- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Judging an album by its cover is never a good idea and despite a gaudy luminous cover, the music on Against the Day is far from gaudy but it is luminous. Mixing Arabic influences with a jazz big band style group has made for a powerful album. The obvious influences here are Sun Ra and to a lesser extent John Coltrane but Shalabi’s own style (honed across many, many projects with most of them focussing on African and Middle Eastern styles) makes the jazz greats more spectres in the background rather than true points of reference as to how this all sounds. On “Iceland Spar” Shalabi and his group conjure up images of deserts and sandstorms (granted not images I would associate with Iceland!); the haunting strings and exotic motifs are fluid and malleable like a dune in the wind.
Elsewhere, the jazz comes out far stronger. Molly Sweeney’s smoky vocals on “Bilocations” are without doubt the centrepiece of Against the Day. She riffs on topics not exactly relevant to early civilisation but Shalabi states in the liner notes that this album is in dedication to Thomas Pynchon (the album’s titled borrowed from Pynchon’s novel of the same name) so the imagery makes more sense in that context. Taken together with the vibrant music, the song becomes psychedelic both in terms of style and in terms of being mind blowing. Several times I have had to stop what I am doing when listening to the album as this song comes on, it is remarkably captivating.
The title track is a frenzy of (whirl)wind instruments that sound like they belong on a classic 60s recording from Impulse! Records. The chaos of the piece suddenly bursts into a surging rhythm and escapes its free jazz trappings; the flowing music like a river and completely at odds with the arid, dry pieces that precede it. It floods out of the speakers and washes over me in a torrent. Sweeney’s vocals may be the centrepiece of the album but “Against the Day” is its life and soul.
I cannot sing Land of Kush’s praises enough, this is phenomenal album that ticks every single box for me. The recording is, as usual for Constellation, flawless. There is not a dud note to be found and even with nearly 30 musicians on board, not one of them sounds like a hollow session player. The only thing that could improve on it would for it to be at least twice as long but hopefully Shalabi does not just move on to another new project and does more with this. Undeniably Against the Day is one of the best albums of the year so far and is likely to stay high in my estimations for some time.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Olympia, Washington’s Wolves In The Throne Room contains no murderers, church-burners, or even a single dwarf that is too evil to be named. Nevertheless, they certainly have their own unusual and oft-mythologized backstory. The core of the group consists of two brothers (Nathan and Aaron Weaver) who were inspired to start the band at an Earth First! event in the Cascade Mountains as an attempt to combine the misanthropy of their sinister Norwegian musical brethren with earthy spirituality and radical environmentalism. Their ultimate aim is to "create a mythic space where artist and listener alike could strip away the mindset of the mundane to reveal a more ancient and transcendent consciousness." Also, they live in a collapsed farmhouse/rural stronghold called Calliope. I always like bands that live in strongholds, although Fela Kuti and Africa '70 is the only other example that springs to mind.
Malevolent Grain is much leaner and single-minded than the band's previous works (which I also enjoy). There are no guitar solos, atmospheric keyboards, interludes, or even a single riff here. Both lengthy songs are built entirely upon relatively simple (albeit tremelo-picked) minor chord progressions that hardly change at all. Surprisingly, this approach works extremely well, as the Wolves have clearly spent an enormous amount of time forging these skeletal song structures into their most intense and face-melting possible manifestation. This facial annihilation is largely rhythmic in origin.
Aaron Weaver's drumming is absolutely stupefying throughout both songs. Though certainly insane and virtuosic, I was especially struck by Weaver's unusual musicality. He may very well be the first drummer that I have heard that can make blast beats seem nuanced. Also, he performs an impressive rhythmic feat on "A Looming Resonance" in which he plays with blistering intensity while still enabling the song to feel like it is moving glacially. I was equally impressed at how he skillfully shifts from minimal head-bobbing grooves, to rumbling double bass, to blast beat intensity in a way that actually seems natural and essential to the songs' dynamic unfolding. One of my primary frustrations with this genre is that spastic blast beats are often just meaningless required components that feel strangely unwarranted and oddly detached from the music around them. On Malevolent Grain, the guitars and drums achieve a singular synergy that I think can only be attained by brothers who have been playing together their entire lives (Max and Igor Cavalera of Sepultura spring to mind as another example of this. Van Halen does not.).
