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Out of the two latest Eleh releases, this split LP with Ellen Fullman comes out as the champion. Here are two sides of stunning contemporary minimalism; Eleh pushes about electrons like a quantum choreographer while Fullman pulls tones out of metal with her fingers. Both pieces are engaging and despite their differences in execution, they complement each other like two lovers in union.
 
On "Mind of No Mind," Eleh develops their compositional approach further out than before. In comparison to the La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros worship of earlier releases, this piece is practically a pop song. A warm, meditative wave of synthesizer rolls out of the speakers before breaking into rivulets of calming pulses. It all sounds a bit new age but there is substance lurking below the surface. As the piece progresses, the influence of more modern explorations of minimalism like Ryoji Ikeda and Alva Noto peeps through; the beats that emerge from the obsidian drones come as a shock. It is not like such sounds are new to Eleh but the prominence of these sounds changes the character of the piece instantly. What was a monochrome sea of sound is suddenly alive, a Cambrian explosion of music.
Flipping the record over, Fullman’s "Event Locations" shows how the ideas explored by the minimalist composers of the 1960s can still bear sweet fruit. Her Long String Instrument, a gorgeous sculpture capable of generating a range of sounds in just intonation, forms the flesh of this particular fruit. Bowing the strings with her fingers, Fullman creates a swirling mass of tones. The combined effect creates something between a hurdy gurdy, accordion and bells. As she moves through the piece, the interaction between the notes cause audio disturbances and fleeting ghosts in the music.
Along with the Attention Patterns compilation (also reviewed this week), this LP represents the best in an often abused form of composition. Many artists retreat to a minimalist-like style to escape poor technique and a lack of imagination but both Eleh and Fullman show how minimalist theory can still be used to create commanding works that could never be classed as derivative or unskilled.
 
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Important Records has fast become the finest outlet for minimalism I can think of, reissuing landmark recordings and providing a platform for works by new and established artists. This double LP produced in conjunction with Black Pollen Press celebrates the changing face of minimalist composition over the last four decades; two archive recordings and two new pieces showing how enthralling and detailed this kind of music can get.
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Annie had always loved reggae and dub, but now – living in London – she was soaking in the stuff. The Crass crew already knew Sherwood (On-U Sound), and he and they both recorded at Southern Studios in London. Sherwood and Annie met, and got on like the proverbial house on fire. An LP, joint venture of both On-U Sound and Crass’ Corpus Christi label, came into being. It was called Soul Possession and was unleashed in 1983.
Soul Possession is easily the most extreme LP Annie has released to date – an unsettled and unsettling collection of rhythmic soundscapes, over which Annie intones some of her most grim and grisly lyrics. Soul Possession is not about beauty, though it does have some dark, lovely moments. It is an album that has a political point to make, and it does so very, very effectively. It is a brutal reflection of the brutality of modern life. It is steeped in the aesthetic mindset of Crass – indeed collective members Penny Rimbaud, Pete Wright and Eve Libertine are featured players.
Annie, the chanteuse, is just in her formative stages here, and her breathy/breathless rants have more in common with the urgent vocal delivery of Alan Vega or Don Van Vliet than they do with Judy Garland. Sherwood’s production is an evil wonder – a haunted house full of bubbling baselines, eerie electronics and clattering graveyard percussion. ‘Closet Love’ sets the scene for the LP, a gently funky bass spars with a jittery drum machine and an abrasive keyboard, while Annie coos a nightmare scenario of lovers ripping each other apart/rotting in each others’ arms.
‘Third Gear Kills’ has a great, grim groove and Annie spins a hypnotic tale of automotive violence and sex, à la JG Ballard’s Crash. ‘Turkey Girl’ feels like an explicit homage to Captain Beefheart. It boasts a catchy melody and the most traditional song structure on the LP, but the lyrics are a monstrous parody of the tales of male sexual prowess one might find in a blue blues song. (“Wanna slice my cock on your pop top”, the clearly deranged narrator barks at his “turkey fuck girl”.) ‘Burnt Offerings’ calls to mind Mark Stewart and his Maffia, and punctuates its tale of torture and mind control with a sad piano melody, which helps make Annie’s performance all the more harrowing.
‘To Know Evil’ advances on the listener like some huge, mutant reptilian monster, before settling into an evil, repetitive groove over which Annie catalogues the horrors of war. Strangely Annie abandons her vocal duties entirely for ‘Sad Shadows’, giving the song over to Crass’ Eve Libertine who gives her best angry-ghost-howling-in-the-wind delivery to Annie’s images of female oppression. The song is both haunting and haunted and grows oddly funky as it progresses.
‘Viet Not Mine, El Salvador Yours’ may well be this scary album’s scariest moment, with its horror movie soundtrack/backing track and Annie’s flock of harpies multi-track vocals – of which Diamanda Galás might well have been proud. The final track, ‘Waiting for the Fun’, arrives with evil bass lines, funky drums and another hornets’ nest of vocals – which return again and again to an oddly plaintive, folk song melody.
Critics were effusive with their praise. Clearly this was the work of an artist to be reckoned with.
