Albums and Singles

18 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image Featuring Can‚Äôs Jaki Liebezeit on drums along with Helmut Zerlett and Dominik von Senger amongst others, on Phantom Band‚Äôs eponymous debut they try to bring the new musical frontier of '70s Germany into the then sprightly '80s with varying degrees of success. This mixed bag of krautrock-cum-world music lacks the punch of their Freedom of Speech album but acts as a fitting introduction to the group‚Äôs brief career.

Bureau B

Liebezeit‚Äôs fondness for Jamaican-inspired rhythms and instrumentation are apparent from the offset with "You Inspired Me," which sits somewhere between Westernized exotica, saccharine lounge jazz and a krautrock drift. The end result is not as unpleasant as the previous sentence reads; despite it sounding dated, the band play with enough feeling to not upset the music. The same can be said of most of the album, although occasionally the Phantom Band dip into some cheesy self-indulgence such as some of the guitar playing on "I am the One" or "Rolling." Even within the most cringe-worthy moments, there is still something worth latching on to. In the aforementioned "I am the One," von Senger unleashes a beautiful guitar solo just over halfway through that is worth any amount of unnecessary noodling.

Liebezeit‚Äôs brief moment to shine occurs on "Phantom Drums," a dizzying array of overdubbed percussion which takes in as many unusual and unique sounding percussive instruments in its brief existence as possible. This leads into the album‚Äôs zenith, "Absolutely Straight," which sees all of the Phantom Band lock into a serious, meaty groove. The bouncing bass line of Rosko Gee anchors the soaring guitars to the unearthly pulse of Liebezeit‚Äôs drums. The same levels of excitement are captured in the dying moments of the album with "Pulsar" which sounds the most like what modern ears would consider krautrock but with a more fashionable production for the time.

Overall, this album is enjoyable but sounds very much of its time from the production down to the instrumentation (particularly on pieces like "Without Desire," which is almost painfully outmoded). This is not necessarily a bad thing but I must admit I find it a little too '80s for my tastes. At times I feel like I am listening to a recording for a particularly adventurous set of session musicians who have been given some studio time in exchange for playing Phil Collins' backup band. However, knowing that the fantastic Freedom of Speech was also created by the same players reveals this album to be a dress rehearsal for the real performance.

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18 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image The news of this intriguing collaboration delighted me, as Klara Lewis has carved out quite a wonderfully idiosyncratic and incredibly constrained niche over the last few years by largely avoiding any recognizable instrumentation. Consequently, I had no idea at all what would happen when her surreal collages collided with Simon Fisher Turner's formidable talents as a composer. As it turns out, a pure collaboration resulted, as Care does not particularly resemble either artist's previous work. Instead, it feels like several divergent albums have been deconstructed, warped, and obliterated to leave only some lingering shards in a shifting and hallucinatory fantasia of drones, textures, and field recordings. That fundamental disjointedness can admittedly be a bit challenging at times, but Care ultimately comes together beautifully with the lushly rapturous closer, "Mend."

Editions Mego

From the first moments of the opening epic "8," it was abundantly clear to me that Care was going to be quite a bizarre and disorienting experience that would sidestep just about every expectation that I had.That statement is not meant as unambiguously rapturous praise, as my mind was not instantly blown or anything‚Äìthe album simply takes a very different path than I imagined.For example, I have always found Lewis's collages to be tightly and meticulously crafted, yet "8" is an extended dive into a fog of amorphous, drifting, and abstract phantasmagoria.It does not have anything remotely resembling a conventional structure or even anything resembling an unconventional structure, as nothing is constant at all.Instead, it feels like I am floating weightlessly through an ether of ghostly drones, vaporously indistinct voices, and submerged song-fragments that is unpredictably and jarringly disrupted by stuttering and jackhammering deconstructions of sultry dance anthems.I doubt I would even describe it as having "dream logic," yet it is still a strangely compelling piece solely because the duo manage to make seemingly benign snippets of pop music feel lysergic and haunted.While I have personally never died, "8" feels like an eerily uncanny evocation of what the final mental spasms of death might be like: near-silence mingled with occasional intrusions of real ambient sounds like voices and birds, as well as colorfully vivid and ephemeral blasts of disjointed memories.

