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Köner's solo work has always been characterized as having a definite cold, frigid quality to it, both sonically and through the imagery he has employed. This new work is no different, titled after a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean where nuclear testing occurred. His his approach to the sound is as desolate, but fascinating as ever.
The first of the three pieces that comprise Novaya Zemlya is perhaps the most sparse.There is an overall distant, isolated sound, with the occasional thunderous sound cutting through, heavily skewed to the bassier end of the spectrum.Eventually droning bass sounds appear, with other thumps far off sounding like a stray beat from a Porter Ricks record.In the final moments, an obscured, but noticeable sub-melodic drone appears, adding the tiniest bit of warmth to the otherwise windswept tundra.
The closing piece follows a similar template, pairing looped field recordings with icy drones. This pair certainly puts a strain on a sub-woofer but still manages to be pleasant to the ear.Distant heartbeat like pulses and shards of delicate sound eventually surface, but on the whole there is more of an abstract, sound collage structure rather than one laden with rhythm or melody.
The middle segment is where the template is reshaped the most.A subsonic rumble that almost resembles a drum beat can be heard in the distance, but amongst the resonating bass drones there is a sense of melodic progression that encompasses most of the nearly 13 minute duration of the track. While it maintains the cold ambience of the album, it does not feel as bleak or as isolated in comparison, and a brief voice sample humanizes the otherwise remote darkness.
Novaya Zemlya is a fitting, and worthy addition to Köner's chilling, minimalist discography. Although he has not been overly prolific in the past decade or so, each catalog entry has been a strong statement of intent, and this is no different.While he works in sounds and moods that other artists trade in, it is his distinct sound, be it the clever use of reverb or the emphasis on low frequency sounds, that gives his work a distinct feel all its own, and this is no exception.Rarely could a piece of music inspired by a frozen nuclear testing ground come across as so inviting and compelling.
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On his third full length release, Paul Thomsen Kirk continues his modernized take on the late 1990s/early 2000s electronic music that is as much about dissonant textures as it is captivating beats and rhythms. It perfectly balances that sense of familiar and fresh, and it helps to renew my faith that electronic dance music can still be artistically relevant.
The first Akatombo album, Trace Elements, was released on Colin Newman and Malka Spiegel's Swim~ label in 2003, and his work continues to exemplify that label's ethos of danceable electronica with a greater artistic depth than most, even at the time it was active.Nearly a decade later, with that genre hitting lowest common denominator status of quality, it is refreshing to hear an album that innovates, while still remaining grounded and listenable.
Opener "Kleptokrat" and "Masked" both go for Kirk's take on the big beat sound, with massive, reverberating drums and dubby bass locking into a steady, monolithic groove while layers of synth noises and voice samples pop out here and there to keep things flowing.The blunt force beats appear again on "The Right Mistake," but obscured by electronic interference and machinery noise, and with the added bonus of squelchy 303 synth lines and heavy filter sweeps.
In other places, the sound has more in common with old school drum and bass, like the breakbeats and looped instruments of "Melt Again," with its over-driven noisy outbursts, definitely calls to mind the best of the late '90s."Dominion" has a similar sensibility, with its submerged beats and guitar stabs (by co-producer Makoto Kubota) pushing everything into a boisterous, but compelling mass of sound and noise.
Variety is the key here, however, and the slow, atmospheric "Shi-Shi Mai" exemplifies this, keeping the tempo slow and the rhythms quieter in the mix."Hikiko Mori" is another restrained one, more stripped down with muted beats, but an emphasis on heavily layered synth textures and spaciousness.The dark ambient "Necessary Fiction" also stands out, with an emphasis on the beatless space as opposed to driving rhythms.
Like his previous release, Unconfirmed Reports, False Positives comes in a lovingly hand-made package with a bonus DVD-R of videos by Kirk, although most of which are films made for tracks on the previous album.They fit the Akatombo sound perfectly, consisting mostly of collages and abstractions of his urban Japanese adopted homeland, with a graininess that is the perfect visual equivalent of the raw, occasionally dissonant sound on most of the tracks.