For those ‘in the know’, Annie Anxiety was now a known quantity. She never did make it to Berlin – she would live in London for the next decade. She would soon abandon her post in the Crass collective, and be issued a card to carry indicating her position as resident diva for the On-U Sound crew. A dub chanteuse would emerge.
Right place, right time.
But that’s another story…
Robert R Conroy
New York City, September 2010
Taken from Robert R Conroy's notes for the insert of this reissue of Soul Possession.
The CD is beautifully packaged in a digipack with artwork taken from Little Annie's own paintings and comes with extensive liner notes from Robert R Conroy, which shed light into the events around the recording.
Also available in this series of reissues are Little Annie's Jackamo and Short and Sweet.
Track Listing
1. Closet Love
2. Third Gear Kills
3. Turkey Girl
4. Burnt Offerings
5. To Know Evil
6. Sad Shadows
7. Viet Not Mine, El Salvador Yours
8. Waiting for the Fun
Running Time: 48 minutes
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11 tracks, 47 minutes. Remastered at Southern Studios in 2010 by Harvey Birrell, Little Annie's 1992 masterpiece Short and Sweet has been reissued and beautifully repackaged with brand new artwork from Little Annie's own paintings. The CD is packaged in a digipack and comes with extensive liner notes from Robert R Conroy, which shed light into the events around the recording. Also available in this series of reissues are Little Annie's Jackamo and Soul Possession.
Short and Sweet is the sound of a clutch of tremendously talented musicians applying themselves to the task of making 'pop music', and demanding said musical form rise to their high standards – as opposed to said musicians watering down what they do. Short and Sweet is likewise a much more explicitly accessible collection of tunes when compared with either of Annie's previous LPs, Soul Possession and Jackamo, but it remains an album of startling style and wit. Wimbish and McDonald (Sugarhill Gang/Tackhead/Dub Syndicate) are endlessly inventive here, creating a series of sprawling, rolling, funky rhythm tracks infused with booby traps of dub production, blues guitar and middle/east Asian instrumentation. The music is the perfect soundtrack for life in London at the time, and the perfect miseen-scene for Annie to portray her domestic comedies/tragedies within.
And Annie is very much ready for her close-up here, Mr DeMille. Like all truly great artists she makes it look easy, she makes it sound simple – like these rants and prayers, tirades and seductions are all just falling off the top of her head. The off-hand skill of her vocal delivery sometimes masks her incredibly precise use of language, her ability to take a turn of phrase and turn it back on itself or to pull a cliché inside out. And always this return to ambivalence over her circumstances – finding herself on the floor waiting for the next shoe to drop, realising that her find romance has just reached its expiration date or that she is a one-man woman looking for the man that got away – because she's scared he might come back!
'I Think of You', 'Everything and More', 'Going For Gold' and 'Watch the World Go By': each perfectly captures that moment when the milk and honey of domestic bliss begins to curdle. In 'Bless Those (Little Annie's Prayer)' a rowdy chorus of Annies bestow their benedictions on all aspects of the population, while an unnerving horn sample suggests just how necessary such blessings are in this big bad world. She is voracious in 'Give it to Me', vicious in 'Little Man' and a punch-drunk Stepford Wife trying – unconvincingly – to convince herself she's happy in 'Prisoner of Paradise'. With 'You and the Night and the Music' she returns to the boiling pitch black humor/grisly imagery of Jackamo.
But the real masterpiece here is the LP's finale, 'If Cain Were Able'. “The flowerbeds all look so nice this time of year, though the night still holds a chill”, Annie coos against a stately piano sample and ominous squibs of synthesizer – setting the stage, a nocturnal vigil for a lover who has walked out the door. It is a true tour de force, as the singer runs the gauntlet from sadness to desperation to anger to blind rage, the backing track perfectly reflecting her mood and growing into a full-on film noir groove. (The song is noteworthy as Annie's first foray into producing, along with engineer Richard Norris.)
The LP was released to rapturous reviews. After a performance in NYC with one of her idols, Grace Jones -Annie's first gig in New York in 13 years – a routine of touring commenced. Having previously returned to New York City – primarily to visit her friend Charles Schwartz, who was succumbing to complications from HIV infection – Annie found herself more taken with the town than she had imagined she would be, despite the sad circumstances.
Had there been any justice Annie would have arrived as a major pop star. But the vagaries of public taste, combined with On-U Sound's limited wherewithal, thwarted Annie's hoped-for breakthrough. She remained a respected cult figure, and new horizons beckoned. As the 1990s progressed Annie would leave On-U Sound, London and her husband, relocate to New York City and fully embrace her chanteuse/cabaret leanings. Collaborations with the likes of Antony Hegarty and Paul Wallfisch and great LPs would follow.
But that's another story...
Robert R Conroy
New York City, September 2010
Taken from Robert R Conroy's notes for the insert of this reissue of Short and Sweet.
The CD is beautifully packaged in a digipack with artwork taken from Little Annie's own paintings and comes with extensive liner notes from Robert R Conroy, which shed light into the events around the recording.
Also available in this series of reissues are Little Annie's Jackamo and Soul Possession.
