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Bablicon are a Chicago-based trio of curiously monikerd multi-instrumentalists: 'Blue Hawaii', Marta Tennae and 'the diminisher'. This is their 3rd album, apparently conceived as a double album, tracks 1-6 under the "The Cat That Was a Dog" title and tracks 7-15 under "a Flat Inside the Fog". Most songs are rooted in piano composition, which all 3 members play, but vary widely in style and additional tone coloration: voices, various basses and saxes, electronics and all sorts of percussion and other odds and ends like theremin, melodica, 'friendly bird tinkles' and 'electric ghetto duck'.
It's an avante-everything sort of music that takes in jazz, rock, symphonic and experimental, where playful melodies are as common as just plain weird melodies. The vocabulary that comes to mind when listening to these pieces - quirky, odd, surreal, beautiful, noisy, etc. - is much the same as that for the work of their Misra labelmates Volcano the Bear. Regarding some of the more compelling numbers: "Travelling" builds up a gypsy like dance of piano, upright bass and horns; "Mary" psychedelically grooves an organ, theremin and cymbal assault; "Arcdurvish" manipulates sax a la Terry Riley with electronics and percussive knickknacks; and the finale "An Odd Pear" eventually delivers the most outright attack of sound then settles down into a pretty (normal) jazz coda. "The Cat.." is definitely for the more adventurous listeners out there like you and me.
 
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'Island of Jewels' on the other hand is one of my least favorite LPDalbums. Recorded and released in 1986, it was the first full-lengthalbum recorded with Edward living in Holland and the rest of the groupliving in England. Incidentally, the album seems fragmented andunconnected, while the production seems rather sterile and thin. Theband sounds like a group of musicians not paying attention to eachother, all clamoring for attention without letting each other'sinstruments have a life of their own. It's somewhat painful to listento as the songwriting really isn't bad at all. Songs like "The Shock ofContact" and "Jewel in the Crown" would probably have benefitted from acompletely different recording approach. This reissue is probably oneof my favorite improvements on the other hand. The back cover has beenadopted from black and white images from inside the original gatefoldLP issue, photos have been included as well as lyrics—none of whichwere on the original PIAS CD release.
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The best stuff on here is the first two duo tracks, quite tasteful iftypical for free improvisation, but I can't say any of it is goodenough to recommend purchasing the disc. The duo's tendency towardssilly clowning overshadows otherwise inventive improvisation and marsmost of the tracks, leaving lots of great moments but no great completepieces. The short tracks taken from "Double Indemnity" are acacaphonous flurry of notes, crashing fists of piano, and dramaticshifts in mood and texture. However, Honsinger's ridiculious speechesabout salad dressing and declarations like "Do you think it's allright?" and "What does it mean, anyway?" seem to be apologetic at timeswhen the music finds an uncomfortable space which would have beenstronger if left alone. Why he makes animal sounds, or referencesmusical styles like film music and military marches, or lapses intojokey yelping right when an improvisation is getting good is beyond me.
Nowhere is this more distracting than on the tracks taken from thequartet LP, which I was excited to hear because of the inclusion ofKondo from before he added that wretched delay-pedal effect to histrumpet. Aside from the sections in which someone (hard to tell who isto blame for this) beats out a galloping 4/4 beat (why??) or when themusicians do the obvious and lazy gimmick of trading a melodic lineback and forth (surely the players are better than that), there areintense sections here that work for minutes at a time. Then someonemakes opaque quacking noises through his fluegelhorn, or plays"Revelie" or scales, or recites film dialogue, and the music becomes sogrounded that it cannot get back up.
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With only a single and a few collaborations out this year, Chicago's Locrian have been rather quiet, with this being their first (and so far only) full-length release of the year. The Clearing both recalls their earliest, noise-addled drone work while still looking forward to their current unique take on metal/prog/kraut rock.
At only four songs, the album is a bit more of a terse statement than the likes of Territories and The Crystal World, both of which more closely mirrored a "traditional" album structure.With three mid-length pieces and a side-long closer, each piece stretches out and is given time and room to develop.
The opening "Chalk Point" is the most consistent with their more recent song-oriented approach.Initially beginning with a lo-fi soundscape and oddly treated percussion from Steven Hess, the dark piano and slow rhythmic lurch eventually explodes into squealing metal guitar from Andre Foisy and full on drums.With the arrival of distant, detached vocals from Terence Hannum, the piece develops into the sweeping drama of prog rock, but with the experimentation of the best kraut artists.
