Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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In the past, I have favorably compared John Hannon's shapeshifting post-industrial collage project to This Heat, but this latest release leaves that signpost far behind and heads in a darker and more idiosyncratic direction. Bolstered by a new group of collaborators, Hannon's latest salvo more closely resembles an avant-garde string quartet soundtracking a tense Eastern European thriller. I have some mixed feelings about that change of direction, as the album's sustained fever pitch of dramatic intensity can be a bit exhausting. That said, Hannon's vision remains a bracingly vivid and visceral one and the new members inject some wonderfully unusual and inspired touches into the ever-changing Liberez aesthetic.
For this latest incarnation of Liberez, Hannon is joined by Matthew Reay, Sylvia Maria Saunder, and Iñigo Ugarteburu, all of whom were previously unknown to me, though I have since seen the latter described as a "virtuoso guitarist."I suspect Ugarteburu must be virtuosic at some other stringed instruments as well, as guitars do not play a particularly prominent role on this album.Rather, Way Through Vulnerability is a heaving maelstrom of tense violins, violently churning strings, and brutally pounded toms.The musicianship of the participants feels uncharacteristically relevant this time around though, as many of these nine pieces feel more like the work of an actual band than they do the masterful studio collages of years past.I could definitely see this version of Liberez being a powerful live act.If I were to glibly describe the new ensemble's aesthetic, I would probably say something like "Liberez may have left their This Heat influence in the rear-view mirror, but the new road they are on seems to be headed straight towards Godspeed You! Black Emperor city!"While typing that rightfully made me wince and hate myself, there is definitely some truth to such an assessment, though Hannon and company happily made a sharp detour into more ragged and rustic territory before they became fully immersed in melancholy cinematic grandeur and mannered artiness.In fact, Way Through Vulnerability feels like it was conceived by a rural commune of polyglot revolutionaries with a bent for traditional European folk music.
As intense and vital as the foursome's fiery vision can be, however, the new dynamic highlights some significant cracks in the Liberez aesthetic: Hannon has breached the blurry line that separates soundscapes/sound collages from songs and his compositional gifts are not quite on the same level as his textural brilliance and production intuition.That said, the album's bookends are quite good, particularly the opening "Celophane Window."In fact, it is kind of a masterpiece of coiled tension, as a hushed male voice cryptically delivers a monologue in a foreign language (Hungarian?) over a simmering bed of understated hand percussion and strangled, stuttering strings.The following "M'aidez" opens with another enigmatic spoken-word passage (presumably from Saunder and possibly in Russian), but soon erupts into an apocalyptic crescendo of crashing cymbals, pummeling toms, guitar noise, and tormented minor key string melodies.For better or worse, that is essentially the template for the entire album: atmospheric interludes of slow-building tension followed by episodes of volcanic ferocity that are akin to being curb-stomped by a disturbingly violent and cello-wielding Slavic folk ensemble.That certainly has its appeal, but the dark intensity of Way Through Vulnerability quickly starts to feel a bit one-dimensional and yields diminishing returns after a few songs.While there are certainly some beautiful pieces to be found, like the sensuously undulating and Flamenco-tinged "Here is the Proof," they feel like rare oases in album that is in a near-permanent state of boiling over.
That said, I genuinely love a lot of the details on Way Through Vulnerability, even if the overall arc of unrelenting drama and unresolved tension is a bit much for me.I especially enjoyed the newly added clapping rhythms and Hannon's continued genius for strangled and sharp stabs of feedback and bowed strings.I am also quite fond of the overarching vision, particularly when compared to the "hallucinatory radio transmission" aesthetic of 2013's stellar Sane Men Surround: this album is a viscerally, vibrantly "real" eruption of wood, steel, passion, and anguish undiluted by artifice.It is very easy to picture a room full of broken strings, splintered bows, and blood-splattered violins left in the wake of these sessions.The only real issue preventing this album from being an unambiguous leap forward rather than a compelling (if difficult) mixed success is one of balance: Hannon's dark clouds only part to let in some light, beauty, and tenderness on the closing title piece.Some more glimpses of that would have brought some welcome contrast and additional depth to the album.Without it, Way Through Vulnerability is far more polemic than poetry.Such raw elemental power certainly makes a strong impression, but it is not quite enough to make this Liberez's strongest album.
