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After so many albums, I fear that someday Aaron Moore and Daniel Padden will stumble but thankfully with their latest album they prove that they are still firing on all cylinders. As varied as expected, Golden Rhythm/Ink Music is an exciting and gripping exploration of barmy improvisation and deeply intense, almost ritualistic, music. It does not reach the dizzying heights of early Volcano the Bear but it is definitely one of the best things they have done since coming back in from the cold a few years ago.
The opening piece "Buffalo Shoulder" might have a good pun in the name but it is an inauspicious start to what reveals itself to be a solid album. It is the second track, "Baby Photos," where things kick off. "Baby Photos" is a terrific bit of weirdo pop that could have come straight off Meet the Residents. The deranged rhythm is impossible not to jerk my body to; the epileptic percussion reinforced by what sounds like a thumb piano to give it a colorful, off-kilter vibe. All the while the vocals are wonderfully surreal, and incredibly catchy.
After that bit of madness, "The Great Reimbursement" calms things down for a bit with a slow burning voyage through some trippy sounds. The vocals take on a distant, euphoric quality like Moore and Padden are calling to me through a dream. A dream that well and truly shatters with the bizarre "Bravo," which I either love or hate depending on my mood when I am listening. From this point on, the duo take their scatter-gun approach and confound expectations and taste further with a number of short and strange pieces that sound like incidental music for a radio play Max Ernst never got to write.
Golden Rhythm/Ink Music finishes with the superbly hypnotic "Fireman Show." The guitar drags me along and plants me down in front of Moore and Padden while they shout at me and everything else furiously explodes. What more could I ask for? Even if the rest of the album were completely throwaway (and believe me, it is not), it would be worth the price of admission for this piece alone. By the time everything comes to a standstill, I am ready to hit the skip back button and start this album over one more time.
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After so many albums, I fear that someday Aaron Moore and Daniel Padden will stumble but thankfully with their latest album they prove that they are still firing on all cylinders. As varied as expected, Golden Rhythm/Ink Music is an exciting and gripping exploration of barmy improvisation and deeply intense, almost ritualistic, music. It does not reach the dizzying heights of early Volcano the Bear but it is definitely one of the best things they have done since coming back in from the cold a few years ago.
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Drawing on literary influences like Franz Kafka and Thomas Ligotti, Mat Sweet returns with an EP about the purgatories and hells that are jobs in the bureaucratic machine. Undoubtedly inspired by the continuing financial crises that have erupted like boils across the world, Sweet has created a concise and precise indictment of the men in suits who have done as much damage to the world as men in military uniforms and priestly robes in past decades and centuries.
It does not take a genius to work out that Sweet is not a fan of working in an office as, from the moment "Temping" begins to the point where it reaches a gorgeous and classic Boduf Songs ending, it is possible to hear the disdain, ennui, and disgust he has for the great, grey side of industry. The other songs reinforce the parasitic and Machiavellian side of those who aim high in big business; on "Infernal Memo," Sweet bitterly intones: "I will kill every dog/And build a tower from the bones, the bones" There is a desperate sense of the constant devouring of individuals by the larger company, all for no real gain even for those at the top of the food chain.
While these ideas have been done to death, particularly in American literature with everyone from the aforementioned Ligotti to Don Delillo covering similar terrain in prose, Sweet’s visions sound remarkably fresh and fit with his previous (equally bleak) releases. Yet despite the grim reality of Internal Memo’s content, Sweet has softened the delivery compared to Boduf Songs’ last album, This Alone in Spite of Everything. "Eternal Memo" could easily be written for Low (especially that delicate guitar solo that appears halfway through) and the lurking threat present in Sweet’s lyrics is reminiscent of Low’s equally angry The Great Destroyer from 2005.
While Internal Memo is great, it is far too short. I sincerely hope this is only a taster of a new Boduf Songs album as I have been itching for one almost since the last one. However, better to be moaning about how short a new release is than the complete lack of one, especially when Internal Memo is so good.
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Few albums are as successful pulling off an album's worth of music wrapped into a single song as Sleep were in the '90s. Their sprawling weedian travelogue, Dopesmoker, set an impossibly high precedent for bands looking to follow the album-length song format. For Italy's Ufomammut, that precedent sounds more like a challenge to raise the bar, in which case, instead of just one... why not release two back-to-back albums in one year, together encompassing a single mammoth song 90 minutes in length?
Neurot (CD) / Supernatural Cat (LP)
If that sounds forbidding, fear not, because Oro: Opus Primum is actually a hell of a lot more welcoming, and immediately listenable, than Dopesmoker. As far as album-length songs go, it plays out more like the variety found on the doom-tinged sludge of Melvins' Lysol: in essence, it's intended to hypnotize and rock out in equal measure. Ufomammut play a brand of sludgy, immensely heavy doom metal spiked with psychedelia and cosmic overtones, and the variation within that hybrid sound gives them room to bounce between meditative riffs, oscillating drones, and blown-speakers RAWK! with ease. On Opus Primum, there are synth-driven moments that veer toward Pink Floydian spaciness, enough whooshy psychedelic noises to make Kawabata Makoto salivate, and distorted spoken-word samples that sound as if picked up from an alien radio station.
