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Chicago's Diverse is twenty-five year old MC Kenny Jenkins, who has been making a name for himself through his craft and collaborations with the mighty Mos Def, Prefuse 73 (see Wylin' Out review) as well as Isotope 217 members Matt Lux and Jeff Parker. At one time a mail delivery driver for a local university (that's his van on the cover), Jenkins honed his MC skills and released an EP entitled "Move." This follow-up EP is a taste of what's in store when a full length release materializes later this year. "Certified" is chock full of socially conscious lyrics which flow relaxed and steadily against the dirty funk guitar driven groove, produced by RJD2, which would sound right at home on one of those 70s 'Pulp Fusion' compilations. Jenkins gives a tight vocal delivery on "Build" over K-Kruz's jazzier channeled production which makes use of subtle muted trumpet and gives a nice and chill kinda feel. Both of these tunes also appear as instrumental versions, which highlight elements in backing tracks that would not draw as much attention with vocals over top. Of course, there's also the obligatory radio edi*s, so as not to piss anyone *ff. Based on this EP, Diverse is a name to keep your ear open for.
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As the art punk progression tends more and more towards electronic experimentation, Black Dice are ready to offer their interpretation of the movement, fusing their improvisational noise rock with an electronic sound which calls to mind Beaver and Krause, and a musique concrete similar to Xenakis. There are clicks, beeps, voice samples, chirps, echoes, robots, chimes, wails, mystic hums, crunches, and Oriental pentatonic scales. The group's previous releases for the Gravity and Troubleman Unlimited labels were unbalanced by their composition: many extremely short, kinetic songs combined with one or two longer songs. Here, the songs start off long and get increasingly longer. The band chooses to employ its heretofore unexplored potential energy in these songs, rather than just brashly offering their kinetic formulae. It's fascinating to hear this evolution, particularly because I used to think Black Dice were one-trick ponies. Live shows of the band were always intense and fun, but not always well-suited for translation onto record. With this record they have proved me wrong, and have developed into a forceful and imaginative experimental collective to listen to in my room. What will be interesting to see is whether their new sound is adaptable to their explosive live performances. 'Beaches and Canyons' starts out with the six-minute long "Seabird," an appropriately maritime number which unmistakably features some perturbed plover signaling the unjust encroachment on its nesting sand dune with constant squawks. The plover may or may not be robotic, and may or may not actually be a tern. By the end of the song, the intruder has clearly left, but bird is still squawking, albeit a little less virulently. "The Dream is Going Down" takes us to a canyon where robot voices bounce of the eroding limestone walls, while during the last six minutes of "Endless Happiness," waves and tidal sounds wash over us as the supposedly interminable bliss eventually does fall off. By the time the seventeen minutes of "Big Drop," the last song, comes about, we have literally dropped from the canyons in an errant spelunking mission into a cave where sound bounces about violently and the vocals scream, recalling Black Dice's older output. Wherever we find ourselves by the end of the album, the echoes in the music remind us that we are still in Black Dice's canyons, while the crashing of waves reminds us that we still have one foot rooted on the shores of an undiscovered beach.
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The downfall of any musical trend begins at the point where the music becomes too easy to make. From there, hoards of immitators flood the market and are scooped up by any record label wanting to compete in the "new market" just like a lipstick company has to have the coolest color of the year to compete with their competitor or the trend-setting upstart who got a major break. I Am Spoonbender have not only remained relatively quiet through the electroclash explosion, but refuse to allow keyboard presets, generic production and predictable riffs drive their music. While this hasn't made them as popular as the biggest offenders of dullness like Felix da Housecat, releases like this, along with their previous EP, 'Teletwin,' will still be as listenable years from now and just as tasty as they are today. 'Shown Actual Size' is only three short songs totalling less than 14 minutes, the first thing they have released in two years, and serves as a teaser for the forthcoming DVD/album, 'Hidden Persuaders'. It opens with the forceful "I Went and Had My Knives Sharpened," where a ripping, sassy, distorted bass (thanks to Dave Edwardson of Neurosis) undercuts nasty, angular synths and strong vocals from the female and male singers. "Remover-Installer" relentlessly continues with the same energy while the closer, "Re-dial Meant 'Remember'" recalls to a darker side of 1980s synth music, left in the past thanks to the absence of radio hits and perky videos.