"Augury in an Evaporating Tower" more closely matches Locrian’s earlier days, with its opening noise buzzes and layers of droning synth that eventually meld together into some sort of melodic construct.The distant guttural vocals and treated percussion exemplify this, going more back to their noise roots.This carries over a bit into "Coprolite," which is built upon a foundation of heavily processed, reversed guitar tones and electronic textures.With the use of percussion and acoustic guitar, the dissonant elements are well balanced by traditional ones.
The closing title track covers the entirety of the second half of the record.Initially a slow build from repetitive bass synth throbs and static outbursts, pained vocals and percussion arrives to give it more of that song-oriented sound that "Chalk Point" had before.However, just as quickly the structure falls away, leaving a ritualistic throb that echoes a living, breathing organism.With each passing moment it becomes bleaker and darker before collapsing upon itself, slowly dying.
Like the recent "Dort Ist Der Weg" single, The Clearing shows how well Locrian has become at balancing their musical impulses with their raw, chaotic noise background.The two come together perfectly throughout this album, which does a great job at defying genre conventions and any preconceptions.This is a wonderful balance of dissonance and melody, light and dark, melody and noise.
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Recorded inside a 100-year-old Washington state church, this duo of Japanese residents Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date, utilizes the natural reverberations and ambience of the space in which it was recorded to craft a melancholy, emotional work that uses electronic and acoustic instruments together seamlessly.
Recorded after a tumultuous year in both artists' lives, exacerbated by the Tokyo earthquake and subsequent nuclear concerns, Shizuku clearly is a work tinted with a sense of sadness and depression, though in a powerful, creative way.It is instead an essential piece that fleshes out this album perfectly.
"Rokuu" opens with surges of water and soft synthesizer tones, with the addition of field recording elements that, when combined, create a familiar, yet unidentifiable world of sound.While the first half of the piece is characterized by abstract passages, the latter is more familiar, bringing in acoustic and electric guitar, along with cello, creating a more conventional outro.
The cello reappears within "Aikou," and with the clear piano notes mixed with clinking improvised sounds and electronic textures to become something else entirely.Never clearly musical nor abstract, it is instead a unique hybrid of the two.The use of piano becomes a recurring theme, leading the slow, mournful "Saika" and the more textural "Kie."
Additionally, oddly clipped guitar notes appear with drawn out tones on "Guuzai," with distant, echoed percussive noises and unidentifiable field recordings.While the sustained tones are the focus, the distant percussive sounds and ambient sounds balance things out nicely.
The one misstep, which I don’t even think qualifies as one, is the use of spoken word on "Seiya" by the poet Tadahito Ichinoseki.While it is entirely in Japanese (a language I do not speak nor understand), his careful, deliberate method of speaking conveys an emotion that is beyond language.However, the use of voice is such a drastic change compared to the subtle melodies and mysterious sounds that surround it, causing it to stand out noticeably.It's just very unexpected within the context of the album, but not something I'd consider to be a mistake at all.
The blend of electronic and organic sounds on Shizuku is a compelling one, and the use of natural reverb and spaces makes it all the more powerful.While it has a bleak, sad overcast to it, it adds to the mood and emotion conveyed. Pensive, yet compelling, it is a wonderful combination.
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Carsten Nicolai's latest album returns to the themes and concepts that he explored on 2008’s Unitxt (which has been reissued in a limited, artist edition to mark the release of the new album). Combining the ideas of a universal language, repetition and the relationship between data and sound, Nicolai has come up with a stunning collection of electronic music that bridges another one of the gaps between audio and visual art.
The opening piece, "Uni C," acts as a template for Nicolai’s approach throughout Univrs as he runs through about four or five themes in six minutes without the piece ever sounding fractured or forced. What strikes me most about this and the other pieces on Univrs is the speed at which the individual components move. It is not like Nicolai has turned his hand to gabba rave but many of the rhythms are built out of minute pulses. Crackles, pops and clicks move by so quickly that they barely pass the threshold for being a sensory input at the time. It is only their lingering after-image that actually gets processed by my brain. The result is that Univrs seems lighter than air as every component seems to have no real mass to it but like subatomic particles, they all interact to form a tangible whole.