Opus Primum is split up into five parts on disc, and there are enough stylistic differences between the parts to keep things engaging. Opening piece "Empireum" is a slow-building intro stretching 14 minutes, the simple music-box melody at the start layered over with drums, psychedelic synth washes, and a thick, muscular, one-note riff that is as heavy as anything under the Sunn O))) [sic]. That key melody is reprised on "Magickon," which integrates more muscular drumming and bass playing to take the heaviness one step further. There is a distinctly psychedelic vibe running through the ambient parts of the album—not in the wistful, doe-eyed sense you'd hear on a Flaming Lips album, but like Al Cisneros' effort with Om to reach higher planes of consciousness. It's an effective contrast to the parts of Opus Primum that are notable for just how fucking ENORMOUS they manage to sound, like centerpiece "Infearnatural," which sounds like a black hole collapsing in on itself.
This is not Ufomammut's first time tackling a project of this proportion: the band has become progressively more ambitious with each release, and 2010's Eve—also a five-part, album-length song—hung together remarkably well. The most impressive aspects of Opus Primum, as compared to Eve, is the sense of patience, pacing, and eventual payoff. The rising tide at the start—the aforementioned "Empireum"—segues into the album's early peak, "Aureum," a monstrous 12-minute segment that doubles down on its tempo halfway through. Whereas most of the album leans toward a cosmic, mind-expanding slow-drip of riffage—like if Sunn O))) fashioned their obelisk drones into song structures—"Aureum" releases the tension built by "Empireum," going lighter on psychedelia and heavier on straight-up rock action. That sense of dynamics, with well-timed fluctuations in tempo, riffs, and tone, is key to Opus Primum's success as it steamrolls forward.
Bassist Urlo shed light on the decision to split Oro into two halves in a recent interview: "I've never liked albums that are too long. [...] As it's a very long song, we thought it was a good idea to split it in two parts, to give each one time to assimilate with the listener." Just like with Earth's Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light albums, the decision is a wise one: I have kept Opus Primum on repeat all spring, to the point I now catch myself humming key riffs at times without the album playing. At 18 minutes, it is easily digestible in one sitting. Each of the five parts functions as a "song" of its own, but there is a noticeable ebb and flow to the presentation and sequencing, so that Opus Primum makes perfect sense as a single, long-form song as well. That said, there is something undeniably awesome about bands that don't stop trying to top themselves in ambition with each release. Sleep did it, and then split up after recording Dopesmoker, their magnum opus. Ufomammut are at the height of their powers, and I'm curious to hear whether Opus Alter can push these ideas even further.
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Out of all the Sleep albums, the one I would think was least in need of a remaster was Dopesmoker but here we are with a third version of the album (and another artwork change). However, once I got to hear this latest edition of the album, I can understand a little why the band wanted to clean it up. It certainly sounds better than any previous incarnation (though it definitely looks the worst out of all of them) and it is another good reason to talk about this masterpiece.
The story of this album should be fairly common knowledge but a quick recap for the uninitiated: after having moderate success with their album Holy Mountain, Sleep were signed to London Records for a large sum of money with the promise of artistic freedom. When London Records heard the subsequent album, they were understandably upset because how on earth were they going to market an hour-long piece of music about weed? The various debacles surrounding Dopesmoker ended up splitting the band. Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius reunited a few years later to form Om, and Matt Pike went down a more traditional metal route with High on Fire.
In the meantime, one version of the album was made available semi-officially in the form of Jerusalem. A shorter recording than the original given to London Records (Jerusalem was Sleep’s idea of a compromise), it was a raw and powerful document of a band transcending any idea of them being another stoner metal wannabe Black Sabbath. When Dopesmoker was finally released in 2003, the extra ten minutes or so of music was restored and the mix was a much tighter, more polished job. While it sounded great, I always found myself returning to the rougher edges of Jerusalem.
So now in 2012, here is another version of Dopesmoker yet again billed being presented as the band originally wanted it (I remember that being the billing for the 2003 version). This remastered edition does not take any of the polish off this particular version but it certainly sounds bigger than the 2003 edition. There seems to be better separation between the different members of the band, Cisneros’ vocals slightly less muddy (but still carrying all the energy of a dinosaur’s roar). It is not a huge difference but it certainly puts Kevin Shields’ recent "remastering" of the My Bloody Valentine releases to shame!
