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In the mid 1990s Godflesh, along with label mates Napalm Death, Cathedral and Carcass, had a brief flirtation with the major labels in the US. Because of this, their CDs made it to the lame mall record store, leading to my initial exposure to the band. Admittedly, it was a mixed reaction: Selfless took a while to fully "grab" me, and Merciless had its pros and cons. After some time, both would eventually click, and may very well represent my favorite era in their career, compiled into a slim two disc set.
I first picked up the Merciless EP on a whim:I'd heard the band's name tossed about, but always equated them more with the death metal scene (which I was, and mostly am, still not a fan of).Eventually there was enough discussion of them as "industrial" to pique my Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly loving attention, and for me in these pre-Web days, the only way to hear new music was to buy a disc.I had mixed feelings when I first heard the downtuned slow riffs and sludgy pulse of the title track.I was ok with the riffs:Rabies was always my favorite Skinny Puppy album, and I still had a love for Ministry at this time, but the growling "metal" vocals turned me off.The more lush chorus parts, where Justin Broadrick actually sings, I thought were great, however.
The following "Blind" and "Unworthy" were a bit too "out there" for me at the time.It was definitely industrial, but more in the classical sense, which I wasn't yet familiar with. Both were built using various samples of Broadrick's guitar, from live and rehearsal tapes, to create a harsh sound more akin to SPK or early Cabaret Voltaire, with the steadfast Alesis drum machine pounding away unfettered and G. C. Green's noisy, loose bass grinding away.The final song on the EP, "Flowers," was listed as a "demix" (originally "Don’t Bring Me Flowers" from the prior Pure), which is exactly as it sounds:the more conventionally structured track is stripped to its barest skeleton.The result is fascinating:the looped guitar noise and ambience is paired with Green's harsh bass and a deconstruction of the guitar solo from the original track, which is possibly one of the purest, most beautiful guitar sounds ever on a Godflesh record.
Selfless, on the other hand, is one of the least experimental Godflesh recordings, which now I believe is its greatest strength.Broadrick has stated that it was their intentional "rock" album, which is what I've now grown to appreciate.While they continued that sound into 1996's Songs of Love and Hate and reprised it on their final album, 2001's Hymns, here it is presented as intentionally cold and sterile as possible.Before integrating live drums into the mix, it was simply the stoic precision of a drum machine, very restrained use of synths, and jagged shards of Broadrick's guitar.
The strongest songs, in my opinion, are the more subdued, emotion tinged ones.Now that Broadrick has publically declared his appreciation for The Cure, especially in their early days, it’s not hard to see that "Empyreal" and "Black Boned Angel" have a vibe akin to Faith, albeit with a much heavy bent.The former is a lugubrious track that stands with Merciless in defining slow heaviness, crawling along with an intentional simplicity, all the way to the lyrics ("Not, everyone can carry, the weight of the world/Feel my decay, feel so alone") that manages to fill six minutes with ease."Black Boned Angel" conveys a similar sense of inward turned despair that doesn’t relent, but doesn’t feel forced or contrived at all.No histrionics or forced emotion, they both display a monastic asceticism towards rock music that make them my favorite tracks on the album.
The closest thing to a single on this album is "Crush My Soul," which is one of the few traditionally "metal" tracks:a heavily mechanized rhythm section and guitar squall is matched with Broadrick’s screamed, overly aggressive vocals.Early on it was TOO metal for me, but I have grown to appreciate it over the years."Anything is Mine" is another from this template, and I still feel it's one of the lower points on the album, from its overtly heavy sound and some rather weak lyrics ("I declare that we're all just shit/And I believe, we'll die like it") make it stand out as a sore thumb in an otherwise great album.
The album also follows Pure in putting a far more adventurous song as a bonus on the CD, in this case the nearly 24 minute "Go Spread Your Wings.""Pure II," the similarly difficult piece on the previous album, was far more abrasive, consisting of a guitar noise and feedback dual between Broadrick and then-second guitarist Robert Hampson that surely left the metal fans scratching their head, but this one is far more varied in its structure.Opening with repeated processed piano sounds and metal scrapes awash in reverb, it slowly builds into a slow, pummeling juggernaut of sound.The heavily detuned bass guitar, which is more of a percussion instrument here creates a vast, hollow metal vortex that eventually engulfs everything, leaving the final eight minutes as a vast abyss of guitar fragments falling apart. The final moments are one more of warm beauty rather than the cold, desolate precision that preceded it.