The following "Drone" is considerably less of an uncategorizable mindfuck, initially resembling a brooding and throbbing dip into Fisher Turner's soundtrack work.At some point, a strange harmonica- or hurdy-gurdy-like motif emerges and it seems like something more significant might cohere.That proves to be an illusion, however, as the piece instead dissolves again into a mysterious coda of crackling noise.Elsewhere, "Tank" takes a somewhat similar trajectory, blurring together moody cinematic atmosphere with eruptions of noise and dreamlike snatches of field recordings from far-away places.Of the two pieces, "Tank" fares a bit better at achieving a kind of "hallucinatory travelogue" feel, but I still cannot escape a nagging desire for the duo's fragmented entropy to cohere into something more structured in a lasting way.Instead, Lewis and Fisher Turner just conjure up the occasional fleeting glimpse of a surreal and vivid vista that quickly dissipates back into abstraction.The album's sole exception to that tendency is the swooningly lovely closer "Mend."Like the rest of the album, "Mend" is composed of just a few simple pieces precariously held together, but differs from them in that the woozily squirming central theme is quite a strong one and it remains constant.In fact, it even steadily builds as the piece unfolds, gradually transforming from an undulating, liquid drone into a vivid crescendo of swirling and howling tendrils.There are also some crackling and enigmatic radio transmissions in the background to deepen the experience, but the real magic is the main theme itself, which constantly heaves, shudders, and sways like a massive, slow-moving snake.

I am always a bit confounded when an album features one piece that this on a completely different plane than all of the others, as I tend to wonder if an artist just decided to release an album to showcase that one piece or if the other pieces were also intended to be great in a way that somehow eludes me.Given the caliber of the participants here, I have to assume it is the latter, especially since "8" displays an extreme attention to detail and sound design.The uncharitable interpretation would be that Lewis and Fisher Turner had some excellent but divergent ideas and the only way they could seamlessly bring them together was by completely obliterating them into kaleidoscopic fragments.The alternate possibility is that the duo set about making a boldly experimental headphone album that feels more like a memory virus than a series of structured compositions: intriguing, sharply realized forms erratically appear only to disintegrate, dissolve, or get pulled apart until they are just another part of an enigmatic and living fog of real and imagined sounds.If so, that was a great idea, though I remain perplexed by the execution.For now, I merely like that unapologetically abstract side of the album, while I absolutely love the more conventionally structured "Mend," but I am open to the possibility that the rest of the album will someday grow on me if I immerse myself in it long enough.

Samples can be found here.

18 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image I am ashamed to say that I slept on this volcanic French ensemble's woefully underappreciated and face-melting debut album when it came out, but I have since embraced them as one of the finest purveyors of squalling guitar noise around. With this, their second formal full-length, the quintet expand the borders of their expected firestorm into some darker and more idiosyncratic territory. Such an excursion deeper into the outr√© is hardly surprising, however, given that Jo√´lle Vinciarelli collaborated with My Cat is an Alien just a few months before this album was recorded (it is impossible to imagine that anyone could spend time with the Opalio brothers and not emerge with some interesting new ideas about how music can be made). The results of that evolution are a bit of a mixed success here, as the band's more simmering and lysergic side yields some interesting results, but sacrifices the awesome visceral power of their more explosively kinetic moments.

Doubtful Sounds

The album opens in extremely promising fashion, as the title piece erupts from the speakers with a flurry of skittering drum fills, blown-out bass rumble, and a howling cacophony of guitar noise.I am always a huge fan of wild, virtuosic drumming and Talweg's Eric Lombaerd absolutely kills it on "A Quiet ‚Äì Earthquake Style," unleashing an absolute earthquake of his own on the kit that would make Chris Corsano proud.With that totally unhinged foundation, the rest of the band could probably play just about anything and it would sound cool as hell, but the full-on noise assault that results is a particularly impressive one rich with scrabbling strings and strangled feedback.There is one twist that separates the piece from characteristically explosive business as usual, however, as there are some queasily hazy and swooping vocals that are reminiscent of Roberto Opalio's voice-as-instrument falsetto.That touch only surfaces on this one piece, though a MCIAA-esque use of toys as a sound source surfaces throughout the album as well.The latter fits quite seamlessly into the band's sound, however‚Äìfar more significant is the decision to eschew drums on "Heavens Cover The Abyss" and "Memory Awake."I can understand the motivation for that decision though, as Lombaerd's hurricane of limbs makes it impossible for the rest of the band to explore nuance and subtlety.When Lombaerd's drumming is absent, I definitely miss it, but "Heavens Cover the Abyss" is nevertheless an eerily haunting and ingenious foray into ritualistic-sounding drone, as the central theme of dissonantly wraithlike guitars moaning and keening above a murky throb is bleakly beautiful.