The jaw-dropping first track ("A Looming Resonance") turns over vocal duties to Jamie Meyers (Hammers of Misfortune). Meyers had a cameo on the Wolves debut (Diadem Of 12 Stars), but this is the first time that the band has attempted female vocals for an entire song. It works incredibly well in this case- Meyers' vocals have a Nico-esque detached beauty that serves the material perfectly and almost transcends the black metal genre entirely. This is no small accomplishment, as I usually find female metal vocals to be shrill, unengagingly cold, or so swathed in reverb that they make the band sound like a terrible, sub-Projekt, early nineties goth band. This track is simply devastating in all respects (elegantly melodic vocals aside)- it builds in slow-burning intensity for over thirteen minutes and, weirdly, it more closely resembles Low during one of their rare roaring freak-outs than, for example, Emperor.
I was admittedly disappointed that Nathan reclaimed the microphone for "Hate Crystal," as his traditional black metal shrieking meant a sad farewell to to the EP's earlier somber melodicism. Despite that, it is still a fairly crushing song and it makes a sensible companion piece to "A Looming Resonance." It shares the stripped-down simplicity of its predecessor, but follows an opposite trajectory in that it begins in frenzied and demonically heavy fashion, then gradually becomes less and less intense until it finally dissolves into an ambient hum.
Malevolent Grain is the Wolves first release to feature a second guitarist (Will Lindsay from Middian). It is unclear if this new sinewy simplicity is related to that, or if these two songs were aberrations that would've been out of place amidst the "blazing crystalline blackness and ocean-deep ritualistic dronescapes" of their imminent third album (Black Cascade). I hope it is the former, but these guys seem to be incapable of making a misstep at this stage in their career- perhaps they've already moved onto to something even better.
Samples
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
On this unfortunately limited morsel, Primault takes the warm and gushy drone approach often squandered by lesser tacklers of texture and infuses it with his own distinct organicism. Where many opt for clear and rich synthesizer squelching, his is a mellow and moist drone that slips inside the earlobes with ease despite the work's deeply detailed nature. Never one to forsake the work in the name of scale, the album opens with the restrained beauty of the first untitled track. Hovering gently, the piece would serve all too well as the soundtrack to some cave-dwelling crystal palace. With warm and longing loops ebbing and receding against a thick mat of static downpour and whispered wind sweeps, the work is given enough space to unfold once the materials are present, letting it meander long enough to coax out some pretty placid lucid dreams.
To be fair though, that's hardly the case on only the first tune. All five of the untitled tracks here are steeped in an airy loneliness that focuses far more on mood than effect. Guitar plucks drip across endless hums on the second track while the fourth track fades in to a mat of phasing loops that suggests the cosmic without losing sight of humanity. It is this capability that pushes the material beyond most basement dwellers' explorative potential, as Primault exhibits again and again his mastery of craft and attuned sense of loops that change meaning when left to interact.
The lone odd man out here is certainly the third track, which presents a decidedly grimmer take on Primault's sound. Snugged neatly in the middle of the album however, its industrious backing and glitchy smatterings segue neatly between the album's two halves. It is perhaps a necessary and smart change of pace to an album that, at its worst, comes dangerously close to losing its listeners in its drapings.
Yet that is hardly cause for distress; the veils of sound explored on here are rife with change. It just takes patience to uncover its layers. When the closing track enters with a thick knot of gravel, it is offset by steelpan-sounding melodies that softly meld on to the rough background and drag it into another space entirely. Closing things on this note is suiting; half way between thick and thin, full and empty, awake and asleep, it perfectly ties together all of the contradictions that are woven so well here. It is releases like this that display the true potential of the homegrown labels, and it is a shame that only 100 people will be able to here this warmly created package.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Gonken’s attempt at fusing the genres of hip-hop, IDM, and indie rock make for a disc that is, at its best, only mildly enjoyable. Having chosen the worst aspects of the aforementioned styles doesn’t add to the entertainment factor. Perhaps this album is best understood as the soundtrack for a shopping spree at Hot Topic; perhaps it was if you caught Gonken’s performance their in the Burlington, Washington store last week.