Kirk’s work as Akatombo certainly has twinges of nostalgia throughout, but it sounds very much contemporary, and manages to combine the use of big, loud rhythms with layers of moody, complex electronics.Even without the rhythms, this would be a strong work, which is no easy feat.With the beats, however, it is a complex, nuanced work that unravels more and more with each spinning.
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Daniel Menche discussed on his now infamous blog how his attendance at a Karkowski show was a major inspiration and motivation for his now prolific career in sound art. I would imagine that for that reason he would have some sense of intimidation working with his hero, but this live in the studio collaboration shows no sense of trepidation, just two masters shaping sound into frightening and fascinating sculptures.
The collaboration is split into six untitled pieces for the sake of the listener, though it is relentless in its hour-long duration.The opening of skittering drum sounds alone before the rattling digital tones kick in, make for one of the few sparse elements in this recording.Beyond here, it gets denser and thicker.Unlike some of Menche’s more open and ambient experiments of late, this stays more in the realms of his earlier harsh work, though with more of an electronic sheen instead of overdriven tube amps.
As the first section pushes on, the rhythm elements stick around as metallic scrapes, buzzing tones, and nasal electronic pulses cut through, the mix eventually becoming dominated by the high pitched noise frequencies, though the drums still stay buried there.This continues on, being complimented by some deep overdriven rumbling, blasts of static and higher, almost chiming tones that could be musical in some other dimension.
The static eventually supplants the high pitched noises, being cut up like a helicopter matched with hissing air compressors and artifacts of cheap time-stretched effects.Eventually this takes a back seat to pure harsh static that recalls the halcyon days of the harsh noise scene, which both of these artists were pioneers in.This continues on, the percussive thump eventually rising up to make itself known, but always stays under the din.
The last segment continues on with the thump, but the noise begins to break away, sheets of noise splashing about, crunchy distortion, and painful buzzing that morphs into painfully shrill tones, which are what closes the disc on its own, leaving a ringing that lasts in the ears after the disc closes.
This disc in some ways does recall the early golden days of harsh noise in its pure electronic abstraction and chaos, yet rather than just pummeling with volume instead it stays a bit more restrained, allowing the variety of textures that are here to be experienced rather than just suffered through.As the first of two studio collaborations, I'm now eager to find out how the second one recorded will turn out.
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A new Comus EP has been on the cards for a few years as the group reinvigorated itself with a number of successful reunion shows. New songs crept into their set and finally a mini-album of fresh material has made it out into the wild. Not only that, the three studio recordings are bolstered with a bootleg recording of a 1972 performance of "The Malgaard Suite," their aborted second album (not to be confused with 1974’s To Keep from Crying). Overall, it does not reach the dizzying heights of First Utterance but it is a worthy return for such a legendary group.
I had the pleasure of hearing two of these songs during Comus’ set at David Tibet’s 50th birthday celebration concerts in 2010 and, as I noted at the time, they worked very well next to the original songs. The title track in particular is classic Comus as they herald their return to consciousness, waking from the musical coma the group has been in for 40 years. While Roger Wootten’s voice has aged, it is still powerful and full of danger, though his delivery of the chorus is strange to say the least as he attempts some kind of demonic Louis Armstrong voice. On the other hand, Bobbie Watson sounds as good as ever, her virginal voice a perfect counter to Wootten’s infernal howls. The group’s return is cemented when Colin Pearson puts his bow to his viola and the panic sets in. The only blemish is the inclusion of clarinet at the end which does not suit the Comus aesthetic at all; Jon Seagrott is a great player but I cannot help but feel that the flute would suit this song so much better.
If I recall correctly, "The Sacrifice" did not catch my ear as much as "Out of the Coma" at the London show but here it sounds excellent. Thematically, it is more in keeping with First Utterance though it feels a little reined in compared to the sheer darkness of those early songs. Here, the flute does make an appearance and it does work very well, a moment of lilting pastoral calm before the bloodshed occurs. It is Pearson’s viola that steals the show, his rapid arpeggios mimicking the stabbing actions of the lyrics. As the song climaxes, the flute invokes the ecstatic blood-lust of a mythical pagan ritual full of awe and fear.
