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With C&C Luchtbal, purportedly the band's final album of unreleased material under their most well-known moniker, the artists formerly known as Chris & Cosey leave us with a recording of a 68 minute concert that took place in November of 2002 in Antwerp, Belgium. Though they have chosen to take up the name Carter Tutti to express their musical vision from here on in (making the decision to end Chris & Cosey seem possibly pointless and pompous), this generally mellow release serves as a pleasant soundtrack to their closing chapter. Things begin in a decidedly ambient fashion similar to the solo remix albums the two have released separately in recent years. The first true signs of life come in the mixture of head-nodding beats, swirling synths, and Cosey's soothingly savage voice on "Celph." "Infect Us" recalls everything I've loved out of Chris & Cosey, its sexual tension steaming up my speakers as I daydream of pornographic scenes of strip clubs and orgies. Their music has always catered to my perverse side, and this performance does not disappoint. My excitement truly peaked when the ritualistic flair and 4/4 beats of "Apocalipzo" spilled from my stereo, building me up for the hot white orgasm delivered on "Exotikah." Remarkably true to the original, the classic track retains the duo's passion for the electro and techno sounds they spawned and is a satisfying treat for listeners. While so many electroclash bands try to mimic the sounds of the 80's, loudmouths like Peaches and the girls of W.I.T. could learn a lot from the subtlety offered by these originators and forefathers on this live album. I've certainly learned a lot from them, and I look forward to gaining insight into what their future output has to offer.
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Dreams never end. Savage freedom time has begun in avenues all linedwith trees. Times have been strange. Do you hear her enlightenedlaughter? Another reason to cut off an ear? Maybe not. Blixa Bargeldmused upon beauty in the night sky over Berlin, but decided that noarms would ever be able to stretch wide enough to form an adequategesture to capture beauty. Beauty, he decided, remained in theimpossibilities of the body. Rachel's music is a music of such heavenlybeauty they must be tapped into something primal, way deeper than merechord charts and floating tailed black dots on lines. Their logoincludes a crescent moon emblem, recalling a darkness before dawn or asweet scented flower just beginning to bloom. Jason Noble used to playguitar and holler for those monster bird rockers Rodan, who weresacrificed on the alt-rock altar a little too early. Maybe he cut outthe noble heart of the beast and transported it into a rotating chamberensemble in perfect harmony. He was definitely running on the same lineas me at Shellac's All Tomorrow's Parties. Rachel's enchanted and transfixed that weekend, but Systems / Layers is even more gorgeous than that singular performance suggested. Their last album Significant Otherswas a rare bird - the only time I ever saw it was that weekend. They'vetaken some of the minimal play from that and put it into a moreluscious frame, guilded by a theatrical group called SITI. Rachel'spulled an improvising system known as "The Viewpoint" into their orbitand they seem to have caught a glimpse of the music of the spheres.Rachel's discovered a lot, learning new ways of creating andcommunicating. Singer Shannon Wright helped significantly, singing sucha quietly lost yet deeply hopeful song as ever there was. Peel thelayers of an onion and tears run down, but there are no tears as theleaves of a lettuce fall and cover routine systems of dreary urbanlife, and as they rot let roses and chrysanthemums bloom throughcracked concrete. Rachel's transports me to emerald woodland glades ina primitive dream where words are no longer necessary. There is so muchwarmth and compassion in Rachel's music it could burn away all theimpurity in the blackest heart. To describe this music in the way of aregular review would debase it and spoil it's magic. Then the songbecame alive - so glorious!