The two disc reissue appends two tracks to Merciless, remixes of "Crush My Soul" and "Xnoybis" from the Crush My Soul single.Unlike others, Godflesh used this not as an opportunity to appease the dance floor or to fill up a b-side, but as a way to indulge in their more electronic tendencies."Crush My Soul (Ultramix)" recalls Broadrick's work with Techno Animal and The Sidewinder, stripping the track down to a grimy breakbeat and Green's garage-door-spring bass, only bringing in the guitar during the chorus moments.Over the 15 minute duration, there's even a subtle bit of acid house synth that appears, completing the industrial/metal/techno concept they first toyed with on the remixes from Slavestate and predating the electronic/rock music crossovers that would appear a few years later."Xnoybis (Psychofuckdub)" stretches the initial song to some 17 minutes in length, deconstructing it bar by bar into a post-rock sound collage, reserving the latter half to a minimalist recording of sound decay.
To have this era of Godflesh concisely compiled into this two disc set is quite convenient, removing the need to track down singles and EPs; the only mix that’s not here is the "Clubdub" Mix of Xnoybis, which appeared only on a promo single and in an edited form on the shoddy In All Languages compilation.Although I must say, the god-awful packaging should be criticized.I know that conceptually the "moving picture" type textured case that shows the original cover of both releases is interesting in theory, in execution it is a major disservice to a band who's stark design and artwork was always an important part of the presentation.The music is the important thing, of course, but it's still a nauseating blight on an otherwise glorious collection.
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Wasted and Ready, the first song on the single, is fast and furious.  It's ever melodic overtones caress the song's ebb and flow.  The singer however croons the best on the next track.  On this one, he sounds half amazed, and stubborn.  Averkiou definitely has a romantic quality, as it looks through life on a porch with an overblown, oversized monocle.  The intricate guitar work lets the drummer take shape of the song, letting it vibrate with stability throughout.  The rad thing about Averkiou is that they seem to glance at things with instability, an angelic voice for a singer.  The two fuzz pop songs ring true even at a distance.  When the record is over we are left to wonder where the band will go next.
The bonus mp3 song sort of makes you wonder.  The acoustic version of the song called "Jersey" is a stab at stardom.  It's singer songwriter makes sure that you can here his original voice on the track, and it is simply laid out acoustic style.  Overall the 7" aims to appease, and it would be great to hear from from this 5 piece band.
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Preserved for posterity as four-track tape recordings, Konrad Becker’s Piano Concertos for 4 Pianos have finally crossed the digital divide. While the man behind the music has been anything but listless, these recordings have until now, laid fallow for upwards of 25 years, making this the first release of his acoustic music. Originally used for the performance series Program for the 100% Resocialization of the Devil in 1982-83 and the experimental opera Parzival in 1984, the pieces are redolent with low-end perfumes, thick metallic fogs, and percussive walls of splendor. The simultaneous play of four roaring pianos creates music rife with subterfuge and illusion.
Konrad Becker is a High Magistrate of Hypermedia. A polymath involved in numerous interdisciplinary fields of study and endeavor. His energies have previously been focused on his work as director of the Public Netbase from 1994 to 2006. More recently he has started the World-Information Institute. With these groups he has organized several conferences and symposiums. He is the author of Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence and co-editor of Critical Strategies in Art and Media: Perspectives on New Cultural Practices both published by Autonomedia. Music fans will know him for his accomplished forays in electronic and computer music under the name Monoton, a project that begin in 1979. The acoustic works on this album expose another facet of Konrad’s complex working methods, and his fascination with mathematical structures.
The songs on the two-disc set are not arranged sequentially. Two of the long players, both over 40 minutes, preclude that possibility. Disc one opens with "Parzival Overture" from 1984, moving in a non-linear manner afterwards.The song is thunderous and dense, and all four pianos are multi-tracked, played by Konrad. He hits the notes in rapid fire succession, a characteristic that the other concertos share as well. Resonating overtones give wings to the imagination. All smashed up into a thick wall of sound, it seems as if the notes spent some time together in the Large Hadron Collider. The rhythmically vibrating strings cause me to lock in step and oscillate at the same high rate. The manner of playing focuses on the percussive element and is akin to a shaman beating on a frame drum to induce out-of-body journeys and it would not surprise me if this was also Becker’s intention. Many of his live performances and installations incorporated field recordings of Shamanic music from various corners of the globe, and his writings espouse a deep concern with the traffic of the internal world. The monotonous minimalism of the overture is made functional in this manner while remaining aesthetically pleasing. In its last ten minutes as it progresses towards a conclusion the tempo slows down, allowing the notes to unglue themselves from each other and be heard distinctly in their own right. When the song concludes I feel as if I have been traveling and am finally allowed to take a moment and catch my breath at a rest area. Except the songs bleed into one another without any break or pause. I would have liked a pause.
"Noctariations" follows. As the title implies the music emits an aura of cloudy dreams, perfect for the dark hours of night. In this piece the strings rattle with a clangorous glee, buzzing as if the piano has been prepared with pieces of metal laid across the strings. All the while a luscious drone permeates the background, and I wonder if he ever let his foot off the sustain pedal. "Etude" has the quality of one of William Basinki’s Disintegration Loops. From 1982, I can almost hear the grit, dirt, and decay that seem to cling to the reels of magnetic tape. "Danse Diable" from 1983 takes up the major portion of the second disc, clocking in at nearly fifty-minutes. Polychromatic time signatures veer off in different directions. Quantum entanglement, however, ensures that the sounds remain aligned. A dense reverberation forms a magnetic undercurrent beneath the notes that are playing in a higher register. This effect gels it all together.