Track Listing
1. Watch The World Go Bye
2. Bless Those (Little Annie's Prayer)
3. Going For Gold
4. I Think Of You
5. I Think Of You (Dub)
6. Give It To Me
7. You The Night And The Music
8. Little Man
9. Prisoners Of Paradise
10. Everything & More
11. If Cain Were Able
Running Time: 47 Minutes
Released: January 2011
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Jackamo is probably one of the best LPs you have never heard, but once within its realm tread lightly and carefully. Here there be monsters. The great American author of weird fiction, HP Lovecraft, once remarked that for a tale of terror to be truly memorable “(a) certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present”. Such outer, unknown forces are at play here. Annie took her own personal fear and pain, and transmuted same into something existential.
This is truly music from the haunted dancehall. ‘Unexplainable dread’ – in both the Edgar Allen Poe and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry sense of this term – runs riot. But what keeps this LP from sliding into the pit of its own dark night of the soul is Annie herself – her pluck, her humor, her graceful facility with the English language and most of all her humanity.
The LP commences with a subtle apocalypse, a sledgehammer wrapped in velvet, a confession, a manifesto, a masterwork. ‘As I Lie in Your Arms’ is a truly amazing song, a sprawling, astonishing amalgam of dub groove and Caligari cabaret. Few tunes have so perfectly captured the horror of that 3am-hour-of-the-wolf-insomnia when the waking nightmares come calling. When the uneasy sleeper is suddenly aware and starts asking those most horrible of questions: “Am I really happy?’, ‘Was it all worth it?” and “What have I done?”.
Against Wimbish’s gently insistent/life-support baseline, Noah’s clattering percussion and the ghostly, elegant piano melody of Yamamoto, Annie intones this – what? Monologue? Colloquy? A ‘sugary soliloquy of lust’? She lays in the arms of her lover and can lie no longer. A gorgeous litany of dislocated disappointment pours forth. The aching, ragged beauty of Annie’s vocals are surpassed only by the brutal/gorgeous precision of her words. “As anxious night turns to endless day and nightmares turn to daydreams, we will crawl across the floor and laugh at all the splinters”.
Meanwhile Sherwood drapes the whole proceedings in a groovy/ghostly dub shroud. The rest of the album could have been blank and the LP would have still been a major work just for this track alone.
But the remainder of Jackamo is anything but blank and/or filler. One has barely a moment to recover from the quiet devastation of the first song before the vicious, jittery assault of the second. ‘Bastinado’ is a form of torture that consists of beating the soles of a prisoner’s feet. In Annie’s skilled, bloody hands the practice becomes an emblem for the rampant violence of the modern world, which she lays out in a laundry list that is both hideous and blackly hilarious.
‘Chasing the Dragon Down Broadway’ is a Harold Pinter-play-bad-trip-tribal-stomp to a blaring soundtrack of Captain Beefhart and Martin Denny. Then the monstrous title track arrives. Quoting Mr. Lovecraft again, the author suggests that the truly ‘weird’ in art commands “a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe‘s utmost rim”. He could have been describing the song Jackamo. It is a beautiful nightmare, a sumptuous, evil, sonic vortex that pulls the listener down into a netherworld of bat squeaks, psychedelic soundscapes and graveyard tablas. Meanwhile, Annie’s rantings echo in the distance, sounding like Judy Garland babbling through some late-night set in a bar full of mugwumps in William Burroughs’ Interzone.
Released to rapturous reviews on the fledgling British indie label One Little Indian, Jackamo should have set the world on its ear. But as luck would have it, another band on One Little Indian happened to release a record at just about the same time as Annie did. The label was utterly blind-sided by the sudden, huge success of the Sugarcubes’ first LP. In the ensuing months, as the label scrambled to deal with its new megstars, other releases on the label – including Jackamo – got lost in the shuffle.
Robert R Conroy
New York City, September 2010
Taken from Robert R Conroy's notes for the insert of this reissue of Jackamo.
The CD is beautifully packaged in a digipack with artwork taken from Little Annie's own paintings and comes with extensive liner notes from Robert R Conroy, which shed light into the events around the recording.
Also available in this series of reissues are Little Annie's Short and Sweet and Soul Possession.
Track Listing
1. As I Lie in Your Arms
2. Bastinado
3. Chasing the Dragon Down Broadway
4. Jackamo
5. Jack Yo Mama
6. One Mourning for Marvin Gaye
7. Rise
8. Hier Encore
9. Down by the Station
10. Rise Dub
Running Time: 47 minutes
Released: January 2011
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Canadian-born but based in Kobe, Japan, Tim Olive's work in the realms of abstract sound and composition is unique in that it rarely is a solo endeavor. Instead, his approach is that music should be collaborative, and thus these two recent works feature him and his slew of home made and non-musical instruments working alongside similar minded artists, in this case Kyoto's Takuji Naka and Calgary percussionist Chris Dadge. The two albums are certainly consistent with each other in approach, but also stand alone as distinct entities as well, linked by Olive's touch and artistry.