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Like any artist that is this intentionally outlandish and exaggerated,Peaches runs the risk of alienating the critics and audience who onceembraced her. Even I am not entirely certain how much of my fondnessfor her music is attributable to the camp novelty image she cultivatesand how much is actually based on the quality of the music itself. Thechunky, minimal Roland 505 beats and breathy sex-raps that dominated The Teaches of Peacheswere certainly unique, but upon repeated spins the joke wore a littlethin. Peaches makes a bid for continued cult success with herinsolently titled self-produced sophomore album Fatherfucker.The title operates as a provocatively obscene backlash against thefrequent use of the derogatory 'motherfucker' in hip-hop music. The newsongs expand the sound palettea little, trying to embellish the stark asceticism of the first album,but for the most part they retain the energy and brazen sex appeal. Thebrief onslaught of "I Don't Give a?" opens the album, based around alooped sample lifted from Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation," with Peachesrepeatedly assuring us "I don't give a fuck!/I don't give a shit!"Peaches gets back into familiar territory with the sexy, minimalelectro of "I'm The Kinda" spouting off goofy self-aggrandizing lyrics:"I'm the kinda bitch that you wanna get with/Sodom and Gomorrha/Todayand tomorrow". Several of the shortertracks emulate the dumbed-down Detroit sound of Adult., serving aslargely forgettable filler. "Kick It" features a much-vauntedcollaboration with proto-punk legend Iggy Pop, who returns the favorfor Peaches' involvement with his recent Skull Ring album. Themost surprising revelation listening to this trackis that Peaches somehow manages to upstage the venerable Mr. Pop,joyously stomping all over his vocals with repeated howls of "Tear itup/Rip it up/Kick it up.""Shake Yer Dix" is this album's bubblegum anthem, a splendidly idioticcall to arms, or in this case, a call to gonads. "Stuff Me Up" is afavorite of Peaches' recent live shows, a creepy micro-electro trackfeaturing labelmate Taylor Savvy, that contains one of her dirtiestlyrical double-entendres. "Rock n' Roll" utilizes an actual three-piecepunk group for an anarchistic Stooges-style bachannalia. Perhaps Fatherfuckeris just another spoke in her menstrual cycle, and for many the noveltymay have already worn off, but Peaches has created another awesomelylewd platter for all of the like-minded, skittle-diddling perverts thatmake up her peculiar demographic.
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There's something unspeakable wandering the halls of a deserted hotel somewhere in the past and its sound has been captured so that all can know it. Salvaged from dusty records in plain white and brown sleeves, these recordings take a decidedly darker stroll into the halls of forgotten happiness and celebration. The Caretaker has managed to take the deserted and neglected and give them new life by expanding their sound: horns blasting for the satisfaction of dancing men and women are slowed down to funeral marches and the static and hiss of old records become the wind and rain as it toils outside the windows of a shining and elegant ballroom. There's an element of surgery in The Caretaker's approach: that which must've seemed so vibrant and brimming with life is torn open so reveal something betraying that image inside. Everyone had their demons at this party and each of them were quite desperate to hide that little part of themselves; fear had its axe in everyone's back. But there's more going on here than just psychological investigation: The Caretaker strips back a little bit of reality to reveal the void underneath everything.
This explains the reason for all the sounds being so spacious: voices extended into the unintelligible, drums turned into drones and smoke, and strings diminished to hollow wails. The good news is that the fear never becomes too great and the void never feels all-consuming. The sounds and sights to be found on this release can be explored with confidence: whatever it is that is lurking through these distorted and destroyed melodies certainly cannot cause any permanent damage, right? Even this seems uncertain, really. "And The Bands Played On" is a reminder that nothing is for certain and that whatever certainty is assumed is truly dangerous. From start to finish, We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow is filled with absolutely haunting and unmitigated sound. There are points when it is impossible to tell whether the sounds being heard are really from a lost record or from some lurking and abnormal creature not subject to a name or description.