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Black Heart Procession's fourth album marks a divergence away from the band's convention to number each album consecutively, so it should not surprise anyone that the sound of the band has also undergone a change. Within the first few minutes of the album, there are unprecedented female backing vocals which persist throughout the record and end up feeling like more of an indulgence than an affectation. "Amore del Tropico" is supposedly an overture to a murder mystery. Like anyone who has seen the band's live shows, which are robust with masks, disguises, and theatrical distance, I was at first skeptical about the sincerity of this project as a true murder mystery. After hearing "Tropics of Love," the first full-fledged song after a brief opening number, my skepticism disappeared. The song begins with a snazzy up-tempo beat to which you could snap your fingers, and you begin to wonder if they are scoring some lost Raymond Chandler novel, as this song could easily fit into the opening titles sequence. Interestingly, there is an 'Amore del Tropico' DVD forthcoming which will flesh out the narrative of this tropical murder mystery, with each song from the album creating a new chapter. It will be interesting to see if this project ever materializes. From what we have at hand now, I don't think I could tell you who was killed, where it occurred, or what the murder weapon was, let alone solve the crime. Perhaps my bumbling sleuthing is due to the fact that I find it hard to get drawn into this album like the previous Black Heart Procession records. I found myself distracted while listening to the album, trying to piece together the underlying mystery, but disgruntled knowing that I was never very good at solving even the most rudimentary Encyclopedia Brown case. The one time I was fully aware of the album's concept was in "Fingerprints," when singer Pall Jenkins repeats, "They found my fingerprints," amidst a wailing violin which is reminiscent of the fiddle from Bob Dylan's 'Desire' album. While adopting the mood of the murder mystery, the Black Heart Procession have forsaken their signature mood of old, which was grave, dense and swirling. Despite the macabre subject, the newly forged mood seems light and comical. "A Cry for Love" would be a song of the old Black Heart mood, were it not for the punctuating female backing vocals, which sound like they were culled from Isaac Hayes's "Theme from Shaft." The finale, "The One Who Disappeared," returns reluctantly to the older Black Heart sound, and it is comforting to know that, now that the murder mystery has dwindled down to its final clues, and all the leads and hunches have been followed to their end, the band at last can retrace its footsteps back to where they began and start again from where they left off.
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- Diane Wei Lewis
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Not so conceptual, not sad or very beautiful, not likely to persist in its impression, Liars simply grab onto immediate, relentless hooks and make urgent, funky fun. It's like this: three-minute songs with slithery disco-punk bass lines, given a slightly chilly imperviousness by sparse synthesizers and walkie-talkie barked vocals. Good stuff, with the exception of the last track, which ends in a looped locked-groove, extending over 30 minutes! (An excuse to make an "album" out of an EP?) Go figure, because this plodding bore is the complete opposite of the album's leading tracks.
 
"Grown men don't fall in the river, just like that" is a rousing, somewhat ironic wake-up call from the band that's got its "finger on the pulse of America": "Can you hear us? / Not too political, nothing too clever." I applaud the use of electronic handclaps and cowbells on "Mr your on fire Mr." On this track, you can practically see the lead singer wiggling his butt in this jerky twister's breathless pauses. It's not the most memorable album I've heard recently, but the songs are captivating in their frenetic, ephemeral sorta way. However, most of the material here is so sonically of a genre and lyrically unremarkable that I can't really think of a reason why I would choose the Liars above any other band that makes punk rawk kids shake their thangs.
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This cornucopia of Hip-Hop-styled and inspired music makes for a perfect primer for the new directions in which this music is thriving, from an independent, non-bling-bling standpoint. The Chicago-based Chocolate Industries label has put together a choice compilation featuring a plethora of artists which include members of the Def Jux familia such as Aesop Rock and Mr. Lif, Prefuse 73, Diverse, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori and DJ Food. Opening the disc is a college radio sounding ad listing the guest appearances which launches into Prefuse 73's "Radio Attack Pt.2" which has some cool breaks that vary from the version on his 'Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives' release. Souls of Mischief's "Spark" provides a head-nodding groove filled with some simple yet great organ samples while proclaiming, "We align with the planets and stars / Advancing the art form whenever we spar." RJD2's "True Confessions" chronicles the satirical church confessions of a seventeen year old stereo thief and burglar to a shocked and surprised priest, set to a rocking backing track of pounding drums and distorted guitar samples. El-P's signature backing track and sharp lyrics ring out in "Deadlight" with vocal plays on Apple's FireWire and Apocalypse Now, complete with a reference to 70s fusion heads Emerson Lake and Palmer and Pavlov. This is one of the more thought provoking tracks on the disc that'll have ya hitting the back skip button to make sure you caught it all. In the "surprise surprise" department—but then again, not really—is Tortoise with their contribution "C.T.A.," which has a real remix feel to it. Comprised of clipped live drums, synth patches and processed guitar, the track builds with repetition throughout the clever, winding progression. At about the halfway mark, the most anticipated and monstrous bassline kicks in and pulls it home. Overall, the disc's eighteen tracks play through as if you were listening to a hip college radio program, complete with brief interludes from Prefuse 73 and altered chit-chat.
