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Recorded live at the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2010, Slugfield is a trio of Lasse Marhaug, Maja S.K. Ratkje, and Paal Nilssen-Love, three artists who would rarely have the "j" genre applied to them. The five tracks that make up this improvisation aren't jazzy in the traditional sense, but instead channel that combination of chaotic sonic freedom and moments where the artists lock together as a singular, three headed noise making beast.
It's Nilssen-Love's drumming throughout these songs that keep it in league free jazz the most. From the shambolic, kitchen sink freakouts of "Get Out The Traps" to the alternating sparse rhythms and rapid blast beats of "Bring 'Em On," he provides energetic propulsion. However, he's not afraid to lock into a traditional rhythm on the latter, or to step back completely to allow Marhaug and Ratkje's electronics breathe on their own.
Ratkje's contribution that is the most easily identifiable is her vocalisms, which to some extent could be labeled as jazz scat singing, but comes across far less human or even identifiable. Occasionally an obviously human guttural chirp or shrill squeak gets through, but it mostly becomes another abstract textural piece of the puzzle. It shows up sparingly, and I would imagine human physiology has a lot to do with that, given the physicality of her performance.
The third component of this trio, Lasse Marhaug, contributes mostly electronic outbursts and occasional turntable scraping, most notably on "Bring 'Em On," where it sounds like he is spinning (and scratching) a record of farm animal noises on top of elongated electronics and weird loops. His electronics though are far more sparse and less abrasive than his solo noise work, and instead are often a pleasant study of textures, sometimes reduced to the occasional crackle or looped bit of static.
The best moments are when the focus shifts from sparse micro-sounds to more harsh noise, like the departure from traditional rhythms and tasteful electronics to full on screams and feedback, on "Slugs for Lunch." The balance is struck throughout the album, but here it is the most obvious and overt.
While it was performed at a jazz festival, the genre is more insinuated than obvious here. Slugfield embrace the dynamic improvisation of free jazz, but give it a sheen of electro-acoustic experimentation and occasional harsh noise indulgence. The result is captivating in its lighter moments, and completely thrilling in its more disjointed ones, coming together almost perfectly as a singular work.
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Aaron Turner and Faith Coloccia's more esoteric, less traditionally "metal" side label Sige has been responsible for some unexpected, but brilliant pieces of dark sonic exploration in recent years, but with this LP, the most unexpected is simply how normal it sounds. Although lyrically it is as dark and sinister as any metal album, the airy feminine vocals of bassist Sera Timms and drummer Kelly Johnston enshroud it with a certain gauzy bliss that belies its dark content.
Opener "The Vessel & The Stake" and "Slain in Spirit" sit clearly within the darker end of the spectrum, with almost black metal guitar riffs and militaristic drums opening the former. Everything eventually slows down into a doomy lurch, however.With a meandering shuffle propelling them, the vocals strike that tenuous balance between being overly feminine and over the top abrasive in tone, a combination which sadly does not happen often.Both of these show a clear alternating between faster and slower tempos, speeding up to a more classic rock pace, then slowing down to that doom trudge.
On "Starless Midnight" the trio seem to move a bit lighter, and with a subtle guitar twang leads into some common ground with the recent Earth albums.The parallel is even clearer with its adherence to a droning, repetitive structure compared to the other, more dynamic and heavier tracks."Austrian Windows" also pretty much avoids the traditionalist doom metal trappings, with a guitar/vocal pairing that comes across as Judas Priest putting out a 4AD album, but its marching rhythms give it a distinctly different flavor of darkness.
The biggest shortcoming of this album is there is not a huge amount of variation from track to track, with most sharing similar sounding guitar and bass tones.Additionally, most either lock into more droning, repetitive structures or doom to rock and back again dynamics.There's nothing inherently wrong with that because it’s a unique sound, but whenever there is a more significant change, such as the more rhythmic opening and looser overall feeling of "Reaping Golden", the change stands out all the more.