The release also includes three Zero Oxygen Bonus Tracks, composed in 2002 as a digital epilogue to the other four songs. Two were included at the end of the first disc and the third on the second. The digital piano mixed and looped with dance floor beats sound fun and playful. These quirky tunes would be at home at any large outdoor electronic music festival, making an excellent addition to the album. I only wish that all three were placed back to back on the second disc where there was plenty of room for them. This would have allowed for a more streamlined listen. It also would have been nice if the acoustic pieces had been mixed so as to fade out a bit at the end of each song. The abrupt endings and transitions tended to jar me out of my listening trance. Minor grievances aside, Klanggalerie has done another fine job releasing and preserving crucial artifacts.
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It has been roughly four years since the last Boduf Songs album (2015's Stench of Exist), but Mat Sweet is finally back with his seventh full-length. There are few artists who are as tirelessly focused on exploring a narrow stylistic niche as Sweet, so it was fairly easy to (correctly) predict what Abyss Versions would sound like: hushed vocals, slow-motion arpeggios, seething tension, and quiet intensity. However, the details are always a surprise and I was especially eager to hear this particular release, as its predecessor felt like an inspired creative breakthrough that added a bit more color and rhythmic dynamism to the Boduf Songs' vision. Perversely though, Abyss Versions does not build upon those particular innovations and instead makes a hard turn in the opposite direction: more understated, more intimate, more austere (though there are a pair stellar exceptions at the end of the album).  Despite that turn even deeper inward, Abyss Versions is yet another characteristically fine album, as Sweet unveils a solid batch of new songs that brood, creep, and smolder in all the right ways.
I am always fascinated by serious artists who keep returning again and again to roughly the same territory, as it is often rooted in an enigmatic fixation rather than a lack of vision (though there are loads of artists that fall into the latter category).In the case of Boduf Songs, Mat Sweet calls to mind a Nick Drake-esque folkie who is plagued by nightmarish Lovecraftian visions of existential horror rather than depression.It is easy to imagine that Sweet reluctantly closes his eyes every night and plunges into scorched and post-apocalyptic shadow world that he is forever damned to chronicle through Boduf Songs.I am sure that is not the actually case, but I am equally sure that Sweet would keep recording his bleakly haunted songs even if no record labels had any desire to release them.Thankfully, some do (in this case, Orindal) and Abyss Versions brings a fresh batch of hushed and dread-soaked ruminations into the world.It would be a mistake to say that Boduf Songs has not evolved, however, even if the arc has not exactly been a linear one.Every Boduf Songs album is guaranteed to provide some shade of occult-tinged gloom, but the execution can vary quite a bit: some previous albums were centered around fingerpicked acoustic guitars and some have sounded heavily influenced by doom metal.Abyss Versions lies somewhere in between those two poles, as most of these songs are built from simple drum machine patterns and slow-motion, minor key arpeggios of ringing, sustained notes.There is a lot of compelling activity happening in the shadows though, as Sweet inventively augments his whisper-soft dirges with everything from watery, indistinct piano motifs to more grinding and hallucinatory experimental flourishes.In that regard, Sweet is a tragically underrated artist, as his more outré twists remain true to his understated and elegantly controlled vision and rarely get a chance to be the focal point.
Aside from the throbbing bass, grinding drones, and robotic voice of the instrumental "Behold, I Have Graven Thee," the eight songs of Abyss Versions are generally variations of the same simple structure.As such, the degree to which I like a song tends to be intimately intertwined with how compellingly Sweet twists his stark template.That is not a dig, as his core aesthetic is an appealing eerie and melodic one without any added augmentation, but I do prefer the occasions where Sweet attempts to transcend his self-imposed constraints a bit (this project is seven albums deep, after all)."Unseen Forces and How To Use Them" is the strongest example of an archetypal Boduf Songs piece, as a quiet, understated vocal melody unfolds over a languorous web of chiming arpeggios and a popping, clicking drum machine beat that sounds like it may have had a previous life as a sexy R&B slow jam.Eventually, it blossoms into a crescendo of sorts, but it is a tightly controlled catharsis, manifesting as a more fluid groove embellished with murkily brooding synth tones.The opening "Gimme Vortex" gamely manages to pare that formula down even further by excising any attempt at a beat or groove, but the better pieces tend to be the ones that add new elements rather than subtracting familiar ones.Sweet saves those for the end of the album, which culminates in the one-two punch of "Sword Weather" and "In The Glittering Vault, in the Flowery Hiatus."
