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Wire's sudden reactivation in the early part of the 2000s was quite a welcome one. While the sporadic live shows they played during that time were refreshing, the new material that appeared with the release of the first Read and Burn EP demonstrated a true "revival" of the band, which culminated with this album. Now, seven years later, it is reissued with a second disc of harder to find and unreleased material, and sounds just as vital as it did in 2003. It also marks the end of Bruce Gilbert’s tenure with Wire, and perhaps the period with his most significant contributions to the band.
It seemed as if post-1977, Wire were doing all they could to escape "12XU," which endeared them to punk rockers who cared little for anything else they did during their first phase of existence.Most famously, they excised the bulk of the track from Document and Eyewitness, the audio documentation of the show that closed their first era of activity in 1980.Once it was finally released in full on 1996's Turns and Strokes, it was easy to hear the snide, sarcastic performance that was precipitated from obnoxiously yelling punks in the audience.Once into their second, more electronic pop tinged period in the 1980s, the song was all but forgotten, replaced by their then-signature song "Drill."
However, the track was once again embraced in 2001 with the "Twelve Times You" single.Presented here on the second disc, it appears in a deconstructed techno form "12 Times U" and a studio polished live take from 2000, "12 Times X."Both embraced the thrashy elements of the original, which arguably was one of the impetuses for hardcore punk, and used that energy as a blueprint for the two subsequent Read and Burn releases of new material.Not only that, but it almost seemed as if they embraced the full on adrenaline rush of Minor Threat's infamous cover of the song, as the subsequent material was some of the fastest and most dissonant material they have ever done.
Those first two Read and Burn EPs were a way for Wire to test the waters, with both being released in relatively small numbers and initially just direct from the band-run label, limiting their exposure to mostly just Wire’s core audience.Send, on the other hand, was culled from those releases, with a few tracks exclusive to its initial release.The electronic, dance oriented pop sound started with mid 1980s Wire and continued into the '90s as Wir was all but gone, replaced with a much spikier, aggressive approach that rivaled the energy of Pink Flag some 26 years before.
Most of the material here was borne out of direct collaboration between guitarist/vocalist Colin Newman and guitarist Bruce Gilbert, who both were polar opposites within the band.Geographically, this made sense, since both resided in the same city, while Graham Lewis was in Sweden, and thus contributed to a lesser degree via mail and occasional visits.Newman has never shied away from a pop song, as his solo work and Githead project clearly demonstrate.Gilbert, on the other hand, leans towards the abrasive and noise worlds, exemplified by his solo work such as In Esse, a disc that could easily be filed next to Merzbow when it comes to sound.The result is an album that shows the influence of both, and the domination of neither.The material is raw, aggressive and dissonant, but shaped into memorable, catchy songs.
Even the opening "In the Art of Stopping," which is one of the more pop-focused songs here, pounds along with a relatively simple over-driven three chord progression, Colin Newman's snide vocals, and the occasionally discordant electronic treatment, keeping it away from the traditional song structure.The superficially restrained "Mr. Marx's Table" is actually a mess of crashing digital guitars once Newman’s rather gentle vocal is pulled away.
The strongest moments are those where any sense of subtlety is ignored in favor of full on hardcore blasts.The infamous "Comet" is a simple, intentionally dumb slab of punk that belies the artistic depth of Wire, which is what makes it so great.How anyone could dislike a song about an apocalyptic event where the chorus is "And the chorus goes….ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang" is beyond me, and said persons will probably never be my friend.The following "The Agfers of Kodack" represents a thematic continuation of sorts, with Graham Lewis' vocals once again from the perspective of a war reporter (see Pink Flag's "Reuters" and "The First Letter" by Wir for other variations on the theme).The song has all of the heaviness of "Comet" but an entirely different vibe to it."Spent" is my favorite of all the aggressive tracks here, and on my short list of all time favorite Wire songs.Opening with Newman's snarling, vitriolic voice and layers of guitar slowly being placed, one atop another, until Robert Grey's drums fully kick in about a third of the way through the track.It comes across as so raging and disgusted, but with such intricate layering and processing to the sound, it’s far more than just pure aggression.
Not only are there the aggressive tracks, but those that are the thorny, abstract blobs that exist between the "songs"."Nice Streets Above," for example, is based on a loop taken from a live recording of "Drill" on which guitar that doesn't sound like guitar is piled, resembling a harsh electronic collage (with a beat).The painfully short "Half Eaten" has some extremely uncommon Bruce Gilbert vocals, heavily effected and buried in a swamp of nails and battery acid, resulting in a song that owes more to the work he and Lewis did as Dome than anything else on the album.The long closer "99.9" works nicely as a culmination of the album:initially building on the slow burn of a synthesizer and Newman’s vocals, which go from calm and restrained to fully unhinged when the piece brings in Grey’s pounding drums and even more pieces of spiny, distorted guitar.Traditionally, Wire albums had at least one long, difficult moment, and on this one it was "99.9."