Given that this is their first real album, with only a demo EP and split single previously, that sameness can be overlooked as a new band that are still finding their own sound.The combination of old school doom with lighter, almost ethereal guitars and vocals give Ides of Gemini a distinct sound in a crowded field, which goes a long way.I hope that future releases see the trio changing up the plans a bit more, but Constantinople is a strong opening statement.
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Although my initial enthusiasm for this project has been dampened somewhat by Rachel Evans' deluge of similar-sounding releases, her ambitious and divergent debut for Editions Mego's Spectrum Spools imprint demonstrates that she still has some tricks up her sleeve.  While her characteristic layers of gauze-y, ethereal vocals have not vanished entirely, they are unexpectedly infrequent and rarely take center stage.  Instead, this sprawling double-album plunges headlong into burbling, drifting, and subtly hallucinatory synth-based psychedelia and stays there for a pleasantly long time.
I am certain that it was no arbitrary or casual decision to make this album self-titled, as it has the definite feel of an attempted magnum opus.  While I remain indecisive about whether or not this constitutes Evans' zenith, these are definitely the most massive, deliberate, and complex compositions that I have heard from her.  Well, aside from possibly the "compositions" part, as it is very hard to guess how these pieces originated.  It sure seems likely that there was a lot of improvisation, editing, and rearranging involved though.  That is not a critique–I merely mean that each of these four side-long (20+ minute) pieces is so shifting, vaporous, and amorphous that it seems impossible that Rachel could have fully envisioned and consciously executed the disorienting arc that each song ultimately follows.  While I myself certainly can't remember how most of these songs started by the time they eventually end, there are many oases of memorability and melody in between that sound very much planned, so some intelligent organization certainly occurred somewhere along the line. It is certainly an odd structure, but it works.  Also, it makes sense when I consider Evans' history of cassette releases, as some imagination is certainly required to avoid leaving blank stretches.
Because of the fluid, drifting nature of the pieces and the long running times, so much stylistic territory is covered that it is pretty hard to conclusively summarize or "like" an entire piece.  I could probably do without some of the bloopier, candy-colored, golden-years-of-analog-synthesizer-homage passages, but they are easily balanced out by the alternately dreamy, sublime, breathy, or otherworldly passages that surround them.  I was especially fond of the closing "One Perfect Moment," which begins beautifully with a cool twinkling synth hook that is slowly consumed by warm chord swells and a somewhat damaged-sounding chorus of vocal layers.  The fact that Evans' voice sounds somewhat distorted and broken-up was especially unexpected and welcome, as one of my primary hurdles with Motion Sickness has always been that it is generally too muted and mannered to hit me on an emotional level.  "Moment" corrects that and runs with it, morphing into a hazy drone stretch that becomes increasingly disrupted by washes of hiss and throbbing bass surges.  It eventually loses a little momentum, but I can't stress enough how much more moving Evans' music is when its angelic tendencies are buffeted by harsher and more unpredictable textures.  There are at least 10 perfect minutes in that song and that is a conservative estimate.
I did not expect to like this album nearly as much as I do, but it is weirdly endearing despite its bloat and occasional less-than-great stretches.  Rachel took some significant risks, stepped out of her comfort zone, and managed to sustain it all for a very lysergic and enveloping 90 minutes.  She even managed to paradoxically make bloat and inconsistency seem like virtues, as this album is best experienced as full immersion: were it any shorter, it wouldn't be nearly so absorbing and the odd dodgy patch only serves to heighten the unpredictability and make transitions into the better motifs even more striking.  This probably isn't the ideal first place to start for anyone new to Motion Sickness of Time Travel, as it is both massive and not particularly representative of her past aesthetic, but "One Perfect Moment" might be the single best piece she's ever recorded.  For current admirers, this is absolutely essential.  It has its flaws, but they are largely eclipsed by its vision, enormity, and otherness.