The last new song is "The Return," which sounds a little like Opeth at their folkiest (and Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt has never hidden his love of Comus so this is not much of a surprise). Here, intricate guitar work and Watson’s vocals create a mesmerizing web out of the music. I keep expecting Opeth’s death metal roar to erupt during the song’s middle section but instead Comus retreat into a gloomy cave of processed vocals and bass which is more like an eerie take on Current 93’s "Moonlight, You Will Say" than anything else.
The inclusion of" The Malgaard Suite" is a bit strange as on one hand, unheard material from Comus’ glory days should be welcome but on the other hand, it is a tough listen considering the recording quality. I can hear the potential amidst the murk (it sounds like King Crimson were becoming more of an influence on the group’s songwriting in terms of structure and length) but it is a tiring listen as the different elements bleed into each other. I feel that I will probably be hitting stop after "The Return" when listening to this album in the future though that is purely due to auditory fatigue as the song itself is rather good.
On the surface, Out of the Coma does not recreate the mastery of First Utterance but I think that even if Comus had headed into the studio and finished "The Malgaard Suite" in 1972, they would struggle to top their perfect first album. Perhaps if Out of the Coma was limited to just the new studio recordings, it would hang better but even as it stands, it is a remarkable return from cold storage for a much loved and magical band of musicians.
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For his installment in the Utech URSK series, Justin Broadrick's earliest project channels some of his older dark ambient work under that moniker, but also brings up some of his earliest days of harsh noise and power electronics as well, making for some of the rawest Final work that he’s released yet.
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The overdriven bass crunch and inorganic feedback that opens "Slow Air" is definitely in league with the early Whitehouse and other power electronics bands that influenced a 13 year old Broadrick into starting his own project, which later reappeared in the mid 1990s as a dark ambient/isolationist project. It doesn’t rise to painful levels, but stays raw and sludgy.
Both "Caved" and "Disordered" stay in this noisy domain, the former based on shrill blasts of noise and slowly flanged squeals while the latter stays crunchy and rhythmic, while pulses of white noise and feedback shows up. It’s not an entirely harsh work at all, but definitely is rough and murky, even by Final’s standards.
"Fearless Systems” is more of a mixed piece, there’s overdriven pulses and analog crunches, but there is also delicate, pure guitar playing that eventually begins to make itself known, a bit of beautiful sticking the muck and mire of clipping noise. While the album as a whole does tend to focus on the darker and grimier elements, they don’t stay in the noisier territory the whole time.
The bass heavy and metric ton of reverb on "Subterrane" feels largely reminiscent of the 1990s Final output, especially 2, which remains one of my all time personal favorite dark ambient releases, though the stabs of feedback and guitar make it feel a bit different, and the digital sheen on it reflects the ten years of technological growth since then. The swarming, alien insect chirps of "Inanimate Air" also wouldn’t be out of place on some of Broadrick’s earlier experimental works.
The closing title track is the most subtle of them all, a more sparse recording of melancholy tones that close the album on a distinctly somber note. Personally, I think this is a more diverse and varied recording than some of the more recent output, including the somewhat patchy Three album. While not quite the greatness that was 2, or the Urge/Fail 7", it is still a great disc, regardless.
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Since childhood Perhacs has composed music using elements from her visualization of sound (color frequencies, musical shapes, etc,...). This cult album from 1970 combines ethereal folk with flourishes of electronics and spacey jazz. Eight bonus tracks, fascinating notes, and sketches make this a worthwhile reissue.
A glance at the cover of Parallelograms will bring the words "hippy" and "LSD" to mind. But take a closer look and you'll see that the beauty wandering the meadow in a mini-dress is wearing sensible shoes. The truth is that in the late 1960s everyone didn't drop-out and some people didn't need drugs to expand their mind. Take Linda Perhacs. She was a career-oriented dental hygienist in Beverly Hills when she met film composer Leonard Rosenman, and his wife, Kay, who recognized and encouraged her creativity. As Perhacs says, "even as a tiny child, I have seen musical tones and colors as twins (and they are twins vibrationally in physics). Along with this I would see complex chronological patterns that moved up and changed rapidly like Irish dancers." Is "vibrationally" a word? It is now.