The first disc is the exact same, content wise, as the original issue from 2003.This is not a good thing.Surprisingly, that album had a noticeable share of mastering issues, specifically a lot of digital clipping from being mastered too loudly.The bass swells in "Nice Streets Above" is one of the best examples of this:on Send it clearly becomes distorted from clipping, while the recording on Read and Burn 2 does not.I was hoping that this (and other related issues) would be fixed on this newer edition, but they linger.
The second disc, in addition to the aforementioned "Twelve Times You" single, compiles the Read and Burn songs that didn't make the cut for Send, but none of which are lacking."I Don't Understand," from the first EP, is cut from a similar cloth as "The Agfers of Kodack," but with the disgusted thrust of "Spent."How this ended up on a Victoria's Secret commercial still baffles me some three years after the fact."Trash/Treasure" was left off the album because it is far too pretty of a pop song to fit in with all the dissonance and thrash.From a melodic perspective, it owes a great deal to A Bell is a Cup era Wire, but with the ambience of Send.The short "Raft Ants" is one that could have fit nicely on there, however, with its machine gun pace and noise guitar.Given Newman's free association lyrics, it does sound like Motörhead covering "Kidney Bingos."
The newly released material shows gives some good insight into the development of what became the album."Artificial Gravity" is an instrumental (with the exception of Newman growling the title sporadically like a German Gabber DJ) that sounds like the nascent idea behind "Nice Streets Above" but more repetitious with a bit of the melody of "Trash/Treasure" thrown in.This ended up being reworked into "You Can’t Leave Now" on the album, which is a drastic change."DJ Fuckoff" is a 2000 performance of "Drill" mutilated into a sample collage with a techno beat.It's understandable why it never really evolved past what it is, but that doesn't stop it from being entertaining.
Two songs that eventually appeared on the post-Send Read and Burn 3 EP were in their demo form at this time:"Our Time" is a more rudimentary mix with a bit more breathing room than the final take, but is almost fully formed."Desert Diving" has a similarly complete feel, though it appears here with more of an ambient techno synth backing.It doesn’t drastically differ from the completed take, but I still prefer the final one.
I do wonder what spurred this project on, considering the relatively relatively recent appearance of Send, at least compared to other albums in Wire’s discography. To their argument Send did slip out of print however the aforementioned mastering issues weren't addressed.Extremely devoted Wire fans will probably already have almost everything here.I personally missed the 7" and Read and Burn 2 due to being completely broke when they were released, and not being able to track them down reasonably priced since then, so I was glad to have good recordings of them.Personally, I'd really like to see some of those rarities from the 1970s made available again, such as the singles/B-sides that were pulled off the recent remasters of those albums, or perhaps some unreleased 1980s material.As it stands, Send is still a brilliantly acerbic disc and, although the more pop oriented Object 47 has grown on me in the two years since its release, I still favor the more challenging material here.
samples:
 
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This album is a study in restraint. Opening with a libidinous blast, the duration is spent in an attempt to reign in on the passions released during the initial cacophony. These improvisations have been placed within a context of specific boundaries, allowing the musicians to explore particular modes of operation without being overwhelmed by the unlimited possibilities that sometimes stifle free form music.
Male is a Chicago based ensemble revolving around Jonathan Krohn (electronics) and Benjamin Mjolsness (guitar). Fluttering about this dual core is a cadre of other fine instrumentalists including vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, Dave Rempis on sax, and cornet player Josh Berman, among others. On this, their sophomore album, more time has been taken adding to, or subtracting from the original improvised recordings, which were an attempt to capture the feel of the past few years live shows. The chosen process has resulted in a very listenable collection of tunes.
"M. Wilson, American" opens with virulent strains of atonal sax, a battery of drums, soft vibraphone, and grating guitar. All sound like they are wrestling each other, screaming, trying to bury each other alive. Somewhere along the way they learn to regard one another, gathering around a water cooler of pre-amp distortion and fuzzy drones to work things out. This song and the rest are essentially expressionistic; vast territories and blurred landscapes are painted in quick strokes of hazy reverb. Glorious washes of echo and delay meld together to give instrumental snippets that seem to have been reproduced verbatim from the bands dreams. Subjective moods swirl around like Midwest cyclones.
