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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It seems like every week a new tribute album comes out where artistsfrom another genre show homage to bands that they've enjoyed or beeninfluenced by. This is not one of those albums. The Lounge Brigade, forno apparent reason other than the pure comedic value, have taken someof Eminem's more popular numbers and made them lounge. And although itseemed incredibly unlikely to me, the results are not all bad. To behonest, I'm not a big fan of Eminem, though I will admit he has animpressive delivery. The Lounge Brigade doesn't even try to keep up,and it's one of the only entertaining things about this release. On"Without Me," Tony Calzone, the band leader, tries to welcome us to theshow, and he's butted out of the way by another vocalist delivering araspy dismissal in true Marshall Mathers style. Then he flubs half ofthe lyrics or outright changes them as he clears his throat repeatedly.This is not a big band, as just four members handle keyboards, guitars,percussion, bass, and the occasional trumpet. The Brigade tries to makeup for their roster shortcomings, though, with unique arrangements."Stan," the track based on a horrible Dido song called "Thank You," isamped up into a Salsa number where the vocalists take a rest. The Didopart is replaced with horns, and piano picks up Em's lines, saving usfrom more lackluster performance by the vocalists, but that's the onlyplus. The one song where the delivery is close to the original, andtherefore something of a standout, is "My Name Is," where the vocalistcomes across like Steve Lawrence, even providing a corny "verse two"introduction. There's even an original composition called "Loungin'With Stan," but even that can't save this release from what doomed itall along. Why remake Eminem as lounge? Even if it is just for thecomedy of it, it's not that funny, and it's a one-note joke. 
Another theme/concept record from Bip-Hop is Tonne's 'Soundtoy,' whichis effectively a product demo for a sound sequencing device that Tonnecreated as an alternative to the big budget, feature-laden audiopackages that drive modern electronic music production. The Soundtoyapplication is included on this disc for listeners to try out, and itallows the user to drag and drop colored squares that represent a bankof sixteen sounds onto a grid of twelve moving lines. Like the boardgame Othello, Soundtoy takes a minute to learn but a lifetime tomaster. The interface is intuitive and even fun to play with, but asthere is no quantization feature and no way to record your drags anddrops for playback at a later time, getting something you really wantout of it is another story. But creating whole tracks, like the eightsongs also included on this disc, does not apper to be the real aim ofSoundtoy. Instead, the artists involved primarily used the applicationto come up with new rhythmic combinations that a rigid sequencingprogram might not have helped to produce. Scanner, Si-cut.db, HakanLidbo, and Tonne himself each contribute two tracks a piece of noodlyelectronic tones drenched in reverb and delay, and after listening tothe album straight through three times in a row it was very difficultto pinpoint any one artist's signature sound or contribution. Expect alot of click n cut style percussion stabs, warm sampled bits fromanalog keyboards, and structures that flirt with the idea of beats butdon't usually manage much more than fractured, off-time rhythms. Theincluded sound files from the artists involved should keep bedroomlaptoppers busy hacking and remixing for a while, and the musicincluded, while not a necessary advancement in the world of computermusic, is fresh enough to earn a spot in the rotation at your favoritechill out spot.