The Threats Of Memories 2LP reissue, on United Dirter, by Steven Stapleton and David Tibet features three side-long tracks, newly edited by Andrew Liles, from their albums The Sadness Of Things and Musical Pumpkin Cottage. The fourth side is a previously unreleased version, titled "DreamBreath," from the Musical Pumpkin Cottage recording sessions. It comes in a gatefold sleeve, reproducing Babs Santini's artwork from the original releases and a photograph of Steven and David by Ruth Bayer, as well as an insert containing all lyrics and credits, and with HandWriting by David Tibet. The 2LP was mastered by Andrew Liles, and the cover was designed by Ania Goszczyńska. Photography by Andrew Thomas.
The Threat Of Memory 5CD boxed set, on United Dirter, by Steven Stapleton and David Tibet features all of Steven and David's previously-issued recordings, made under their "Steven Stapleton & David Tibet" faces, on the first four of the CDs, as well as a fifth CD with previously unissued out-takes from the Musical Pumpkin Cottage recording sessions. It does not include the unissued out-take on Side 4 on Side 4 of The Threats of Memories 2LP.
It comes in a hinged box, with new artwork by Babs Santini on the CDs' individual sleeves, as well as on the box's cover with a booklet containing all credits and lyrics, and with HandWriting by David Tibet. The CDs were mastered by Andrew Liles and the cover was designed by Ania Goszczyńska. Photography by Sarah Stapleton.
More information can be found here, as well as information on the related Dead Memory LP.
Phill Niblock's Music For Cello collects three pieces from the '70s and early '80s, performed by cellist David Gibson.
This CD includes a 16-page unpublished interview with Phill Niblock.
Since the late sixties, Phill Niblock has been composing long-form acoustic drones with a focus on the rhythms and overtones that rise from closely tuned instruments. His highly original and influential music is an exploration of timbre, microtonality, stability, duration and psychoacoustic phenomenon.
"'3 to 7 - 196' is very direct, aggressive, and gritty. The overtone patterns that are produced by the proximal pitches become more prominent with louder volume. So please, play this piece very loud. This was the first piece of mine in which the musician was precisely tuned, in which I chose exact pitches in hertz. We used a sine wave oscillator and frequency counter for the tuning.
'Descent Plus' has four cello tones descending one octave over twenty-two minutes, from 300 hertz to 150 hertz. David Gibson played these tones without lifting his bow from the strings, constantly retuning. I made four different scores, manually changing an oscillator to which he was tuning, for each track's recording. For the revision, we added six more tracks, with David playing long tones which were not descending. The second part of the recording was made nearly twenty years later.
'Summing II' (one of four parts) is mellow and sonorous. David plays two strings simultaneously, one of which is retuned for each successive recording of that pair of tones. This is a mix of an eight track tape. It's better played loud also."
The recently composed “Ricochet Lady” (2016) is the only work for solo acoustic glockenspiel by the American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. Following in the manner of his pieces "I Am Sitting In A Room" and "Vespers," "Ricochet Lady" embodies Lucier's approach toward sound's individual function and mobility within space. This CD defines this approach through four realizations recorded in four dissimilar spaces, ranging from the standard to extraordinary: a university rehearsal hall with walls of drywall and glass, a chapel made of oak and stone, an empty forge and foundry warehouse for steel railway wheels, and a 36-meter tall dilapidated cement grain elevator.