"The Tase (One)" is just under two minutes long and is a copasetic sketch of what can be done to coax out some refracted tones from the guitar. Gently picked, and nearly subdued, it is minimal and hypnotic. Late in the album a live version, "The Tase (Two)," gives a longer expanded take on the piece. In the live setting it takes more time to develop, but reveals further nuances and subtleties. The lush organic drone that accompanies it adds a nice rinse.
"Jungle Boys" takes to flirting with the wilder, noisy end of the contemporary audio spectrum again; even so, the song still gives off an aura of self-control. Drummer Steven Hess is the main attraction at this event. Building up with a pitter patter of random rain splashes across his kit, things gradually escalate into an abstract onslaught, accompanied by the ricocheting splatter effect achieved with old reverb units, and some unnerving oscillations. My personal favorite is "House of Ride": a short melancholy drone. I listen to it on repeat up to two or three times in a row, like my teenage daughters do with their favorite pop songs. This is the centerpiece of the album, the logical zero point and the calm at the center of the storm.
German for Shark is a vinyl (& digital) release that comes with four downloadable MP3 remixes, from the likes of Anthony Child, Jon Minor, and Jim Schoenecker. All are very enjoyable, most following the blueprint of the originals closely, while elaborating on the textural elements. Dan Bitney of Tortoise, however, moves the music in a refreshingly different direction with "Japanese for Yes," making it positively danceable. It's a deep bass dream that makes my head swim with visions of sub-tropical vistas, Jamaica’s neon nightlife.
By the way, hai or haifisch is German for shark.
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After being unavailable for nearly a decade, this sprawling celebration of Andreas Martin and Christoph Heemann rarities and collaborations has finally been given its long-deserved reissue. Drawing from early solo material, H.N.A.S. releases, various compilation appearances, and unreleased pieces recorded between 1987 and 2000, this compilation offers a very eclectic and oft-fascinating window into the creative evolution of these eccentric and mysterious brothers.
The first disc of this two-disc set contains the entirety of Heemann's 1992 solo debut, Über Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche along with a handful of Martin/Heemann collaborations that hint at a mid-'90s fascination with minimalism and early electronic music.The two-part "Die Drei Wege Ins Unbekannt" and "…Und Schritt Rücklings Ins Wasser, Der Aussicht Wegen" are superficially very different from one another, but all three pieces deconstruct and loop their source material into strong, pulsing repetition.The shimmering second half of "Die Drei Weg" is probably the best of the three minimalism-inspired works, but the first part features some charmingly aggressive use of water noises.
The solo Heemann material, unsurprisingly, gets quite a bit stranger.It begins with a chorus of chirping birds, descends into ominous ambiance, startlingly launches into some jangling disco guitar, slows into some Reich-ian drone, derails into a kooky percussion theme, and (most bafflingly) plunges into something that could be played during a figure-skating routine without anyone raising an eyebrow.Also, of course, there are some jarring jump-cuts, blasts of static, a rooster, and the requisite nightmarishly tweaked synthesizers thrown into the mix. It makes for quite a perverse, unpredictable, and satisfying listening experience—its inclusion is probably the most compelling argument for this reissue's existence.
The second disc begins with Andreas Martin's complete 1994 EP, Doppelpunkt vor Ort.I had never heard any of Martin's solo recordings before (there are not many of them), but based upon my hazy recollection of the one time that I saw him perform, I was expecting his work to be very acoustic guitar-based.Aside from "Bärenluder" and "Fahrradmusik" however, he tends to venture into some unpredictable and counter-intuitive places.For example, "Wurstfinger" is built around a repeating accordion phrase, some sort of pipe, and something that could be a xylophone (none of which are listed as having been played in the liner notes).Then "Hirschemöhre" seems to be almost the exact same thing, only played backwards.Generally, it is the actual substance of Heemann-related releases that is bizarre, but in this case it is the mere existence of the release itself that has me mystified: I don’t understand why Andreas has only released one commercially distributed solo work or why he would choose to fill it with brief sketches that seem to purposely avoid showcasing his guitar playing.The rest of the disc, fortunately, is filled-out by two significantly more impressive and fully formed pieces: Heemann and Martin’s "Die Nachbarn" (which sounds like a logical evolution from Andreas’s solo work, yet actually preceded it), and the lengthy opening piece from H.N.A.S’s hard-to-find Ach, Dieser Bart! album (which is quite warped and wonderful).