Moving away from historical and dry talk of mastering, Dopesmoker remains something much more than an album or a song. Yes, this is all about weed, and as everyone knows, stoners tend to be extremely boring when they get onto the topic of their favorite drug. Describing it to friends who are not into this kind of music, I find my words fall flat and I make it sound like Dude, Where’s My Car? with a distortion pedal. Listening to more than a couple of minutes of Dopesmoker reveals a very different story. Alchemically distilling the essence of Sabbath into one riff to end all riffs, Sleep create an ecstatic, religious pilgrimage through an imagined version of the Holy Lands where the air hangs thick and heavy with hashish smoke like incense at a mass.
The blending of religious themes and a drugged out state of mind brings to mind the practices and mysticism of Sufi Islam (and certainly fits with Cisneros’ output with Om with titles like Pilgrimage and God is Good, as well as strong middle Eastern and Eastern themes running through the music). The cover of the second edition of Jerusalem makes this link more apparent: a holy man prostrates himself in front of a burning flame. To Sleep, cannabis is a sacred gateway to a higher level of consciousness and through repetition, sustained notes and volume they use their music to tap into this state. Like La Monte Young or Coil, Sleep’s music is another way to change your perceptions and reach some form of psychedelic release. Granted it is in a very different vein to those artists, but the effect is similar.
The riff itself is hypnotic to the point of absurdity. The three players breathe smoke-laden air into the music, the sound waves themselves becoming more than just disturbances in pressure. When Pike’s guitar solos kick in, it feels like a shedding of weight as the music reaches out and grips me. Cisneros’ vocals are somewhere between a visionary chant and his deadpan delivery on earlier recordings. Taken altogether, the whole is far more than the sum of its parts as Dopesmoker expands beyond Earth and blasts off into the cosmos.
Like the 2003 release of Dopesmoker, this version also comes with a bonus live track. Unlike the cracking version of "Sonic Titan" on the previous issue, here we have a rough recording of "Holy Mountain" from 1994. The sound quality is atrocious and as good as the performance is, I cannot get past the poor recording. Personally I would have preferred if the album just contained Dopesmoker and perhaps an official version of the Volume Two live boot, or if decent remasters of the older albums were issued with this version of "Holy Mountain" as a bonus on one of those. Here it makes no sense and kills my buzz, man.
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SWANS - The Seer (YG45) 2xDigipack CD, 3xLP, Digital
(This album is also available as a special edition that includes a Swans Live DVD (at http://younggodrecords.com and live concerts only; view a trailer here: https://vimeo.com/42875372)
RELEASE DATE: August 28, 2012
Track Listing: 1.) Lunacy 2.) Mother of the World 3.) The Wolf 4.) The Seer 5.) The Seer Returns 6.) 93 Ave. B Blues 7.) The Daughter Brings the Water 8.) Song for a Warrior 9.) Avatar 10.) A Piece of the Sky 11.) The Apostate ...Total Running Time: approx. 2 hrs.
Recorded at Studio P4 and Andere Baustelle in Berlin, by Kevin McMahon and at Marcata Studio, Gardiner, NY, by Kevin McMahon. Additional recording at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, NY, engineer: Bryce Goggin. Mixed by Kevin McMahon at Marcata. Produced by Michael Gira.
SWANS: Michael Gira - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, casio, sounds; Norman Westberg - electric guitar, voice; Christoph Hahn - lap steel guitars; electric guitar, voice; Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, hammer dulcimer, voice; Thor Harris - drums, percussion, orchestral bells, hammer dulcimer, handmade violin thing, vibraphone, piano, clarinet, voice; Christopher Pravdica - bass guitar, voice, incredible handshake. Honorary Swan: Bill Rieflin - piano, organ, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, casio, synthesizer, bass guitar, voice, bird idea....
SPECIAL GUESTS INCLUDE : Al and Mimi of Low - (co-vocals with MG on Lunacy); Karen O - (lead vocal on Song for a Warrior); Jarboe - (background vocals on Piece of the Sky and The Seer Returns); Akron/Family - (background vocals on Piece of the Sky)... (many more guests - see full credits below)
NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA:
"The Seer took 30 years to make. It's the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I've ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it's unfinished, like the songs themselves. It's one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade.
The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in rehearsals, live and in the studio, and now they await further cannibalism and force-feeding as we prepare to perform some of them live, at which point they'll mutate further, endlessly, or perhaps be discarded for a while.
Despite what you might have heard or presumed, my quest is to spread light and joy through the world. My friends in Swans are all stellar men. Without them I'm a kitten, an infant. Our goal is the same: ecstasy! "
HOW THE SONGS CAME TO BE:
The songs The Seer, Ave. B Blues, Avatar, and The Apostate were developed organically as a group in rehearsals and on tour. They morphed constantly throughout the last series of Swans tours, and were captured and lovingly adorned in the studio. The remaining songs on the album were developed from the ground up in the studio with the participation and input of all the contributing musicians, guided by an invisible hand...