Both pieces take somewhat similar trajectories, as they open in fairly skeletal fashion and gradually become fleshed-out with subtle psychedelic touches and elegantly nuanced arrangement tweaks before erupting into propulsive grooves.In the case of "Sword Weather," that transformation comes as a bit of a surprise, as it builds to a beautifully melodic and chiming false crescendo before the bottom drops out, the drums kick in, and a smoldering outro coheres."Glittering Vault," on the other hand, comes right out of the gate with a rolling bass and drum machine groove and then simply becomes an even better one once Sweet sneakily piles on layers of melodic guitars and percussion enhancements.
Notably, both pieces highlight traits that I often take for granted with Boduf Songs: Mat Sweet has unquestionably carved out a distinctive aesthetic and written some excellent songs over the years, which is a great reason to care about his work.On a deeper level, however, he has an almost superhuman lightness of touch and a peerless mastery of the art of the slow burn.By metaphorically painting with a palette that is made up entirely of shades of black, Sweet has created a sensory vacuum where simple splashes of color, texture, or melody can make quite a deep impact on the emotional shading and cumulative power of a piece.Moreover, the degree of patience, control, and unerringly fine judgment on Abyss Versions is truly something to behold.While part of me greedily wishes there were a few more songs as wonderful as "Sword Weather" and "Glittering Vault," it is clear that Sweet had a very deliberate arc in mind for this album and that it could not have unfolded any other way: the fireworks are wonderful precisely because the build-up to them was so expertly manipulated.Whether or not this Boduf Songs album contains the strongest batch of individual pieces is difficult to say, but it is certainly a strong candidate for the most focused, sharply realized, and complete statement that he has yet released.
Samples can be found here.
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This impressively ambitious double album documents (in necessarily excerpted form) a month-long installation that ran during NYC's Storefront for Art and Architecture's 30th anniversary celebration back in 2013. Its true roots go much deeper than that, however, as Six Microphones is the culmination of a project that Robert Gerard Pietrusko has been fitfully struggling to perfect for almost two decades. It is easy to see why it took so long to realize, as Six Microphones is the sort of complex, process-based experimental music that only an electrical engineer or a rabidly gear-obsessed noise artist could hope to fully comprehend. Thankfully, grasping the intricacies of Pietrusko's system is not a necessary prerequisite for appreciating the resultant sounds, as Six Microphones is a quietly hypnotic symphony of drifting feedback that deserves a place alongside Nurse With Wound’s Soliquy for Lilith and Toshimaru Nakamura's No-Input Mixing Board experiments as a significant and inspired work of self-generating sound art.
In a broad sense, "six microphones" is a very succinct and accurate description of Pietrusko's installation, as it is almost entirely and exactly that: six microphones were pointed at a pair of speakers in a room with very deliberate spacial relationships to one another.The intention, of course, was to create feedback and that set-up did not fail in that regard.While it may seem elegantly simple on the surface, however, the system is quite fiendishly complex in the details of how those microphones interact with one another (and with the room that they were in).In that regard, Pietrusko (an associate professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard) approached the project with a focus and rigor that would befit mapping DNA or engineering a particle accelerator.A score and some diagrams are helpfully presented with the album to illustrate how the system works, but I only fully grasp the general idea: there are twelve controllers that manipulate the amplitude settings of the microphones, which keeps the resultant feedback in a continuous state of flux.I am a bit fuzzier on how Pietrusko alternates between "on" and "off" settings, but the gist seem to be that there are sixty-four different configurations of active/inactive microphones and each individual piece systematically cycles through them all.Impressively, all of that is just one of the factors that dictates the shape of these "compositions," as the sounds are further transformed by both the physical space that the microphones are in and the movements of the people within the room.Consequently, there can be no definitive version of Six Microphones, as the installation will yield significantly different results every time it is set up.That said, I suppose this album might be the definitive performance by default, as it will be the only one that most people get to hear.
From a compositional/sequencing perspective, Six Microphones is divided into six numbered parts and one overture, yet those delineations are fairly meaningless from a listening perspective.While I am sure someone who has spent a lot of time with the installation (like Pietrusko himself) can become attuned enough to discern the subtly different moods and tones in the various sections, the entire album is essentially a lazily shifting cloud of feedback, so it makes more sense to view it as a whole rather than a collection of discrete movements.The beauty, of course, lies in how the sustained feedback tones bleed together, transform, and converge into oscillating pulses.Given the nature of the sound sources, that is exactly what I would expect: someone who has a long familiarity with challenging music may be able to see some beauty in Pietrusko's feedback blossoms (akin to time-lapse photography), yet I suspect most listeners (like me) will find these sounds to be disorienting and uncomfortably hallucinatory.That certainly has its appeal, as My Cat is an Alien have made a career out of expertly plumbing those depths.At times, however, Six Microphones transcends the expected and such unpredictable interludes and unplanned set pieces are what makes this a compellingly unique album beyond its innovative compositional technique.On each of the four vinyl sides, some kind of phantasmal form takes shape at some point that sounds nothing like feedback: sometimes it sounds like the submerged whirring of a submarine or the hum of heavy machinery.Other times, it resembles a mysterious subterranean throb or an unexpectedly rhythmic series of oscillations. At those moments, patient and close listening almost feels like it reveals ghosts in the shifting fog.