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- Diverse - Time
- Caural - Our Solstice Walk
- While - Haze-3
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K2, the prolific artist who arrived in the third wave of Japanese noise musicians and is currently one of the last ones standing (MSBR and Government Alpha are still relevant, Merzbow and Aube have descended into pathetic self-parody... and don't get me started on Keiji Haino, yeesh), has changed course. Rather than the metal-on-metal screech for which he has previously been known, K2's newest album is all fast-cut collage of drum machines, pop music, noises both harsh and not, and more flavors than I can now recount. A sound begins, then abruptly interrupts itself, occasionally doubling back only to fall apart and maybe be picked up by some incongrous thing. All sounds remain in place long enough to be plowed under by the next one, and K2 keeps the pace relentless for the full hour of the disc. And what a good time this album is! The absurd juxtapositions remind me of the Hafler Trio's 'A Thirsty Fish,' but with no pretense of sublimity. In fact, the sublime appears to be far from K2's range, he having opted instead for instant gratification, even if that means bringing in elements that shouldn't work (but, miraculously, they do). Some delay settings are painfully silly and banal, as are some 70s-era drum machine sounds and Western choral records, but these only enrich the sense of wide-eyed joy that the music evokes. So do the flourishes of human gesture; the clearly manual adjustment of a volume level, or the telltale clip of a computer splice, or the wildly variant fluctuations in dynamics and sound-quality all remind the listener that there is somebody driving, and that person has a clue where the music will lead. It's a damn fun ride.
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The Mountain Goats have finally released a true Euripidean goat song, a sparkling Floridian tragedy which places an alcoholic couple whose once true love has soured in a two-story bungalow filled with cases of vodka and ashtrays teeming with stale cigarette butts. We have seen this couple before: they inhabit all the songs with "Alpha" in the title. The difference is now their exploits are being documented with the assistance of a fancy recording studio, sometimes even complemented by bass, drums, piano, and other instruments.
It's not that The Mountain Goats have never recorded in a proper studio before. They have. They have just never released an album filled entirely with songs not recorded onto John Darnielle's Panasonic FT-500 boombox. 'Tallahassee' sounds much like last year's Extra Glenns's 'Martial Arts Weekend,' which paired Darnielle with Franklin Bruno (who also appears on this album). This time, Darnielle teams up with Peter Hughes who, coincidentally, also played with Bruno in Nothing Painted Blue. The album ostensibly deals with the tumultuous and strenuous relationship of the Alpha couple. But sometimes it is hard to perceive that the songs are about the lamentable side of the relationship because sorrow usually takes place in metaphor and abstraction (with notable exceptions: "No Children" features the lyrics "I hope you die; I hope we both die"), and the melodies and tones are not particularly somber, doing nothing to suggest that the fall of the house of Alpha is upon us.
There are no disastrous downfalls in these songs, only the banal everyday annoyances and grievances which plague most married couples. Unlike every other Mountain Goats release, this album is devoid of the signature frenetic guitar strumming, a strange omission when you consider how suggestive that particular sound could be of the looming animosity which courses through the album, or at least the anxiety surrounding it. Most of the songs are deliberate without being languid. The album starts out with the title track—an ambling and sedate song which takes its time building into a combustible and emotionally restrained ditty, just screaming to be let out of its cage. Darnielle refuses to let it out entirely. His tight reigns are masterfully manipulated and his discipline is astounding. It's not easy to find the chaos fomenting under the skin of each song, even though the liner notes let us know it's there. If anything, it is Darnielle's voice which divulges the entropy underneath. It sometimes twists and writhes with itself, sometimes shrieking in a tenor which would likely shatter the windows in the two-story house where his Alpha couple lives. The gem on this album is "International Small Arms Traffic Blues." The song could be a love paean, with its almost whispered vocals, optimistic coda (the lyrics a reference to either The Eagles or The Emotions), and love sonnet-like metaphor. Each verse begins with an absurd love simile ("My love is like a Cuban plane"), which quickly becomes less absurd as the verse takes shape. When it is all over, you realize how much sense it all makes; how this couple can be in so much grievous trouble behind the scenes of these lovely songs; how dangerously and delicately balanced their lives are on this northen Florida swampland.
 
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10 CD
BOX SET
A unique occasion for every adventurous listener to experience some of the most inscrutable and essential music of all times.