Never one to shy away from convention, Lucier intensifies each performance by instructing that the glockenspiel be placed against a wall or other reflective surface where the soloist systematically traverses the entire range of the instrument in rapid, repetitive patterns, actively disseminating the glockenspiel’s sustain, clicks, and interferences throughout the space. In doing so, the glockenspiel maps the unique acoustical characters of each space as each space helps to compose the piece. Created in close collaboration with Trevor Saint, a rare (if not the only) specialist of experimental music for glockenspiel, Lucier has further enhanced the sophistication of this re-imagined instrument while maintaining his devotion to letting spaces speak.
So You … (Hermes, Orpheus, Eurydice) is a major new work by legendary experimental composer Alvin Lucier. It is an hour-long epic that tracks the familiar Orpheus myth from a less familiar perspective: that of Eurydice as imagined by poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); a Eurydice who rails at Orpheus for his hubris in attempting to rescue her.
So You … (Hermes, Orpheus, Eurydice) was originally commissioned by Documenta 14 and first performed as part of Documenta in Athens in 2017. Two key, and formerly distinct, aspects of Lucier's practice come together in this piece: the exploration of interference patterns in closely tuned intervals, and the exploration of resonant chambers. From speakers mounted inside amphorae a constantly turning braid of beating sine waves trace the descent into the depths of hell, and then the doomed attempt to climb back into life. Singer Jessika Kenney and long-time Lucier collaborators Anthony Burr and Charles Curtis embody the three title characters in deeply focused performances that assert themselves against the process of the sweep, or become enfolded in it. The electronics were mixed in real time by programmer and equipment designer Tom Erbe. This record has all of the mind-bending acoustic effects expected from a Lucier piece, but also features a strong sense of narrative drama and flashes of raw emotion that are unexpected and deeply affecting.
More information on both albums can be found here.
This record documents music made by two women — one American and one Korean — who have both made a profound impact within experimental music. Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument has been a long-term life-work of incredible ambition and dedication. The result is immediate, exciting and inspirational. Okkyung Lee has completed rewritten the possibilities for the cello in solo and group improvisation whilst maintaining a steadfast defiance to the many attempts to contain her work within pre-defined genres.
The Air Around Her was recorded on February 20th, 2016 during the First Edition Festival for Other Music in Stockholm, Sweden at Kronobageriet — the former bakery to Swedish Royalty that dates back to the 17th Century and is now the site of the city’s Performing Arts Museum. The Edition Festival was given access to the space while renovations took place and Fullman allowed the requisite time to install and tune her long string instrument along the full 26 meter length of the room.
It occurred to me the other day that Richard Skelton's artistic trajectory almost resembles the stuff of myth and folklore, as he was once akin to an enchanted bard who made achingly gorgeous and sensuously churning music full of life, heartache, passion, and darkly flickering light. Gradually, however, he became so disillusioned with mankind that he started playing for the moors, the hills, the earth, and the buried remnants of the distant past instead. Or, in his more ambitious moments, for the cosmos themselves. With the comparatively modest and exploratory Front Variations, however, Skelton is not straining for the stars nor focusing his elemental power to world-shaking intensity, but instead uses the disappearing ice sheets of Iceland as an unconventional muse for a pair of slow-motion feedback experiments.
Appropriately, the two "Front Variations" were both birthed in Iceland, as Skelton lived in Seyðisfjörður during a residency back in 2016.The theme of the residency was "Frontiers in Retreat," which seems to be one that Skelton took quite literally and adhered to faithfully.Front Variations is specifically inspired by the ice-albedo feedback mechanism, which is kind of a natural death-spiral of sorts: ice sheets reflect solar radiation, so as their surface area decreases, the earth absorbs more solar radiation (less is being reflected).Absorbing more solar radiation naturally means higher temperatures, which means more melting ice…which means even less reflection of solar radiation…and then even higher temperatures, less ice, etc.With these two longform pieces, Skelton gamely tries to replicate this phenomenon through a simple palette of sine waves subjected to escalating erosion from feedback, distortion, and ring modulation.The resulting sound art is roughly akin to dark ambient, as the decaying waves manifest themselves primarily as a murky, subterranean-sounding hum further clouded by shifting and dissonant overtones and ugly harmonies.Unlike drone or dark ambient music, however, there is an organic unpredictability that pervades the brooding thrum, as the changing harmonies create oscillations and throbs that continually blossom and dissolve.Also, the textures and the frequencies are similarly fluid, as the deep, seismic hum periodically breaks into an eerie whines, hollow ringing, or scorched and corroded-sounding ruin.