The mere utilization of circuit bent instruments does not automatically improve the music played on them. It is rumored Madonna used them on her latest album after all. The song “Circuit Bent Teeth” takes a further step toward annoyance with vocals distorted as if they are processed by a megaphone, a ploy littered far too often throughout the disc.
His lyrics are, however, humorous (at least on the first listen). “Indie Rockstar 101” pokes fun at hipster cokeheads while it is easy to imagine depressed teenagers rocking out to “Crushed,” in which the singer laments a giant robot killing his girlfriend. One of the better songs is a rap about a robot assassin. The verses are clever, but it has the same failings as most contemporary hip-hop: the refrain is repeated ad nauseam, making the song needlessly repetitious and the creative parts of the flow end up being overwhelmed. “Taking It For What Its Worth” provides an instrumental reprieve from the lyrical songs. The depression motif comes back in full force on “Hate Is For People With Hearts,” with lyrics like “you told me you loved me/ but there was somebody else/in the back of your head/now your wishing that I was dead/I hate the way you make me feel.”
The album ends with a skit that amounts to little more than a chance for Gonken to talk about the size of his penis, something he calls “sledgehammer.” Like the title of his previous album Self Pleasurevation, this one is an exercise in onanistic indulgence, something he seems to know all about.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Tim Hecker's music is physical and concussive, but its effects radiate on a different level and manipulate something more primal than flesh alone. For close to an hour the music on this disc invades and purges the human core with vibrating melodies and crashing distortion: An Imaginary Country features Hecker doing what he does best.
Hecker understands the value of balance in abstract music. Throughout his career he has explored the often indescribable places that exist between completely abstract noise, blissful drone, and carefully sequenced melody and rhythm. An Imaginary Country is a continuation of the sound developed over the course of Harmony in Ultraviolet, but with an eye towards vignettes. Whereas the latter record flowed in one continuous and throbbing motion, Hecker's newest fades in and out of consciousness and concentrates on developing a broader array of sounds and ideas. Taking the title of the album seriously, it isn't hard to imagine each of these songs as an impressionistic detail of a landscape in Hecker's mind. Instead of focusing on long, slowly developing ideas and shapeless clouds of song, Hecker has decided to temper his music with abrupt shifts, slow fades, and unexpected, definitive transformations. A more concentrated and diverse album is the result. The song titles bear the landscape idea out as many of them carry names you might find in an atlas or on a trail map. However, instead of physical locations, Hecker maps out emotional and spiritual terrain by offering subtle and extravagant sounds in measured portions.
The music's basic elements are hot noise and buried melody. Fat bass pulses, unending string drones, guitar-esque noise solos, hiss, and blankets of of other electronic sounds make up the bulk of the record, with silence existing only between the tracks. Hecker's arrangements are dense without sounding busy and they rely on deceptive movements to work their magic. Distinct melodies and rhythms populate many of the songs, but they're so repetitive and completely woven into the fabric of the record that they disappear whenever attention wavers for a second. Radio distortion and bent frequencies eradicate structure and sensibility throughout the record, but at no point does the music fall apart and turn into a mass of unintelligible noise. In fact, the album thrives on the tension between intelligibility and senselessness without ever reaching for either extreme. Each song is very relaxing, but some are particularly hypnotic and play out like electric sirens. Others reward a concentrated listening; all of the minor details that are packed onto this record reinforce its beauty and complexity. An Eno-like playfulness is evident on more than a few of these songs. Another Green World this is not, but Hecker is definitely flirting with that kind of creativity and conceptual framework. "Pond Life" is especially reminiscent of the pictographic nature of that album. Its varied and unpredictable sounds wiggle and gyrate like the kind of life forms you'd expect to find at the bottom of a small body of water. The entire album is life-like in a similar fashion, though Hecker's musical world is far more dominated by landmarks than by biology.
