09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Justin Brodrick has obviously been busy reinventing his aggressive side(anybody who's half of Godflesh are legally obliged to have aggressivetendencies), with the collaborative singles "Dead Man's Curse" (withAnti-Pop Consortian, Roger Robinson) and "Megaton" (with Dälek) overthe last year. Along with partner Kevin Martin, the duo's 'Brotherhood'is an all-out sound war, with heavily distorted beats andearthquake-influenced bass frequencies. The sound is thick and chunkylike some of the best Panacea ball-crushing bass sounds and never flatenough to be birthed from a laptop. Fans of the ambient deathscapesfrom 1995's 'Re-Entry' or the collaborations with Alec Empire andPorter Ricks should probably exercise caution before picking this oneup, as it picks up more from where the ICE (collaboation with El-P)album 'Bad Blood' left off. As far as Techno Animal proper records,picture 'Radio Hades' with an exponentially increased intensity. Guestrap from El-P, Dälek, and members of Anti-Pop Consortium vocalize therage but thankfully don't detract any vigor from the music nor litterevery track on the disc. Elements from Techno Animal's dub affinityshine through in some of the more instrumental tracks on the disc butfor the most part, this is one fierce fucking beast.

 

samples:

• Hypertension
• Cruise Mode 101 (feat. Chicago's Rubberoom)
• Sub Species

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Frankie Sparo toured with A Silver Mt. Zion throughout Canada andEurope as an opening artist following the release of last year's "MyRed Scare" album. During his performances, he was accompanied byThierry, Sophie, Jessica, and Ian of the Silver Mt. Zion live band.This EP, which acts as a document of Sparo's performances during thetour, was performed live in session at VPRO Radio. The first threesongs are new arrangements of tracks from the "Red Scare" album."Diminish Me NYC" opens the CD; this new version features the additionof minimal electronics and violin that emphasize Sparo'smore-tattered-than-usual voice. "The Night That We Stayed In" is madedarker by the addition of Thierry's double bass and a pair of violinlines. The addition of tremolo violins gives a soundtrack feel as well."Here Comes the Future" features reworked drums and the addition ofelectronics and violins, which make it a much fuller composition.However, there's a drum machine clap noise that appears several timesthat sounds a bit out of place. The EP ends with a stripped down coverof the Rolling Stones' "I Am Waiting," performed solely by Frankie andhis guitar. I really hope this is a sign of things to come, because theguests on this recording add a lot to Frankie Sparo's already amazingsongs.

 

samples:

• Diminish Me NYC
• Here Comes the Future
• I Am Waiting

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Detention is the improvisational duo of guitarist Sam Shalabi (ofShalabi Effect) and drummer Alexander MacSween. Normally Mr. Shalabi'simprov recordings are quite beautiful in their energy, but this onefalls flat. There are 8 tracks to the album, each with two names (I'mguessing Sam and Alex each gave the songs their own titles). After thefirst track ("Yehudi Messerschmidt / Ground)," the album is almost nolonger interesting. The two musicians do not play off of each otherwell enough to keep the music interesting, partially because of thesmall size of the band. To make matters worse, the music becomes verysloppy in places, especially on "Slow Dance / Shey," where it feelslike the band is just warming up before the rest of the quartet showsup. The album peaks with the sixth track, "Big Thighs / Ginger," whereboth musicians seem to finally be in touch with each other for a fewmoments. However, with the last two songs, the music loses all meaningand the album simply seems to die. If you want to hear Sam Shalabiimprovise and shine, I suggest you check out the Kristian / Shalabi /Saint-Onge album from earlier this year.