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Kevin Doherty has long been one of the most quietly compelling artists working in the dark ambient field due to his unusual (and oft-alienating) themes and his inventive artistic purity in realizing them.  This release, which was commissioned by Cold Spring, is constructed entirely from recordings made during the maintenance of a B-2 Stealth Bomber.  While not as objectively impressive as wringing two full albums out of a three-minute recording of a broken heater (Dead Weather Machine) or as musical as his homage to the doomed spaceship in Alien (Nostromo), Stealth is fascinating in its own right and makes a worthy addition to a unique body of work.
This is a rather challenging album for reasons that are not entirely intuitive or immediately obvious, but the bonus disk of "pre-mix" recordings is very effective in illustrating most of them.  The "original, unedited" sounds actually seem to be significantly processed, cleaned-up, and EQed, but that makes sense, given that Doherty is presenting them as a separate full-length album.  However, they are unmanipulated in the sense that they are not cut-up, composed, layered, or restructured.  More importantly, they already sound pretty great–it is easy to understand why this was commissioned.This turns out to be something of blessing and a curse though, as there is not much need for added artistry when the bomber itself is already providing a host of ominous hums, eerie crackles, lonely beeps, and garbled voice transmissions before Kevin even gets involved (though there is obviously some artistry involved in choosing which sounds to record and focus on).
Another issue stems from Doherty's thematically pure approach to his compositions.  He believes that there are limitless possibilities in manipulating existing recordings, so he doesn't add any instrumentation here.  In an abstract way, he is correct.  In the context of this album, however, the possibilities seem pretty damn limited, given Kevin's decision to leave everything in a relatively recognizable state.  Stealth is essentially an hour of endless rumble, hum, and buzz texturized by chattering electronic noises and static-heavy radio communications.  There isn't much of an long-term arc or sense of dynamic variation, which puts me in the absurd position of being frustrated that ambient music is too ambient: maintaining an unbroken, immersive mood free of jarring sounds or crescendos is essentially Doherty's very raison d'etre.  Unfortunately, there are already many, many albums of bleak rumbling out there, so I was hoping for more of a distinctive variation on that formula than some added radio transmissions (even though they are undeniably a nice touch).  I understand that a lot of Stealth's appeal is conceptual and process-based, but that does not entirely erase my expectations for how it should actually sound–I wanted "great" and I got "pretty good."
Another curious aspect of this album is that Kevin seems to have fully internalized the essence of Stealth bombers and attempted to replicate it within the album: Stealth is a very elusive, mysterious, and subtly unsettling batch of songs.  Nothing overt ever happens, but the simmering dread never, ever resolves.  The only exception is "Stealth3," in which the radio transmissions sound noticeably panicked and the accompanying whines become pronounced enough to seem somewhat menacing.  Aside from just sounding unnerving, it packs the added punch of making me wonder why a plane sitting in a hangar in England would be getting besieged with (garbled) transmissions that sound like pleas for help.  Moments like that show that Stealth can be a very rewarding listen if I meet it halfway with appropriate attention and focus, but it is much more of an unqualified success artistically than it is as a listening experience.  However, even though I find Doherty's earlier albums a bit more compelling at the moment, I have a nagging suspicion that that may someday change if I devote enough time to Stealth's sublime hums to fully unveil their secrets and nuances.
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Simple, haunting, and frequently plaintive piano music is Robert Haigh's bread and butter. He's a master at making the most out of very little. His career is marked by memorable collaborations with Nurse with Wound, tape shenanigans as Truth Club, pseudo-new age adventures with Silent Storm, and numerous other projects, but his best music is undoubtedly for solo piano. Notes and Crossings is ostensibly a collection of preludes, dances, and improvisations, but the album's collective weight fosters a more cohesive sense. As with much of his work, Haigh's writing here is heavy and introspective, with hints of madness lurking beneath the surface, but it's also immediate and strangely catchy thanks to all the sharp, short, and effective melodies he produces.