SWANS BEGIN ANOTHER ENDLESS TOUR COMMENCING AUGUST 2012. FOR FURTHER INFO REGARDING TOUR DATES CONTACT HOWARD WUELFING for U.S. publicity
FULL CREDITS:
SWANS: Michael Gira - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, casio, sounds; Norman Westberg - electric guitar, voice; Christoph Hahn - lap steel guitars; electric guitar, voice; Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, hammer dulcimer, voice; Thor Harris - drums, percussion, orchestral bells, hammer dulcimer, handmade violin thing, vibraphone, piano, clarinet, voice; Christopher Pravdica - bass guitar, voice, incredible handshake. Honorary Swan: Bill Rieflin - piano, organ, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, casio, synthesizer, bass guitar, voice, bird idea.... SPECIAL GUESTS: Karen O - lead vocal on Song for a Warrior (Karen appears courtesy Interscope Records); Al and Mimi of Low - co-vocals on Lunacy; Jarboe - backing vocals and voice collage on Piece of the Sky and backing vocals on The Seer Returns; Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, Dana Janssen (Akron/Family) - backing vocals on Piece of the Sky; Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella of Big Blood - accordion, vocals, dulcimer, guitar, piano and assorted other instruments on the Seer Returns; Sean Mackowiak (the grasshopper) - acoustic and electric mandolins, clarinet, various songs; Ben Frost - fire sounds (acoustic and synthetic) on Piece of the Sky; Iain Graham - bagpipes on The Seer ; Bruce Lamont - horns on The Seer; Bob Rutman - steel cello on The Seer; Cassis Staudt - accordion various songs; Eszter Balint - violin, various songs; Jane Scarpatoni - cello various songs; Kevin McMahon - additional drums on the Seer Returns, electric guitar, sounds on various songs; Bryce Goggin - piano on Song for a Warrior ;Stefan Rocke - contra bassoon on the Seer...
Produced by Michael Gira. Recorded at Studio P4 and Andere Baustelle in Berlin, by Kevin McMahon, assistants Marco and Boris, and at Marcata Studio, Gardiner, NY, by Kevin McMahon. Additional recording at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, NY, engineer: Bryce Goggin, assistant: Adam Sachs. Mixed by Kevin McMahon at Marcata. Mastered by Doug Henderson at Micro-Moose Berlin. Pre-mastering by Jamal Ruhe at West Westside Music... Artwork: Paintings and Swans photo portraits by Simon Henwood. Art direction and design: M.Gira. Layout by Earl Kuck at Revolver. Photo adjustments by David Clark Perry... This album is also available as a special edition that includes a Swans Live DVD (at younggodrecords.com <http://younggodrecords.com> and live concerts). DVD Credits: Directed, filmed and produced by Simon Henwood and Marco Porsia. Edited by Marco Porsia. Additional cameras: Rodney Ascher, Dan Knight, Phi Tidy, Alessandra Romeo.
SWANS U.S. Tour Dates:
9/6/2012 Vancouver BC Venue
9/7/2012 Seattle WA Neumo's Crystal Ball Reading Room
9/8/2012 Portland OR Hawthorne Theater
9/9/2012 9/10/2012 San Francisco CA The Regency Grand Ballroom
9/11/2012 Los Angeles CA The Music Box
9/12/2012 Phoenix AZ Crescent Ballroom
9/14/2012 Austin TX La Zona Rosa
9/15/2012 Houston TX Fitzgerald's Upstairs
9/16/2012 Dallas TX Trees
9/18/2012 Oklahoma City OK ACM Performance Lab
9/19/2012 Kansas City MO Beaumont Club
9/20/2012 Lincoln NE Bourbon Theatre
9/21/2012 Minneapolis MN Fineline Music Cafe
9/22/2012 Milwaukee WI Shank Hall
9/24/2012 Denver CO Gothic Theater
Xiu Xiu is support on all shows.
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When a band is doing something as specific as Bohren & Der Club of Gore, they are likely to skate along some thin lines. Bohren's death march, doomjazz is appealing in its starkness, but it often feels almost as funny as it does serious. I'm fairly sure that this is the point, but that point throws the band into some murky territory. Their latest record might just be the moment where they leap over onto the wrong side of that line.
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Even with his recent return to the guitar and reactivation of Main, Robert Hampson has still made time to record new material under his own name, with another album to follow this Fall. Repercussions is not quite an album but more a compilation of recent works, using different source materials and compositional strategies, but all bear that unmistakable stamp of quality Hampson is known for.
Répercussions is three distinct pieces compiled into one album:the title track, commissioned by the GRM for the Akousma Festival in 2011; "De la Terre à la Lune," from a 2009 planetarium performance in France, and finally "Antarctica Ends Here," which was previously released on a split 10" with Cindytalk.
The name of the title piece is a completely descriptive one, constructed from a variety of percussive sources, from drums to piano to metal grates and found objects.The distant, resonating thump that opens up the track is perhaps the clearest use of drums in the entire work: everything else is transformed and processed beyond recognition.The traditional and non-traditional instrumentation is reconstructed and mutated into crackling textures, electronic beacons, resonating bells and shimmering waves of sound.The second half is a bit more dissonant, with darker undercurrents swelling and falling over heavily treated clinks and clatters.It takes a turn for the quiet later on, with the occasional crash or bang from some unidentifiable source shaking things up.