 

samples:

• Big Thighs / Ginger
• Slow Dance / Shey
• Yehudi Messerschmidt / Ground

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Have you ever had a longing that could not be satisfied? Not thelonging for a beer or a pint of ice cream, mind you, but an intenselonging of such emotional stakes that you weren't sure you couldsurvive if the need wasn't satisfied? Believe me: maya shore knows howyou feel. "farewell to introductions," in fact, is like an homage tointense desire. Never have I heard a band that could so easily -- or soit seems -- capture the exact soundtrack of plaintive longing. It's allvery spine-tingling and wonderful, like the first time Glenn Miller'swife heard his trademark sound and she reached back to feel the hairson her neck standing up. Singing appears sparingly, and on tracks whereit is used, it's almost a secondary instrument; but the guitar gloryKelly Chambers exhibits with its melodic and harmonic beauty ensuresthat you won't miss the lyrics so much when they aren't there to guideyou. dj suede also adds texture to the proceedings with fieldrecordings and well-placed atmospherics and recording/mic techniquesthat serve the music well. This band is very tight, and they makebeautiful music together. Where the songs may have the same generalfeeling of longing hanging over their heads, the are different insound, feel, and tempo enough so that the listener is never bored. Iwas driving down Highway 1 listening to this CD and right at a gorgeousguitar passage on the second track, "july eleventh nineteenninety-seven," the sun shot through the trees. I will remember that foryears to come. This release, if you're not careful, can almost be tooaffecting for its own good and yours. But trust me: maya shore are aband that will only get better, and "farewell to introductions" is anexcellent first effort. Aren't you longing to hear it now?

 

samples:

• Corsa
• July Eleventh Nineteen Ninety-Seven
• Five Minutes

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

this week, i'm reviewing two bands from music fellowship, both playpassionate music, and both use only lowercase letters in their bandname and album titles. i am almost convinced it is a label thing, asother releases i've seen on music fellowship use the same standards. Atany rate, landing is a hypnotic four piece with a great love of delayeffects on guitars, distortion and lovely interplay betweenmale/female-sung vocals. "circuit" is their first proper album, aftertwo EPs, one of which, "centrefuge," was released on Music Fellowshipearlier this year. Those of us who heard "centrefuge" liked it, but Isuppose were expecting more on "circuit" in terms of musicaldevelopment. Since "centrefuge" seemed more like an EP than an album,maybe we were expecting an expansion of theme, or an extension of themajor tenets of the landing theory on music. I must say "circuit" is afine release if you've never heard landing. However, it seems to trodon some of the same ground present on "centrefuge." When I say thisband loves delayed guitars, I mean they LOVE delayed guitars: they'represent on almost every track. It almost gets to the point where thelistener is tired of that effect, and would like to hear another, butit never picks up enough to get there, even. I liked the music, but Ialways felt like it was moving towards something it never achieved.landing are a band to watch, as "centrefuge" and "circuit" show, butI'd like to hear a variation in the feel and sound of the music. Thesetracks blend beautifully together, almost too much so. Still worth aconcentrated and heartfelt listen.

 

samples:

• Held
• Summer Song
• White Walls

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Imagine you're stranded on a rooftop in the middle of a city with cloudy skies above and nowhere to go. Cars buzz past on their way to nowhere in particular and as the day slowly passes, their exhaust fumes fill the air. Time goes by but you know it's an illusion. The world is moving but you're still waiting, watching. This is the feeling imparted by this follow up to Symptoms' rather more varied and up beat self titled debut.Danish sonic explorer Klaus Amitzboll has augmented his one guitar one computer set up with interspersed traffic sounds and this time lets the music unfurl slowly in a suite of deep bass moods coloured predominantly grey. Where Symptoms' first album often relied on a beat backbone is a much more stripped down and atmospheric affair, and consequently the guitar source seems more apparant. Mixed with help from his brother Fred Amitzboll of the excellent machine rock trio Silo, this is otherwise one man's paen to the deadening effect of city living. Two guitar lines, one distorted and one clean, unfurl and cut through a fog of familar doppler shifts of engines forming the forlornly reflective 'Asphalt Mirror'. Eventually a refracting bass line emerges but is soon replaced by held keyboard drone chords. The guitar lines seem to get attenuated and flap ever more morosely in the breeze. The recurring engines seem to suggest a dwarfing, as if the music is being consumed by the city that it's soundtracking, and merging with it. A couple of tracks a are little more than short linking pieces, cars blurring past skeletal loop shadows. 'Stale Air on a City Morning' could be compared to Swim records benefactors Immersion, but where Immersion's 'Low Impact' was warm, Symptoms hum with an ominous and forlorn atmosphere. A momentum builds up gradually but the journey just seems to lead back to the place it started. 'Mute Noise of Longing' is a minimal ambient keyboard sequence, and the following 'Burning to be Gone' captures a similar mood with intertwined processed guitar lines ringing like windchimes. Slowly a piano melody plays out amongst the ever moving cars. Distortion levels rise as the coda plays out, and the pollution keeps on choking until it rips a 'Crack in the Sky' towards which wistful whistles rise. This album might only be 46 minutes long, but it could almost be a soundtrack to a stop motion film of a city over ten or twenty years, as buildings rise up and crumble and shift, changes that are barely perceptible from day to day. Sleevenotes: "When you understand how things are, you lose yourself quietly standing, fading into the quiet of all things dead."