This disc by Scanner and Tonne is a CD version of an installation theycreated for a London-based art show at the Institute of ContemporaryArts. It expands on the original concept that used location recordingsaround London to form a sound installation by adding themed pieces fromMilan, Tokyo, Montreal, and New York City. There is so much detail inthe process that created this record, that it has raised questions forme that hinder listening to the album as a simple recording. Should Ibe interested in the process that creates the resulting sound or focuson pulling meanings solely from the experience of the recording? Wheredoes the line between spectator and creator get blurred with works thatsimply reproduce a moment in time and space for later listening? Atwhat point do we become so fascinated with aural snapshots of real-lifeevents that we spend more time listening to someone else's version of awalk through New York City than we do our own? Is this what they meanby postmodernism? I'm not sure where to go with answers on any of thosetopics, but Scanner and Tonne provide a sound collage that is true tothe title of this collection. Each track is a manipulated collection ofcommonplace sounds from familiar environments that tend to reflect, ifnot always comment on the location in question. "Tokyo" begins withfield recordings from Japanese subways and melts into a nearlytechno-ish rumble that captures the dehumanizing effects of Tokyo'smassive scale and the isolation of its millions of commuters crammedcheek to cheek into trains, but never connecting. "Montreal" findsScanner returning to his namesake with stolen cell phone conversationsand the trademark high pitched whine of radio feedback. "Milano" is amelancholic abstraction that flirts with the introduction of rhythmicfigures that are never fully realized and buries the source material ina wash of synthetic pulses. These days, an artist can take a recordingof someone ordering a pizza and turn it into a convincing 808 kick drumand bass pattern, so it's not surprising that musicians like thesechoose artificially limited sets of sound sources to see where they cantake them. But while listening to 'Sound Polaroids,' I am reminded thatthere's no substitute for experience. These recordings are distilledthrough a very specific set of personal criteria set out by the artistsand they don't sound too terribly different in tone than a lot ofScanner's other work. These recordings don't capture the life andvibrancy and complexity of the environments they are reflecting as muchas they hint at a way to compose whatever music you want with whateverset of sounds you've got.
This disc by Scanner and Tonne is a CD version of an installation theycreated for a London-based art show at the Institute of ContemporaryArts. It expands on the original concept that used location recordingsaround London to form a sound installation by adding themed pieces fromMilan, Tokyo, Montreal, and New York City. There is so much detail inthe process that created this record, that it has raised questions forme that hinder listening to the album as a simple recording. Should Ibe interested in the process that creates the resulting sound or focuson pulling meanings solely from the experience of the recording? Wheredoes the line between spectator and creator get blurred with works thatsimply reproduce a moment in time and space for later listening? Atwhat point do we become so fascinated with aural snapshots of real-lifeevents that we spend more time listening to someone else's version of awalk through New York City than we do our own? Is this what they meanby postmodernism? I'm not sure where to go with answers on any of thosetopics, but Scanner and Tonne provide a sound collage that is true tothe title of this collection. Each track is a manipulated collection ofcommonplace sounds from familiar environments that tend to reflect, ifnot always comment on the location in question. "Tokyo" begins withfield recordings from Japanese subways and melts into a nearlytechno-ish rumble that captures the dehumanizing effects of Tokyo'smassive scale and the isolation of its millions of commuters crammedcheek to cheek into trains, but never connecting. "Montreal" findsScanner returning to his namesake with stolen cell phone conversationsand the trademark high pitched whine of radio feedback. "Milano" is amelancholic abstraction that flirts with the introduction of rhythmicfigures that are never fully realized and buries the source material ina wash of synthetic pulses. These days, an artist can take a recordingof someone ordering a pizza and turn it into a convincing 808 kick drumand bass pattern, so it's not surprising that musicians like thesechoose artificially limited sets of sound sources to see where they cantake them. But while listening to 'Sound Polaroids,' I am reminded thatthere's no substitute for experience. These recordings are distilledthrough a very specific set of personal criteria set out by the artistsand they don't sound too terribly different in tone than a lot ofScanner's other work. These recordings don't capture the life andvibrancy and complexity of the environments they are reflecting as muchas they hint at a way to compose whatever music you want with whateverset of sounds you've got. 