Appreciated superficially or carefully, An Imaginary Country is a deeply satisfying record. Fully formed songs like "Borderlands" and "Paragon Point" convey and sustain an emotional heft that has become increasingly rare in abstract electronic music. Other songs, like "The Inner Shore" and "Pond Life," convey their power in more subtle and playful ways. I've listened to this record for the last two months and have found something new and exciting about it with nearly each listen. I've gone to sleep with it playing, listened to it at work, studied with it, written to it, attempted a review twice, and I've still not managed to make myself sick of it. I've been excited by a couple records already this year, but this is one of the few that sounds absolutely essential to me.
Samples can be found here.
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Below is the press release from No-Fi.
Daniel Padden’s The One Ensemble began as a solo project and quickly
morphed into a quartet with the recruitment of Chris Hladowski and Aby
Vulliamy of Nalle, and Peter Nicholson. With Padden’s leadership, they
developed a curious and strident brew of Eastern European folk, chamber
music, a pinch of Robert Wyatt and some kind of earthy psychedelic
primitivism.
Padden has been fortunate in recruiting a band of such polymath virtuosity,
giving room for his grand designs to be realised gloriously, both on stage and
on record.
As The One Ensemble Orchestra, their sound is given the blaze of full
technicolour glory as they expand to a septet, exacerbating their collision of
the formal and the tribal and oftentimes recalling the soundtrack and mood of
The Holy Mountain. They originally expanded to a seven-piece for a
commission from Bristol’s Venn festival in 2007, and consequently recorded
these tracks at Padden’s studio.
The extra members mean the Ensemble’s already rich sound is given further
depth and added gravity, while losing none of their dextrous transitions or
delicate passages. But when they hit those vocal incantations or rhythmic
cascades that fans of their sound love so much, there’s undoubtedly an extra
magic and drive that is a delight to behold.
At times, the Ensemble come on like a mediaeval A Hawk And A Hacksaw,
other times a chamber quartet ambushed by Balkan folk terrorists, but they
always sound unquestionably themselves, channelling a thousand delicately
unrefined, rough, raw and dreamlike voices. Like your favourite meal super-
sized, The One Ensemble Orchestra is the esoteric treat you’ve been
promising yourself.
www.myspace.com/oneensemble
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
The album opens with a suite of four tracks that are intended to represent one singular soundtrack, but each function on their own. The 12 minute opener "Phaser Acat 1" has a hollow, but heavy ambient quality to it, blasting in white noise and feedback like tones that, at least for the first half, are much more in-line with the likes of digital Merzbow with a hint of black metal chug lingering below (perhaps O'Malley's contributions). For the second half, the noise drifts away but the chug stays, albeit low, as clinical static and soft, lush synths begin to become the focus, the full contrast between guitar-like riffs, digital static, and soft synths are actually not that far removed from some of the more abstract Jesu work.
The remaining two pieces of this opening set, "Soma" and "Meta Phaser," resemble the first generally, continuing the deep, dark ambience with swells of noise and feedback, the latter adding buzzing analog tones and overdriven bass amp feedback while turning the noise up a bit, before allowing everything to fall away into quiet drift.
The remaining pieces are not as stylistically linked as these, but have a similar feel and sense about them, though the actual nuances differ from track to track. "Sora" sounds like a film score that has been bootlegged off of an old VHS tape: the string-based tones and sweeps are audible, but covered in a layer of analog filth that's exaggerated by digital skipping and occasional overdriven bass tones. Both "Monophaser" tracks are a bit less forboding than the others, emphasizing string like electronic tones and static crunch, the former adding in what may be field recordings of thunderstorms into the background.
"Teion Acat," and its predecessor "Teion" are more reserved, but tense and dark in execution, focusing on grim sustained tones and static decay, the latter sounding like a more obvious reworking due to its more cut-and-paste style construction, but the white noise swells and stuttering bass synth components give it an even greater sense of tension than the original, which makes up for any compositional complaints.