Obviously, a double-album assembled from nothing but pure microphone feedback comes with some caveats.The primary one, of course, is that this is an unapologetically difficult tour de force of sound art.While Pietrusko put an incredible amount of effort into creating the system that made this possible, the form that these pieces take is guided primarily by chance (along with some math and electrical engineering) rather than by a composer interested in achieving a satisfying dynamic arc.Microphones do not care how long it takes to get to an absorbing place, nor do they care whether that place occurs at the beginning, middle, or end of a piece.The flipside of that, however, is that these pieces get to places that they never would have gotten to if they were consciously steered by a human artist.Also, it is always genuinely refreshing to encounter adventurous work from someone who has thought extremely deeply about frequency, harmony, the intricacies of the human ear, or complex acoustic phenomena (for me at least).Six Microphones is the kind of album that is all-too-rare these days: an experimental music album that is actually is truly experimental in its aims.In that regard, this album belongs to the same continuum as works like Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room" or the landmark works of early musique concrète: it could not be further from music-as-entertainment, yet it opens up intriguing new vistas in what is possible.
Samples can be found here.
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Matt Johnson's first full-length release of new (or new to the public) music in over a decade is a collection of 26 short themes for the film by Gerard Johnson. There's no "hit single" and the music is not reflective of any of his mainstream LP releases for any phase of his career. However, it's a fantastic treat for those who have collected his singles over the decades, as there is a lot of commonality with the more thematic B-sides that have graced his short-players throughout the ''80s and early '90s.
 
Self released on Cinéola, the imprint of Matt Johnson's own mail oder only Lazarus label, the package is alarmingly stunning for its low price (given that the man charges for his monthly podcast!): a bound book with 68 full color pages featuring photos by Matt and stills from the film. The film is about a reality-challenged unemployed middle-aged man who maintains a positive public influence in his small community yet murders people late at night in his apartment. Tony is the first full-length film written and directed Matt Johnson's lesser known brother, Gerard. Andrew Johnson, AKA "Andy Dog," as most fans know, did the artwork for a number of singles as well as the memorable original covers for the LPs Infected and Soul Mining and the reissue of Burning Blue Soul.
The music is entirely instrumental and void of twangy guitar bits or synth pop. It is primarily piano-driven during the first half. Most of the themes are dark, melancholy tinklings that, while pretty, conjure up feelings of solitude. Tony is remeniscent with some of the B-sides I have been most fond of—"Born in the New S.A." off the Heartland single from 1986, "Harbour Lights," from the 1986 single Slow Train to Dawn, "Angel," of 1989's The Beat(en) Generation, and "Scenes from Arctic Twilight" from 1993's Slow Emotion Replay single—most notably probably for the prominent use of the sound of the melodica contrasting the piano with low echoes rumbling beneath.
For the second half of the disc Johnson uses the piano less frequently, making things creepier with echoing low frequencies, bass, and even beats. A thumping low kick drum and sequencer driven opening of "The Swarming Selves" is soon matched with long, drawn, eerie synth noises, which take full control by the end; "Strange Sensations" is more of the eerieness, minus the bumping beats; and "Ultra Violation" is a reprise of "The Swarming Selves." "Meat Fever," has a much slower driving pulse, and is far creepier. Johnson eventually returns to the main theme, "The Lust for Unsung Dreams" (which opens, closes, and appears in a slower form in the middle of the disc) with a slightly different instrumentation for the longest track on the album at only 4 1/2 minutes.
There's a handful of different approaches to a soundtrack album and on Tony, Matt Johnson has assembled one using probably the most honest approach: include as many little themes as possible without making a "medley" or abridged version; incorporate a handful of dialogue segments from the film to break up the monotony that can occur; and leave off any "inspired by the film" hit singles. Cinéola Volume 1: Tony - A Soundtrack by The The isn't going to be regarded as one of his hit records or greatest accomplishments but he has given his followers a very nice present.
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Conceived while Jack Rose was on tour with Dave Shuford's (of No-Neck Blues Band) D. Charles Speer project, Ragged and Right is easily the most rocking thing Rose ever recorded. The band spends much of their time toying with Shuford's country-rock sound, and though Jack's talent and unique signature are definitely present, he disappears into the music more often than he dominates it.