"De la Terre à la Lune" is conceptually based around early NASA space missions, and acts as a follow-up to the Vectors track "Ahead-Only The Stars," channeling that same mix of sci-fi imagery with careful electro-acoustic composition.Quiet ocean-like waves of sound are paired with a mechanical hum before a rhythmic electronic pulse comes in, sounding somewhere between a broken sequencer and a distant radio transmission.Recurring static, again resembling far away communications appear throughout, with the odd hums and tones of unclear origin coming across like the ambient sound of technology from some alternate future.
The most striking aspect of these two pieces is that there is a constant, evolving dynamic to them.While both clock in at over 20 minutes, they evolve so much that there is no time to become stagnant.Like Hampson's recent Main performances, a constant flow of sound is the theme, all the while intricate layers and tactile noises appear and dissolve at a rapid pace.
The slight exception to this is the closing "Antarctica Ends Here," which adheres to a more steady course in comparison, though not in a boring sense at all.Recordings of wind coursing through bamboo fields are paired with processed and plaintive piano work.The slow, traditional sounding notes are combined with stretched and processed recordings that are stretched into melodic infinity.Compared to the other two, these overall sounds and themes stay pretty static, but slowly build in density and complexity toward the end.Not in a repetitious sense, but it remains more "on course" than the other two.
Robert Hampson seems to be active in occasional spurts of activity, and every time he has released music, it has been brilliant.From Vectors a few years back to this album, and of course including his expansive discographies as Main and with Loop, I have yet to hear anything other than genius from him.It should be noted that Répercussions includes the same material on a multi-track DVD Audio disc, but I did not have access to that for this review.Given that the first two pieces were originally multi-channel installations, I am certain it only adds to its greatness.
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This has got to be one of the most improbable, altruistic, and quixotic box sets ever produced, as it compiles 12 albums worth of almost entirely unreleased material from Oliveros' fertile early years.  That, of course, means: 1.) none of her early masterpieces like "Bye Bye Butterfly" are here, and 2.) nothing at all is included from the wildly different (and superior) work that she has done over the last four decades.  Those caveats, coupled with the inarguable fact that no artist on earth has a dozen killer albums worth of vault material lying around, makes this a pretty undesirable prospect for the merely curious or for anyone looking for a definitive retrospective.  For serious fans of early electronic music, however, this is an absolute goldmine.
The length and breadth of Pauline Oliveros' career is pretty astonishing by any standard, as she has essentially lived two equally visionary, yet totally disparate, creative lives.  Superficially, the pieces collected here have zero relation to my previous conception of Pauline as an artist.  In fact, it is difficult to imagine her even listening to music like this, let alone creating it (and so much of it besides).  The reason for that is the sheer artificiality inherent in creating sounds solely from oscillators, wave generators, and modular synthesizers.  Oliveros' work over the last several decades seems aggressively antithetical to anything resembling inhuman buzzes and bleeps, instead employing an almost entirely organic palette centered around her iconic accordion and an array of collaborators.  On a deeper level, however, it all makes sense: she just found a different way to explore her lifelong fascination with acoustics, the fluidity of time, and the way masses of frequencies interact with each other.  Her means have a consistent thread as well, as her technological creativity is now employed to find ways to make very human and "real" sounds seem hyper-real.
The twelve discs of Reverberations are arranged in chronological order with the location of their origin included as well, which makes following Pauline's trajectory both enticing and easy.  The earliest piece is 1961's "Time Perspectives," a tape-based work that was recorded in Oliveros' home utilizing the acoustic properties of her bathtub.  It is a bit of an anomaly, as it is the set's sole musique concrète piece, mostly derived from water noises and other non-musical sounds.
The next two discs cover 1964-1966, the period in which Pauline, Terry Riley, and others, armed with WWII surplus equipment, founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center.  This period is notable for several reasons.  For one, Pauline recorded one of her greatest pieces during this time, the aforementioned "Bye Bye Butterfly" (not included, sadly).  Secondly, it coincided with her plunge into the world of electronically generated beeps, buzzes, whines, and hums (the "Mnemonics" series), an artistic path that she followed for the duration of this compilation's scope.  Finally, it should be noted that Oliveros had an unusual approach to tape music, eschewing cutting-and-splicing of her peers for an obsession with tape-based delay and an insistence upon pieces that could be replicated live and in real-time.
Later in 1966, Pauline headed to the University of Toronto's Electronic Music Studio, which was much better equipped.Even though she was there less than a year, this was a hugely productive period for her and comprises five entire discs of the set.  This is where things start to get interesting, both from a musical perspective and a theoretical one.  Musically, the various electronic hums and whines that characterized her Tape Center work are used for far more ambitious, vibrant, and complexly textured compositions–this is where Pauline's work becomes truly distinctive.  The actual sounds being generated are not noticeably different than those generated in the far more modest San Francisco studio, but the complexity and effectiveness of their interactions is on an entirely different level.