The following "Some Ghastly Fright" continues that flirtation with vaguely ritualistic and occult-sounding drone, as a chant-like voice drifts over a smoldering ruin of shuddering and sputtering guitar noise.Lombaerd returns to his kit, but in conspicuously restrained form, embellishing the smoldering sea of distortion with a slow-motion tumble of thumping toms.It is quite an excellent piece, inverting the band‚Äôs characteristically feral formula into a slow-burning rumble that culminates in a crescendo of grinding and crumpling metal.The closing "Memory Awake" is the most dramatic departure of all, however, as squiggling and squirming synths unfold and distort like a deeply lysergic horror movie soundtrack.It actually sounds like the work of a completely different band altogether, which is a bit perplexing, but it is a strange and intriguingly hallucinatory piece nonetheless.

A Quiet ‚Äì Earthquake Style is generally more of an experimental and transitional work than an unambiguous success, but I definitely appreciate that La Morte Young have avoided repeating themselves and found some curious and unexpected ways to expand their aesthetic boundaries.They were just a bit too ambitious in those regards than would be ideal, as most of the album conspicuously avoids playing to band's strengths.I have already mentioned my appreciation for Lombaerd's virtuosity, but Thierry Monnier and Pierre Faure (both from Sun Stabbed) are truly gifted architects of sculpted guitar noise and all three seem to focus their talents elsewhere for much of the album.That said, I still enjoy A Quiet ‚Äì Earthquake Style quite a lot, as La Morte Young seem to put a lot more work into their albums than similar bands.That is not to say that I have any problem with Keiji Haino's passion for spontaneity or The Dead C's deliberate slovenliness, but it is a legitimately pleasant surprise when a noisy band makes such a concerted effort to edit and mix their cacophony into something that feels like a thoughtfully constructed album rather than a mere document of a performance.La Morte Young are an excellent band and they record all too infrequently, so I am glad they are so focused when they surface.As far as I am concerned, their first album remains their definitive statement (and an underheard classic), but Earthquake Style is an appealing and welcome broadening of La Morte Young's scope.

Samples can be found here.

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16 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

Ghostly International Signs Justin K. Broadrick's (aka Jesu/Godflesh/Techno Animal) New Project Pale Sketcher; Album Due August 24th

ARTIST: Pale Sketcher
ALBUM TITLE: Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed
CATALOG NUMBER: GI-118
LABEL: Ghostly International
FORMAT: CD/Limited LP/Digital
RELEASE DATE: August 24, 2010

01. Don’t Dream It (Mirage Mix)
02. Can I Go Now (Gone Version)
03. Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)
04. The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)
05. Tiny Universe (Interstellar)
06. Supple Hope (2009 Mix)
07. Dummy (Bahnhoff Version)
08. Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)

For fans of heavy music, Justin K. Broadrick is a household name. After stints in seminal UK grindcore band Napalm Death, industrial/metal outfit Godflesh, and dark dub duo Techno Animal (with Kevin Martin of The Bug / King Midas Sound), Broadrick re-emerged in 2002 as the leader of Jesu, a shoegaze-like metal project. Broadrick’s newest–and, to many purists, most controversial—venture is Pale Sketcher , in which the artist replaces guitars with synthesizers and drums with machines, but maintains his penchant for bleakly beautiful sounds.

Ghostly International is proud to release Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed, the debut full-length by Justin K. Broadrick's Pale Sketcher alias, on August 24th, 2010.

Pale Sketcher didn’t begin to manifest until the 2007 Jesu release Pale Sketches, which compiled an album’s-worth of tracks that didn’t quite fit the Jesu mold—skeletal, synthesizer-laced compositions that relied more on subtlety and atmosphere than guitar-based sturm und drang. Broadrick continued to tinker with these songs, “de-mixing” them until they barely resembled their originals, forging a sound that was unlike anything in the Broadrick universe.

Interestingly, as Broadrick has moved from more traditional signifiers of heaviness (aggression, guitars, volume) towards their opposites (melancholy, computers, texture) his music has only gotten deeper and more affecting. In that way, Pale Sketcher may be Broadrick’s heaviest work to date.

13 July 2010

Albums and Singles

cover image Freedom of Speech bursts with tons more energy than the group's debut. Whereas the first Phantom Band album seemed to meander with more style than substance, here the group have a target to use the sharp edge of their music on. Although not a perfect record, this is head and shoulders above their debut as they finally manage to fully integrate their new world music influences into their tight, groove-based music.

13 July 2010

Albums and Singles

cover image Freedom of Speech bursts with tons more energy than the groups self-titled debut. Whereas the first Phantom Band album seemed to meander with more style than substance, here the group have a target to use the sharp edge of their music on. Although not a perfect record, this is head and shoulders above their debut as they finally manage to fully integrate their new world music influences into their tight, groove- based music.