Given their identical foundation, the two versions of Front Variations share quite a lot of aesthetic territory, but there are some significant differences in their overall feel.The first variation feels like an ominous hum slowly rising from a wind-blasted and inhospitable arctic wasteland.At times, it coheres into a hollow pulse, yet any sense of structure or appealing melodic convergence seems to be entirely chance-based and ephemeral.The most striking moments tend to be those in which Skelton's mutated sine wave unexpected transforms into a deep, slow-motion howl that feels like it is emanating from the bowels of the earth.There are also some nice textural touches that surface as well, as the blurred thrum sometimes approximates an eerily bell-like timbre or swells into ragged, blown-out signal overload.The superior second variation takes things a bit further: rather than sounding like some ageless horror has started to awaken deep beneath the ice, it now feels like the ice itself has started to menacingly shake and warp.Again, however, the unpredictable interplay of the feedback and the sine wave dictate the arc, so there is no focused and linear escalation towards a full-on ice-quake.Rather, the deep and hollow thrum endlessly twists, plunges, waxes, wanes, roars, and subsides on its own glacial timescale.The howling crescendos just happen to be a bit more shuddering and visceral this time around.
While the sine wave's transformations are certainly quite intriguing and heavy at times, the comparative absence of Skelton's compositional hand unavoidably makes Front Variations in somewhat minor release in his discography.It is more of a process-centric experiment than a truly satisfying aesthetic work, which I suppose was its intention: set up a system that mirrors the decay of a massive ice shelf and see what happens.The results of that experiment were certainly worth releasing, but I suspect they will be primarily of interest to serious fans of sound art who have a deep appreciation for the subtleties of colliding frequencies and their resultant oscillations.As for everyone else, Front Variations is memorable largely for (unintentionally) beingthe closest evocation of the Dyatlov Pass Incident infrasound theory that I have heard to date: this is the sound of an inhospitable frozen void that has unnervingly come to life with creeping subterranean menace.
Plastic Anniversary features music crafted entirely out of sounds sourced from plastic objects
Matmos will tour Plastic Anniversary worldwide
Matmos by Theo Anthony
Praise for Matmos' 2016 album Ultimate Care II: "Samples of gurgles and motor noise, along with live drumming on its metal sides, made a piece that was sometimes abstract, sometimes rhythmic, sometimes silly." - New York Times
“Maybe this is what "heavy metal" should be from now on?” - Time Magazine
"One of the most purely enjoyable albums I've heard recently - more so than most of the purely electronic works I stumbled across -- must come from this interweaving of the real and the power of the virtual.” - The Wire
Thrill Jockey Records is pleased to announce Plastic Anniversary, the new album by Baltimore-based electronic duo Matmos, due out March 15th, 2019. Pushing off from the restricted palette of their last album, the critically acclaimed Ultimate Care II, which was composed entirely from the sound of a washing machine, Plastic Anniversary is also derived from a single sound source: plastic. The album was crafted as a celebration of Matmos' Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt's own anniversary as a couple and explores the world's relationship to plastic - a material whose durability, portability and longevity, while heralded by its makers, are the very qualities that make it a force of environmental devastation. Through its reliance on discarded plastic, the album shows at once the boundless creativity of Matmos and pervasive nature of the material, and therefore the urgency for solutions.
True to form, the band have assembled a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials to create the sounds on the record: Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, police riot shields, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic human fat. The bounce and snap of the duo’s programmed rhythms are supplemented by a sweatier and more unruly human element than on previous releases, provided by a surprising cast of guest musicians including Members of the horn and drumline sections of the Whitefish Highschool Bulldogs from Whitefish, Montana and drummer Greg Saunier of Deerhoof.