There's no denying the quality of individual tracks on this disc ofimprovised electro-acoustic music, but I am reluctant to recommend it.This is because I am really not sure what the disc actually is, or whatit is intended to be. Perhaps I should list its contents, in order ofappearance: two brief pieces by a duo called Alma Fury, who play moogand sampler. One lengthy quartet piece by Alma Fury joined by YasuhiroOtani (computer player whose appearance on the "Four Focuses" compturned my head pleasantly a few years ago) and turntablist OtomoYoshihide. Then two pieces by multi-instrumentalist Xavier Charles, ashort duo by Charles and Otomo, and two more short solo improvisationsby Charles. Now I ask you: is this a compilation? The reappearance ofOtomo on two tracks suggests that some larger framework is in place,though what that could be is unclear. So is it a group withinterchanging members, like the great "Four Focuses" CD? Maybe, butthen we never hear Charles with Alma Fury, and Otani only appears onone piece. It could be that this is a document of a single concert,which would explain the variousness of the disc's contents but, alas,such a possibility is never addressed in the package. That a date andlocation is only supplied for the quartet track implies that the otherrecordings were made at some other date and place, so my theory hasthat hole in it. Is it a meeting of Japanese and French musicians? Ifso, then why are we not presented with solo pieces by Otani and Otomo?I just can't tell what unites these pieces of sound into An Album, so Iam left to describe the music by itself.
It's rather ironic that a guy who refused to accept the technology ofemail (which predates Non recordings actually) has released an albummixed in 5.1 surround for compatible high fidelity DVD systems.(Unfortunately, months after owning this, I have yet to experience thehorror in full surround.) Following Non's brightest album, (theunofficial tribute to Phil Spector and girl groups, 'Receive theFlame'), Boyd Rice strays further away from Non's noise roots, yetreturns to a dark sound, roping in grand orchestral and choral samplesto the mix of fire and death. 'Children of the Black Sun' is Rice's alltoo brief aural tour of the underworld, where seven spots highlightvarious mythologies' takes on the darker side of the afterlife and whatkeeps the world cyclic. While the album is potentially rich withfascinating themes, I feel the music is rather undeveloped, far tooshort, and somewhat haphazardly tossed together. Opening with a briefvocal recording, the sound immediately morphs into a heavy drone. Harpsweeps, viola strikes and distant screams additionally color thesoundtrack of "Arka," the place where Cain was exiled to after hisexpulsion from Eden. Without pause, the tour continues on through"Black Sun," where a single note horn drones on in the foreground whilean orchestra holds painfully for resolution it never sees. The tensionworks but the development sounds far from complete. From here, the tourcontinues through five more locations, gliding from track to trackwithout stopping, each incorporating a new set of sounds. The distantmachinery-like noises of "Serpent of the Abyss" subside to fliespicking off tasty morsels on a rotting corpse on "The UndergroundStream," while the echoed choral loops carefully matched with cracklingfire and crashing waves on "The Fountain of Fortune" give way to thealbums closer, the 51-second "Son of the Sun," where a distortedbackwards speech clumsily accompanies an unexciting orchestral loop.(Spin it backwards for extra insult if you really find the need toshell out the cash for 31 minutes of average drone loops.) I could begravely mistaken on the value of this album, since I haven'texperienced the full spectrum, but musically, I'm going to make aneducated guess that the listening experience doesn't get a whole lotbetter. 
This CD is a recording from the Summer of 2000 of a Berlin performanceby Ilpo Vãisãnen and Dirk Dresselhaus (i.e. Schneider TM). Vãisãnen isplaying the typewriter, that beautiful device pictured inside thePanasonic "Kulma" CD, while Dresselhaus is playing electric guitar. Themusic is electric noise improvisation and is generally prettyenjoyable. This is nice music to play while doing the dishes, ironingor checking email. But the trouble with that is, as the music is mostlynot very attention-grabbing, it's easy for the mind to wander andsuddenly I find that the CD has come to its end and, with a measure ofguilt, I admit that I can't recall much of what happened. It is notfair to expect a 45-minute improvisation to be enthralling all the waythrough. Even if it were, how much of that can we expect to remainafter the transfer through CD into your living room, with the soundtoned down and smoothed out, with the drama and tension of the eventreplaced by the banality of everyday surroundings? So I get theheadphones on and concentrate. (This enhanced CD has a couple of videostaken from the performance that can be played on a computer and,despite the video effects, the images help me to visualize the event.)Under these conditions, this turns out to be an exciting performance.Vãisãnen is the more dominant player in duo. While rather conventionaland fairly transparent, the guitar playing is always tasteful,sometimes exciting, and very sympathetic to its surroundings, thesebeing presumably Vãisãnen's doing. The same personality known from PanSonic is immediately recognizable but is largely without the Pan Sonicsound. After years playing a unique instrument it is perhaps no wonderthat a personal style emerges. Vãisãnen introduces considerableoriginality to the unfolding process at several points throughout theshow. My only quibbles are the smart-ass track mastering and theinscription on the inside of the digipack that says "set the volume andlisten." But perhaps this is no more than the anticipation that certainin the audience will in fact set the volume and do the dishes orironing instead. 