Correspondingly, a few of her more famous works ("Big Mother is Watching You" and "I of IV") originated from this period.  While neither is included, many variations and concurrent works are here, so their absence is not terribly glaring.  Also, some of the less famous pieces are quite visceral and weirdly contemporary-sounding: she could probably still tear the roof off of a noise show with a piece like "The Day I Disconnected the Erase Head and Forgot to Reconnect It."
I was most fascinated, however, by the theory behind Pauline's work at this time, a theory which caused UTEMS' director to accuse her of dabbling in the black arts:  Oliveros set all of the studio's twelve square-wave generators to frequencies outside the range of human hearing, relying on the clashing frequencies to create their own audible sounds (this is called "the heterodyne technique").  She also discovered that the pressure waves caused by unheard high frequency sounds can still be felt and that some frequencies created distortion by interacting with the bias frequency of her tape machines, all of which I found fascinating.
Near the end of 1966, Pauline became the director of the relocated Tape Center at Mills College.  This period takes up 2½ discs and yielded her classic "Alien Bog."  Again, that is not included here, but several other "Bog" variations are and they are pretty weird and divergent compared to what came before them.  In a perverse way, they are the first harbinger of Oliveros' imminent and dramatic change in direction–while they certainly sound as artificial and electronic as ever, they were a conscious attempt to replicate the omnipresent insectoid hum that emerged from the Texas wetlands of her youth.  Her Texan childhood manifests itself in another (more unexpected) way as well, as the liner notes divulge that her love of tape delay is rooted in the echo and delay used in Western Swing and jukebox hits like Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High the Moon."
Pauline's "Bog-period" bout with mutant naturalism was short-lived, however, as the final two discs plunge into remarkably caustic noise.  This is especially surprising given that they coincide with her acceptance of a teaching position in the music department of UC San Diego.  While the obligations of teaching certainly slowed her creative output (and brought this phase of her career to an end), Pauline's time at UCSD ultimately turned out to be very significant and fruitful philosophically: she befriended physicist Lester Ingber and became extremely interested in how the mind focuses on sound, shaping decades of her work to come.  Also, in a more general way, she simply became increasingly disinterested in the isolated, hermetic world of her studio and more concerned with exploring the potential of both other people and the natural world.
Taken as a solely musical endeavor, Reverberations is a pretty exhausting set with many similar-sounding and very long pieces, but there are certainly some great ones among them (and they are practically all appearing for the first time).  More importantly, however, this set was clearly a labor of love on Important's part and it shows in every way.  I was especially impressed by the liner notes, which were genuinely colorful, understandable, and informative.  Bluntly speaking, there is not a lot of overt personality or variation in how oscillators, wave generators, and early synthesizers sound (regardless of who is playing them), so learning about why and how a piece came into existence enhances the listening experience immeasurably and adds several new layers to appreciate.  Also, I learned some neat Oliveros trivia that made me even more predisposed to enjoy her work, like the fact that she used to play shows with oscillators mischievously and deliberately set to the resonant frequency of the venue, often resulting in a mass exodus. As a result, Reverbations feels far more like an engaging history of a restless and groundbreaking artist than a mere compilation.  I still very much prefer Pauline's later work, but having a deeper understanding of the convoluted path she took to get there makes me appreciate it even more.
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Pauline Oliveros' best-known and influential work is 1989's Deep Listening, recorded in a massive, reverberant cistern.  In the years since that landmark effort, Pauline has founded The Deep Listening Institute, the Deep Listening Band, and performed many mesmerizing concerts in her unending crusade to explore the untapped potential of space, place, and (of course) reverberation.  These two previously unreleased albums capture some of the final recordings her band made with (the late) long-term collaborator/pianist/electronics wizard David Gamper. Although both performances occurred over the course of a January 2011 Seattle residency, they almost sound like two completely different bands: Octagonal Polyphony luxuriates in sublime, slow-motion drones while Great Howl becomes pretty nerve-jangling.
Releasing actual albums has always been something of a tricky and flawed situation for the Deep Listening Band, as the way that sound is experienced is a very large part of their art and that can be quite site-specific.  Some aspects of their vision translate well, such as the 45-second reverb of Deep Listening's cistern or the way that overlapping layers blur together and interact.  However, approximating the omnidirectional immersion of an actual concert seems pretty damn impossible due to the unusual number and location of the speakers involved.  And then, of course, there is the added impact of the band's self-designed Expanded Instrument System (EIS), which I do not understand at all, but seems to mess with both time and space and allow players to "perform in the past, present, and future simultaneously."  The gist is that it sounds like the band is a hell of a lot larger than it actually is (a trio).  Trombonist Stuart Dempster actually states in the liner notes that countless hours of listening, re-listening, mixing, and remixing managed to capture a hint of the experience and that seems like a plausible estimate to me.  This music doesn't strike me from all directions at once, but it undeniably has a unique presence and power.  It doesn't hurt that the music itself is pretty amazing too.