Over the course of the album, Matmos glide from the tongue-in-cheek fun of "Breaking Bread" to Cronenbergian body-horror yet sunny grooves of "Interior with Billiard Balls & Synthetic Fat" and "Silicone Gel Implant." If side one is playful and poppy, side two is sharper and darker in its implications, with the ominous political and sonic allusions of "Thermoplastic Riot Shield" and "Collapse Of The Fourth Kingdom." After a volatile and vibrant suite of poppy plastic electronics, Plastic Anniversary ends in an acknowledgement of the planetary price yet to be paid.
Geelriandre/Arthesis is named for the pieces that fill its two sides. "Geelriandre," realized on an ARP 2500 synthesizer in 1972, features Gérard Fremy on prepared piano, for whom the piece was originally composed. "Arthesis," realized using the University of Iowa's Moog in 1973, comprises the full duration of side B.
Eliane Radigue has received much deserved praise for her transcendent compositions for tape, synthesizers and acoustic instruments. Her work is deep, slowly changing and timelessly resonant with timbre so dense you can listen through the sound to find infinity. Accute physicality, overtones and psychoacoustic activity fills your space, follows you, grounds you, pulls you in or lets you go. It's all here/hear.
In 1997, the independent music business was thriving worldwide, musical acts were reaching new audiences via the World Wide Web, and the economy was booming. Brainwashed.com was a year old, and we had not even begun to start conduction Annual Readers Polls. However, we began expanding the domain to host sites for independent labels and distributors like Kranky, Thrill Jockey, Happy Go Lucky, RRRecords, and World Serpent Distribution along with the multitude of sites we were hosting for musical acts.
It has been a pleasure to revisit the music of 1997 and we appreciate all the time and effort put in by the readers to make your opinions known.
Album of the Year
Godspeed You Black Emperor!, ""F# A# ‚àû"" (Constellation)
Spiritualized, ""Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space"" (Dedicated)
Autechre, ""Chiastic Slide"" (Warp)
Labradford, ""Mi Media Naranja"" (Kranky)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, ""The Boatman's Call"" (Mute)
Stars of the Lid, ""The Ballasted Orchestra"" (kranky)
Nurse With Wound / Aranos, ""Acts of Senseless Beauty"" (United Dairies)
Mogwai, ""Young Team"" (Chemikal Underground)
Matmos, ""Matmos"" (Vague Terrain)
Stereolab, ""Dots and Loops"" (Duophonic)
The Legendary Pink Dots, ""Hallway of The Gods"" (Soleilmoon)
Panasonic, ""Kulma"" (Mute)
Squarepusher, ""Hard Normal Daddy"" (Warp)
Mouse On Mars, ""Autoditacker"" (Too Pure)
The Legendary Pink Dots, ""Chemical Playschool 10"" (Soleilmoon)
Mouse On Mars, ""Instrumentals"" (Thrill Jockey)
Current 93, ""In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land"" (Durtro)
Scott Walker, ""Tilt"" (Drag City)
Third Eye Foundation, the, ""Ghost"" (Domino)
Yo La Tengo, ""I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One"" (Matador)
He Said Omala, ""Catch Supposes"" (Origin)
Pan•American, ""Pan•American"" (Kranky)
Biosphere, ""Substrata"" (All Saints)
GusGus, ""Polydistortion"" (4AD)
Keiji Haino, ""So, Black is Myself"" (Alien8)
Jessica Bailiff, ""Even in Silence"" (Kranky)
Scala, ""Beauty Nowhere"" (Touch)
Main, ""Deliquescence"" (Beggars Banquet)
Amp, ""Astralmoonbeamprojections"" (Kranky)
Songs: Ohia, ""Songs: Ohia"" (Secretly Canadian)
Elliott Smith, ""Either/Or"" (Kill Rock Stars)
Robert Wyatt, ""Shleep"" (Hannibal)
He Said Omala, ""Matching Crosses"" (Origin)
Mark Van Hoen, ""The Last Flowers From The Darkness"" (Touch)
Locust, ""Morning Light"" (Apollo)
Squarepusher, ""Burningn'n Tree"" (Warp)
Download, ""III"" (Subconscious)
Sigur Rós, ""Von"" (Smekkleysa)
Christoph Heemann, ""Days Of The Eclipse"" (Barooni)
Dead Voices On Air, ""How Hollow Heart... [Live]"" (Invisible)
Light In The Attic's Japan Archival Series continues with Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990, an unprecedented overview of the country’s vital minimal, ambient, avant-garde, and New Age music – what can collectively be described as kankyō ongaku, or environmental music. The collection features internationally acclaimed artists such as Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Joe Hisaishi, as well as other pioneers like Hiroshi Yoshimura, Yoshio Ojima and Satoshi Ashikawa, who deserve a place alongside the indisputable giants of these genres.