On first listen I was pretty disappointed with Ragged and Right. As much as I like rock 'n' roll inspired by Dylan or The Band, I was expecting something different from an album with Jack Rose's name on it. Of the four songs on the album, only "Linden Avenue Stomp" has the Takoma-style finger-picking goodness I associate with his name, and that's a Glenn Jones number originally performed with Jack on This Is the Wind That Blows It Out. Repeated listens eased that disappointment, however, and with time I've come to enjoy hearing Jack in a different setting. As far as reference points go, Bob Dylan might be the easiest reference to make here, as each of the four songs exhibit the kind of rollicking, rambling rock he popularized on Bringing It All Back Home or Highway 61 Revisted. But, Thrill Jockey's website mentions that Link Wray was the initial inspiration for this collaboration. And upon hearing his version of "In the Pines" it's obvious that D. Charles Speer and Jack took a lot away from Wray's rawer, genuinely drunken sound. Just listen to the sample of that song below and compare it with Wray's version here (titled "Georgia Pines").
The single opens unexpectedly, with the sound of a piano. A mandolin and slide guitar quickly harmonize with it before Shuford's deep, throaty tenor glides into the music. Lyrically, "Prison Song" is exactly the kind of song to be expected from Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard. It's all about growing up hard and ending up in the wrong place, and it's opening lines recall very strongly the chorus to Haggard's famous "Mama Tried." Musically, the band is relaxed, trotting out the song's melody at a casual pace and playing off the rhythm section's rubbery foundation. It's as near a country ballad as Rose ever got, and unsurprisingly it's hard to pick his contributions out from everyone else's. It isn't until "Linden Avenue Stomp" begins that I hear Rose's influence. Once it's over, D. Charles Speer & The Helix take right back over, churning out two action-packed, attitude-driven tunes, the last of which is the spiritual brother to Wray's version of "In the Pines." It was the lack of Rose's voice that first invited my disappointment, and it's hard not to feel a little miffed that this is billed as a Jack Rose record with D. Charles Speer & The Helix. The billing should definitely be reversed, but once I realized that Jack's Takoma-influenced guitar playing didn't fit on any song other than "Linden Avenue Stomp" I appreciated the EP a whole lot more. If Rose is invisible, it's because the music demands it and because he plays so well with Dave Shuford and his superb band, who are equally the stars of this show.
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Even as far as falling back into their historical release pattern of an album paired with an EP of unique, yet contemporaneous material, the resurrection of Godflesh has done everything possible to honor their legacy. A World Lit Only By Fire does not exactly see the band picking up where the last album, 2001's Hymns left off. Instead it goes back further into their history, to the era most Godflesh fans wish they had never left.
My first exposure to Godflesh came almost exactly twenty years ago:first was the summer release of Merciless, then soon after the October 1994 appearance of Selfless.I still remember it rather vividly:I was 15 and a sophomore in high school.A friend at the time went to the record store the night before and picked the album up for me, right off of the new release rack.I found both a bit surprising, as I was expecting something more akin to the likes of Skinny Puppy, but I grew to love them pretty fast.From there I quickly made my way through their discography, and have been there ever since.
Why do I bring this up, other than to attempt to inject my own experience into such a significant release two decades later?Because, and recent interviews with Justin Broadrick have confirmed this:Selfless was the last truly "Godflesh" record before an identity crisis set in.Twenty years to the month of Selfless’s release, we have what feels to be in earnest the follow up to that album.
Between then and now, Broadrick and G. C. Green released three full length albums, and while each were strong in their own right, they all strayed from the formula that made the band the force that they are.Songs of Love and Hate in 1996 had the duo expanding to a trio with live drummer Bryan Mantia and a clearly hip-hop influenced sound.Three years later, Us and Them presented a distinctly electronic approach, almost certainly bleed over from Broadrick's work as Techno Animal, and the inclusion of drum 'n' bass loops that clearly date the record.The final album, 2001's Hymns, had them scaling back the electronics, but once again including live drums, and was recorded outside of Broadrick's home studios, with the overall feel hurt by the band being on foreign ground.The best work ways always when the perfect balance was struck between man and machine, and on A World…, that equilibrium has been restored.
Just as on Decline & Fall, all the drums are programmed (and if the gear has been updated from the old 16 bit drum machine, it certainly has no detrimental effect) and it was fully produced and recorded by Broadrick at his own studio.Beyond the drums, the only overt electronic sound to be heard is some tasteful sampler hidden amongst grinding guitar and distended bass lines, such as within the opening of "Shut Me Down."Every descriptor of Godflesh from 1988 to 1994 can be used for A World…, and I think that is reassuring to most fans.Never, though, does it sound like the band simply emulating their old works, but instead it is fresh material filtered through their classic approach.
It is hard to describe exactly how the sound is different, though.Perhaps it is the effect of the pent up artistic aggression that Broadrick kept mostly hidden, from the inception of Jesu up until this revival.Maybe it is a mature energy that has come with wisdom and experience, via family life and fatherhood for Broadrick and a lengthy stint in a very different career for Green.No matter what, it is an asset and not at all detriment.At times I worried Decline & Fall was almost a bit too much of the duo trying to sound like they did in decades prior; here it just comes naturally.