While this was a bit different than I was expecting from the label…I usually prepare myself for minimalist fragment tones and the smallest clicks sequenced into rhythm tracks, I was both surprised and pleased at the combination of rawer digital noise and dense atmospheres that are presented here. Then again, the label has yet to disappoint me, so I had no expectation that they suddenly would begin to.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Part of the intrigue of the musical interplay here is surely due to the unusual instrumental lineup. Consisting of Braxton cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, violaist Jessica Pavone, guitarist Mary Halvorson, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, the ensemble has an uncommon airiness in all of its endeavors. Never bogged down by weighty riffs, the compositions here float along in the mid and high ranges with a breezy and emotive ease of movement. While each work here represents a different approach (all members contributed compositions) the overall effect is a unified and mobile whole that gives the album a logical but gentle momentum.
The quartet's depth can be seen from the beginning, as the brief "Unfinished Ballad" slips gently into the funkier proceedings on "Army of Strangers." Here, the unit combines tight, James Brown rhythms with modern Bloodcount-like elasticity. Despite brief solos all around, no musician ever stands out or takes over as line after line is woven together in the name of the composition. Which is really the point on display throughout the album. These are, fundamentally, compositions, and anything done outside of the score (however loosely defined that may be) is done so in an attempt to further a dialogue with the pieces' initial ideas.
As much can be seen on "Pinched," with Halvorson's power chords and Fujiwara's drums cranking out punk attitude while Bynum and Pavone intersect near Klezmer cornet and viola lines against them. When the work disintegrates into smears of tone and noise, it works less because the digression is as well performed as it is as because of its logic within the stylistic tensions already set up in the minutes preceding it. It is just this sort of smart play that keeps the disc moving into realms stylistically beyond the ultimate listenability of the disc as a whole.
If anything, this is an album that only whets the appetite. These four capable musicians have a simpatico that few do, as well as a clear willingness to explore one another's work. This mix of respect, talent and experimentalism is rare, and the results are as rich as one would hope. While "Too Sweet" may be an undulating and fiery excursion, it is balanced by the calm ensemble work on the closing "Hate Fields;" it is this sense of balance that allows the unit to explore any musical approach without fear of discontinuity. Here, talent is overridden by communication, composition by approach, and style by feel, a trait sadly all too uncommon in the world of contemporary composition.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
NB Research Digest
Ponytail is the solo project of one-half of Helsinki dubstep team Clouds (I thought I had never heard of them, but then I recognized their track from the most recent DJ/Rupture album). Clouds are cleanly produced, structured, melodic, and heavily indebted to Jamaican music. Ponytail is conspicuously none of those things. This is likely due to Tanner's singularly eclectic inspirations: Charles Mingus, punk, and proto-industrial provocateur Pekka Airaksinen. And, of course, Finnish agrarian folk music (which Tanner's family has been involved with for many generations). Being a particularly ingenious and creative fellow, Tanner does not overtly borrow anything from the aforementioned artists; he merely plunders their aesthetic philosophies and applies them to his own ideas.
Themes For Cops is a pleasing and compellingly strange album, but it is very difficult to describe a constantly shifting and fragmented 34-minute song. The only consistency is deep bass and dubstep/downtempo hip-hop drums. Only the fact that they are there, of course. The actual rhythm/bass line tends to segue into something new every minute or so. Sometimes it is danceable and locks into extremely ephemeral groove, but more often it sounds like I am listening to a dubstep tape that has been through a washing machine. Fuzziness, odd wavering, warping, and off-kilter lurching abounds. Not in a bad way though- more in a Boards of Canada/William Basinski kind of way.
