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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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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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Kranky
'Style Drift' couldn't be a more appropriate title for this,Fontanelle's long-awaited sophomore full-length, as the band don'tnecessarily shift their style but improve enough to make a noticeabledifference. Recorded again in their Magnetic Park studio, 'Drift' is areal step forward for the band, as their confidence improves and theirarrangements gain strength and weight. For improvisation-based music,it doesn't get any better than this, and Fontanelle are reaching anapex where their version will be instantly recognizable. As always, thedrumming is tight, the bass a propulsive mass, and the wah-wah guitartasty. The keys, different types, are more ingrained than before, andcreate a mood and feel all by themselves, often with layered effectsand computer gimmicry applied to them. The band has become tighter, asperfectly evidenced on the breaks in the title track. There's adefinite jazz vocabulary at work, too, that only serves to improve theproceedings. Overall, though, the spirit in Fontanelle is inmaniupulation. There are sounds on this record that are new for theband, as they reach out towards the outer limits. Imagine, if you will,that the Max Rebo Band fired Sy Snoodles and got a hold of a fewTortoise records and you wouldn't be far off. Fontanelle have alwaysbeen amazing musicians, but on this release they are in the pocketevery time, working together better than ever, and proving that thereis longevity and consistency in doing it all off the cuff.
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Mute
Add N to (X) have a fantastic formula. Catchy post-punk hooks played onprimal synths coupled with a powerful drummer works well in dirty andloud live settings. The band puts on some of the best shows I've hadthe privilige to see over the last couple years. Their biggestchallenge at this point is to take some of that raw live energy andchannel it into their recordings so there's less wishy-washy tunes thatsimply meander all over the place. Like all of their records, there aresome really awesome moments here. I'm partial to the Meat Beat-ishsampled drum shuffle on "Elecrtic Village," the new wave of snottypost-punk vocals of "Large Number," and the campiness of the album'sopener, "Total All Out Water." There are numerous low points, however.The "I Hate Her/She Hate Me" vocals on "Sheez Mine" and spoken word on"Invasion of the Polaroid People," sound completely convictionless andcould have easily been omitted from the album altogether. Theundeniable hit, "Quantum Loop," has a strong enough hook to carry thetune but the random scattering of samples seems like a poorly plannedafterthought. Even the album's single, "Take Me To Your Leader," kindof fizzles after only a minute or so. While I'm not looking for them torecreate some of my fave tunes from the last five years, ("MetalFingers in My Body," or "Plug Me In" still get me as excited as thefirst time I heard them) there is an increasing lack of strong tunesand completed thoughts this time around.
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23five
This compilation, released to accompany an SFMOMA exhibit, collectseleven tracks from Australian experimental musicians. There's anexcellent sense of unity, as most of the compositions are aestheticallysimilar, at least superficially, in their emphasis on sparse,laptop-driven presentations. Some rely on organic instruments andothers on homebuilt electronics, but all of them find creative soundsand work really well, making this album quite consistent.
Worth mentioning are the extremely lucid liner notes by PhilipSamartzis and Csaba Toth, which provide a reductionist breakdown ofimprovised and noise music; it sheds some light on the undercurrents,although nothing on the compilation fits clearly into their categories.
Jim Knox provides the most noise, in the form of three short pieceswhich range from an eerie metallic drone to a harsh, radio-influencednoise collage. Most tracks on this disc have some incredible sounds andtechniques. Delire's track is a flowing medley of intermittent sci-fisounds occasionally riding on an electro rhythm that keeps fallingapart; then things get a bit nostalgic as he incorporates someobfuscated videogame-type tones into the mix, along with some crunchyphased static.