Bureau B

Immediately a thundering, military rattle on the drums heralds in "Freedom of Speech" which features some mind- boiling electronic murmurings in addition to an instantly untrustworthy monologue which promises that "your government will not interfere." Cold War paranoia and Orwellian fears permeate the music, giving it the gravity it needed badly. "Brain Police" takes an idea by Frank Zappa but throws it into a completely different perspective in the context of the time and place in which this album was performed. Just across the border, the Stasi were acting out the nightmare hiding in the lyrics sung here.

Unfortunately, Freedom of Speech is not without its faults with my chief concern being Sheldon Ancel's vocals which sometimes seem passionless compared to the music being put out by the rest of the band. On "Relax" he attempts to (hopefully) lampoon those creepy self-help cassettes that thankfully have seemed to have disappeared. However, all he manages to do is ruin a fantastic piece of music; the drifting guitar and synths cascading over of Liebezeit's heartbeat-like drumming. On "Trapped Again," Ancel sounds like a bad actor, again detracting from what would be a better instrumental piece. Yet, despite my misgivings with these pieces, Ancel does a great job otherwise. His delivery on "No Question" brings to mind Ian Curtis' early demo recordings with Joy Division, full of vigour and vitriol and on top of the post-20 Jazz Funk Greats pop of "Dream Machine," it is hard to imagine another singer doing a better job.

Much like Phantom Band's first album, Freedom of Speech sounds of its time. However, although I can place it in a timeline based on how it sounds, it rarely comes across as dated. Thegroup tapped into a mood which echoes on today, an oppressive curtaining of Europe which cut friends and family from each other, a wall both physical and political. The music resonates in the same way as the first wave of krautrock captured the revolutionary feeling of the late 60s and early 70s. The actions are long consigned to history but they reverberate on in the art of the day.

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13 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image I will admit that I have always been a bigger fan of Masami Akita's collaborative efforts than the unscalable mountain that is his solo material. As the de facto figurehead in the Japanoise scene (and arguably, noise as a genre, including the artistic controversy, irreverence, and the platitudes of misanthropy so seemingly representative of the scene), Merzbow has, for me, always remained a reliable proof-of-concept but not something I would consistently find myself listening to. However, there has always been interesting results to come from his working with just about anyone who would dare test his aesthetics, and this latest product is no exception. Scott Miller and Lee Camfield (ex-Sutekh Hexen) provide a backdrop of (relatively) human instrumentation and occasional sense, which is then deliciously cannibalized by Akita's digital processing.

Cold Spring

The first half of No Closure begins about as uncapriciously as anything that Merzbow has ever laid hands on. A stagnant cycle of guitar pedal drone and bassy thunder‚Äîpart one of the equation throughout surely reads: "Miller and Camfield make something organic and safe"‚Äîebbs menacingly, an austere and solemn growl. Vaguely baroque and antique, these first initial dissonances are quickly attacked by a clattering of noise; clicking, screeching, glass endlessly shattering, windows shuttering and fires burning. This is part two: "Masami tears everything apart." There is no doubt he is quite good at doing so, but it always makes for a nice and interesting experience to really engage with one or two of his pieces wholly, as taken separate from the absurd depths another solo release will be unceremoniously thrown into.

The second half of the record, "II," finds Merzbow's electronic buzzing in something of a role reversal. Now that I am accustomed to the palette of caustic hiss and scraping, the most surprising elements of change come from Scott and Lee's end. Confronted with the sociopathic totality of pure noise, they backpedal into black metal theatrics, pounding away at a low-end motif of guitar distortion‚Äîa distant behemoth, answering Merzbow's skittering insect inquisitiveness with encroaching assured annihilation. The performers play off one another spectacularly in the middle sections of "I" and "II" where the anticipation and the impatience reach their first peak, where everything congeals into pure, vindictive chaos.

Merzbow breathes absurd fluctuating sonic textures into everything he touches and that is an assumed feature of working with him. What makes his collaborative efforts so great is the spatial discomfort he can cause with a lifetime of apt sound sculpting, and the way it affects sounds and forms that had hitherto existed in their own private space. Given a malleable source, he thrives on imbalance and anxiety, proffering a substitute to tension with his brand of real, finite anguish. The intrigue of this collaboration is the imagined or inferred threat, and the real, provoked injury, held in consideration simultaneously. In other words, the promise and the payoff are happening at once. Miller and Camfield are more than adept at navigating this new weird duality, and serve as one of the better non-melodic foils to Akita in recent memory.