The music then, unsurprisingly, embraces the duo's more metallic tendencies, so expect lots of dissonant guitar and growling vocals, which are surprisingly strong considering Broadrick is now a man of a certain age.Exceptions to this blueprint occur though, such as on "Life Giver Life Taker" and "Imperator", the latter of which has a raw redlined low-end thump to it, but Broadrick singing rather than shouting throughout.On "Towers of Emptiness", the band keeps the squalling grindcore riffs and bass in place, but turn the drum machine down a bit to nod back to their sludgier moments, with the ending expanding out into a simultaneously beautiful and frightening ambient dirge.
Just as a great Godflesh album should, the two drift away from the grind/throb/scream metal formula, with these variations standing out as high water marks on an album ripe with them.The aforementioned "Life Giver Life Taker" stands at the forefront because of Broadrick's singing and a higher register guitar tone amidst the dense rapid fire rhythm section.The song as a whole sits perfectly between the earliest Killing Joke material and the duo's own "Tiny Tears" era, albeit with significantly better production values."Curse Us All" is based upon a similarly upbeat tempo, but with uglier vocals and a bass led intro that just cements how integral Green's bass playing is to the band's signature sound.
The nearly eight minute finale "Forgive Our Fathers" reflects the penchant of Broadrick and Green to place a longer, more experimental composition at the end of the album.While it might not be as massive or sprawling as "Pure II" or "Go Spread Your Wings," it does feature an appropriately expansive guitar noise and deliberate, methodological.The vocals are infrequent and alternate between hate-filled growl and resigned sadness, and the guitar and bass reflect this perfectly.
The album name and some of the song titles clearly hint at this back to a primitive mindset, in this case the band’s earliest roots, but ironically the result is a sound that is more timeless than anything.Much of Streetcleaner or Pure could have been recorded yesterday, but the sound of Songs and Love and Hate is easily identified as being a mid/late 1990s production.Nothing about this album sounds specifically rooted in 2014 or any of the current production clichés.Other than the crisper production, A World... could have been recorded 1988 and it would have fit in with what they were doing then, and that is a major compliment.
Much like one of Godflesh's major influences Swans, Broadrick and Green have managed to reactivate a project that was criminally underrecognized when they were the most prolific, and yet returned with more dignity and respect than most can muster in their entire careers.Even though all signs seem to be pointing to yes, I am hoping this revival will have the same longevity as Michael Gira's has, and hopefully the same well deserved amount of recognition and accolades. A World Lit Only By Fire is less symbolic of a band's reinvention than it is a resurrection, and that is exactly what it should be.
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Frederik Sevendal has been a fixture in Oslo's experimental music scene for years, establishing himself as both an excellent guitarist and an imaginative purveyor of twisted Lynch-ian ambiance. His latest release, a mixture of old and new recordings, captures him seamlessly blending brooding Badalamenti-esque dread, drugged folk jangling, and strangled guitar noise into a very unique and disquieting (yet unexpectedly melodic) whole.
This album is Sevendal's first widely available solo work, following a slew of very limited releases, collaborations with folks like Acid Mothers Temple's Makoto Kawabata, and appearances in an eclectic array of Norwegian bands.For the most part, this release is composed of material from a CDR released on Clearsnare in 2005.However, this newest incarnation boasts some much cooler artwork and a presumably improved sound, as Deathprod’s Helge Sten took on remastering duties.More importantly, it is augmented by quite an excellent and epic new piece.
Sevendal fits quite comfortably into Miasmah's tradition of murky, low-key surrealism, but also proves himself to be one of the most varied and compelling artists on their impressive roster.While the bulk of the album is compromised simply of guitars and contains a significant amount of improvisation, it is nevertheless a meticulously textured, structured, arranged, and well thought-out affair.The album's opening piece, "Silence to Say Hello," is one of the strongest showcases for those organizational talents, as its relatively straightforward progression of strummed minor chords spends its entire ten-minute running time subtly shifting and twisting while still relentlessly increasing in ominousness and power.Throughout it all, Frederik uses the foreground to unfold a blurred melody with heavily delayed guitars and a xylophone, but gradually draws attention away from it by sneakily increasing the violence and heft of the low-end strumming and adding fleeting high-end snatches of backwards guitar and some supremely heavy wah-wah snarling in the periphery.
To his credit, Sevendal doesn't repeat himself at all as the rest of the album unfolds, though things get a bit simpler at times.The second piece,"Sappélur," is a space rock-damaged foray into drone with howling abused guitars, while the third song is a virtuosic acoustic guitar workout with an eerie nimbus of feedback and spectral warbling by guest vocalist Inga-Lill Farstad (from the colorfully named Children and Corpse Playing in the Street).Then the next three songs are quite different from those, aside from the fact that they are quite good and maintain a similarly dark, narcotic, and dreamlike haze.Sevendal even takes the microphone for "Dreams," but only to deliver some warped backwards vocals (the dwarf from Twin Peaks perhaps being a key influence).