This reissue also features a couple of extra songs that were not included on the 1999 release.The first is "Fussgänger," a simple, reverb-drenched acoustic guitar piece that first appeared on the 2008 Brainwaves compilation.The other addition is an untitled work that was previously only available on the 1999 Memoirs of a Lepidopterist 10" picture disc.Despite being a mere bonus track, it is actually one of best songs on the album, featuring some ghostly drones and a beautiful and (rare) unadulterated acoustic guitar performance by Andreas Martin.
Being a Christoph Heemann release, Memoirs of a Lepidopterist naturally contains a number of thorny and curious discography-related issues.The most enigmatic is the fact that the liner notes state that the flanger-crazy "Nüchtern Fahren, Sicher Ankommen" was taken from the 7" that came with the Ach, Dieser Bart! LP, but there is no such song on that release.Also, there is at least one motif that surfaces elsewhere, as a brief snatch of Heemann's "Über Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche Teil 1" turns up on Ach, Dieser Bart! and possibly again in altered form on Mimyriad."Nüchtern Fahren" seems to have also experienced a couple of reincarnations.If I were obsessive enough, I bet I could find several more interconnections, but I suspect that there would still be a great many warped and unrecognizable recyclings that would forever elude me.I would have loved for this reissue to have included comprehensive contextual liner notes to help make sense of it all, but I suppose the fact that the brothers remain as enigmatic as ever is a pretty decent consolation prize.Memoirs of a Lepidopterist can be a somewhat frustrating and inconsistent experience at times, yet it is definitely a unique, surprisingly coherent, and oft-inspired one too (especially given the odds-and-ends nature of the material covered).
Samples:
- H.N.A.S., "Als Der Morgen Kam, War Es, Als Sei Nur Eine Nacht Vergangen"
- Andreas Martin, "Fahrradmusik"
- Christoph Heemann, "√úber Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche Teil 2"
 
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The world didn't exactly end for Nigeria in the late 1960s, but it sure must’ve felt like it for most people, as a failed military coup led to a series of massacres and pogroms that ultimately snowballed into a full-scale civil war. One of the many casualties left in the wake of that chaos was Highlife music, which was far too breezy and urbane to remain relevant in the face of widespread death and turmoil—the youth of Nigeria craved something rawer and harder and they found it in American funk and British rock. Within a few short years, however, those outside inspirations were ingeniously assimilated into something all their own.
I experienced a little bit of trepidation when I first listened to this compilation, as I am not a fan of '70s rock in general and psychedelic rock in particular.Also, while I am quite enthusiastic about African music from that period, I am not especially keen on African versions of Western music.Thankfully, the bulk of The World Ends is anything but slavish in its emulation of James Brown and the British Invasion.Instead, it seems that Nigeria's musicians merely borrowed the best elements from both, appropriating rock's structured hookiness and funk's propulsive grooves, then Africanizing the beats and slathering it all with a liberal doses of cool, intensity, and abandon.Also, the psychedelic element is practically non-existent here, aside from a few overdriven guitar solos and self-indulgent organ workouts.Even those are likable though, as self-indulgence is not the least bit tiresome when it is occurring over an awesomely funky vamp.These guys seemed like they were far more concerned with heating up dance floors than smashing through the boundaries of perception, a sentiment that I am wholeheartedly in sympathy with.I would much rather hear something with some guts than a Nigerian pastiche of Jefferson Airplane or Piper at the Gates of Dawn (though that actually sounds like it would be pretty entertaining, now that I think about it).
It is rare for me to enjoy any compilation from start to finish, but this one is a pleasant exception.I like nearly everything here (except "Blacky Joe" by People Rock Outfit) and absolutely love several pieces, particularly The Hygrades' "Somebody's Gotta Lose or Win."Obviously, some songs are less catchy than others, but nearly all of the artists included display a knack for tight bass lines, funky guitar jangling, and complex, off-kilter percussion—there are almost no straightforward rock beats or rhythm guitars here.Also of note, when I finally got around to reading Uchonne Ikonne's brief biographical sketches, I made the amusing discovery that my two favorite songs on the album are both by identical twin duos.The Identicals are pretty representative of what the rest of the album sounds like, but they just seem to do everything much better than everyone else: the vocals are impassioned yet melodic, the drums are wild and muscular, and the guitar and organ riffs and fills are both awesome and well-timed.The Lijadu Sisters, on the other hand, are a distinct aberration, as they are both female (appropriately) and very laid-back.Also, their "Life’s Gone Down Low" sounds far more like something that would be on a Studio One disco or funk compilation than anything I've heard from Nigeria.Regardless, the slow-motion beat and harmonized dual vocals are absolutely irresistible.