When Stereolab burst onto the music scene, critics and fans praised thefresh sound of a band who incorporated the energy and drive of groupslike Neu! combined with the artful mentalities of 1960s French popmusic. Over the years, the group's recordings have evolved from a raw,analogue sound to a much more refined, digital one. Live, however, thegroup has consistently proved their worth, evolving with theexploration of more territories and unrelentlessly dishing out thenoise, graduating to a tight, fully realized collective. This two-disccollection captures ten years of BBC radio sessions, that livein-studio moment where a band's weaknesses can easily be exposed to theworld. (Perhaps it's through these recordings they decided it was timeto get a new drummer after the first session, and perhaps they gave thebass guitarist another chance to tune up after "Check and DoubleCheck." The revolving door of keyboardists remains a mystery, however!)It's safe to say, however, that a number of these recordings that haveheld up over time, sounding remarkably as fresh as the day they werefirst broadcast. From the early low-fi days I'm reminded of the band Ifell in love with: a group who was still sort of learning their placebut were doing a fantastic job regardless. It wasn't long after therecordings that songs like "Wow and Flutter" and "French Disko" werestuck in the heads of thousands of fans and with all-out jams like"Metronomic Underground," classics of the 1990s were born. This is thelongest-spanning collection of Stereolab music issued and it providesan excellent document on their evolution as skilled players andwriters, without the advantages of studio tricks, re-takes andoverdubs, something their most recent albums might be a little toooversaturated with these days.
After the Archers of Loaf broke up, front man Eric Bachmann decided hestill had a significant Muse living within him, enough to warrantforming Crooked Fingers, his current project. Where the Archers of Loafhad an abrasive noisiness which was unbelievably catchy and poppy,Bachmann's Crooked Fingers has shed all of the noise and distortion fora far more plaintive and roots rock sound. Did I mention there werestrings? There are strings. Some of the songs on 'Red Devil Dawn'receive a strangely lush orchestration, complete with horns ("YouThrough a Spark") and strings ("Big Darkness," et al.). On the otherhand, the last song, "Carrion Doves," is a truly spare dirge whichreminds you how good a songsmith Bachmann is even with the moststripped-down elements. The last time I heard Crooked Fingers was whenI sought out their cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The River" (I findmyself singing this song sometimes driving late at night, in the car,alone). I was curious what Bachmann did with the Boss's ballad. Iremember it being not as good as I wanted it to be, and I was surprisedbecause Bachman's scratchy, throaty, and gruff voice was perfectlyattuned to the task. The songs on 'Red Devil Dawn' are catchy pop rocksongs, but when the strings or trumpets come in I cannot help but thinkI am listening to a Mark Knopfler album, a thought which makes me feelrather uncomfortable and causes me to look for the nearest Minor Threatalbum. While picking up my mom from the airport recently, I had theCrooked Fingers album playing in the car, and she actually asked if Iwas listening to Bruce Springsteen. Her confusion became clear to mewhen I thought about it. Someone could easily mistake this album forthe newest Tom Waits or Neil Diamond. Still, I find myself listening tothe first song, "Big Darkness," whose verses hop up and down the scalesand whose chorus is quite catchy. As long as I don't think about MarkKnopfler or Neil Diamond, I can listen to 'Red Devil Dawn' pleasantly,though I don't foresee any of its songs replacing "The River" as mylate-night solo material. 