DISC 2 - 'The Rest Is Silence' (part one)
DISC 3 - 'The Rest Is Silence' (part two - extended version)
DISC 4 - 'When The Windmill's Whirl Dies'
DISC 5 - 'There's A Flame___Sometimes'
DISC 6 - 'Where The Lines Go To Sleep' (previously unreleased)
DISC 7 - 'Greetings From The Great Void'
DISC 8 - 'The Secret Of The Dancing Snow'
DISC 9 - 'For The Tears Of The Land_Prayers From The Outer Space'
DISC 10 - 'Alien Blood - Soundtrack To The Film'
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Rainfall, thunder, crickets, and the toll of a distant church-bell introduce the title track of YOB's sixth album. It sounds nearly identical to when Black Sabbath used the same handful of effects to open their debut 40 years ago. If a lesser band was doing this, I'd cry foul—but this is one of the year's most accomplished metal albums.
After four solid albums, culminating in 2005's monumental The Unreal Never Lived, doom metal torch-bearers YOB called it a day. Fast-forward a couple years, and YOB reunited for a few live shows and an excellent "comeback" album, The Great Cessation, also released on Profound Lore. Atma, the band's second full-length since their reunion, is altogether more varied and vibrant—all the way down to its colorful cover painting, a stark contrast to the tar-black artwork of The Great Cessation. Also, compared to their last effort, there is a gritty, distorted tone to Mike Scheidt's guitar that cuts sharply through the production like a warm knife into butter.
Following in the wake of doom heavyweights like Saint Vitus, Cathedral and Electric Wizard, YOB are the decade's best candidate to carry the torch of Sleep. Atma follows in the tradition of such indisputable classics as Jerusalem and Holy Mountain, with higher aspirations than grinding out heavy-as-concrete riffs all day. Instead, there is an intense focus on mantra-like repetition and spirituality that aids the seeking of higher planes of consciousness—even for folks like me, who don't partake in any type of "sweet leaf" unless to brew a fragrant cup of green tea. Most of Scheidt's lyrics are unintelligible, but I managed to catch a few lines early on: "One hundred thousand / repetitions / recite the mantra / flowers unfold." (I'm guessing that's a representative sample, unless proven otherwise.)
The 16-minute centerpiece, "Before We Dreamed of Two," is a highlight, beginning with Scheidt's guitar wailing over the steady, forceful rhythm section. Shortly thereafter, Scheidt falls into lockstep playing with the others, firing off his words in rhythmic, meditative fashion, like a possessed shaman. Minutes pass, the tempo slows to a crawl, and the rhythm section drops out, leaving a low rumbling sound and the gentle ebb of waves, alongside Aaron Reiseberg's rubbery bass lines and Scheidt's ruminations on self—until the band comes crashing back for the finale. Perhaps this is what Om would sound like if Al Cisneros popped a Vicodin or two after an intense yoga session, cranked the low-end distortion up to 11, and let completely loose with his latest band.
By the time the final song, "Adrift in the Ocean," comes around, YOB have built up a sky-high framework of tension through repetition. The song starts to move through interweaving bass and guitar lines—sinewy and complex, sounding like an instrumental outtake from Tool's Lateralus. (I liked Lateralus.) Once the doom strikes in full force, Scott Kelly of Neurosis makes his second guest appearance on the album, trading spiritually prescient lines with Scheidt: "To the universe / we send a reflection." Meanwhile, the rhythm section encircles the monster riff at the song's center like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. By the time Scheidt strikes with a searing solo at the song's end, I cannot help but declare that Atma is YOB's strongest work to date.
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- Duncan Edwards
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Under the name FWY! (pronounced Freeway) Edmund Xavier offers a hypnotic instrumental tribute to various California highways.
 
Brave Mysteries
These 11 excellent pieces hint at the ideal image of the motor car; one shrouded in the mystical allure of desire and personal freedom. There are no traces of potholes, gridlock, murder, accident, or low-speed chase. Even the short ode to (notoriously congested) "The 405" has the impressionistic beauty of an orchestra of very faint car horns. Elsewhere, synths bubble gently under clean, driving bass lines and an occasional fuzzy chord low in the mix hits like a distant wave heard on a coastal drive in an open-top car. On "The 57" gorgeous soft guitar creates a musical landscape that is part polluted sunshiny perfection, part neon heaven. The music throbs with a gliding, cooperative movement akin to "Autobahn" rather than the bouncy optimism of, say, "Route 66." Xavier creates uncluttered, shimmering, cruise-controlled moods, by lightly and smoothly applying drum machines, guitar, field recordings, bass, casiotone, organ, and synth. The moods are pleasantly familiar but as unnatural as a passing world, seen through glass.
Released on cassette, CA 80’s-90’s makes me wish to drive in California again (and for a tape-player in the car).
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