17 February 2002

Administrator

Albums and Singles

A simple title for the most simple music New Wet Kojak have ever created. True, the sex is still in this rock, more libido than most records combined. But where is the substance?

Several of the tracks on this, their imaginatively titled fourth release feature band leader Scott McCloud saying "Number One" repeatedly, removing any hope of meaning. After a while it actually starts to sound a little ridiculous, particularly on "Year of the Sheep," where McCloud asks if he can be someone's "Number One Sheep," whatever the hell that means, because "I really like you a lot." Check the "no" box and send the note back to Scotty, please ladies. The grooves are still there, and this time spacey keyboards abound, adding an new but wholly uninteresting effect to their modus operandi. The horns, though, effects laden and faded into the mix more than usual, are still enough to anchor the sound and set the band apart. And McCloud is playing around with vocals more this time, sampling and repeating his own voice with different distortions and echoes. It's clear that this release is driven to tide fans over until their next full-length (one track is a remix of "love career" from "do things"), and it comes out being a release that only fans should own or would want to own. It's the weakest release from Kojak yet, as the band sounds like their struggling with a new sound or approach at it. Even "Sophia Loren," the tribute to her sexiness and staying power as a star, sounds forced and trite when compared to the power of their other work. I give this one a big old pass if you've never heard them, and a possible pass even if you're a fan. You'll spend more time laughing at it's weaknesses than enjoying this music.

samples:

• Living 2 Low
• Sophia Loren
• Year of the Sheep

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17 February 2002

John Wohlfahrt

Albums and Singles

Usually when I'm shopping around in a record shop there's a good chanceI'm trying to ignore what's being played overhead. Sometimes the musicis okay but I'm normally just annoyed. Today was a little different. Isimply became entranced and forgot what I was originally there topurchase.
What I was hearing was a beautiful acoustic piece with subtlemale vocals. It sounded somewhat dark but not intentionally. I knew thepiece was very complex, but at the same time it sounded veryunproduced. When I asked the clerk about the record he was overlyexcited to be able to talk about it and showed me the album and gave mea little background info. I bought the cd and took it home and I don'tthink I have been happier. The liner notes indicate the cd was allrecorded on a four track, this explains the lack of production, but Ipersonally think this brings out much of the emotion this disc has topresent.  There are 8 tracks all together. This CD varies from acoustic/vocaltracks that would put most apocalyptic folk songs to shame, to noisierdrone tracks, to solo acoustic performances that I could never evencomprehend playing. Six Organs of Admittance is mainly Ben Chasny,although Ryan Hilderbrand does appear on the two noisier tracks. I mustsay this is one of the better releases I have bought in the past coupleyears.

samples:

• Spirits Abandoned
• Regeneration
• This Hand

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17 February 2002

Todd Zachritz

Albums and Singles

Poignant and introspective guitar/piano sounds from this new duohailing from Westmead, Australia, 'It's Humbling...' is a gorgeous setof instrumentals that wax and wane, caressing the psyche with a warmand subtle touch.
Seaworthy's Cameron Webb and Greg Bird have created abeautiful album of gently haunting melodies and understated yetheartfelt paeans to, well, perhaps the less-than-exalted times in life.Similarities can be mentioned to stuff like classic Eno perhaps, orsome of the drone merchants of the Kranky stable, though Seaworthy canably stand on their own collective feet with this remarkable work. Ifell in love with this disc immediately and if the aforementioned floatyour boat (there's a pun in there somewhere), I'd suggest giving ashout to Cameron and Greg as this is simply a magnificent collection ofwhat I like to call 'pure' music. Recommended.

samples:

• http://go.to/seaworthy

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17 February 2002

Brian Duong

Albums and Singles

A delicate and mesmerising 6-song mini-album (at just over 35 minutes),"Windmills vs. Shrapnel" is the latest exquisite offering from thisotherwise obscure Australian quartet.Comprising mostly of rockinstrumentals, the songs on the album set about carefully creating amelancholic yet uplifting atmosphere, which in some cases, is shot topieces by the songs' conclusion ("Slow Meeting', "Eraser End'). And so,in this regard they seem to share a similar attribute to that of Mogwaiand Sonic Youth, as these bands display a deft understanding of musicaldynamics which extend beyond the simplistic "quiet andjust-when-they're-not-expecting-it loud" strategy. On songs such as"Baxter Moon' and "Like Green Waves', Bree van Reyk's expertise at thedrum kit really shines and provides an inspiring backdrop for thehaunting interplay between Matt McBeath (guitar/vocals), Tom Roberts(guitar) and Emma Hoy (bass). Personally, I find it's these intimatemoments which make The Rebel Astronauts a sheer delight to listen to.Whilst there is no denying that aspects of their music may bereminiscent of various post-rock luminaries such as Tortoise, GodspeedYou Black Emperor, Mice Parade and Mogwai etc., the Rebel Astronauts —who are a relatively young band with only an EP and a couple ofsplit-singles to their name — have certainly proved with thismini-album that they're more than capable of forging their own pathswithin the genre. Just exactly how far they manage to venture out intothe vast unknown on their album proper, is a matter of time and space.In the meantime, I'd strongly urge you to go to their sitewww.therebelastronauts.com, take advantage of the dismal Australiancurrency and get a hold of this record quick lickety-split.  

samples:

• www.therebelastronauts.com

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17 February 2002

John Regan

Albums and Singles

The first release from new Irish label Spitroast kicks off superbly. Asyou would guess by the title, this is quite melancholic stuff, not 4/4pumpin' house."Electronic Lament pt1" opens the disc beautifully asmachines buzz and swoop, cracking and hissing, like a dodgy FM radiosignal. The melody rises and falls, much like a seagull gliding throughsome mild turbulence. "Pt 1" sounds warm and somewhat organic, despitethe source, almost as if it was made on a wooden clockwork computer orsomething.
While track 1 is a good indicator of what's to come, it's hardly ablueprint for the record. 14 tracks of warm, fuzzy electronica followin just over 30 minutes. 'Electronic Lament' isn't entirely withoutbeats, but never samey. It's like the link music you hear on FutureSound of London albums used to connect tracks — 10 second pieces youwish would continue for another few minutes, but are over too fast. On"Norway," Him introduces some live instrumentation, with a laid backguitar in the mix a'la Savath + Savalas. A slightly longer song,"Straight," sounds like it could have come from the last Stars of theLid album, while the fifth track is probably the most minimal of therecord - a simple vibraphone piece which, despite having no clearlydistinguishable melody, is still remarkably hummable. "Electonic Lamentpt2" ups the dissonance a little with the ever-present backgroundstatic coming to the fore, yet never getting ugly, the melody stillwatertight.
The second half is just as good, featuring a Steve Reich-esqueinterlocking vibraphone piece, a guitar piece (just a guitar loop)which starts off like the last 10 minutes of Low's 'Born by the wires',just that familiarjing...jjiiiinnnngggg.......jing...jiiiinnnnngggg.... Half-way throughits short running time some plucked folk guitar comes in, weavingaround the crashing chords. Just fabulous.
The only problem with the album is when to put it on. It's the kind ofthing to play while having trouble sleeping and yet it's too engagingto drift off to. The result would easily be more wide awake thanbefore. I don't recommend trying to do anything while this is on, evendoing this review I had to turn it off in order to write anything.Listen to it on the bus or train, and you'll just close your eyes,float away and reopen them at the terminus. This is real cinematic [ormaybe more video art] music. The images which come to mind are ofbirds, fish, or that floating bag from American Beauty. Avoiding allthe pitfalls of glitch electronica (there's only one track where youcheck to see the disc isn't scratched) it's a fantastic debut for bothartist and label, and a great start to the year. Just press play, closeyour eyes and follow the sounds.

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17 February 2002

John Regan

Albums and Singles

Released on the Anticon label, whose motto 'Music for the advancementof hip-hop', sets out their aim to put into the marketplace analternative to money and ass-obsessed pop-hop. Inspired equally byindie rock, electronica and old-skool hip-hop, their output isexperimental, eclectic and among the freshest, newest sounds out there.Indeed, for a hip-hop label, you could argue that it's barely hip-hopmusic at all. Jazz, rock, drone, blues and beats fuse withidiosyncratic mcs and crazy rhymes.
On this evidence Buck 65 fits right in. He's a one-man team ofproducer/rapper, responsible for every sound on the record. Hisopen-minded approach to hip-hop allows him to work outside that genre'sever-narrowing set of rules. Dope, guns and fucking are not foremost inhis mind, as he claims he's "shy around girls and the only thing in mywallet is a baseball card." His voice is laid-back, a little like Mau,formerly of trip-hoppers Earthling. He doesn't diss other MCs, ratherhe laments the state of the music he loves. Buck "can't wait till theday I ride around in rocket cars, wear short sleeved shirts and all Ieat is chocolate bars." Dropping lyrical gems like this — in his flowover fantastically inventive backdrops utilising strings, spanishguitars, horns, beats, electronic tones and more — Buck grabs ourattention and doesn't release for 70 minutes.
I find it rare, as most rap albums are far too long, full of humourlessskits and shitty collaborations. The 14 tracks here (all untitled, somesplit into 2 or more movements) leave you wanting more, searching outhis back catalogue on other labels.