 

samples:

• Asphalt Mirror
• Burning to be Gone
• A Crack in the Sky

 

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

This compilation, described as 'difficult listening' in the pressrelease, could be fuel to claims that much computer music is barking upseemingly generic alleyways since this could all quite conceivably bethe work of just a couple of artists. However I see this more as anindication that compiler Russell Haswell has fairly consistant tastesand has done a pretty good job of sequencing the tracks.There seems to be a fairly equal footing for the highly seriousacademic side of computer music and the perhaps more frivolous rockpopsside (Jim O'Rourke, Tom Wallace, Farmers Manual, Phoenecia). Theacademics all provide ample detail on the concepts steering theircompositions, whereas the digital rockpops laptop fraternity provide afew screen grab pictures or in the case of Tom Wallace, no informationat all. Perhaps the 'fuck off' finger on the farmersmanual desktop sumsup the attitude.Farmers Manual open and close the compilation, and their unassuminglittle digiglitch flutter fanfare starting snippet gives hardly a clueof the awesome low floor shaking rumble of the monstrous live recordingthat rounds things off. This track alone makes it a worthwhilepurchase, but the rest is enjoyable too.Jim O'Rourke, Tom Wallace and Phoenecia all pull similar tricks withvarying degrees of daftness. Phoenecia place relentlessly mouseshifting bubbles and cracks over intermittent drones. O'Rourke throwssome tropical Ai yi yi ya singing into his fluttering stew of rockglitched to death and Tom Wallace mixes the sounds of breaking bottleswith what sounds like a rock band trying to start a song and cuttingoff sporadically. It's really quite silly, with silent stretchesencroaching latterly making the sporadic bursts of noise all the moreridiculous.Rather more serious is Super Collider 2 workshop lecturer Alberto deCampo's synthesis of a pleasantly atmospheric droning green and blueworld. He processed sound sources which have a 'rich symbolic aura',such as nightingales, meditation bells and cymbals, ritual mantras andchanting. None of these sources are readily identifiable but their auraremains in this eerily evocative foray that certainly avoids the 'NewAge' alarms that the accompanying article might set off.Fellow academic Curtis Roads espouses the exploration of 'soundparticles', microsound 'beneath the level of the note' and he even hasa picture to prove it! And well he might, but his cut up computercollage isn't drastically removed from the soundworlds of Phoenecia orTom Wallace. Maybe laptoppers have been exploring the realm ofmicrosound for years without actually knowing it!Atau Tanaka and Eric Wenger created 'Bondage' using software that turnsscanned photographs of Japanese women tied up in knots into sound, andit's a detailed suite that shifts moods rapidly from intensity torelief. What they did with the photographs after they finished makingdeep dark dungeon noises isn't mentioned in the booklet, but they didhave the permission of the artist.

 

samples:

• Alberto De Campo - Imaon
• Phoenecia - Non-Specific Acoustic Stimulation
• Atau Tanaka & Eric Wenger - Bondage