My favorite piece is David Brown's "Were Holes Mended?", a duet ofprepared guitar and squeaking door. The guitar cliches are in effect:the high gain power chords, the pick slides, and the Derek Baileyimitations; but it flows seamlessly, as the creaking door morphs intostrange horn-like tones and the processed guitar provides a dazzlingarray of counterpoint sounds (in what could be all the Powerbookcliches). Robbie Avenaim's "Impulse Control Disorder" also takes theDSP improv route, mixing high tones, beeps and FM bells, and thewhistle of steam with the clatter of thin, trash-can percussion. It hasa great sense of progression. Philip Samartzis' piece, "Soft And Loud,"is an exercise in interruption; a train approaches and then somefractured music starts, only to suddenly disappear leaving only thewind. This general idea is repeated several times, using environmental,mechanical, and digital sounds to represent these two extremes. Ireally like the "soft" parts of the track; there are some beautifulfield recordings and gentle buzzing drones, but it's only fitting thatthese moments of peace are transitory. 'Variable Resistance' hasintroduced me to some innovative new artists, and like its relative'Ju-Jikan,' is definitely a worthwhile collection.
samples:
- Robbie Avenaim - Impulse Control Disorder
- David Brown - Were Holes Mended?
- Jim Knox - Fuck To Mandatory Detention
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23five
This two-disc compilation coincides with last year's SFMOMA exhibit ofthe same name, a "listening event documenting the past 18 years ofJapanese experimental music," though this recording features mostlyelectronic-oriented material from the past few years. Despite this, itsbreadth is exceptional and some of the tracks are unreleased, so it'sexcellent both for collectors or as an introduction.
Noise, of course, is a focal point, and each of the several noisepieces are quite distinct—Pain Jerk's track is a rumbling, rhythmicassault in contrast to Masonna's brighter vocal and synth-drivenfreakout. The Otomo Yoshihide track, consisting only of high frequencyguitar feedback, is easily the toughest; he exploits the subtleinteraction of two tonally pure sustained notes, holding them foruncomfortable lengths of time. It's interesting and challenging but Iprefer his more dynamic work.
Other tracks range from minimalist-inspired rhythmic clicks, such asthe Nerve Net Noise, Atau Tanaka, and Ryoji Ikeda tracks, which allmanage to distinguish themselves with their detailed but disarminglysimple tonal palettes, to more abstract, juxtaposed medleys. MasahiroMiwa's contribution uses plaintive low-fi synths to establish tension;though the sounds are light and playful, the overall feel is heavy andworks well with his stated topic of youth violence in Japan. I likeI.d.'s supposedly "hacker"-inspired piece. Its discrete bundles ofstatic and waves of digital noise sound almost like information, and itslowly develops into something vaguely repetitive and structured.
The compilation also features a few notable older but forward-lookingpieces. Yasunao Tone's track is about contrasts: beauty and ugliness aswell as ancient and modern, combining gorgeous flute playing and anoisy synth that sounds like the creaking of a door. The music stopsperiodically for an NPR-type voice to read some semi-decent poetry;although the track is long and generally simple, it's still engagingand I love the flute playing.
The Kazuo Uehara composition, dating back to 1988, has the mostimpressive sounds on the disc. It begins with some quiet, indeterminateevents and some mumbled French with a cavernous echo, and the vocalsgrow increasingly processed and alien. Stunning woodwind-like dronesbuild towards an organ-like range and later into hauntingly serenehowling and whistling. The ground that this compilation covers, as awhole, is amazing, and it definitely reaffirms the brilliance ofJapanese musical innovation.