Anne-James Chaton makes a guest appearance on "Uni Acronym" where he recites a list of three letter acronyms in alphabetical order. This ties in with Chaton’s own work which focuses on the rhythms underlying language; his staccato delivery forming a shape for Nicolai to hang his sounds on. Chaton forces the music to his beat, reinforcing the idea that underneath all this data and abstraction there is a human heart.
This human element is not so well defined elsewhere; the erratic, mechanical throb of "Uni Deform" builds on the foundations that Autechre laid on "Second Bad Vibel" from their Anvil Vapre EP. However, Nicolai uses this foundation only as a surface to break apart any traditional musical structures and any notion of tonality. Where Autechre were ground-breaking, Nicolai is atom-smashing. When the album closes with "Uni Pro," it easy to see the parallels Alva Noto has with the sounds explored during Warp Records’ glory days but like any good experimenter, he stands on the shoulders of giants to see further and prepares his own shoulders for the feet of the next great explorer.
This metaphorical human pyramid may point further from music than expected as Univrs is intended to be experienced as a piece of visual art as well as a normal album. Like Nicolai’s collaboration with Ryoji Ikeda earlier this year, the sounds on Univrs were picked out based on their appearance when visualised on particular scientific apparatus. In this case, the weapon of choice is a uniscope (the title of the album brings together the terms "universe" and "uniscope version"). There is a CD/DVD edition planned for release but unfortunately I am only able to experience Univrs in one sensory modality. I will be dropping my pennies in the Raster-Noton coffers to get my hands on the DVD as soon as possible.
The way Nicolai has almost reverse engineered music based on working through an abstracted visual system is impressive, especially considering how focussed and powerful the music sounds. Whether the marriage of sound and vision is as impressive remains to be seen (and heard) but as a standalone piece of audio art, Univrs is incredible.
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Industrial Records’ reissue series begins with the album that set the tone for a short but potent career. The group’s first album (mischievously titled in order to make people go looking for a non-existent First Annual Report) is a master class in subversive anti-music that still packs a punch. Remastered and released as an LP and also in an expanded CD edition; all the gory details have been put into sharp focus, reanimating the still warm corpse of Throbbing Gristle’s glory days.
As I was not born during Throbbing Gristle’s initial activity, I can only imagine how stark and perhaps even boring the album cover for The Second Annual Report looked nestled in between other releases of that time. No graphics and no fancy typography, just a sticker with the barest of information on it. The dour, business-like nature of the sleeve is all the more surprising considering one member of the group was part of the Hypgnosis design firm. However, the simple design reflected the purpose of the album: this was industrial music made in an industrial way for industrial people. The Second Annual Report was meant to look like a normal dossier or file from an ordinary company rather than a piece of revolutionary music history.
While Throbbing Gristle had already released their debut single, "United/Zyklon B Zombie," The Second Annual Report reflected what the band were attempting to do in their live performances more than studio experimentations of the single. Most of the cuts on the A-side were taken from live shows, several versions of "Slug Bait" and "Maggot Death" forming the first half of the album. It goes without saying that within the repetitions of these pieces, there was huge variation as they used the basic ideas of each piece to springboard into terra incognita. The horror, the humor and the hullabaloo all coming together to make a form of atonal racket that has often been copied but never did it sound so vital. The schlock of "Slug Bait" jumps between the viscerally disgusting to the absurdly funny. However, the over-the-top weirdness of the first two versions of "Slug Bait" is countered by the version from Brighton where the group sample a disturbing interview of a child molester and murderer.
This dichotomy between the tongue-in-cheek moments and incredibly dark subject matter sums up everything that is enthralling about Throbbing Gristle, and the reason this album still resonates with listeners today. Yes, some of the material and imagery is rich pickings for an easy shock factor but by dressing it all up in a pseudo-industrial package and throwing campy Carry On… style humor into the mix, Throbbing Gristle highlighted the double standards, hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of British society. If they were the wreckers of civilization, it was only because civilization was a harsh reality that needed wrecking.
The B-side of the album was given over to the group’s soundtrack to After Cease to Exist, a grainy film made during the COUM Transmission days featuring Chris Carter getting castrated (which made his child with Cosey Fanni Tutti a few years later quite the miracle!). The piece lacks the violence of the first half of the album, at odds with the imagery that it was meant to accompany. It is one of Throbbing Gristle’s dreamier moments, especially in the early years.