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

This compilation, which shares its name with the Cologne-based recordlabel who released it, is their first artist showcase and the release Igot hold of. The disc is nearly one hour long and comes neatly packedinside a cardboard sleeve showing a record store's file. It wasinitially made available at shows during the last weeks of the labeltour, but will soon be made available to the public who couldn't makeit (see staubgold.com for details). Staubgold's spectrum ranges frompost post anything electronica to an alternative version of what oncewas called techno pop (but lately seems to have developed into laptopblues). 'Staubgold 20' collects an interesting selection of theirrecent releases, coupled with a few yet unreleased tracks and mixes(from Institut FÙr Feinmotorik, Sack feat. Joseph Suchy andSchlammpeitziger). Familiar names include Alexander Balanescu, ToRococo Rot and Groenland Orchestra (also featured with an additionalMPEG video). A name that should be more familiar is Reuber, alsoworking with Markus Detmer as Klangwart, with his minimalist butimpressive solo synthesizer work he explores live even further.Even though a few contributions (Oren Ambachi & Martin NG,Mapstation) are a bit too pointless for my taste, it serves well as agood introduction to this label and the more unknown artists workingalongside A-Musik and Mille Plateaux releases.
Not equally glorified with the current avant-garde stamp yet, Staubgoldspreads a sympathetically unobtrusive "home made for home listening"attitude without wasting energy on label conformity.If individualism is their goal, they're on the way.

 

samples:

• Gunter Adler & Felix Kubin - Kiebitzreihe I
• Reuber - Ruhig Blut B
• Sack feat. Joseph Suchy - Urlauber

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

...And the winner for the WORST album covers of the year goes to,.... QUANGO! Who have also came close to winning for most pointless compilations but were beat out by Mille-Plateaux, whose Clicks + Cuts volume 746 is a 23-CD compilation of bald Europeans exchanging emails.There was a time, I'm guessing around ten years ago, when Quango was a little beat-oriented offshoot from Island's Mango imprint. At the time, the label was daring enough (or appeared as such) to have sought out some pretty fine unique international electronic dance music. Now with the label resurfaced under new management, the only things to pop up are dust-collectors like this, a disc which features insanely boring 4/4 beats, tacky samples and predictable repetitions ad nauseum. The guilty parties this time around include Bochum Welt, Pub (with an Arovane remix), Move D, John Beltram, Blueshift and others I've never heard of nor want to hear until they figure out their gear a little better. Honestly, sometimes I think music's just way too easy to produce and manufacture.

 

samples:

• Cim - Shift
• Pub - Summer (Arovane Mix 1)
• Bochum Welt - La Nuit

 

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09 September 2001

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Albums and Singles

Origami Galaktika are the most active 'unit' of several dozen under theOrigami Republika umbrella, an "open cultural network with 170+ agentsoperating in 18 countries on 4 continents" with origins in Norway (seehttp://kunst.no/origami/ for further information). This double CDremasters and reissues 2 of their ambient/loop albums from 1994 and1996. Six vivid paintings in the insert by Cicille RisÎsen complete thepackage. "Stjernevandring" is 2 tracks at about half an hour apiece.The lapping ocean waves and cold, dark and dense droning undertow ofthe title track become fully immersive within a few minutes. I amliterally sitting on a sound in Norway in the dead of winter and middleof the night watching a relatively calm sea break upon the moorings.Nautical bells appear and by mid track the waves disappear - but theyalways remain subconsciously - then reappear during a simple but spooky8 note melody loop. None of the other tracks has such a distinctaudible tie to nature but each evokes a certain feeling (which is all Ihave to go on really since I'm unable to translate the Norwegian andEstonian titles). "MÎnedans" is next and the feeling is one ofascension and reflection. We steadily climb upwards through the clouds,a constant soft drone being the guiding light. By the 14th minuteelectronics swirl in then settle into their own respective glide path.A few lone notes near the very end seem to deliver a favorable finaljudgment. Beautiful. Disc 2 is "Eesti Lilled Silmad SÙda" and it has 4tracks in the 10 to 17 minute range. It's just as good if not betterwith another palette of relaxing sounds: graceful, emotive drones andfaint hums, scrapes and rattles, sample loops of what sounds like atrain over tracks, a woman reciting text in a foreign tongue, the quietpitter patter of hand drums, rain stick and some ritualistic vocalmoaning. There is no hurry to get anywhere and that's fine by me. Infact, every one of these tracks could be the length of an entire disc,no problem. These albums are quickly becoming some of my favoriterecent ambient works, along with Stars of the Lid "Gravitational Pullvs. the Desire for an Aquatic Life" and Zammuto "Solutiore of Stareau".

 

samples:

• Rannak Tahtede Vahel
• Stjernevandring
• Vennad

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