As is typical of Soundway compilations, The World Ends includes some very comprehensive liner notes and a fascinating array of album art and performance photos from the period.Unexpectedly, however, there are also a couple of hilarious observations included from veterans of the scene.Renny Pearl recounts that once rock music took hold, guitarists in Nigeria went from being quite rare to being absolutely ubiquitous and that it became very hard to fill any other position in a band.My favorite quote, however, is from Fela Kuti, who lamented that a James Brown imitator from Sierra Leone became so popular in Nigeria that he had to move to Ghana just to get people to pay attention to him ("This man was tearing Lagos to pieces … He had all Nigeria in his pocket. Made me fall right on my ass, man… After that Pino tore up the scene, there wasn't shit I could do in Lagos.").
Obviously, there has been a landslide of releases over the last few years devoted to unearthing lost Nigerian classics (including at least five on Soundway alone), but The World Ends makes it clear that Miles Claret is nowhere near running out of quality material.In fact, it appears as though the vein might actually be inexhaustible. This is among the strongest, most listenable, and most immediately gratifying African music compilations that I've heard to date (though, sadly, the aforementioned Mr. Pino is not included—presumably to prevent the rest of the world from being torn to pieces).
Samples:
- The Identicals, "Akwa Kayi Ji Bia Nuwa"
- The Lijadu Sisters, "Life’s Gone Down Low"
- The Hygrades, "Somebody's Gotta Lose or Win"
 
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To glimpse the enduring possibilities which some people uncovered in the 1960s you could do worse than listen to the first three or four Incredible String Band records. The group merged folk traditions, personal memories, future hopes, and East/West philosophy with an amazing innocence, sincerity, and flow. The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter makes clear some key recording principles: have something worth saying, use your own voice, and get an engineer or producer who can properly document your expression.
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was produced by Joe Boyd and engineered by John Wood at Sound Techniques studio. Boyd’s fantastic autobiography White Bicycles reveals a host of tales to thrill the most ardent music snob and puts the ISB in proper context. Boyd was UK tour manager for Muddy Waters, he plugged Dylan in at Newport, recorded Pink Floyd’s first single, and ran the UFO club in London. The ISB were Boyd's first signing to the Elektra label and the Rolling Stones tried to steal them away. He booked them into huge venues and considered them peers of Cohen and Mitchell. As he says, originally "they performed Scots traditional music as if it had taken a journey to the Appalachians and back via Morocco and Bulgaria." But before the second record, The 5000 Spirits or The Layers Of The Onion, founder member Clive Palmer split for India (people didn't leave in the 1960s they split) and apparently exposed the fact that Williamson and Heron didn’t actually get along so well without his friendship buffer. Certainly there is a useful tension in the music and if it emanates from that dynamic well the result is never dull and holds up in the harsh glare on the early 21st century.
Heron and Williamson are good songwriters and confident performers. They weave traces of childhood, drone, a cappella, Eastern tonal traditions, innocence, fantasy, romance, myth and spirituality. The music does not sound overcrowded or forced, though, since Wood and Boyd were the perfect partners to ensure it got the clarity and space it deserved and because the ISB never forced anything. Boyd details both the way that groups tended to record back then and the way in which engineer John Wood worked. If something didn’t sound right in 1968, the engineer would get up and go into the studio and either replace or reposition the microphone, or move the musician to another part of the studio (which had three differing ceiling levels and thus three different acoustics) searching for the sweet spot for each sound. At that time, groups would attempt to capture some of the excitement of live performance by recording as much as they could in one go. That said, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was one of the first records to be made using the new 24 track recording technology. This allowed for overdubbing and detailed separation of instruments and voices. Williamson likens the process to painting, with the ability to change structures and color. The end result isn't at all overdone and has a weird power. Listening in my car one morning made me jump as I was convinced someone spoke from the back seat!
The opening piece "Koeeoaddi There" speeds up and slows down according it's own flow and fluctuates between a child's perspective, nonsensical rhymes, and the lyric "earth water fire and air, met together in a garden fair, put in a basket bound with skin, if you answer this riddle you'll never begin." The long "A Very Cellular Song" contains fragments of "Bid You Goodnight" by The Pindar Family which they learned from Joseph Spence. "The Minotaur's Song" starts as if channeling Gilbert and Sullivan and has a call and response style ("Ican't dream well because of my horns/He can't dream well because of his horns") which seems to predict Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song" song.