Most of Olive's collaborations are immediate and improvisational in nature, with only a small amount of post-recording treatment done, as is the case here.The collaboration with Naka, Minouragatake, was recorded on two dates in the fall/winter of 2019, with no indication of post-production occurring.The first of the seven untitled pieces begins with a series of wet, industrial thuds that approximate some semblance of rhythm akin to a broken drum machine.Fluid, reverberating ambience and skittering noises flesh out the performance.
The second and third pieces exemplify the quieter, sparser tendencies of the duo.The second is a light amount of interference (likely captured by Olive's magnetic pickups) that is treated to sound rather digital and unnatural.The overall sound is spacious, but there is distinct structure to be had.The third part may be quiet in volume, but humming sounds and low bit rate electronics result in a more chaotic feel in comparison.
The second side of the tape is where the sound becomes denser, and occasionally frightening.The sixth piece sounds like it is built on a foundation of pained animal sounds, with metallic scrapes and pulsating electronics later added to the loop-centric composition.The concluding section is all whistling noises and bizarre, sustained hums and drones.There is a cold, off-kilter sound throughout, with some uncomfortable noises and sounds of unclear origin concluding the tape.
For Nice You!, Olive pairs up with Chris Dadge for a studio endeavor following a duo performance in June 2019.With Tim sticking to his magnetic pickup array and found objects, Dadge adds percussion and small instruments and electronics to create a work that is a bit more rhythmic, but also a bit more spacious.The first of two lengthy pieces leads off with sustained bass amp hums and scraping metal.Dadge’s improvised percussion gives a pseudo-rhythmic throb, punctuated with more amp noise and feedback.There is overall a loose free improvised sound here, with Dadge’s toy piano undercutting some of the more chaotic electronics throughout.
On the second piece, low frequency rumbles bounce through open spaces and what sounds like clattering bottles or other rattling noises functioning as percussion.Later a semblance of rhythm is constructed via knocking noises baked in reverb that rumble through the spacious and metallic mix.From there a mass of what resembles anemic strings, massive oil drum vibrations and sustained electronic notes extend throughout.The opening sounds stay consistent throughout, but overall there is a dynamic feel, with other parts swirling and slowly flowing from one moment to the next, balancing that feeling of consistency with spontaneity.
Certainly there is some similarities between the tape with Takuji Naka and the CD with Chris Drage due to Tim Olive’s presence and use of electronics, but the two are clearly distinct from one another.The spontaneity of the recording sessions, and the way in which Tim bounces off a fellow performer gives each one a fresh dynamic, from the less structured electronics heavy Minouragatake to the free improvisation tinged rhythms of Nice You! makes for two distinct works that complement each other well.With Naka and Olive having a 13 date UK tour postponed from May of this year, I am curious to see with future releases if he opts into virtual collaborations, or once restrictions are lifted if his performing style goes into a different direction entirely.
Samples Available Here (Minouragatake, Nice You!).
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Francisco López has been active and rather prolific for 40 years, and A Bunch of Stuff (1980-2020) is the first true retrospective release he has assembled thus far. While there have been a multitude of compilations or boxed sets, those consisted largely of thematic releases or previously unreleased works. This 12 hour USB drive, consisting of uncompressed excerpts from 138 pieces and categorized by style, acts as probably the best, and most thorough, introduction to his staggering discography. Standing alone as a diverse and compelling compilation, it also serves as a gateway work for anyone looking to further explore his lengthy career.
I was immediately surprised by the title of this release.Given his usually austere presentation of untitled, numbered pieces and stark packaging, A Bunch of Stuff has an almost cavalier ring to it, but his approach to art is anything but.I suppose Greatest Hits would probably be too tongue in cheek, and A Young Person’s Guide to Francisco López would be leaning a bit too much into prog rock pretentiousness.Given its career overview nature, either one would have been justified.The casual title and clever classification of pieces certainly makes this collection more inviting to the neophyte, especially given his run of CDs in empty jewel cases and only the slightest of on-disc printing to discern them.
The drive is split into 15 folders, each collecting a series of excerpts that range mostly from between three and six minutes.The folders are all thematically categorized by either their source materials or their overall sound/concept.For example, "Delusional Cinematic" is made of pieces that are pseudo film soundtracks (in some cases complete with simulated sound effects) while "Mutated Locations" are field recordings that have been otherwise processed or treated. López does an exceptional job in creating these edits as well, since most sound like stand alone pieces rather than, in some cases, only four minutes of an hour long composition.
Each segment also is an excellent means of showcasing his stylistic and technical evolution as well.The earliest piece under "Delusional Cinematic," "Untitled (1984)," has more in common with early noise recordings with its overdriven analog roar and cut up layers.However, the metal scrapings and what seems to be recordings of airplanes have a film sound effects quality to them.This compared with 2020's "DSB," which is a narrative unto itself; from its radar ping openings to its engine sounds into dramatic space is the perfect audio presentation of a missile being shot from a submarine into the cosmos.