Bill Laswell is one of those "everywhere-at-once" musicians—producing,engineering and playing bass on countless albums for other artists, aswell as maintaining an absurdly prolific release schedule of his ownmusic. This album is mysteriously billed as 'Dub Chamber 4,' and sinceI haven't heard the first three Dub Chambers, I'm questoning myqualifications to write this review. However, this album does bearquite a resemblance Laswell's 'RadioAxiom: A Dub Transmission' album, acollaboration with Jah Wobble released early last year. Like thatalbum, 'Book of Exit' is a highly polished series of superlative ethnicmusic workouts, utilizing heavily percussive dub as a backbone. Thisstrategy has worked for Laswell many times before, and it works hereagain. Three of the six tracks contain beautiful, serpentine vocals byEthiopian singer GiGi, who also sang on 'RadioAxiom'. GiGi'sseductively epic vocal style works wonderfully in this context, but asLaswell's music always floats dangerously close to New Age/Worldbeatterritory, it's difficult for me to completely surrender to its beauty.There is something a little enraging about white westerners whoshamelessly co-opt the music of other cultures and blend them into asuper hi-fi pastiche that loses its meaning and context, and serves asstereo test fodder for thousands of yuppie bachelor pads. The onlythings that save Laswell's music from being relegated to this hall ofshame are his incredible grasp of composition, subtlety, and his earfor rich, captivating production. It is this amazing ear thattransforms the opening track "Ethiopia"—a combination of cleanlyplucked acoustic guitar, tabla, multitracked voice and echochamber—from an easy cliché into an alarmingly beautiful experience.Most of the album follows this same basic formula, until things get alittle bone-shaking and mind-bending towards the end, with the one-twopunch of "Shashamani" and "Land of Look Behind." The album concludeswith the long-form heroic pop of "Jerusalem," an achingly lovely paeanto an ancient holy land, rife with war and division. GiGi sings mostlyin English this time, and her sad and timely refrain of "Jerusalem,Jerusalem/You are so undone/Oh, what have you done...?" leave no doubtof this album's worthiness.samples:
Elliott Sharp shouldn't need much of an introduction, but just in casehe does, just think of him as this bald headed big-nosedcyberpunk-obsessed improvising bassist with a mountain of recordingsand collaborations behind him. He's a mainstay of the New York KnittingFactory scene and one of those musicians whose activities have alwaysbeen on the periphery of my record collection. I've probably heardquite a lot of tracks from him here and there but before getting holdof this I only had one Carbon CD, which I found in a highly unlikelydusty old secondhand shop. This duet recording with the almost equallyprolific drummer Bobby Previte is perhaps slightly more exciting and alittle more freeform than Carbon, and mostly it's hard to believe thatit's just two people playing. They've played together a lot in the pastbut this is their first duo recording and it's obvious they couldprobably kick out deconstructed funky jams like this at the drop of ahat. Their chops are dense yet fluid, and whenever it seems they'reabout to hit a predictable groove, they pull out some new rhythmicthrust that shifts the dynamic. This can occasionally work to thealbum's detriment. For instance: at the end of one track they lock ontoa really cool Can-style hypnosis, only to curtail it prematurely.However, this is only a small niggle as it's quite a breathtakingdisplay of virtuosity that keeps up a high level of momentum and flux,as Sharp fingerhops all over the neck of his eight string guitarbass,plucks a little pedal steel and even blows a bit of bass clarinet.Unless they are overdubbing or more likely laying on delay pedaltricks, it seems he can play clarinet and bass at the same time.Although people who've heard a lot more of Sharp's recordings mighthave become jaded by now, to these ears this sounds fresh and fun.