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Chris Brokaw is known to many as a founding member of Come, and morerecently as a member of Consonant and the New Year, though he hasplayed drums and guitar wherever needed on a number of releases fromPullman to Evan Dando's latest solo effort. Last year he made his solodebut on Red Cities,showing off for the first time his skills at songwriting with hisalready established abilities on guitar. The limited edition Wandering as Wateris the subtle follow-up, part of the Return to Sender series thatshowcases vibrant artists in their rawest form. For Brokaw that meantrecording fifteen songs in one day, played on guitar and tambourine.Some songs are his, some familiar favorites from his Come days, butthey're all fueled by his very quiet and solid musicianship. It's acalm, soothing record in most places, and Brokaw divides it evenly withinstrumental and vocal tracks. Where he has a capable voice, it is onthe tracks where he doesn't sing that Brokaw has the most success. Hisguitar playing is fluid and energetic.The sounds of a small town life escape from the speakers, of simplertimes when all you needed was a nickel at the country store.Considering the minimal percussion, it's also incredible how full thesesongs sound, and for the most part there isn't a flaw to speak of. Onthe songs with vocals, Brokaw stumbles a bit, where his inflections andnotes can warble or even slightly irritate: "My Confidante," with itsopening of "I threw up on the side of the road/Thirty miles from thePoconos," is almost treacherous in every respect, particularly the howlof the chorus. Thus, it almost makes sense that until now Brokaw hasbeen known solely as a musician, and perhaps that's why he excels atthat so well. Here and there, though, the vocals work, like on Come's"Shoot Me First." It's only when he really tries for that note or overemphasizes that the car veers every so slightly into the shoulder.While I think that with a few more releases under his belt, his singingand songwriting will undoubtedly both improve, on repeat listens of Wandering, however, I'll probably just stick to the instrumentals.
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Two enigmatic men from the centre of Britain want to take you on amagical mystery tour. Imagine sitting on a train. As it pulls out ofthe grimey station the motion rocks you half asleep, into thatsemi-dream state where shifting realities collide and merge. A chime, adrone and an accelerating heartbeat cross the tracks. The ultimatedestination is bright light, but the journey glitters, as you passrolling hills and emerald forests, out into the wasteland where the sunis blinding and obscures vision. The name Aurelie was chosen for thistrip due to its phonetic beauty, and since beauty is hard to describeorally and lies in the eye, it has to be heard aurally. Make no mistakethis is beautiful music, finding hope in the loss of each passinglandscape. This trip is the perfect one to take out of the crowded citythat inspired labelmate Akatombo. Aurelie are a much more delicate yetequally dreamy proposition, and the final dronesongs on Trace Elements almost lead into the opening chimes of Desde Que Naci.Swim, run by Colin Newman of Wire and Malka Spigel of the recentlyreformed Minimal Compact, now has such a strong roster with anover-riding future music quality aesthetic that it'd be no joke to hailthem as the un-UK's finest record label. Whilst Aurelie are certainlyout there dreaming their own pure visions, there is some room forcomparison with Colin and Malka's mighty Immersion duo, and maybefellow middle Englanders Magnetophone. Aurelie is however more subtlethen either, but it would be a mistake to call this ambient or chillout because Aurelie's warmth and drive are all too human. Once againSwim have given us music beyond genre boundaries, from a time thatwasn't a time.
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Earlier this year Autechre curated the fifth All Tomorrow's Parties festival, and of that bounty comes this, actually the fourth ATP compilation. All Tomorrow's Parties comps have never been more than glorified mixtapes ("ultimate" mixtapes according to Thurston Moore), thoughtfully scratching the surface of one of the best large-scale concert series; Autechre's volume, though, is the first with potential to transcend its posterity-building, afterthought status, becoming an (almost) essential collection.