The "Nice Noise" folder balances these complex narrative-like works, which is essentially his harsh noise side.From 1985, "Messor structor" is pure hollow waterfall wall noise, with no apparent underline theme other than sound for the sake of sound."KRMN-FL" from 2009 is a sustained symphonic swell of what sounds like an army of insects, blended with elongated tones and layers that stay harsher throughout, but have a distinct, unified flow to them. On yet another end of the spectrum, the "VirtuAural Machines" section of processed machinery sounds and field recordings make for a handful of rhythmic works that range from the nanoscale clicks and scrapes of "Klokken" to the layered industrial factory rhythms within "Labs" to the mechanic shuffle beat of "Fabrikas." The end product is a series of works that sound not far removed from Esplendor Geométrico, which is not too surprising given López’s project with Arturo Lanz as BioMechanica.
The most impressive thing here is simply the wide range of works he has recorded thus far."Untitled #241" (part of the maximalist "All In" category) is one of the most non-organic recordings I have ever heard, with odd beeps and a tactile crunch that, at times, I thought may have been physically damaging my headphones given the intense sub bass that rhythmically throbs throughout.Conversely, 1996’s "Paris Hiss" (part of "Medium With No Message") has subtle warmth to it, consisting solely of dubbing one blank tape to another hundreds of times and leading to a gentle white noise hiss and slow frequency sweeps.
At 12 hours, there is simply a massive amount of compositions to absorb in here, but the classification makes jumping in an out depending on mood an easy option.There are also detailed liner notes included, in some cases explicitly detailing how the pieces were created, and at other times only the most sparse of details.There may be a handful of people out there who own Francisco López’s entire discography who would see this collection as unnecessary, but I doubt there are many.Instead I figure there are a lot of fans (such as myself) who pick up an album here and there not knowing what to fully expect, or others who are familiar with his name but have no idea where to start.A Bunch of Stuff is aimed at the latter two groups.Hearing isolated sections of a work is certainly a motivator to seek out the full album, but even as a stand alone release, it covers a lot of fascinating territory and showcases a singular artist who continues to put out fascinating and innovative works four decades in.
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In recent years, it seems like each new Dead C release is inspired by a different extreme self-imposed constraint or contrarian impulse for self-sabotage. Obviously, the trio have always been unwaveringly devoted to making challenging and polarizing art, but they are also admirably devoted to continual reinvention (and presumably to repeatedly wrong-footing their audience as well). This latest EP is a bit of a puzzle though, as it feels less like the product of a focused overarching vision than it does an eclectic mixed bag of varying threads ("broken, shambolic blues" and "gnarled guitar tone worship" spring most immediately to mind). Some of the trio's searching forays into uncharted territory on Unknowns definitely yield more compelling results than others though, so longtime fans will likely find something to love even if the entire EP can be tough to fully embrace. Given that, Unknowns would not be an ideal starting point for the curious, as the band seem to be consciously not playing to their strengths, but they are at least doing things wrong in some very interesting ways.
The Dead C belong to a highly exclusive pantheon of artists that I genuinely love, yet who also seem like they could plausibly be an extremely elaborate performance art prank at my expense.I bring that up because the initial appearance of vocals in the opening "Grunt Machine" immediately called to mind the infamous outtakes of Orson Wells' wine commercial (a rare andintoxicating blend of "surprised" and "distracted").The slurred, mumbled, and unfocused vocals on Unknowns are sometimes what I would charitably call "an interesting choice" at times, yet I can also see the possible purpose behind such an approach: the band are not halfheartedly composing messy, elliptical, and inscrutable songs, but are instead adding a bit of buried, enigmatic poetry to their limping and burned-out rock deconstructions.At the center of all the noise, a mumbled koan awaits!Vocals aside, "Grunt Machine" is also significant for being the EP's sole foray into the aforementioned "broken, shambolic blues" due to Robbie Yates' slow, shuffle rhythm, but the grimy snarls of feedback and groaning distortion that Bruce Russell and Michael Morley unleash approach "peak-Dead C" territory (despite their brevity).The song's structure is actually far weirder than my description suggests though, as the "blues vamp" portion feels like it simply erupts in the middle of a second and completely different song.That other theme then returns at the end for a meditative outro of sleepily chugging chords and blown-out, spacy guitar noise.That disrupted compositional structure may be another "interesting choice," I suppose, but I like it anyway, as the piece's obvious linear path (building towards a fiery guitar crescendo) would have been a predictable and well-traveled one.This path is neither.
Two of my favorite pieces follow next: "Still" and "The Sky Above."On "Still," moaned and mumbled vocals float over a buzzing, clattering, and noisy backdrop and everything initially seems like business-as-usual for the trio, but then everything suddenly falls away to leave only a cool drum pattern and a lovely, shimmering haze of guitar noise."The Sky Above," on the other hand, feels like an actual structured and composed song, albeit one crafted from a hyper-minimal palette of drums, vocals, and quiet, murky smears of guitar.Around the halfway point, however, it is disrupted by a jarring blurt of noise and the piece then dissolves into a slow fade-out of amp noise, blown-out snarls of feedback, and quivering drones.The EP's final two pieces are the longest.The first, "Glitterness," leads with an impressive squall of stammering, wah-wah-ravaged noise, but soon transforms into a crawling groove centered around slow washes of ringing guitar chords.By Dead C standards, that second part is a refreshingly simple and ugliness-free curveball, but I wish it was not the piece's endpoint.If the order of the two sections was reversed, the dynamic arc would probably be more satisfying, but I also suspect that is why the band chose the opposite route instead.The closer is another gem, however, as "The Field" initially combines a heartbeat-like kick drum with a meandering replay of the album’s earlier themes, then abruptly changes into something else entirely with a cymbal flourish.That "something else" turns out to be a fully formed song of sorts and quite a good one at that, as Yates' weirdly slow-motion/double-time beat drags along an increasingly dense cacophony of burned-out soloing and smoldering distortion.Appropriately, the EP ends as a smoking ruin.  