samples:
- Otomo Yoshihide - Composition For Two Guitars
- I.d. - Oo.>>..>>..Bt
- Masahiro Miwa - Alleleuia
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This compilation of artists on SharkAttack! features some extremely talented bands playing some incredibly strong material. Charlene, whose members started SharkAttack!, contribute four tracks, HelloAttack give two, and Compass and Lockgroove three each.SharkAttack!Music
The music of Charlene has already been praised on the Brain recently, and the four tracks here run their gamut of sound. There's the drone of "Look for the Line," the pop of "Low Down" and "Radio Son," and the quiet beauty of the hidden "Slow Broadcast Dozer." All are fantastic. HelloAttack craft space rock instrumentals with solid bass grooves, chiming guitars, and keyboard drone. Their two tracks bode well for their full-length, due next year. "D" is an loud attack with a bounce rhythm, where "A" is slow to start but eventually makes it to a loud yet metered and aggressive tone at the end. Lockgroove includes David S. Goodman, who is also Compass. Both projects have released singles on SharkAttack!, and both demand strong notice in their offerings on this CD. Goodman plays with beeps and programmed beat pop with aplomb, and his three songs have a charming grace. Lockgroove burn out of the gate with "Nullify," then click it down a few notches for "All Caught Up" and "All My Friends," showing the ability to bruise as well as to soothe. Their debut EP and full-length, from 1998 and 2000, respectively, are also available directly through their website, with more to come on SharkAttack!, I'm sure. SharkAttack! is truly a home for great artists with common themes and has a lot to show on this compilation.
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Tigerbeat6
Numbers might not be an electronic laptop band, but like nearlyeverything else on the TB6 label, it is fun, addictive, silly, andsickingly dancable. This trio of youngsters from the Bay Area consistof a Moog player, guitarist and a front-stage drummer who controls theworld. (All of which who sing.) While I'll be the first to admit Ididn't really get this band entirely on record, after seeing them liveI have been completely won over. Subsequently, the album sounds muchbetter now. Clocking in at just over 19 minutes, this ten-song recordhas got to be one of the most genuine releases of the year. The bandaddresses adult issues through the mind of a child, as the subjectmatter ranges from materialistic greed ("We Like Having Things") totechnology ("Intercom") and strained intrapersonal relations ("Too Coolto Say Hi"). The disjunct playing and off-tunings of the guitarseparate the group from the typical post-punk punks, almost as if threecomputer nerds were handed rock instruments and trained long and hardto play louder, faster, and more original than the bullies down thestreet. Training and practice payed off as the good kids did win thistime. Let's see how they do in the sequel.
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Textile
All functional humans have the capacity to make noise, whether it'swith what genetics gave them or the tools they make. However, very fewhave the capabilities of making noisy things sound amazing to the humanear. Some bands never achieve this. Thankfully, at least Jackie-OMotherfucker does a good job of achieving it about half the time oneach their albums. In all of my recordings of this Portland,Oregon-based collective, they have remained consistent between thenumber of songs that sound completely derivative and uninspiring tosongs that really sound like an impressively orchestrated group ofmusicians whose sounds amount to more than just chin-scratching mayhem.For the latest disc, the band opens with a track that doesn't move faroff the Molasses-like northern white guy hillbilly blues singing tipand follows it up with a track that kept me re-referring to the packageto make sure it wasn't an elaborate cover of Jandek's "Carnival Queen"with tape mutilations. It's at this point, however, that the ensembleis basically getting in gear. They pause for a 17-second instruction onplaying on "the seven" and by halftime through the immense (andperpetually changing) fourth track, "777 (Tombstone Massive)," I'mhappily lost in a daze. It opens with relentless drum and percussionpoundings then halts, restarting with a crackle, wind instruments,chimes and a low string drone. A quick rise reintroduces the forcefulpercussion from the first few moments but thankfully that dies down forthe mesmerising interplay between strings, winds, and chimes. Just wheneverything boils up to a clumsy, disorganized borderline masturbatoryjam with nobody paying attention to each other, (the end of "Feast ofthe Mau Ma") quietness befalls the record and all is good again. Thealbum ends with two more 10-minute pieces: a blissful quietinstrumental and a 'manual' loop of guitar and drums with distortedvocals which leaves me with an unsettling feeling despite theviolinists struggles to play something pleasant. One of these days thisband is either going to make a record that will be my favorite of theyear or send a pipe bomb to my P.O. box. I don't know which to fearmore.
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