"Bell Dance," the first of two pieces on Octagonal Polyphony, is appropriately based upon a rippling lattice of twinkling, chiming bells.  It is not especially dance-able though, as it is filled out by lengthy sustained tones from woodwinds and Dempster's trombone.  Gradually, however, it becomes more and more disorienting, as occasional dissonances start to creep in and something that sounds like a plucked violin begins playing an insistent motif that makes it all sound like a badly derailed Steve Reich piece.  While it undeniably achieves an appealing degree of complexity and unpredictability, it gets a bit too bombastic and trombone-heavy for my liking at about the halfway point.  It regains some momentum briefly though, as a snarled surge of didgeridoo heralds quite a cacophonous interlude.  The last five minutes or so end up being pretty weird, jumbled, and dissonant, leaving me a bit conflicted about the piece.  I think the actual content is ultimately a bit lacking, but it is so dense, multilayered, and dynamic that it almost overcomes that...almost.  I definitely give them credit for making didgeridoos sound scary and heavy though.
"Dreamport" is built upon a low, undulating throb and some shimmering, uncomfortably dense accordion harmonies.  Given the involvement of the EIS, it is pretty impossible to figure out who is playing what and when, but the piece quickly becomes incredibly dense and vibrant with overlapping textures and overtones.  Though I can pick out Dempster's trombone and some very ominous didgeridoos, it achieves such a quavering, skittering immensity within minutes that individual instruments become irrelevant.  More importantly, it is an absolutely wonderful piece of music–I could not be happier that it unfolds for 22-minutes and found myself gradually turning it up louder and louder.  While "Dreamport" ostensibly adheres to the structure of drone music, it is so massive, dynamic, and uneasy that it bears almost no resemblance to most other work in the genre.  To a certain degree, it captures the Deep Listening Band at their sustained best, but even that pales a bit when compared to the more disturbed and visceral companion effort discussed below.
Great Howl at Town Hall deceptively begins in very similar droning fashion to Octagonal Polyphony, as "Town Haul" opens with throbbing drones, growling didgeridoo, and deep, accordion-produced breath-like noises.  However, the periphery is a bit more jagged and unhinged: amidst the massing sustained tones, there are all kinds of sharp whines and squeaks, as well as various unidentifiable strangled squawks. By the halfway point, it ceases sounding like drone at all and more closely resembles an especially hallucinatory horror film soundtrack...and then it continues to intensify.  By the end, I started to seriously wonder if I was about to be attacked by a flock or swarm of something ill-intentioned.  That dissonant, uneasy atmosphere pretty much sticks around for entire album, though the tension admittedly ebbs and flows quite a bit (it would be overwhelmingly uncomfortable otherwise).
"Great Haul" is initially a bit less disquieting, as it merely sounds deranged rather than menacing: it has an odd, lurching rhythm and the blurting music sounds drunk, chromatic, and sometimes eerily speech-like (presumably some kind of neat trombone/wah-wah pedal trick).  It is nevertheless an incredibly complicated piece and various layers of field recordings and dissonant string-like noises rapidly escalate into a crescendo that is about as apocalyptic and overwhelming as it gets.  It must have been very memorable and surreal for concert attendees to experience such face-melting intensity from a trio of senior citizens armed with accordions and trombones.  Though it eventually subsides into a shimmering coda with lingering flashes of dissonance, it is essentially 12-and-a-half minutes of unbridled awesomeness that is scarier and more innovative than 95% of the extreme music being made today.
The longer "Great Horned Howl" starts off on an unexpectedly pastoral note, as Gamper's piano ripples amiably without any significant threat of being overwhelmed by dissonance.  Notably, he manages to simultaneously call to mind both Steve Reich and Conlon Nancarrow, which is an unusual feat indeed (his Reich-ian repeating patterns start to multiply and some are sped-up and pitch-shifted to an inhuman degree).  Around the midpoint, things settle into a strange gibbering and skittering lull before getting very weird indeed.  I wish I could I say knew what was going on, but I definitely do not–all I know as that the piece begins being populated with cartoon voices and Halloween sound effects like howling wolves and cackling witches and that it is all bat-shit crazy.  I think there may also be some monkeys and birds thrown into the mix as well.  While I appreciate being totally blind-sided and wrong-footed by a piece of music, it is simply too unhinged and outré even for me (especially at nearly 20-minutes long).