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09 February 2002

Howard Stelzer

Albums and Singles

This massive 5-CD boxset is the second attempt to publish the 15 CDsworth of material that the Japanese psych-rock legend Magical PowerMako recorded while making his magnificent debut and second albums.Thefirst attempt was by Mom n' Dad Records (run by an ex-member of theHanatarash) in the mid-90s, for which each CD was to be publishedseperately. For some reason, they gave up the series after CD #5. Nowthe relatively new Israeli prog label MIO is giving it a go in themassively pocket-draining form of three 5-CD boxsets. If you haven'tyet heard Mako's 1970s records, you're in for a real pleasant shock.Along with his contemporaries, the equally legendary groups LesRallizes Denudes and Takehisa Kosugi's Taj Mahal Travellers, Makoestablished a uniquely Japanese style of over-the-top psychedelic rockmusic, bearing only a casual reference to other bands active in thesame period (in Mako's case, Faust is the easiest comparison). Thesegroups paved the way for bands like Fushitsusha, Kosukouya, Ghost, andthe rest of the heavy-as-hell (and utterly necessary) PSF Recordsscene. Because all of the music on these CDs is, essentially, Mako'snotebook for ideas that either were polished up for his "Magical Power"or "Super Record" LPs or else discarded, the work is unfocused andrambling at times. But with so much gold for the listener to digthrough, it hardly matters. Fried folk or prog tunes morph slowly intowild tape-splices, synthesizer sound-effect blasts, chanting andindescribably twisted digressions. Ideas take vague shape, feelthemselves out, and slowly push themselves to ridiculous limits. Manyof the "songs" (one track per CD, folks) meander for 15 minutes beforecoming to either a majestic revelation or studio-inflicted destruction,surely the result of a musician with no shortage of free time, potentherb and good ideas (and probably a home studio). The set comes in alovely hard-cardboard box with a booklet in English and (mostly)Japanese. Never mind that the title is in Greek, the label is inIsrael, and much of the liner notes are in Japanese... the confusionis, for me, part of the enjoyment and entirely appropriate to themusic. Incidentally, PSF fans take note: a young Keiji Haino makes anuncredited vocal appearance somewhere on disc #1, probably his earliestrecorded performance. Pick out which prepubescent yelps are his and wina real shiny US nickel. No shit. www.miorecords.com - 
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09 February 2002

Administrator

Albums and Singles

One of the few remaining pieces of the digipacked and remastered re-issue puzzle, 1994's The Great Annihilator is reclaimed from Invisible Records for Michael Gira's own Young God Records.

 

Young God

This was a transitive period for Gira and Jarboe's Swans, a natural progression from the previous "bunny" artwork themed albums (White Light From the Mouth of Infinity and Love Of Life) and a premonition of what was to come with the conclusive trilogy (Die Tür Ist Zu, Soundtracks For The Blind and Swans Are Dead). Many of TGA's songs delve into a darker and grittier sound but also maintain melody, mixed moods and brevity. "Celebrity Lifestyle" and "Mother/Father" flirt dangerously with mainstream rock & roll conventions while "Mind/Body/Light/Sound," "My Buried Child," and "Alcohol The Seed" throb with tantric mantras. Tenderness is a distinctive trait of "Blood Promise," "Warm," "Killing For Company," and "Mother's Milk," the last of which features an especially bittersweet vocal by Jarboe.

Lyrical themes follow Gira's ever-present obsessions with the eternally entangled dualities of life and death, love and hate, mind and body, man and God, etc. The title track embraces Stephen Hawking's theory of an omnivorous, universe destroying black hole—science's embodiment of God, perhaps. Near the end Gira invitingly sings "come on in and come inside" in harmony with the title and Jarboe's backing over a spiraling mass of percussion laden rock, perfectly evoking the very nature of said sucker.