In the 1970s, the concepts of Brian Eno's "ambient" and Erik Satie's "furniture music" began to take hold in the minds of artists and musicians around Tokyo. Emerging fields like soundscape design and architectural acoustics opened up new ways in which sound and music could be consumed. For artists like Yoshimura, Ojima and Ashikawa, these ideas became the foundation for their musical works, which were heard not only on records and in live performances, but also within public and private spaces where they intermingled with the sounds and environments of everyday life. The bubble economy of 1980s Japan also had a hand in the advancement of kankyō ongaku. In an attempt to cultivate an image of sophisticated lifestyle, corporations with expendable income bankrolled various art and music initiatives, which opened up new and unorthodox ways in which artists could integrate their avant-garde musical forms into everyday life: in-store music for Muji, promo LP for a Sanyo AC unit, a Seiko watch advert, among others that can be heard in this collection.
Kankyō Ongaku is expertly compiled by Spencer Doran (Visible Cloaks) who, with a series of revelatory mixtapes as well as his label Empire of Signs (Music For Nine Postcards), has been instrumental in shepherding interest in this music outside of Japan. Together with Light In The Attic's celebrated anthologies I Am The Center and The Microcosm, Kankyō Ongaku helps to broaden our understanding of this quietly profound music, regardless of the environment in which it is heard.
In 2019 Croatian Amor returns with a new album, Isa.
Copenhagen's Loke Rahbek works in a wide variety of forms. His prolific rate of activity is best viewed through his and Christian Stadgaard's Posh Isolation label. Of Rahbek's many projects, his most eloquent and gentle is Croatian Amor.
2017’s single "Finding People" bloomed from Croatian Amor's previous album, the widely acclaimed Love Means Taking Action. These melancholic transmissions presented a kind of alien pop. For Isa, he has drawn on an impressive list of guests to realize a nauseating narrative of virtual communication and eschatological programming. The album's title invokes a messianic entity, and though it's hard to tell what's imagined or remembered anymore, the play that Croatian Amor is known for feels far more vivid today.
"Enhance photo to reveal a picture of Bird caught mid-flight; enhance again, the bird has a human face screaming."
Never pessimistic, Croatian Amor circles themes of tragedy and comfort to animate a sense of hope. His accomplices pluck details from his graphic scenes like a searchlight drifting over a starlit surface. Alto Aria, Soho Rezanejad, and Jonnine Standish of HTRK, each contribute vocals across the album, cloaked and kerned on Croatian Amor's inimitable stage. "Eden 1.1" and its accompaniment "Eden 1.2" feature the voices of Frederikke Hoffmeier and Yves Tumor, respectively. These are some of album's most delicate pieces, and where one may find respite from the helix of damaged rhythms that eddy across 'Isa'. Familiar faces from Copenhagen are solicited throughout, and perhaps the album's most endearing quality is the space for volatility that all of the collaboration has invited.
All the signals and timelines lead everywhere and back. Maybe it's only the myths that get us?