The album admittedly has some minor flaws, as a few songs go on too long and I wish the ratio of "gnarled, howling catharsis" to "languid melancholy" leaned a bit more heavily towards the former, but this is still a very satisfying and likable release—especially "I Think She’s Asleep."I hope this makes enough of a splash to get some other FNS albums released outside of Norway, particularly since the sole new piece, 2009's "Flaggermusvingers Vift I Dimmet," completely steals the show, sounding like Sonic Youth dropped by the studio to join Soundtracks For The Blind-era Swans for a monster jam.It's a little more conventionally "rock" than the preceding pieces, but betrays that a significant leap forward in both focus and immediacy took place between the original Clearsnare release and Sevendal's current work.
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It is hard to believe that Tim Hecker is still managing to pull fresh rabbits out of his hat seven solo albums into his career, but Virgins is an expectation-defying monster of an album.  While it certainly still sounds like a Tim Hecker album in a broad, general sense, several of these pieces feel far more like dissonantly avant-garde classical music than anything resembling laptop soundscapes or crackly ambient music.  I mean that in the best possible way, of course, as this is easily the heaviest, most complex, and most disturbing thing that Tim has ever done.  It is also the best.
As much as I love Tim Hecker, I have always thought of him as something of a meditative, meticulous, and predictable sort, destined to continually impress me with his depth and craftsmanship, but unlikely to ever knock me sideways with any surprises.  Consequently, I was completely blindsided by the gnarled harmonies and roiling immensity of the Virgins' opening "Prisms," which resembles nothing less than an all-enveloping sonic nightmare.  It is not a particularly long piece, but it definitely sets a very disquieting mood for the rest of the album: I guess Tim Hecker was finally ready to bare his teeth and get a bit scary.
Fortunately for the album's listenability, however, Hecker also tackles quite a few other moods over the course of Virgins' duration, making for a wonderfully varied and dynamic arc.  To his credit, Tim rarely returns to familiar territory without adding some kind of twist.  The most prominent innovations are probably the aforementioned digressions into neo-classical territory, which manifest themselves in somewhat muted form in the clean, rippling minor key piano reverie of "Black Refraction" and warm, flute-like harmonium of the aptly titled "Amps, Drugs, Harmonium."  However, even reprises of some older directions include unexpected improvements like buried beats, a melancholy woodwind melody, or a shivering insectoid hiss.
Hecker takes his classical aspirations into rather extreme territory, however, with the two-part "Virginal," the second part of which easily steals the album.  Even the first part is a bit overwhelming though, sounding like classical minimalism layered into oblivion and processed until it becomes a buzzing, groaning, and crunching nightmare.  It feels a lot like being trapped in a room with a dozen deafeningly amplified music boxes playing out-of-sync, clashing notes until I start to go mad. The second half then somehow reprises the same motif, but makes the dissonance even more jarring and unhinged-sounding until it evokes nothing less then absolute, grinding horror.  That is a stunning accomplishment in its own right, but Tim outdoes himself by burying small oases of musicality within even the most clangorous hellscape and also manages to segue into and out of teeth-rattling dissonance so seamlessly that it all feels perfectly natural.
Virgins is the rare album where almost every song stands out in some way.  For sheer jaw-dropping power and vision, "Virginal" cannot be topped, but Hecker also offers up quite a few moments of sublime warmth and beauty ("Radiance" and "Live Room Out," for example), as well as a pair of very different pulse-based closers ("Stigmata II" and "Stab Variation") that I loved as well.  That said, all of the individual songs bleed together to create a fluid, complex, and absolutely devastating whole, which is how Virgins demands to be heard.
I honestly cannot praise this album enough, as Hecker has now reached a plateau for sound art that I would not have imagined prior to hearing this album.  While some of these pieces certainly forge new territory, the most striking aspect of all is how so many pieces of the puzzle come together at once.  Virgins succeeds brilliantly on literally every level: the songs are great, the sequencing is perfect, the transitions from fragility to crushing density feel natural, the production is absolutely immense-sounding (Ben Frost was back)–even the textures are inspired, as Hecker skillfully balances his more processed-sounding laptoppery with warm woodwinds, sharply percussive piano, and a healthy amount of metallic grinding.
In short, Virgins is absolutely essential.  It is also probably a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, as no sane person would ever attempt something this ambitious, complex, and multilayered twice.  If I were Tim Hecker, I would have concluded these sessions by dropping my laptop in the garbage, high-fiving the engineer, then vanishing to a houseboat in the Caribbean forever.
Samples can be found here.
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