Robert Haigh's greatest strength is the simplicity of his writing. He deploys it to capture his audience's attention, then proceeds to deepen the character of his music with layers of intrigue and soul-searching exploration until the apparently simple is shown to be something deeper and more considerable. On the surface, Notes and Crossings is a beautiful and straightforward record, capable of communicating several moods quickly and effortlessly. This is because very little stands between Haigh's inspiration and his audience. Without accompaniment, Robert draws a surprisingly direct line from himself to whoever is listening. Hearing one of his songs is akin to hearing him whisper in my ear, with all the nuances of his speech condensed into lilting phrases and slowly evolving themes. Memorable melodies, ghostly harmonies, yearning phrases, and tense, frequently circular rhythms are often the only figures populating his songs, and with them he draws up a surprisingly diverse cast of expressions and feelings.
One song is clearly ponderous, circling slowly around the same tonal center, but afraid to land, and another is timid or doubtful, struggling to advance through a series of leaping rhythms. Still others are remorseful, bittersweet, happy, or resigned. That Haigh's music clearly conveys such a variety of emotions and ideas isn't terribly impressive, at least not by itself. But, that he does it on such a thin budget and without recourse to atonal contrivances or obviously mechanical means is impressive. His music is soulful, personal, and finally elaborate, mostly because Robert strives for the rare kind of honesty that is accompanied by ambiguity and delicacy. At the heart of Robert Haigh's music is Robert Haigh.
The album's title suggests miscellany, and the naming conventions for many of the songs also suggest that Notes and Crossings is a collection of ideas or sketches instead of a complete and coherent album. "Tomorrow Never Came" is evidently from 1989, and it's appearance adds to that impression. On the other hand, several songs are directly linked to one another, if not by title, then by musical themes. "Lost On a Train" and "Lost Again" are the most obvious cousins on the record, but both the "Invention" pieces and the several preludes found throughout help to form a web of references, which gives Notes and Crossings a unified air. Furthering the sense of completeness is a pervading mood of interiority cultivated by strokes of silence, both broad and minuscule. Haigh leaves ample space between his notes, both literally and figuratively, so that even the most composed of these songs feels wide open, thoughtful, and potentially improvised. Finally, I have a sense that much of the album was composed in the same key, or at least in a chain closely related keys. My musical ability isn't strong enough to identify which mode Haigh is working in, but the color of his music is very similar throughout, so that even if these songs were composed years apart, they would sound intimately related.
Still, Haigh's scales are not the sole agents responsible for the sense of unity that I think is so central to Notes and Crossings. By the end of the album, Robert has concocted a hazy, dizzy, and somnambulant mixture of romantic music and deeply personal utterances. His sense of space and composition have a lot to do with that, as do his melodies, but the album also harbors a particular and unique spirit. Thanks to the honesty and directness of Haigh's writing, Notes and Crossings feels like a personal invitation, animated by a language that belongs only to him and perhaps a few others (mostly his influences). By marrying technique, spirit, and honesty so completely, Robert accomplishes a purity of expression that is simultaneously candid and mysterious. Every remark is overdetermined with meaning, but never pretentiously nor ostentatiously so. His music is perched on a difficult and twisted peak, with self-parody and melodrama threatening on every side. Robert never succumbs to those dangers, however, and he produces some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard as a result.
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SWANS: WE ROSE FROM YOUR BED WITH THE SUN IN OUR HEAD 2XDIGIPACK CD
YG1969 | CD
ORDERS WILL SHIP MONDAY MAY 14
-SIGNED BY M.GIRA-
SWANS YG1969
This is now available as a deluxe digipack with beautiful art by Heidi Yardley.
“We Rose…” was initially released as a limited edition of 1000, handmade special 2xcd package with various levels of purchase for fans to offset the costs of the new Swans studio album The Seer. The edition of 1000 sold out in under 24 hours.
Here are some early reviews for your perusal:
from The Quietus
from Tiny Mix Tapes
from Pitchfork
TRACK LISTING: disc one: 1. intro/no words no thoughts 2. jim 3. beautiful child 4. the apostate 5. yr property 6. sex god sex disc two: 1. the seer (intro)/ i crawled 2. eden prison 3. 93 ave. b blues / little mouth.
Recorded variously in Melbourne Australia, Berlin Germany, and NYC.