At the time of meeting the Rosenman's, Perhacs was married to a like-minded sculptor and designer who shared her love of the getting out into the invigorating wildness of nature. Perhacs had homemade tapes of her "little campfire songs" and one listen to the song "Parallelograms" was enough for Leonard Rosenman to offer to produce an album for her. His liking for atonal sounds tempered her delicate musings. Perhacs wrote some new songs and recording was done at night while she kept her day job. "Dolphin" was inspired by diving in California. "Hey, Who Really Cares" (co-written with Oliver Nelson) would become the theme tune for the TV series Matt Lincoln. Meanwhile, in a not-uncommon tale, her record company failed to promote the album but, even worse, changed the running order and pressed the disc so badly that she threw her copy away. No one offered another deal so Perhacs concentrated on other things, like dental hygiene and going out to the country, presumably.
There's another picture of Linda Perhacs inside the booklet. Taken in 1995 she is glowing with health: her hair is dark, her teeth are dazzling white (no surprise there). Relaxed and happy in her white sweater and skirt she looks like I imagine Wonder Woman might look at the end of an idyllic vacation in Ireland! A clue to how she has survived in such fine fettle perhaps lies in the way that she has taken pain and disgust and turned them into something positive and uplifting. For example, her song "Paper Mountain Man" addresses a former lover who was too liberal with his love and "Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding" is her response to her repulsion at the grandeur and sheer cost of Beverly Hills weddings. In Perhacs' hands, both sound like lovely songs with a slightly sharp edge. Clearly this is a woman who knows about balance and nature. Her honest quotes about music making and her non-trendy life have a sincerity and openness that are as refreshing and dignified as her music. Good vibrations; worth picking up.
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Much to the chagrin of bloated record labels and those authoritarian grumps at the RIAA, young people today have near instantaneous and essentially free access to virtually any song thanks to the proliferation of torrents and other file sharing schemes. That brazen attitude inevitably had to expand to music composition, though, as this album proves, that might not be entirely for the best.
Unlicensed “warez” of music production software have existed for well over a decade, initially traded by impoverished young musicians eager to express themselves. Yet in the same way that the concept of Napster exploded into the multi-channel bootleg phenomenon bringing the music business to its knees, so too has the appropriation of that ethos come to those who wish to make music. And while I lack any proof of Zeller’s complicity in the aforementioned illegal behavior, his place in this generation of thieves is cemented by this unbearably jejune and hackneyed debut.
Much like Bomb 20's unparalleled proto-breakcore classic Field Manual, released a decade prior, the suitably named Audio Vandalism egregiously swipes long passages from films and television programs to bolster his album. Yet unlike the Digital Hardcore zealot, Zeller's wholesale appropriation lacks the former's vibrant anarchist spirit that transformed disparate speech samples into fresh linguistic conversions and distillations not unlike William Burroughs' cut-up method. In its stead lie a novice producer’s desperate attempts to fill in yawning gaps of his unexceptional, indistinct tracks. Buried under the weight of an excessive break overstuffed with generic movie dialogue, "Thor Theory" serves as the most glaring example of this half-assedness. While one could generously credit Zeller with upholding the sampling traditions of 80s and 90s industrialists, the material here suffers from such a dearth of originality that I cannot, in good conscience, even offer that consolation prize to such colorless, unsubstantial sonics.
Regrettably, the mad borrowing doesn't end there. Zeller's derivative sound loots the marketplace of musical ideas, pilfering from distorted dubsteppers like Milanese and Vex'd (“Hell Train”) and mugging IDM elders whose names need not be mentioned to drive home my point. It's difficult to draw a line between influence and exploitation, but like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote about pornography, I know it when I see it. In this case, I hear it in “Cavern Sunshine” and “Macbooking,” poorly executed facsimiles of distorto-glitch gods Gridlock and Synapscape respectively. Even the tribal rhythms of This Morn Omina get ripped off on closer "Doom The Drummer." I find it especially distasteful that, after all this time, power noise painted itself into such a corner that Hymen would release something this obnoxious and plagiaristic. Someone ought to inform Zeller that talent cannot be downloaded, legally or illegally. I suppose I just did.