The album closes with "Growl Howl" (someone in the band is clearly fond of absurdist wordplay), which revisits the skittering/gibbering chromatic aesthetic of the previous piece, sans sound effects.  Then it unexpectedly snowballs into a brief crescendo even more intense than that of "Great Haul," complete with jarring aftershocks.  It is probably one of the heaviest things that I have ever heard, given its context and suddenness.  Curiously, things become subdued, mournful, and strangely beautiful after the outburst, though an ominous rumbling quickly threatens to envelope my welcome respite of conventional beauty.  The rumbles eventually triumph, but the doomed, melancholy motif somehow becomes even more moving as it is being consumed.  The last five minutes of the piece don't quite ever recapture either the visceral impact or the emotional resonance of the preceding ten, but Oliveros' uneasily dissonant accordion settles into a steady rhythm that calls to mind slow, deep breaths, ending the album in a completely appropriate way (like recovering from a traumatic scare or other harrowing experience).
Normal rules for music criticism don't quite feel like they apply to these albums, as they seem somehow more vivid and multi-dimensional than other music: the content is almost secondary to the immensity and vibrancy of the sounds being created.  While neither album is an unqualified success and the trio make a number of musical decisions that I am not entirely fond of, I am nevertheless left feeling like that does not matter terribly much at all.  In fact, I feel like I indirectly experienced something rather monumental–when Dempster, Oliveros, and Gamper (along with unsung hero/engineer Michael McCrea) are at their best, they are absolutely staggering and seem more like a force of nature than a band.  The Deep Listening Band was (is?) a wholly unique phenomenon: while it is hardly a secret that bizarre and dissonant avant-garde music is infinitely more palatable when coupled with presence, immediacy, and gut-level power, no one else has perfected that difficult balance quite as beautifully as this.
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- Albums and Singles
Named after the groundbreaking 1926 film by Kenji Mizoguchi, this collaboration opens with a very familiar sound found in the first two Vikki Jackman albums: Vikki on piano. Once again it is a slow, delicate, and serene melody, but it is brief and a quite deceptive introduction to the album, conceptually. There is very little of the bright piano as the record unfolds.
private release via Faraway Press
While I am versed on Andrew Chalk, I don't have any frame of reference for Jean-Noel Rebilly. Chalk is certainly versatile enough to manipulate moods and feelings with what sounds like the slightest changes in textures and timbre. A Paper Doll's Whisper of Spring shares the very direct characteristic of Vikki's most recent solo album, Whispering Pages: the songs vary in length but are all grounded in a relatively short time, unlike the sidelong pieces on her first album, Of Beauty Reminiscing, where the whole feel was far more dreamlike. Paper Doll's Whisper... is not as bright as Whispering Pages, however, and is somewhat odd to listen to this time of year as the summer is beginning.
Great Britain isn't exactly known for its pleasant weather and this spring has been an exceptionally grey and rainy one, so it's probably no surprise that this album is a product of the winter and cold spring. There's a sense of sadness and longing, which is quite a change from what I considered was an uplifting album. Following the under a minute opening "Mist," the trio present two pieces absent of a recognizable piano. "Nami" is a gorgeous interplay with almost inaudible low rumblings, matched with long, echoing sounds that seem to whisper every now and again, while what sounds like a plucked instrument of some sort is providing the only element that hints at melody. More importantly is the sort of feeling of sorrow, which is something I wasn't expecting. "Snowflake," which follows, has a sense of longing, perhaps a sleep that desires to wake up soon.
It isn't until "Magnolia" where the piano is identifiably audible again. If "Snowflake" is the longing to wake up, "Magnolia" is certainly the break of day. On this beautiful album centerpiece, it seems like the piano is only accompanied by the faint sounds of a wind instrument, possibly a clarinet, and the echoes of the piano looping back. All around is a delicate sense of stillness but the mood is far more uplifting and alive with hope.
What follows seems more like sketches, as each of the four remaining songs are extremely brief at around four minutes and under. With music this patient, a two or three minute piece doesn't have the time to fully develop, especially in "Wandering," where the echoes seem to quiet down to almost nothing in the middle and swell back up again before it fades out, almost unnaturally. "Plume" sounds like the reintroduction of the clarinet that may have been heard in "Magnolia," with a very unnerving and dissonant play between that, the piano, and possibly a very low frequency bass. This piece is under two minutes and also fades unnaturally, suggesting that it could have gone on much longer with much less than desirable results. Now I'm left with the sense of longing for something that could have become out of that session which could have been more rewarding as a much longer and more developed piece.
"Whispers" closes the album appropriately with a play between a softer, more somber piano and string-like accompaniment, and the mood is far more of a sunset than the feeling of sunrise on "Magnolia." While I do enjoy it and can appreciate its beauty I feel like we got to this point a little too fast. Even though the album is nearly 45 minutes, Paper Doll's Whisper... almost seems like it went by too quickly.
Once again the duo of Jackman and Chalk have assembled an amazingly special and personal package, this one is a fold out constructed of an embossed paper, affixed artwork, and a beautiful hand crafted inside with a vellum lining. Unfortunately this is now sold out at the source, so the only resources to locate the album at this point are stores and auctions. I hope that this trio meets again, however, to more fully develop some of what seems like sketch-work that characterizes the last bits of the album.
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