This is the first double-disc (or album) of the ATP comps, making the odds of finding something compelling even greater. This is also the first ATP comp to focus almost entirely, and understandably so, on the electronic realm, giving it, though twice as long, a common thread that was lacking on the first two, curated by Sonic Youth and Shellac. An increased cohesiveness is particularly achieved in the sequencing of the tracks across the two discs. Disc one is undoubtedly more of a "daytime" collection. It begins with two hip-hop songs, the first new material from Public Enemy and the second a stellar remix of the Masters of Illusion track "Bay-Bronx Bridge," a Bollywood-breakified gem that would be at home in a DJ/rupture mix for sure. Two hip-hop infected instrumental tracks follow, by Autechre's upbeat alter ego Gescom and Miami's Push Button Objects, whose "ATP track" features sitar plucking and operatic vocals floating above a cracklin' beat. These songs are "pop" enough to follow the hip-hop and segue nicely into a laptop piece from Jim O'Rourke sounding like the more pleasant bits of recent Fenn O'Berg stuff. This is music for relaxing in the backyard after an afternoon of driving around with the beginning of this disc in the ghetto blaster. Two Autechrian, yet nonabrasive tracks from O.S.T. and Made begin the evening's journey into night. Somewhat uneventful, these leave room for the third and final hip-hop track, this time from Kool Keith's ! Dr. Dooom, whose "Leave Me Alone" is a hilarious tirade against the music industry containing one show- stopping verse that begins, "Why you think I should wear a motorcycle helmet—why don't you wear it?" Detroit techno guru Steve Pickton's Stasis project closes disc one with a wonderful piece blending spacious drones into rumbling electro and beginning a trip to the dancefloor that will be continued on the second disc.
More of a "nighttime" disc, with most of its tracks primed for the dark spaces of the dancefloor, disc two kicks off with one of its nicest surprises, faceless technoid Anthony 'Shake' Shakir's "Ghetto Futures," a track whose slashing breaks sound played by a live army. A fragile, beautiful track from Disjecta (Seefeel's Mark Clifford) allows a brief moment of peace before the beefy, though unremarkable techno throbbings of Baby Ford and Mark Broom. A lengthy and exceptionally soothing Pita track begins the final and most abstract segment of the comp. Surprises herein include an Autechre track that, despite its title ("/]-/](II)"), is relatively accessible, even danceable, and a sprawling new track from Sub Pop sludge/drone stoners Earth. The typically harsh stylings of Bola (one of four Skam artists on this comp) and Hecker round off the disc in predictable, though enjoyable fashion. If ATP comps of the future provide the same variety, tempered by the same degree of cohesion and consistency evident here, these collections may become as valuable as tickets to the events themselves.
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- Masters of Illusion - The Bay-Bronx Bridge [Bhongra Remix]
- Stasis - Artifax
- Anthony 'Shake' Shakir - Ghetto Futures (Go Figure)
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Every once in a while, an artist comes along who sounds born into a sound, like while in the womb his parents played him classic records that he just absorbed into his psyche. Andy Wagner has that quality, like there's nothing else in this world he could be doing because it just wouldn't fit. This multi-instrumentalist uses guitar, keyboard, bass, and accordion to construct pop songs that defy the typical trappings to derive at something more.Tense Forms
His breathy, Dylan-esque voice talks of death, human relationships, beginnings and ends, and all over a bed of western influences and tossed with rockabilly and country rock. The result belies the DIY formula he adheres to, as Horse Year has the feel of a solid group of players that have been polishing their skills in bars for five years, playing for crowds wading in sawdust and peanut shells. For the most part, though, Wagner wore all the hats himself, including the engineering and production work, with a scant few guests. While they add some much needed flavor, including the stable drumming of Mark Benson, this is Wagner's show, and rightfully so. Narrative and introspective, he has the presence of a soul who will be writing and recording for a long time. "Weak in the Knees" and "Something's Watching" speak of the inevitable day many of us spend most of our lives trying to pretend will never come, with the latter infusing just enough scare tactics. The ambling waltz and saloon piano of "Nothing to Defend" and "When I Leave" with its shuffle and faded accordion are definite highlights, but this album belongs to "What You Used to Be," all echoed guitar and steady rhythm over laments of the past. Wagner is also a member of the Delta Still, and also works in Chicago area theatre, but this well-crafted debut shows he has the ability to overshadow it all like the dark side of the moon with his own work.