For the most part, I quite like Unknowns, but there are admittedly some caveats with it.For one, it passes by too quickly to leave a deep impression and none of these five songs rank among the band's most memorable.One killer centerpiece would have definitely elevated this EP into something more significant.That said, it is not like the Dead C were desperately trying to write immortal songs and failed.Instead, it captures the trio gleefully breaking things and mischievously toying with expectations with complete assurance.When viewed as simply as a "this is what we are currently doing" dispatch between major statements, Unknowns holds up quite well and reveals some compelling new developments in the band's sound.Naturally, I was drawn to this EP primarily because The Dead C have long been among of the most reliably fascinating purveyors of guitar noise around and Unknowns not only keeps that trend going, but fitfully takes it to some wonderful and unexpected new heights.That last part is Unknowns' real and lasting appeal for me, as Bruce Russell and Michael Morley have truly mastered the intricacies of crafting wonderfully ugly tones and giving them the space to breath and smear together into gently oscillating, slow-burning magic. Even if Unknowns is not quite a sustained triumph, it still amounts to a very enjoyable collection of inspired moments.
Samples can be found here.
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This latest release from the Opalio brothers documents their incendiary live performance with recurring collaborator Jean-Marc Montera at 2018’s Reevox-Nuit D’Hiver festival in Marseilles. Generally, live albums are not my preference (outside of iconic jazz line-ups), but the difference between a "live" and a "studio" recording is largely an irrelevant and purely academic one with My Cat is an Alien: both are completely spontaneous, so the only real difference is that people happened to be watching this time. Consequently, the primary appeal of Nuit d'Hiver lies in how Montera’s presence steers the brothers' signature psychedelia into somewhat wilder, more unpredictable territory. Admittedly, Montera is a recurring figure precisely because he has an especially deep understanding of the Opalios' vision and always brings welcome enhancements to it, so Nuit d'Hiver is still predicable in one sense: it is another strong addition to the MCIAA discography. It may not be quite as strikingly novel as some other MCIAA collaborations, given Montera's history and familiarity with the Opalios' work and ethos, but it is nevertheless a characteristically absorbing swirl of deep space lysergia.
Opax Records/The End mAde RecordS
There are not many projects that consistently explore the outer reaches of abstract psychedelia as beautifully as My Cat is an Alien, but the Opalios are quite committed to both "spontaneous composition" and their small, but unique palette of tools.As such, a lot of MCIAA releases open in relatively familiar terrain (for them, at least) and this album is no exception, as "Nuit d'Hiver (part I)" begins with a repeating loop of sweeping laser noises.That structure soon dissolves into a diffuse fantasia of spacey electronics, then passes through some more minor evolutions before the bottom unexpectedly drops out to reveal an echoing vision of psychotic horror.That is the point where this album starts to blossom into something special and unique, as deep shudders, ghostly vocal haze, and hellish, creepy echoes swirl together in a nightmarish reverie.A few more fascinating stages follow, as the trio delve first into something akin to a fireworks display of vintage synth sounds erupting over deconstructed space rock, then into a passage of screeching feedback-like tones inside a cage of rattling metal strings.Somehow, the voyage only gets stranger and more wonderful from there, as there is an interlude that sounds like three great ‘70s psych/Krautrock albums being played onto top of each other, as well as the extremely unexpected appearance of a motif that resembles a lurching, slow-motion bass line.For a minute or two, it sounds exactly like mid-90s Tortoise turned up to do a real-time dub remix of the show, but the piece then plunges into something that briefly resembles a snarling, deconstructed, and deranged freak-out cover of Cabaret Voltaire’s "Project 80" sucked into a black hole.Then, for the finale, the trio unleash an escalating cacophony of layered noise, plinking metal, eerie buzzes, and some very unexpected wah-wah guitar.
The album's second half begins in quite different and quietly dreamlike fashion, as gently jangling strings mingle with a haze of spectral vocals.The strings soon cohere into an insistent pedal tone, however, and the piece fleetingly seems poised to erupt into a roiling space rock crescendo, yet unexpectedly collapses into abstraction instead.Later, a wonderfully heaving and shuddering undercurrent briefly feels like it is going to steer the piece into something heavy and rhythmic, but that too is abandoned as the trio continue to search for just the moment when everything organically clicks fully into place.That moment arguably comes shortly after 9-minute mark, as an insistently ringing guitar motif appears.Naturally, it soon gets overpowered by spaced-out electronic weirdness, but it does eventually crawl out from under that miasma again later.While that motif still never fully takes hold, the piece feels significantly more focused and purposeful from that point onward.At one point, the trio again threaten another dub-inflected excursion with some echoing thumps, yet that proves to be a feint before a surprise interlude of garbled radio transmission sounds.My personal high point of the piece comes when those shortwave radio-like sounds lock into a repeating loop that then curdles into dissonance.The remaining minutes offer a few more satisfying twists though, as the trio manage to sound like they are playing inside a reawakening volcano before everything falls away for a final "locked groove" motif.While the album's second half admittedly features more false starts than I would normally like, it ultimately becomes quite an impressive performance once it gets rolling.The crescendo is worth the wait.