The CD reissue of The Second Annual Report features an extra disc of bonus material including the tracks from the debut single (much like the original CD reissue) and selections from live shows from the same time period. None of this material is new but I imagine the live material will be unheard for many people considering the price and rarity of any previous live releases (not all these cuts were available outside the early live tapes, live compilation CDs or the various versions of TG24). The live material is fantastic but having got all these recordings already, I would have preferred to have seen some more exclusive extras (such as other studio cuts, if they exist) or a DVD of After Cease to Exist.
It is not the extras that matter when it comes to this reissue series, it is the fact that these albums have been given a long overdue facelift by Chris Carter and are widely available again. While Throbbing Gristle may never have the cultural caché of the likes of The Velvet Underground or Kraftwerk, I honestly believe they were responsible for an equally important shift in music and, as such, the chance to re-evaluate them in the best possible way is a welcome experience.
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This is the long-awaited reissue of Mehdi Ameziane's incredibly scarce 2007 solo debut, which was previously only available as a self-released CDr edition of just 30.  Naturally, both Twinsistermoon and Natural Snow Buildings have evolved and blurred together quite a bit over the last four years, but at the time of its original release, these raw, fragile, and eerie pieces were a dramatic departure from the less distinctive drone/post-rock that Mehdi and Solange Gularte had been releasing.  While I definitely believe that Mehdi's work has only become stronger over the ensuing years, this remains a unique and mesmerizing highlight in his voluminous discography.
I have no idea what triggered it, but the years 2006 and 2007 were an incredibly fertile creative period for Natural Snow Buildings.  For one, they released a brilliant double album that many still consider to be their greatest work, The Dance of The Moon and The Sun.  Then, both Mehdi and Solange released stunning and wildly different solo albums (Solange's being Isengrind's Golestan).  There were always unusual threads running through NSB's sound, but up until that point, it was very easy to see close similarities to other artists like Tarentel, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Stars of the Lid, and Windy and Carl. Both the hallucinatory pagan drone of Golestan and the haunting childlike folk of When Stars Glide Though Solid had no such clear reference points or precedents though: from 2007 onward, no one else sounded like Natural Snow Buildings.  Even since then, the "Natural Snow Buildings aesthetic" has seemed to be largely based upon perfecting and blending those two disparate threads (and they have been doing it extremely successfully).  It was a career-defining period.
The simplest way to describe Mehdi's sound for much of When Stars Glide Through Solid is "field recordings of a choir of undead children singing around a campfire," a rather singular vision best expressed in pieces like "Ojibway Ghost Trail Song" and "Momuzo."  Ameziane covers a lot of other stylistic territory as well, but tape hiss, sparse acoustic guitar accompaniment, soft childlike/feminine vocals, and an otherwordly sense of temporal dislocation are fairly omnipresent throughout.  While a number of the vocal pieces are quite strong ("To Breathe Underwater," in particular), my favorite moments tend to be the more abstract ones.  The opening "I Wish I Could Drown The World In Reverberation," for example, beautifully interweaves shimmering layers of shoe-gazing guitar, spectral wordless vocals, and quasi-tribal percussion into something that easily could been a highlight on The Dance of The Moon And The Sun.  The brilliant title piece also recalls Ameziane's work with Gularte, but goes even further: it seems far more in line with future masterpieces like Waves of the Random Sea...or something like a boisterous funeral parade for an imagined culture from several hundred years in the past.
I suspect that this album would have completely floored me if I had heard it when it was originally released, as I am quite used to Mehdi's strain of ghostly folk at this stage.  I miss having fresh ears.  Also, I can't help but compare everything he releases to the amazing ...And Then Feel The Ashes.  Despite that daunting mixture of familiarity and unfairly high expectation, however, I still managed to find quite a lot to love here.  This isn't the best Twinsistermoon album to start with, due to its somewhat primitive recording quality, but the content is absolutely essential for those already converted (particularly those who prefer Mehdi's more song-like side).
(Note: The vinyl version of this reissue includes one full side of bonus material, much of which is as good as the actual album.  Also, Solange's new artwork for the inner gatefold is among her best.)
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