But with the ISB it's almost pointless to pick out favorite tracks. They adhered to the mantra of channeling flow and following a muse while hoping not to ruin the inspiration by doing too much. Some people may find them irritating hippies but I regard them as liquid acrobats, folk magicians, poets, and innocent romantics. I listen to the low notes and allow the rest to float over. Somewhat like listening to dub or swimming in that trying too hard (to understand the lyrics or follow the tune) may impede enjoyment or progress. Boyd feels that the brilliant Heron/Williamson duo was the group's peak, but later records are worth hearing, especially Wee Tam and The Big Huge and Liquid Acrobat As Regards The Air. Oh, forget that, they are all good. Even Earthspan has some great moments such as the gloriously compressed "Banks of Sweet Italy."
The girlfriends-in-the-band era of Licorice and Rose changed things (even as it retained the approach of playing any instrument regardless of formal skill and training) as did the journey into and (for some of the group) out of Scientology. Licorice seems to have disappeaered somewhere in California but she did garner a mention in Elmore Leonard's Freaky Deaky. Rose returned to the UK and in the 1990s was Lady Mayoress of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth—surely a more bizarre gig than her time in the ISB. There have also been reunions and gigs with assorted members as well as tribute records. Williamson continues recording and touring and the last recording of his I heard, Skirting The River Road, was a surprisingly good interpretation of the poems of Blake, Whitman, and Vaughan along with some of his own.
ISB never made a truly bad record but this re-master of their third album is arguably their best. They linger in semi-obscurity despite some initial commercial success and praise from Lennon, McCartney, and Robert Plant. Incredibly, Joe Boyd tells how Caetano Veloso claims to have been inspired by the ISB and how Silvio Rodriguez decided to become a songwriter while recovering from a gunshot wound and listening to a bootleg copy of 5000 Spirits.
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Michael Wells has some new music available through Beat Port and Tik Tok Music.
"Vuvuzela-la-la" is a new Tricky Disco track celebrating this year's World Cup while a new EP "Son of God" is the latest digital single available from G.T.O.
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In 1989, Christoph Heemann and Edward Ka-Spel decided to embark upon a tape-exchange project in hopes of creating "atmospheric/textural music." The duo soon enlisted several other talented folks from H.N.A.S. and the Legendary Pink Dots milieu and recorded an album's worth of raw material, which Heemann himself then combined, edited, and mixed into what became the band's debut. Ka-Spel has since stated that Mimir was a bit of a disappointment (though he liked the remixed version), as Heemann did not carve up the source material aggressively enough to realize their initial vision. Nevertheless, it seems they made an inventive and engrossing album despite themselves. This might be their best release.
When Mimir was first released on Flabbergast 1990, it had a wildly different sequence than the one that ultimately emerged after Christoph Heemann spent an entire year re-editing it for its 2007 reissue.Despite the enormous amount of time and effort expended, however, the actual musical content did not change too much, aside from the conspicuous removal of the chanted introduction to "Air." Taken as a whole, the current version should sound quite familiar in all major respects to anyone who has the original version, as the same motifs unfold in roughly the same order.Taken on a song-by-song basis, however, the 2007 Mimir is an entirely a different (and better) experience, condensing the original nine pieces into a mere five (yet somehow growing a few minutes in length).
Christoph's remix is an impressive feat on a number of levels.For one, Heemann took something relatively straightforward and digestible and gutsily transformed it into something more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding.The opening piece on the 1990 album ("Entrance") is essentially a very likable, vaguely Asian-sounding guitar figure bolstered by some artfully warped keyboards and flutes.In the 2007 version, that same guitar motif gradually unfolds into thick, swoopingly psychedelic analog synths and a melancholy piano and violin coda over the course of an epic 24-minute running time.What once felt like three separate good ideas compartmentalized into three separate works now feels like one immersive plunge into (and re-emergence from) a rabbit hole of fractured, mind-bending weirdness.
After that mesmerizing opening salvo, Mimir could've ended and I would have been completely content.The album continues on for another 18 minutes though, growing quite a bit more abstract and unfolding in a vaguely menacing and surreal fashion.I actually prefer the more focused and melodic side of Mimir (which I believe runs counter to Heemann and Ka-Spel’s own preferences), but there are a number of wonderful passages that emerge amidst the constantly shifting drones and treated field recordings that follow.Also, the band has a fairly unique and unpredictable take on ambient music, informed by a healthy interest in musique concrète and tape loop experiments.My favorite moments are the warm, shimmering ambiance that begins "Curtain/December 3, 1989" and the ugly psychedelia of "December 2, 1989/Air," which sometimes sounds like a whinnying demon horse from the bowels of hell.I also prefer the more organic and "human" side of Mimir on display here, which almost vanished entirely with 1993's Mimyriad.Mimir deftly balances Ka-Spel and Silverman’s spacier, more artificial sounds with a host of recognizable instruments like flute, violin, and kalimba, though Andreas Martin’s guitar playing is still woefully under-represented.