SWANS: michael gira - guitar, vocal; norman westerg - guitar; phil puleo - drums, duclimer; thor harris - drums/percussion, vibes, clarinet, melodica, violin; christoph hahn - double lap steel guitar; christopher pravdica - bass.
These recordings capture the rejuvenated and invigorated Swans as the group staked out new sonic and rhythmic terrain in 2010/11. The seeds of much of the upcoming album The Seer are contained herein as the group developed new material while on tour. The tour(s) saw Swans enjoy the largest and most diverse audiences of their career. Contrary to the expectations of some, the experience was, though sometimes extreme, always joyous.
Note from Michael Gira: Thanks to all of you who attended the Swans shows during our recent tours. The experience, for us, was life-giving and nourishing. The audiences were not only the largest with which we’ve ever been blessed, but the most genuinely connected and in tune with the sonic/psychic experience in which we all participate. Thank you!... Represented in these discs are the best recordings we could provide of the (ever-evolving) shows. Those of you who attended the early shows realize that the first iterations of the music morphed and grew (seemingly with a will more expansive than our own) into something quite different by the end. This, in itself, was immensely gratifying. We also developed many new songs – or sonic events is perhaps a better way to describe some of them - along the way. In compiling these recordings and mixing them with my trusted friend and engineer Kevin McMahon (at Marcata Studio, Gardiner NY), we did our best to represent that transition... if you choose to acquire this 2 disc set, in my view it would behoove you to listen to the music at a generous volume level. This has absolutely nothing to do with an aggressive intent, as some mistakenly assume. Exactly the opposite, in fact. As with the live experience, it’s all about immersion. We – Swans - experience that sense of being subsumed in something greater than ourselves when we perform, too. Maybe that’s even our selfish reason for making the music in the first place. At the best of moments, it doesn’t even feel as if we are playing the music ourselves. More that we’re animated – vivified – by the ongoing sonic wave. I can’t speak for my friends and cohorts, but it’s what I live for. In any event, it’s my hope these discs provide you with a positive experience of some sort....
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As anyone who picked up Siamese Soul or Electric Cambodia last year will probably attest, there was some absolutely amazing music being made in Southeast Asia in the '60s and '70s, so I was pretty thrilled when I heard Soundway was throwing their hat in the Thai pop ring.  As expected, The Sound of Siam is a pretty spectacular album, expertly balancing soulful, funky greatness with exuberant, kitschy fun and unearthing some incredibly obscure artists in the process.
The Sound of Siam is the first Soundway collection to involve curator Chris Menist, who has previously done some work for Soul Jazz and compiled a very interesting sounding collection of weird Pakistani film music for Finders Keepers.  Menist is an English percussionist/music journalist currently living in Bangkok, which makes him one of few people uniquely suited for this endeavor.  Nevertheless, assembling a compilation of decades-old Thai music would be a Herculean undertaking for anyone–even without a language barrier–and one that requires complete immersion, patience, and a hell of a lot of crate-digging.  At the time of many of these recordings, recording studios, records, and record players were all quite uncommon in Thailand, so releases were often self-distributed and went largely to collectors and folks like party DJs until cassettes ultimately took hold. Things are further complicated by the fact that most releases were only 45s and that cover art could sometimes be quite misleading regarding an album's actual participants.  Also, vintage music is not exactly revered or coveted in Thai culture.  Fortunately, many of the old record shops from the period are still around and still have the same owners and the same dusty stock, so a suitably intrepid person can still find some gems with enough persistence (provided they don't have allergies).
The biggest revelation here is Chaweewan Dumnern, who contributes three songs, all of which are excellent.  My favorite is "Lam Toey Chaweewan," in which she plays the role of a mistress telling her lover that she'll wait for him to leave his family.  Of her three pieces, that one has the sultriest groove, but her vocals are thoroughly gripping and oozing with emotion at all times.  Her inclusion is quite a coup for Miles Cleret and Menist, as I have not seen her work on any other compilations and I had an extremely hard time even finding any of her Thai releases (hint: her name also can be spelled "Chawiwan Damnern").  Another remarkable piece is The Petch Phin Thong Band’s instrumental "Soul Lam Plearn," which blasts into a completely raucous, utterly infectious, and triumphantly ridiculous rave-up after a deceptively noodling lute intro.  I was also quite a fan of Onuma Singsiri's sassy vocals on the melodramatic "Mae Kha Som Tam," which uses a papaya-based salad as a metaphor for urban loneliness. However, there are quite a few other instantly likable songs here as well, those just happen to be the upper tier to my ears.  There is very little weak material or filler.