To my ears the remastering improves overall clarity but is far from drastic and the bonus track, a bootleg quality live rendition of "I Am The Sun" pales in comparison to the version on Swans Are Dead. No matter. The Great Annihilator is what nearly all Swans albums were and remain to be: powerful, evocative and, ultimately for me, indispensable.

samples:

• Blood Promise
• Mother Father
• The Great Annihilator

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09 February 2002

Graeme Rowland

Albums and Singles

Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer originally created the bulk of their latestmanic loop noise excursion as a credit card shaped CD full of MP3versions of some mostly fairly short tracks. This was sold only viaAquarius Records of San Francisco who have been longtime admirers ofthe Fflinty Ones. Now they've plonk the bulk of those MP3's onto aregular music CD-R with six mostly longer and dronier extra tracks,adorned in a sleeve featuring a grinning Bob of the Church of theSubgenius lookalike that could be a homage to the fifties spoofcollages of Winston Smith's Alternative Tentacles sleeves.It's anotherdose of unsettled noisescaping that would sit well on the soundtracksfor old horror or sci-fi films. 'Cyan Krilp Vipers' entangle and bite apoor Japanese singer causing her voice to sink much lower. 'ThroatCorrosives' has near silent spells cut dead by sudden bursts of synthgloom and distant mumbling choking voices. 'Graphic Tranquiliser' dragsa rapidfire loop through squalling feedback before submerging it in afragment of a jazz trumpet radio broadcast. 'Blighted Sump' is as big anasty oily engine noise drone as the title suggests. 'Kelpies' could bea short recording of the funny little creatures that sing a highpitched drowning song when the Fflint Central toilet cistern fills up.'Fracas at the Hotel Gargoyle' loops fading photos of fairground organas machinery rattles malevalently. 'Occident Bowl' shrouds a ramblingguitar solo in gut rumbling gurgles. The clattering 'Skinned Teeth'sounded great coming over the radio on the John Peel show one eveningand caught me by surprise as I didn't recognise it and at firstexpected it to morph into a Position Chrome type drum'n'bass track.Later longer tracks 'Cirrhosis of the Cormorant', 'Tones Unread' and'Rubber Glove Stirfry' are mostly based around thick ectoplasmicsynthtone drones and suggest that the Fflinty Ones' propensity forridiculous song titles is not about to run dry. 'Four Minute Symphony'spins the radio dial again, with an etherial orchestra submerged inrandom synth squeakings. The final track 'Unseen' bubbles swampily as amystery voice proclaims that, "People are afraid of what they don'tknow." - 

samples:

• Fracas at Hotel Gargoyle
• Kelpies
• Skinned Teeth

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09 February 2002

Rob Devlin

Albums and Singles

Death Cab For Cutie was at first the brainchild of Ben Gibbard, hisstab at a solo project. After early success, however, he recruited aband, a strong and tight group of players who could bring across hisbrand of post-punk pop with fervor and skill."The Photo Album," DeathCab's third full-length, shows a lot of the strengths of their previousreleases with a solid set of new songs, but also begins to show signsof weakness. It's an appropriate title, as the release is the slice oflife type, stories told by the band on the road and pictures of theirpast. "Styrofoam Plates" is dripping with imagery of a life without afather figure, and "A Movie Script Ending" is a fine piece oftoe-tapping indie rock with fluid guitar work and solid drumming. Asalways, Gibbard's voice is clear, distinct, and inescapably endearing,especially when he reaches for notes you swear he won't hit. Theaddition of harmonies here and there, notably on "Blacking Out TheFriction," is a nice change, adding a nice dimension to theproceedings. The music is all fresh, full of energy, and well executed.It's in the lyrics where the weakness lies. On "We Laugh Indoors,"Gibbard says "I loved you Guinevere" about eight times too many. And"Why You'd Want To Live Here," while a solid rock song, is full ofimages of Los Angeles that are trite and over-done. We all know it'ssmoggy and hard to breathe there, and the line "Is this the city ofangels or demons?" almost made me want to gag. Still, it's a goodrecord, and the band's most accomplished work, as well as their hardestrock record yet. I just hope Gibbard's lyric writing doesn't continueon its downward spiral too long, becoming a parody of every indie rockband, or of itself. But, as Gibbard puts it, quoting a billboard butinadvertently summarizing Death Cab's efforts "We are not perfect, butwe sure try." Indeed. Catch them on tour with the Dismemberment Planand Cex starting in February. - 

samples:

• A Movie Script Ending
• Why You'd Want to Live Here
• Styrofoam Plates

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