Being a serious artist means being in a state of constant evolution.Consequently, there are probably very few active musicians who are able to look back on their work from nearly two decades ago without cringing and making some rather harsh internal criticisms.Christoph Heemann is somewhat unique in his inability to ignore those feelings and has (on more than one occasion) gone back to fix his earlier mistakes and make the album he felt he should've made the first time around. He might get a bit too fixated on details that no one will notice except for him and his collaborators, and he might make some decisions that I find baffling (like keeping the electric guitar noodling in "Smashed"), but it is very refreshing to know that he deeply cares about what he is putting out.Mimir might not have been quite realized Heemann's original vision for this project, but his personal failure inadvertently makes for a pretty great album, as the music clearly took on a life of its own.Mimir is a rather singular entity—a sort of self-detonating, post-modernist supergroup.Having this many talented and odd people working together can't help but result in some excellent music, but that natural cohesion is at odds with Ka-Spel and Heemann's perverse tendencies to deconstruct, subvert, and confound.This time around, the chemistry won.
(The song titles embedded in the 2007 Streamline CD are wrong.The correct track listing is available here.)
Samples:
 
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Every music city in America has a group like the Second Family Band. Musicians will go to each other’s shows, hang-out, tour together, and maybe share rent on a house or practice space. Eventually they all end up in the same room together, jamming. Someone sets up a microphone, turns on the tape recorder and soon thereafter another album of "shadowy" group improv is set loose on the world. The Second Family Band matches the pattern, but with an important distinction: Their music is worth listening to.
Theorists would have us believe that improvisation is a democratic art, built on consensus through musical dialogue. It’s a wonderful ideal, but if a band isn’t air-tight there’s usually one or two musicians tasked with holding back anarchy. On Veiled Gallery the distinction goes to the banjo player and drummer (The musicians are not credited with any specific instrument).Together they supply the backbone of the album, an interlocking exchange of hypnotic riffing with the metronomic thud of a floor-tom. The arrangement is spacious, giving momentum while allowing the rest to drone, bleat, and squawk their heart’s content.
Typical to these communal jam-sessions is the drifting coherence and shaky performances that crop up occasionally on the album. This is not to say that Veiled Gallery is a mess. The recordings was edited by someone with an ear for the band’s strengths as wells as a sympathy for the audience. The Second Family may play on with ecstatic abandon, but the listener is, for the most part, spared from having to hear the musicians run out of inspiration.
Releasing improvised music used to be more of a gamble, but the proliferation of new distribution and recording technologies has lifted cost and labor barriers, making it easy and cheap for any odd group to get together, hash together a few songs, and then throw out product into an already saturated market. The Second Family Band avoids that cycle by judicious self-editing. When so many groups today trade in images of mystery, it’s good to listen to one that believes some things are best left unheard.
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- Creaig Dunton
- Albums and Singles
The title and content of this EP could be interpreted many different ways. For one, the seven short tracks were all built using a single household implement, such as a rubber band or metal pan. Second, the sparse, short pieces are prime sampling material for DJs and other artists, making the disc a "tool" for recycling. Regardless of its potential uses, the material makes for a compelling example of Ielasi’s ability to turn the mundane into the extremely listenable.
Although a simple premise, Ielasi needs only the most basic of editing to coax complex, rhythmic tones and textures out of his slew of non-musical instruments.For "Rubber Band," the simple plucks we’ve all played around with whilst bored at school or work are transformed into a snappy bass sequence that could be gleaned from a classic synth."Cooking Pan" develops into a deep, muffled, nautical beat that could be pulled off an old Monolake album, and "Aluminum Foil" utilizes the tiniest bits of metallic noises, panned around and cut into frail snare drum sounds, to rival some of the best glitch artists.
The final two tracks especially sound the most fully fleshed out, with layers of sound that ape real instruments very well."Tin Can" focuses on deep, echoed clinks to make the kick drum rhythm, but other sounds are nicely molded into reverberated snare hits."Paper Lamp" develops an organic, bassy percussion sound onto which high pitched echoes and squelchy sound effects are put atop.How this is all sourced from a paper lamp is a head scratcher, but I have no reason to doubt the artist's honesty.
It is rare that such an intentional concept piece such as this can make for a purely pleasurable listening experience, but Ielasi manages.Without any knowledge of how this was created, one would think it was a subtle, but complex suite of rhythmic electronic music.Knowledge of how the sounds were created simply adds to the pleasure and appreciation of listening, but is surprisingly unnecessary.