Aside from the scattering of truly great songs and characteristically informative liner notes, The Sound of Siam is also pretty exceptional for its many bizarre and unintentionally comic touches.  For example, the artists include both former rickshaw drivers and monks, "Ding Dong Ding" was originally on the soundtrack of an Italian "caveman sex comedy," and Plearn Promdan contributes a song about drunken monkeys and weed-smoking elephants.  The music itself can be equally absurd, as Dao Bandon's "May Jom Ka Lon" kicks off with circus-style brass band music and many other songs feature incongruous ripped-off classic rock riffs (even the good ones). Fortunately, quality still reigns, so all of amusing background information, silly morality tales, and misguided musical flourishes only serve to imbue the album with an enormous amount of character and fun.  This is my favorite compilation of the year.
- Chaweewan Dumnern, "Lam Toey Chaweewan"
- Dao Bandon, "Me Jom Ka Lon"
- The Petch Phin Thong Band, "Soul Lam Plearn"
 
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The last album that Ben Recht and Isaac Sparks put out (Baby, It's Cold Inside) was named Boomkat's "Album of the Year" for 2008, so there was quite a bit of buzz and excitement surrounding the release of this follow-up.  Fortunately, God Was Like, No (the band's vinyl debut) does not disappoint and delivers yet another pleasant batch of warm and crackling soundscapes to enjoy.  Also, their streak of witty album titles continues unabated.
The Fun Years is kind of an odd project, the sort of thing that shouldn't nearly work as well as it does.  For one thing, although Recht and Sparks got their start in Cambridge, MA, they are now based on opposite ends of the country and collaborate mostly remotely.  Also, the duo are pretty disparate in their backgrounds, with Isaac being a former hip hop DJ and Ben being a computer science teacher with a PhD from MIT. Even the instrumentation itself is a bit peculiar, as The Fun Years’ combination of baritone guitar and turntable manages to hit an improbable common ground of blissful, droning ambience between the expected directions, never veering too far into either rock or cerebral abstraction.  Perhaps the key thing that draws these two together is a shared fascination with the unadulterated sound of their respective instruments. Lots of processing certainly occurs on God Was Like, No, but Recht's guitar still generally sounds exactly like a guitar (not laptopped into oblivion) and Sparks largely uses his turntable in a very "Phillip Jeck" way: as a means of sound creation rather than as a sampling device.
The album opens with its best song, as "Breech on the Bowstring" beautifully combines a cool jangly guitar loop with a melancholy chord progression of slow-motion swells.  However, each side of the album essentially feels like a lengthy single piece, as all the songs segue seamlessly from one to another and everything stays very firmly in the same vein.  So, in essence, "Breech" is merely an especially excellent beginning to a very good long-form piece.  The album’s other "song" highlight is "Makes Sense to Me," which gradually boils up into a masterfully restrained intensity as the guitars increase in both frenzy and volume. That is not to say that the rest of the songs are worse, it's just that those two pieces are the times when melody comes most strongly to the fore.
While it is definitely Recht's guitar work that gives the songs their structure, emotional shading, and recognizable melody, the less tangible contributions of Sparks are equally important.  Isaac's textural wizardy is the main thing that separates The Fun Years from the horde of other people making guitar-based ambient music these days, providing a grittiness and hissing pulse that takes the music to a deeper level. Also, the duo prove to be quite adept at turning the omnipresent vinyl crackle into an asset, using it as a fog for sounds to hide behind before subtly sneaking their way into the foreground.  As such, God Was Like, No only truly reaches its maximum potential when headphones or extreme volume are involved.  The balance between melody and manipulated static leans a bit too heavily towards the latter for most of these songs to make a substantial immediate impact, but there is quite a bit of compelling microcosmic activity to keep me interested once I've been lured in.  As a result, I think the duo's masterwork is probably still ahead of them, but this is quite a likable and ambitious effort nonetheless.