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When this EP first came out it made little sense to me. The six songs were recorded during the same session as Copper Blue but the sound was completely different. The sound was rather grim, there were no happy singalongs, the vocals were buried (if present at all), and I didn't quite understand if it was attempting to be religious statement or not. Nineteen years later, a cleaned up master and back story makes a world of distance as it almost completely makes sense now.
The music industry moves much faster in the United Kingdom than it does here in the United States and the monsterous success of Copper Blue in the UK resulted in Creation's pressure for a second Sugar release to keep the momentum going in the very fickle press and UK market. Even though in 1993 I had plenty of music from Creation acts (Slowdive, MBV, Primal Scam, etc,...) Rykodisc was Sugar's US home and Creation never seemed to be a factor. Listening now, years later, it comes as no surprise to read liner notes from Creation employees claiming this to be their favorite release. It was the closest Mould has ever come to making a shoegaze record!
The simple acoustic strumming, distorted-but-lyrical guitar hook, and ghostly faint vocals of the opening "Come Around" could easily be a dead ringer for a Ride tune while "Tilted," the EP's single, is a furious rush of energy, a mass of guitars wrapped in a speedy tune owing much to Mould's punk roots.
The middle pair of songs, "Judas Cradle" and "JC Auto" make up what is allegedly the religious component of the record—Beaster was released on Easter in 1993 and its title is obviously a pun on the name of the holiday—but I personally don't see any deep meanings in the words of "Judas Cradle." Lyrically, "JC Auto," on the other hand, seems to have two themes going on: one being Mould's self-reflection and the chorus being a struggle with the pressure of being popular as he was. Reading about the constant demands on the group as a recording, touring, and press entity provides a bit of justification for this song as Mould would lash out with this song live, dragging "I'm Not Your Jesus Christ" into the song repeatedly, stretching "JC Auto" to be about twice as long.
In this light, Beaster was a release: a yin to the yang. David Barbe, the bassist, is quoted in the accompanying booklet that the inside joke was that Copper Blue was the band Sugar, while Beaster was the band named "Spice."
Rounding out the album is the deliciously bloated poppy ditty "Feeling Better," and the serene "Walking Away." Despite the tacky synth horn sounds, the former kicks some serious ass with the heavy riffage, chunky bass, and monstrous drums (with cowbell in all the right spots). The latter is an absolutely gorgeous and dreamy drum/guitar/bass-free cathedral organ based love song with very few lyrics and a lot of emotion.
The sound of the remaster is nothing short of stunning. I no longer regard Besaster as a muddy mess, as I can now hear the individual instruments and layers much, much clearer. Accompanying the CD on this Edsel version is a DVD featuring the music video for "Tilted," and four songs recorded live at the XFM Great Expectations show at Finsbury Park in 1993.The Beaster remastered audio will be included on the Copper Blue remaster package due from Merge later this month but as I said in the Copper Blue review, it is quite its own beast and I don't feel any regret jumping for the import version.
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This long unavailable album marks an important step in the development of Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt's music in that it is the first themed album of many in their career, which is one of the defining features that makes Matmos so interesting. Anyone can try and be clever with quirky samples but with The West, Matmos rose above using novelty sounds just for the sake of them. At this point they became an intellectually challenging but still musically compelling entity.
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This long unavailable album marks an important step in the development of Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt's music in that it is the first themed album of many in their career, which is one of the defining features that makes Matmos so interesting. Anyone can try and be clever with quirky samples but with The West, Matmos rose above using novelty sounds just for the sake of them. At this point they became an intellectually challenging but still musically compelling entity.
The idea of the American West is as strong an inspiration and mythology as you can get (especially so in these last few years when the western movie has made such a revival). Many artists have taken on the aesthetic of the campfire song or the Morricone-esque desert soundscape; The Residents did a masterful rendition of old cowboy songs during their Cube-E period; and more recently Earth have reinvented themselves as some kind of doomy country band. Matmos, no strangers to themed releases, undertook a similar task around ten years ago. However, it is not immediately obvious from just listening to the music that they are doing an album influences by country music.
