wouldn't matter a bit. Matt Motte writes stupid twee ditties about such mundane trivialities as going to a hip-club and not having enough money to pay for a German girl's drink, thus getting her thrown out. All delivered with the charm of a dead clown rotting in the garbage. The smugness of his toss off bathtime warbling stinks of the worst kind of desperate watery wannabe. He's a fuckin' idiot with nothing worth saying. The effort of strumming the guitar with tired unremarkable chord sequences that have already been used a million times probably did his brain in years ago. The press release also compares these listless dorks with no originality or talent to Buzzcocks, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, the Kinks and Ringo Starr (not the greatest drummer that ever walked the earth, but apparently Mower's lad does the plod 'on amphetamines'). This is so grossly insulting to all these bands that I suggest their remains sue Mower. At least that would stop them making another record. Really Jilted John would be a more accurate comparison for Mower, but who gives a fuck about that irritating nerd? Ten years ago this would've been retro enough to ride the coat-tails of the squalid Britpap scene, rightly slagged by interesting musicians such as Michael Gira and Robert Hampson as one of the worst things that ever happened to music. Now its just a sick joke that even the thickest Oasis fan would be embarrassed by. Now for the ultimate insult: even Blur were better than this!
This isn't just a lame Hollywood sequel to a tacky but entertaining guilty pleasure, it's a part three of a series which should have been killed long ago. Uwe Schmidt (Atom‚Ñ¢, Atom Heart) and his gang of Chileans' style worked undeniably well in a humorous way with the Kraftwerk covers on El Baile Alem?. It made sense: Uwe being a German living in Chile and the rest being Chileans, a few who have spent time living in Germany. The vocalist maintained the robotic, inflectionless feeling of the original songs while the group kept to very strict rhythms. The output was something both entertaining and worth numerous listens. To hear it all over again with almost lifeless covers of popular 1970s and 1980s classics is simply laborious. It's a joke that just isn't funny any more.Emperor Norton
"Smoke on the Water" opens the disc with a somewhat neat percussive interplay on the all too familiar riff. It's the first single from the album and probably should have been left as a single or EP coupled with the following cover, "Negra Mi ChaChaCha." Original compositions like "Electrolatino" and "El Rey de las Galletas" aren't necessarily unlikable but they're hardly memorable. "Riders on the Storm," "Smooth Operator," "Blue Eyes," and "Beat It," however, are the biggest offenders, as they are dull, lifeless reinterpretations which I hope I never hear again. (And gun sounds and field recordings of the surf and waterfowl doesn't enhance the music all that much.) In all honesty, I have heard more attitude in elevator music. It's time to do something different, unless people really enjoy buying the same culturally insulting record over and over and over again. What I think makes this record so vanilla is the fact that a lot of the band is actually sampled and threadded through Uwe Schmidt's laptop. The most irritating result from this is the sampled "huh" that appears at least once in every track. (What ever happened to the Quality Control department at record labels?) Ditch the laptop and get all real musicians and the difference will be clear. 
A sinister gift was misdirected to Mt Ikomo, Japan. The toy xylophone had a message attached: "Brian Eno Needs Ideas." Two Japanese ladies of some renown got in the van and did it for the small noise circular.
 
They didn't think about it, they just did it. Luckily for them Henry Rollins wasn't there to bring them down and stink the place up with aerobics for all, but a capable recording feller was. Unless you're the kind of cluelss nerd who needs Everett True to tell you what to think, you already know that Yoshimi is a founder member of the legendary Boredoms, one of the greatest bands that ever slipped the plane. The inimitable Yoshimi warbled a bit and her friend Yuka Honda from the much less interesting Cibo Matto tinkled keyboards in a vaguely not quite jazzy improvised manner. On the mountainside they found a temple where little birdies sang and made friends with them because that's the kind of cute dippy hippy event happening that fuels OOIOO ladies. They ended up with some quite original summery atmospheres that make a pleasant come down after a heavy trip smashing your head against Super Anal Chocolate Vision Creation Boredom Roots. However to call this album essential would just be silly. If you ain't encountered Yoshimi yet its about time you did, but the best place to hear her unique rockpops genius is with Boredoms or OOIOO. However, if you already like her you'll probably find this a pretty little listen. Just don't expect to be blown away because this is just a step up from ambient, which is not a genre she's been too often associated with as far as I'm aware. But this is no case for the jumpin' Jack Enos, professor. He still needs ideas. Little birdies say get in the fuckin' van Brian!