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It was a shock to me to find out that this was recorded live. Thearchitecture of the whole album is so well constructed that I was sureit was a studio album when I first listened to it. After payingattention to the liner notes, I realized that this was all done as aperformance without the help of editing. The music itself is a seriesof background drones recalling the feeling of winds blowing across avast desert, ominous hums that, for some reason, remind me ofstormtroopers and weaponry approaching over the horizon, and variousfound sounds tossed about as if in a blender. Here and there a guitarplucks some melodic but repetitive notes and builds a tension alreadypresent to a nice crescendo. The various sounds that cut into thewavering background range from the aquatic and metallic to the sci-fiand terrestrial. What's interesting is that after repeated listens theybegin to sound like melodies of noise. Either this is the result oflucky improvisation or it was a well-planned effect. In either case,there's something fairly impressive about the way these sounds aremanipulated and used. Backwards flutes and brief bursts of femalevoices either singing or talking cut into metallic chunks being groundtogether. The tension between these two samples resolves itself intothe sound of car horns pitched and extended creating a harmony betweenthe crunchy sounds of natural resources and the resonance of musicalelements. The two tracks here are quite long and can have someuneventful stretches but these are usually brief and do little todistract from the captivating moments. Did I mention that much of whatis featured here is done on turntables? I'm not quite sure how thesounds on this record were achieved by turntables and I doubt that theyweren't filtered and disturbed live by Pure and Martin Siewert butthere's really no indication that anything on this record was made withthe help of vinyl. The mystery, the music, the noise, and the overallatmosphere on Just In Case... are excellent and worth coming back to again and again because each listen brings out something new.
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It's always funny to hear how environments affect certain albums, fromthe way the musicians felt to the actual physical environs of thespace. One recent winter, Dan Matz was in an upstate New York farmhouseafter a horrendous snow storm. There was no power, and all he had wasan acoustic guitar and dulcimer, and a friend who played piano to seeit out. So, they wrote and played some songs to pass the time. When thepower finally returned, it was time to record these songs that had keptthem company for the past few days. Carry Me Overis the result, and it sounds just like what I'd expect given thecircumstances under which is was composed. There is a stark beauty tothe arrangements, with very few instruments and virtually nopercussion. A chill passes through these songs, mostly due to thehaunting male-female vocals and the minor key progressions, but thereis also a closeness, as though people are trying to keep warm. Matz andAnna Neighbor play and sing with a staid and complacent nature, asthough this delicate music will break them if they let it out too much.They sing songs as poetry and prose, as declarations and pleas, urgingand convincing at the same time they are weak and afraid. Matz has avery calm and smooth though untrained voice, which means most notescome out solid with minor cracks, a fitting addition to the music thathas the same qualities. "Downpour" is a perfect pop song, withmulti-tracked vocals and keyboards to accompany the deliberate guitarstrums and drums. The title track and "Matthew" also approach thisbeauty, with an all-encompassing sanguinity and human frailty. Othertracks feature eerie choirs, reverb, and bare vocals that inject justenough variety to please even the most stubborn with at least one song.As a whole it is at once a dark, pretty, warm, and barren release, andthere are great songs within that show Matz isn't through crafting hisbrand of off-kilter pop.
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EPs are a tough sell. Ounce for ounce, this is probably Jonas Munk'sbest release. It combines all of his best skills in four songs whichnaturally play out with a complete indifference to a 4-6 minuteunwritten guideline for album collections of 8-10 songs. At 24 minutes,it's the perfect amount of time to experiment without wearing out yourwelcome. In addition, it's a good breather from the wealth of outputthat's not been the easiest to keep up with. However, priced as high asit is (and as most EPs are), it'll probably be his least heard. On the(not-so-ironically titled) opener "A Familiar Place," Munk hasn'tstepped far from the sounds and styles of his other output: simple butlush, heavily emotional, slightly pitch-bent synth melodies loop intime with a steady pulse and musical electronic percussion. Both hereand on "Wake," angelic female vocals have been added, but the additionis never oppressive nor distracting from the music. On "StealingThrough," and "Horizon," however, Munk takes a step in removingelements, yanking beats out completely and leaving the former as asimple guitar piece with faint echoes and the latter as a stunning 8½minute gem of bright swelling synths that are as blinding and gorgeousas a setting sun. With this, I look forward to hearing the directionManual moves on to but at the same time, I'm patiently satisfied fornow.
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