Predictably, one of the album's primary pleasures lies in hearing how Montera handles being dropped into a scenario in which all conventional wisdom regarding rhythm, harmony, melody, and music theory has been rejected, which is a very tricky tightrope to walk in real-time.On the one hand, he would sound ridiculous if he started playing anything resembling "normal" chords or scales, but he also would not be adding much to the table if he just stomped pedals and made weird noises (there are already plenty of those on every MCIAA album).Consequently, some serious creativity is required and Montera proved himself to be admirably up to the task.Of the album's two sides, I definitely prefer the first, as it feels like all three artists shared the exact same vision and somehow nailed one spontaneously composed "set piece" after another.Both halves of the album deepened my appreciation of the Opalios' work, however, as I found myself noticing how essential Roberto's vocals are for evoking the project's disorientingly alien atmosphere (I have been recently fascinated by how dramatically the tone of a film scene changes when the soundtrack is changed or removed).I also noticed the newly named "Stereoalien Fidelity" aesthetic of "multi-dimensional, full dynamics-frequency spectrum" production in a few places, as sounds seemed to subtly move around my head when I listened with headphones (I like that).While the Opalios seem to be especially prolific these days, it does not seem like their standards are slipping at all, as Nuit d'Hiver is another solid and satisfying release that fitfully creeps into some appealing new terrain.It might not feel like an especially dramatic departure from some other MCIAA releases, but it does feel intense and uncharacteristically melodic enough to stand out regardless (and the rare moments when everything falls seamlessly and gloriously into place can be quite striking).
Samples can be found here.
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Given how many achingly gorgeous songs Mary Lattimore has released over the last few years, I was not exactly clamoring for any significant changes to either her aesthetic or her working methods. However, when I learned that she had flown out to Cornwall to record with Neil Halstead, my expectations for Silver Ladders nevertheless increased dramatically. And for the most part, those intimidatingly high expectations were met with this album, though this is still very much a Mary Lattimore album rather than the Lattimore/Mojave 3 or Lattimore/Slowdive collaboration of my dreams (though "Til a Mermaid Drags You Under" feels damn close to such a transcendent union). For the most part, however, Silver Ladders is exactly what I would expect from Lattimore at this point in her career: a near-flawless collection of tenderly sublime, nuanced, and emotionally resonant harp reveries enhanced with a subtle palette of effects. Whether or not Silver Ladders surpasses any of Lattimore's previous great albums is difficult to say, as my feelings on that vary by the day, but it definitely belongs among her most memorably beautiful statements to date.
There is an ancient and timeless adage attributed to Florus which states "the poet is born, not made."That is obviously a hard truth for a lot of would-be poets and artists out there, but there are fortunately many, many alternate viewpoints stating that absolutely everyone has a poet lurking inside them (or whatever).Nevertheless, Florus's observation was the one that instantly popped into my mind when I started thinking about why I love so much of Mary Lattimore's work.Normally, I do not have such thoughts when I like something, but it unexpectedly struck me that 1.) I am not particularly predisposed towards harps, and 2.) I would not like this album nearly as much if the exact same melodies were played on a guitar or a piano instead.I ultimately concluded that Lattimore simply has a singular intuition for both crafting beautiful, emotionally resonant melodies and the (equally crucial) nuances of how those melodies need to be played.The latter is something that truly needs to be felt on an instinctive level.In fact, one of my favorite details about this album was Lattimore's reminiscence regarding a poster of a surfer in Halstead’s studio: she would contemplate it "each day, looking at the sunlight glinting on the dark wave," taking in "the contrast between the dark lows and the glittering highs."She clearly internalized that aesthetic in a profound way, as few artists can achieve that contrast as consistently and as beautifully as Lattimore does on Silver Ladders.Every single piece is a delicate and masterfully executed balancing act of achieving warmth, tenderness, and bittersweet emotional depth without ever erring in the direction of either melancholy or toothless prettiness.