 
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At first, this fourth entry in Neubauten’s long running compilation series looks like a waste of money for those who have been following their online supporter projects and a godsend for those who have missed out on the plethora of limited albums the band have produced in the last decade. On closer inspection, while the vast majority of the material exists in some form or other on the original albums, most of the versions here are alternate takes, mixes or live versions. While not a perfect compilation, there is a lot here for new and veteran fans alike.
Someone like me, who has bought everything the band has put out, will not feel cheated by Strategies Against Architecture IV. There are enough stones left unturned to make this into a worthwhile investment. Needless to say, if you are reading this and have no clue about Neubauten’s supporter projects or Musterhaus subscription series then you are in for a treat. The material can be split into three main categories: songs from Neubauten’s main "public" albums (Perpetuum Mobile, Alles Wieder Offen, and Jewels); songs that have up until now been restricted to those who subscribed to their various online projects; and songs that have either never officially seen the light of day.
While songs from the first grouping will be most familiar, Neubauten have included alternative and live versions where possible. Some of the tracks feel a bit throwaway to me such as the radio edit of "Perpetuum Mobile" which is too short to fully convey the song’s concept. However, alternative takes of already rare songs like "Tagelang Weiss" and "Dead Friends (Around the Corner)" more than make up for this minor shortfall. The live version of "Youme & Meyou" from the group’s 25th anniversary concert in Vienna demonstrates how the band developed their songs on the road; here they distill the feelings behind song into a concentrate of beautiful imagery.
Songs from the supporter projects and the Musterhaus subscription series have been long treated as exclusive status symbols for many fans, many an argument erupted on Neubauten’s site about whether the group would be selling out by breaking their promise to paying supporters and making these songs available to a wider audience. I have always felt that everyone should have access to this music (and they do thanks to the freeloaders of the Internet) because it is some of the most vibrant and exciting music Neubauten has ever done. "Insomnia" and "X" both formed a substantial tract of the first supporters album and the latter is included here with alternative vocals care of Wir Sind Helden’s Judith Holofernes. Elsewhere, sections from the Grundstueck album and tour show exactly how relevant Neubauten still are. "GS1" and "GS2" are mindbogglingly brilliant, the group shining as brightly as that kalte sterne burned 30 years ago.
The unreleased material varies in quality, it very much feels like the best studio offcuts were already used to bulk out the supporter project and Musterhaus releases. "Party in Meck-Pomm" is a silly, almost throwaway piece but worth including to show what kind of things the band get up to in the studio when left to their own devices. A new remix of "Weil Weil Weil" is better than any of the ones on the Weil Weil Weil EP but is not exactly the highlight of Strategies Against Architecture IV. "Waiting for the Call" is the most substantial of the unreleased pieces, a collage of two live improvisations showing a glimpse of a song that might have been. Starting out as an amorphous gurgling, it suddenly sprouts legs and strides decidedly from a forgettable improvisation into a tantalisingly good song. It is a shame they never followed up on it.
Anyone who knows me or reads Brainwashed regularly will know that Neubauten have always been a group I have been passionate about. Therefore it is hard to listen back to these songs with an objective, critical ear as the music is so intertwined with some of my dearest memories such as being part of Neubauten’s Social Choir at the Palast Der Republik, the friendships made through the supporters project and watching the webcasts of most of this material being written and recorded in the first place. Yet, listening back to these two CDs and pushing those memories aside, Strategies Against Architecture IV shows how strong Neubauten still are despite the repeated claims by old school purists who insist that everything after Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T. or Halber Mensch has been rubbish.