The opening piece, “Last Delicious Cigarette,” wanders around in what sounds like a normal mode of working for Daniel and Schmidt but far from anyone else’s idea of what the West should sound like; A jerky dance beat of squeaky electronic sounds and a pulsing bass synth rhythm. Then it hits; five minutes in and a dizzy violin sound takes over from the electronic blips and whirrs. Immediately a tension is present that is utterly familiar: There is a good guy and a bad guy, the one with the fastest draw wins. Matmos turns the table yet again and rather than end with a bang, the track fizzles out instead. From here on in, The West lives up to its title.
The music shifts from campfire acoustic strumming to banging electronic jams. On the title track, a fantastic electronic beat suddenly drops into a quiet, slow slide guitar passage. It should be a jarring shift but it works brilliantly. Rhythms and moods traditionally associated with men in big hats riding horses are co-opted by Daniel and Schmidt and turned into that quirky dance-come –concrète style that they alone seem capable of pulling off. From reading the sleeve notes, even the most musical parts of The West seem not to have been planned. Much of the instrumentation was recorded as repayment for bunking at Chateau Matmos for use by the pair at a later date. The playing of their house guests was supplemented by David Pajo, who mailed plenty of fantastic guitar playing to the duo. His guitar frequently sounds like it was taken straight from some classic cowboy movie and provides a solid stylistic base for the album.
The West is a bona fida classic and it is criminal that it has been unavailable for so long. Now that the situation has been redressed, I can only hope that the earlier singles/EPs will be collected and thus get most of the early Matmos recordings back in print (and it would be nice to hear the shelved People Like Us collaboration that was due to come out before the PLU/Matmos live album). In the meantime, I am going to be playing the hell out of this album and making up for lost time.
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Artist: Hirsute Pursuit
Title: Tighten That Muscle Ring
Catalogue No: CSR158CD
Barcode: 8 2356650672 0
Format: CD in 6-panel digifile
Genre: Gay / Industrial / Experimental
Shipping: Now
Music that smells like a man!
“I play Hirsute Pursuit at all of my DJ gigs” (Peter Christopherson)
"Tighten That Muscle Ring" features collaborators such as Bryin Dall of Thee Majesty, Boyd Rice of NON and Sleazy of Coil / Throbbing Gristle.
The music is real. The sex is real.
Created by Harley Phoenix and his musical partner, Bryin Dall, this is Gay Sex Music that offers no apologies. Enticing rhythms combined with raw sex and a commanding, deep, resonate voice, Harley has transformed explicit instructions for serving his pleasure into a musical orgy that hits the gay community where it plays, the dance floor and the bedroom. Sleazy dance beats pound along at tempos that encourage carnal exploration, while sounds of ecstasy cannot be ignored. You will be thinking Cock Thoughts (a song from the first album, That Hole Belongs to Me).
After starting with a MySpace page Hirsute Pursuit has become THE MOST PLAYED GAY MUSIC ON MYSPACE. Typical letters from fans tell Harley that after listening to his music, they HAD to go “get off”. While fans have been pleading for photos, Harley refuses to give in. Understanding the restraints of reality, Harley remains in the shadows, making Hirsute Pursuit the ultimate in musical fantasy.
Without any publicity or releases, Hirsute Pursuit has had over 140,000 plays in less than a year! Drawing fans from all musical genres, including House, Country, Rock, Hip Hop, etc. Primarily attracting a gay audience, recent fans also include female dominatrixes, middle-class housewives and straight guys (as is evidenced in the video, Boys Keep Swinging featuring Boyd Rice and James Pope, both straight). The raw sensuality has now crossed over into the heterosexual domain.
This is music you can fuck to, as well as bump and grind.
Harley Phoenix is currently preparing Hirsute Pursuit's live show experience which will include actual musicians, dancers and video to give the audience members a complete sensory explosion.
Comes in a 6-panel digisleeve.
Tracks: 1. Boys Keep Swinging | 2. You're Here To Pleasure Me | 3. One Sleazy Night In Bangkok | 4. Daddy Bear | 5. My Pleasure | 6. Big Time | 7. Fuck | 8. My Pretty Pink Hole
| 9. Slow Ride In Kentucky | 10. One Sleazy Night In New Orleans | 11. My Pleasure House
| 12. Fuck - Pounding Mix | 13. My Pleasure House - Pleasuregate Mix
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