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
On his second album, this young Russian artist, a.k.a. Marat Shibaev, continues his infatuation with the sparse, dub infested blend of minimalist electronic music popularized by the likes of Porter Ricks, but with his own personal touch. The result is just the right balance of repetitive electronic thump and abstract textural explorations.
Odysseia is heavily based on muffled, repetitive analog kick drum thumps and bassy synth pads, creating a murky nautical sound that feels as if it’s being played deep under the sea.The opening "Abyss" exemplifies this, with wave-like reverberated noises with the buried analog drums, but dynamic improvisational squelches present as well.The clash between the repetitive beats and ambience with the vibrant, abstract rattling creates a powerful synergy in which the track becomes repetitive without being dull, and chaotic without being formless.
Minuscule clicks and oceanic organ passages on "Polaris" keep this vibe alive, tossing waxy random sounds in amongst the otherwise repeating beats.Even the venerable 808 hand-clap sounds make an appearance in "Researches of Depths" within the deep kick drums and subsonic bass line.
While there is a comfortable familiarity with the 4/4 bass drum programming, Shibaev isn't afraid to tinker with the formula to try new things.The erratic rhythms and less obvious sounding drum hits of "Immersing" sounds more like an intentionally random scattering of sonic fragments within the sea.The more spacious "Solar System" focuses less on the rhythm and more on the textures, with wavy noise stabs and raw analog synth notes defining the piece."Mermaid" is similar in placing a greater emphasis on the deep minor chords, creating a darker, more claustrophobic sheen over the track.
Amongst the final two songs is where the dub influences shine through most."Spirits" is first and foremost a rhythm based piece, with the ambient textures scaled back to display the complex programming of the beats, utilizing appropriate amounts of echo and reverb.The closing "Reverberation" feels like a return to the surface after the deep explorations prior, with the less murky synths allowing the light to shine through.The result is not only more upbeat, but its treated rhythms and shaker percussion resemble dub in its most traditional form.
While the songs here do feel as if they have a definite formula to them, it is one that accommodates enough variables to allow them to develop their own identities, creating an album that feels thematically cohesive, but not overly repetitive.The rhythm programming is perhaps the most static element here, but even that has enough variation to keep the album fresh.What's here has been done before, but here it’s done well enough for this fact to be irrelevant.
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Unlike his previous works, which were often emphasizing sine waves and other synthetically derived sounds, Kosame is all about the world around us and the sounds of everyday life. Combining recordings of opening windows and boiling water with home made instruments and classic synthesizers, the result is a world of sound that may not resemble "songs" per se, but instead an aural study of our surroundings.
Ikeda has created this album to explore the concept of "yuragi," which roughly translates to "fluctuation."In this case, fluctuation in the sound of society, as well as fluctuation of instruments:the varying tonality of home made rubber and wood instruments, as well as the unpredictability of analog synthesizers.On "Kosame (Drizzle)" the various nuances of the human voice is used:Ikeda's reading of the novel Mizuumi is cut up and spliced to focus on the movements of the mouth and the sounds of saliva more than the voice being extruded.
On "Hakuchu (Daylight)," the old creaking sounds of the window in Ikeda's childhood home create the primary texture, mixed with birdlike flutters and clipped fragments of static bursts.With the frail strums and sparse arrangement, there is a nostalgic but sad color to the sound.The same emotions appear in "Marebito," which is dedicated to Ikeda's late grandmother.The bird-like synth chirps and mournful string plucks create a dynamic, but sorrowful series of textures.
Tracks like "Mikazuki (Crescent)" have a less emotional color to them, but provide the same quality of sound exploration.In this case, an empty champagne bottle is used like a miniature gamelan, creating percussive clinking sounds, and also as a reverb chamber to turn dripping water into cavernous noises, combined with hissing sounds from blowing on the bottle.The result is a sonic microcosm derived from a single instrument.
While "Seijaku (Stillness)" is based upon a singular common sound (the boiling of water), here it is juxtaposed with a variety of other effects and instruments to create a broader spectrum.The rattling and bubbling noises of boiling water change in consistency throughout, but are paired with tentative string notes from homemade instruments and the occasional bleeping synthesizer.The boiling is the focus, becoming more and more forceful as the piece concludes, but never overshadows the other sounds.The closing "Tobira (Gate)" uses the field recordings of Ikeda walking around, picking up wood and nails that are used to create an instrument used during the piece, leading to a subtle collection of friction sounds created between strings and nails. While it can be a challenging listening experience, Kosame on the whole is definitely a rewarding one.
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