Unsurprisingly, Halstead seems to channel that poster's lessons quite well himself, as the most sublime and poignant moments on the album are those in which he enhances Lattimore's melodies with an intertwining one of his own.In that regard (and every other one as well), "Til a Mermaid Drags You Under" is the album’s absolutely mesmerizing centerpiece.In fact, it may very well be the greatest piece Mary has ever recorded.The piece starts off in deceptively simple fashion, however, as Lattimore opens with a slow, repeating arpeggio and Halstead soon joins her with a hazy, slow-motion guitar figure.Admittedly, a jam session between Mary and Neil sounds just fine by me, but a tenderly quivering harp motif eventually appears in the upper register and the piece gradually coheres into an endlessly ascending tour de force of god-tier beauty.In fact, there is at least one place where it feels like "Mermaid" has finally reached its sublime and perfect zenith only to have a fresh theme appear to push it even further into the heavens.As such, I have no reservations at all about proclaiming it an instant, stone-cold masterpiece.There are plenty of other gems among the remaining six pieces, however, and they cover fairly varied stylistic territory."Sometimes He's in My Dreams," co-written by Halstead, probably comes closest to revisiting the aesthetic of "Mermaid," as it centers around a very "Slowdive/Mojave 3" guitar figure.
I was more struck by the following "Chop on the Climbout" though, which uncharacteristically opens with a woozily lovely organ motif.Naturally, Lattimore beautifully accompanies that theme with some rippling harp arpeggios and Halstead contributes some echoing guitar, but my favorite moment occurs when a steadily intensifying bass hum unexpectedly breaks up into gnarled, crackling noise (I like surprises).Elsewhere, the brief opener "Pine Trees" captures Lattimore's harp melodies at their most tender, delicate, and fluid, while the closing "Thirty Tulips" comes the closest to rivaling "Mermaid" as the defining stunner of the album: it is an absolute feast of tumbling, beautifully intertwined melodies warmed by an elegiac progression of organ chords.As with "Mermaid," there is plenty to appreciate in the details, as it sometimes feels like a chain reaction of rippling themes is spiraling off of the central melody.
Naturally, any album that features two instant classics is one that I will likely be revisiting for a long time, so Silver Ladders has definitively earned a place among At the Dam and Collected Pieces as one of my favorite Mary Lattimore releases.Speaking of At the Dam, I was amusingly relieved when Lattimore expanded her palette with prominent effects on that album, as I was worried that she could only record a few more solo harp albums before winding up in a stylistic cul de sac in which she kept revisiting familiar territory to diminishing returns.That is definitely an issue I have with many of the guitarists continuing the Takoma legacy (even the ones I like), but I now believe that any similar concerns with Lattimore are thankfully unfounded.Granted, Silver Ladders features several enhancements beyond Mary and her harp (guitars, organs, Neil Halstead), but none of them dramatically change the essence of her original vision—they just make what she was already doing sound better than it otherwise would have.That said, Halstead was definitely a perfect and inspired collaborator, as I cannot imagine "Mermaid" being the same towering achievement without him.However, I suspect the rest of Silver Ladders would still be wonderful even if Lattimore had recorded it herself on a boombox in a sewer, as the fundamental beauty of these pieces lies in how her melodies twinkle, tumble, hesitate, and intertwine in all the right places and how absolutely effortless she makes that organic fluidity feel.
Samples can be found here.
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SMM: Context is the first release in Ghostly International's new yearly compilation series of evocative, exploratory music. In 2004, Ghostly International introduced SMM, an unknown acronym used to evaporate the already-unspooling musical boundaries between classical minimalism, electronic and drone composition, film soundtracks, and fragile imaginary landscapes. SMM: Context features a hand-picked selection of some of the world’s finest musicians from Poland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, North America and the UK who traffic in SMM's slow-moving, texture-focused compositions, simple in instrumentation, but infinitely complex in execution.
Svarte Greiner's "Halves" creates a David Lynch-ian dreamscape out of slowly undulating drones and distant creaks and scratches. Wire magazine favorite Leyland Kirby contributes "Polaroid", a wide-open vista of barely plucked nylon strings and deep synthesizer swells. Guitar-and-turntables duo The Fun Years patiently fold loops and spy-guitar noodles into "Cornelia Amygdaloid", a patient, minimalist take on psychedelia. Rafael Anton Irisarri (aka The Sight Below , the compilation's lone Ghostly artist) tips his hat to "furniture music" pioneer Erik Satie in "Moments Descend on My Windowpane", a soulful piano-and-noise meditation. Context closes with Peter Broderick’s “Pause”, a time-stopping slice of acoustic-guitar melancholia.
The songs on SMM: Context can’t be categorized. They do their work in a multitude of ways, seeming to change depending on when and how they’re listened to, providing a backdrop for life's small movies, or--if you're not into the whole "ambient as life soundtrack" thing--acting as their own context, existing simply as elegant, heartbreakingly beautiful music.
ARTIST: Various Artists
ALBUM TITLE: SMM: Context
CATALOG NUMBER: GI-133
LABEL: Ghostly International / SMM
FORMAT: Limited CD / Limited 2xLP / Digital
01. Goldmund – "Motion"
02. Leyland Kirby – "Polaroid"
03. Svarte Greiner – "Halves"
04. Christina Vantzou – "11 Generations Of My Fathers"
05. Jacaszek – "Elegia"
06. The Fun Years – "Cornelia Amygdaloid"
07. Manual – "Three Parts"
08. Aidan Baker – "Substantiated"
09. Rafael Anton Irisarri – "Moments Descend On My Windowpane"
10. Kyle Bobby Dunn – "Runge’s Last Stand"
11. Peter Broderick – "Pause"
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