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Under the guise of Padna, Nat Hawks stormed onto tape label Stunned with Siberia/Hinterland, a mash-up of varied styles that reflected the bustle of a scene fraught with chaos. Hawks has quickly followed up that overachievement with this bigger and more daring release.Siberia/Hinterland proved to be an experiment in pop thinking as Hawks carefully separated each unique idea into a proper space and running time. Songs constructed of pawn shop toys are kept away from haywired electronic doodles and hushed, melodic pieces. Everything has its right place.
The walls that were quick to erect themselves in Siberia/Hinterland are wholly demolished within the construct of Metal Hurlant/Farmer’s Hearth. The schizophrenic ideas that were easier to digest in the bite-sized morsels which music fans are accustomed are gone, replaced with one towering helping of food. Each idea is layered onto another; mouths pried open like Alex’s in A Clockwork Orange. Frenzied Casio tones and toy sounds being force fed into our agape gullets along with Hawks’ restrained compositions and eclectic pop sensibilities.
Metal Hurlant/Farmer’s Hearth gurgles with pleasurable overindulgence. Nat Hawks, as we come to discover, does not fear his courses touching on bit. On the contrary, it seems Siberia/Hinterland serves more as an introduction rather than a blueprint. The deficit of attention to one sound is still present but the dog pile in which Metal Hurlant/Farmer’s Hearth presents Hawks hope chest of sound lends itself to the Padna brand. Pancakes may be great on their own, but when topped with syrup, chopped nuts, whipped cream, fruit, and butter they become a monument to cooperation; such is Metal Hurlant/Farmer’s Hearth. The cocaine speed of plastic keyboards and circuit-bent gadgets only serve to highlight the marijuana slow of barely touched piano keys and drawn out effects.
It’s this elasticity of style that entrenches Hawks deep in an indefinable scene. Every musical whim is recklessly followed but the results are one of transcendence rather than clutter. Metal Hurlant/Farmer’s Hearth so encapsulates the underground that it seems neglectful not to give Hawks his due.
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Pinkcourtesyphone is the not so secret alter ego of renowned sound artist Richard Chartier, and while it seems to be geared more towards a looser, more relaxed sensibility than the serious artist guise that is usually thrust upon him, it lacks none of his careful attention to structure and detail. Quite a bit of the material on this compilation (recorded erratically between 1997 and 2011) could pass for his normal work, but throws enough curve balls to give it a distinct identity all its own.
While the imagery and mood conveyed seems to lean a bit into the world of camp, it never goes too far. It isn't afraid to defy expectations either, however.For example, the overt sampled voices on "Wistful Wishful Wanton" and "Afternoon Theme/Germs Through Wires/Evening Theme" would never pop up on a traditional Chartier composition, but here they work, even if they’re treated and layered into near indecipherability.
The textural, analog noises of "A Dark Room Filled With Plastic Plants," however, isn't that far removed from the style he's known for, though the shift into almost uplifting, dreamy electronics at the end seems a bit more maximalist than I would have expected.The same goes for the echoing, reverberated clicks and clacks of "Here is Something…That is Nothing," which are occasionally disrupted by the almost techno-ish synth swells and jarring outbursts of sound.
The aforementioned "Afternoon Theme…" especially mixes things up, right from its opening of distant, jazzy horn like sounds and twittering, colorful electronics.With the exception of some passages of dissonant, machinery hums, it is far more in line with musicality than the clinical studies of sound he usually does.In general, the three long (20+ minute) pieces that make up the bulk of this album are surprisingly varied and dynamic, even if they often delve into quiet minimalism.
At first I was expecting Foley Folly Folio to be a bit more of a drastic departure from Richard Chartier's normal work…for some reason I was bracing myself for disco beats and house music orchestral hits, but the result was not quite extreme as I thought.In truth, it is probably all the better for that, and it does have a more relaxed, inviting feel overall.While I like the usual detached, clinical approach to sound art that Chartier usually engages in just fine, the unpredictability of this one made it stand out as rather unique, compelling, and even a little fun at times.
samples:
- Wistful Wishful Wanton
- Here is Something...That is Nothing
- Afternoon Theme/Germs Through Wires/Evening Theme
 
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