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I
II

13 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image Were it nothing but the title song alone, Landing's Wave Lair would have still made a pretty strong impression on me. Prodding curiously at the fabric of pop songwriting, Landing finds an experimentalism in a new style fit to augment its hazy sentimentality. With drummer Daron Gardner on bass, the band turns to drum machines for rhythm and finds direction in heady drone and blurry passages of sedate dream pop. It also happens that the rest of the material on this album is solid as well, finding a few glimpses of brilliance in familiar forms.

These Are Not Records

It seems disingenuous to see Wave Lair's first three songs as a build up to the titular 19 minute opus, as each of them makes small revelatory steps in oft-tread musical ground. "Patterns" plays up a bubbly circular arpeggio over post-punk drum loops and breathy vocals singing of nonessential terrestrial topics. A simplistic set of chord changes treats "Pattern" to a vaguely existential resolve, like being confined to a beach for an afternoon to think things through. "Resonance" bounces back in a deliberate counterpoint, its slow aggregate of momentum suddenly offset by an anticlimactic, bitcrushed whirr. "Cover Bare Arms" is the weakest moment in the album, but still finds its place as an oddly stringent bit of placid, sullen pop.

I cannot express how much I adore "Wave Lair," however. I am someone with a giddy affinity for well-executed, exceptionally long pieces of music, and "Wave Lair" hits its mark with a brittle and hypnotic aplomb. A claustrophobic drum loop, amiably thumping along like the accidental rhythms of cross country train travel sets an early precedent of propulsion. Waves of bass widen the scope slowly, reaching an implacable midrange drone. Slow synth strings oscillate in and out, panned far to one channel or the other, on a slow climb towards a point that never seems to arrive. Finally, after 9 minutes of instrumentation only, Adrienne Snow's voice enters in a pillow-talk cadence: "Our heads/twisting and turning...their heavy heads/they are stretched towards the sun." It is a simple arrangement of beautiful things, which Landing refuses to dispose of or change, and it is to their credit to be so stalwart and cocksure. "Wave Lair" isn't an "epic" in the sense of its construction; it stays sublunary and accessible, but magnificently exemplifies what the nebulous title of "drone pop" might really mean. It outshines the rest of the record and I would say it is one of the strongest things Landing has ever done, and it will eagerly find itself on repeat. It absolutely earns its run time.

The bonus track, "Cove," seems mostly an afterthought, but touches on some pleasant ideas of space and echo. I am still captivated by "Wave Lair" when I am listening through the entire album, though, and it is not likely to lose my attention soon. The style explored on this EP is a welcome change, as Landing is making some of the best music of their career. It makes for a fantastic autumn soundtrack, too.

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13 July 2010

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Albums and Singles

cover image On this second full length release, Genevi√®ve Beaulieu (Menace Ruine) and James Hamilton (Nebris). continue their partnership in this uniquely medieval tinged modernized folk ensemble. Working with a rather Spartan selection of instruments, From The Wells is six songs that at first sound deceptively simple, but are much more layered and nuanced than that first impression gives.

Union Finale

From the first moments of "Edges Nowhere," the minimalist approach is rather clear.Infrequent passages of clean electric guitar set the stage, allowing a significant amount of silence between the melodic passages.It slowly builds, bringing in a tasteful amount of echo and piano before Beaulieu's singular vocals kick in.It takes its time getting there, but it eventually results in a dramatic, but still understated climax before the conclusion.

On both "Gleaming Escape" and the title song, the instant presence of vocals and guitar belies the amount of change and variation that lies just beneath the surface.Both keep their calm, folk tinged sound, but other instruments fill in the gaps, the latter especially showcasing a low frequency harmonium that makes for a strong, but still restrained dissonant counterpoint to the otherwise plaintive guitar and vocals.

Like "Edges Nowhere," "Plenty of my Own" puts the instrumental emphasis on Hamilton's guitar, and here the effect is quite strong, with the otherwise pure and pristine guitar sound having a distorted, dissonant counterpoint that gives a distinctive sound, even with the multitracked vocal performance grabbing a lot of attention.

That sense of building and expanding as compositions also appears rather prevalently on the long closer "Broken Sea".Voices, guitar and harmonium all co-exist together in a subtle performance that builds in strength and intensity, and then retreats, sometimes to complete silence, before picking up again where it left off.Just like the opener, it does make it to a satisfying conclusion, but takes a more hypnotically repetitive path on its way there.

Compared to Pillar of Winds, the only shortcoming of From the Wells is its intentionally stripped down instrumentation.While the duo manage brilliant things with such a basic set of sounds, it is the song to song similarity that keeps the pieces from sounding too distinctly different from one another.It is because of that fact that the songs do not necessarily stand out as distinct from one another as they could, but on the whole the album is a strong one that is riddled with nuance waiting to be examined.

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