Tanner's musical palette is, to make a gross understatement, rather varied. Electronic glitchery coexists with violins, accordions, lounge-y farfisa, neo-classical piano, and pop song snippets. Making experimental music with a wide array of source material is not especially unique at this point, but Tanner does it in a particularly unclumsy fashion and largely avoids self-indulgence (and conclusively avoids pandering to listeners). As alluded to earlier, nothing sticks around long enough to achieve any sort of lasting beauty or funkiness—Themes is more like fever dream in which a torrent of striking moments (ranging from sublime to crazy to unsettling) deluges the listener. It is unlikely that anyone will ever say that this is their favorite album or anything, but Ponytail certainly will elicit much more inner commentary like "Hmm. that sounds cool.," "Was that snippet from a freaking Ladyhawke song?!?!!," or "Woah- what the hell is going on here?!?" than his contemporaries.
Themes For Cops compellingly makes the argument that you can get away with just about anything if you throw in some drums. Many of the ruined and corrupted sounds here would be perfectly at home on a much more listener-hostile and uncompromisingly harsh album, but are rendered strangely palatable in this context. Tanner has made a surprising and engrossing album- I vastly prefer this to his parent band.
Samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Most of the pieces here have a strong groove to them, there is very little of the droning soundscapes that made up the bulk of Disconnected. This is most welcome as Faust were always at their best with a strong beat and a catchy riff. However, there is also little here of what would be traditionally considered a song; the music is like a runaway horse that pulls the band with it, the band doing their best to direct it. This all adds up to a glorious end result, tracks like “Kundalini Tremolos” and “En Veux-tu des Effets, en Voilà” steamroll along and are impossible not to get caught up in.
It is not all heavy rockin’ as the title track shows more of Faust’s abstract side, Jean-Hervé Péron’s wordplay sits atop a largely percussion-led piece with what sounds like looped guitar in the background and Zappi Diermaier’s drumming seems to be in constant flux, spinning the beats around and changing the momentum of the music in a strangely subliminal way. On the face of it, hundreds of bands do the same thing to much the same effect but even though they are at an age where the spark of inspiration has usually extinguished, Faust instil some magic into the music. There is a touch of the absurd which stops them falling into cliché (and this is reflected in the liner notes by Péron and Zappi).
The remarkable thing about this album is how little it sounds like Faust. While it is unmistakably them, the music on C’est Com... Com... Compliqué is very different to any of the new material released on any recent live albums and even Disconnected was a very different beast. This is especially surprising as Nurse With Wound used the same recordings to make Disconnected as Karsten Bötcher used to mix this new album (they were originally to be released at the same time as sister albums). The difference is so huge that I cannot even identify what bits Steven Stapleton had taken for Disconnected bar one or two glaringly obvious bits. This situation is a bit of history repeating considering how different Faust’s early albums were despite being culled from the same sessions.
C’est Com... Com... Compliqué is a stunning album (and certainly my favorite out of the two being released this week) that sounds as fresh as any of Faust’s best albums. Although I am a big Faust fan, I did not think they could ever recapture the power and joy of their early years but with this album they have achieved that goal and they have done it without rehashing any old ideas.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Playing for a home crowd has a dramatic effect on how Faust play, there is a far looser feel to this performance compared to other recent live albums like ...In Autumn and Od Serca Do Duszy. At first, it feels so loose that I was not sure if I even was enjoying the music (the first couple of pieces are slow burners) but with repeated listens, the happiness the band exude becomes infectious. Much of the first disc is composed of new (or improvised) songs ranging in styles from spacious abstractions like “Firework Lovesong for Lilli-Sau” to stomping rockers like “Es Ist Mir Kalt.” “Lass Mich” (featured on the Nurse With Wound collaborative album Disconnected) makes for a joyously ramshackle performance, at times it feels like the song is going to fall apart under its own momentum but somehow Faust keep it together.
The second disc contains all the usual crowd pleasers; “Krautrock,” “Giggy Smile” (that guitar riff is still timeless) and “Schempal Buddha” (a.k.a. “J’ai Mal aux Dents”) are all blasted out with atomic force. A rousing version of “It’s a Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl)” finishes off Faust’s set; a beaming smile on a cheery face. The final track of the album is given over to Nurse With Wound with Jean-Hervé Péron singing alongside Steven Stapleton on a version of “Rock’n Roll Station.” Stapleton’s love of Faust comes through with him altering the lyrics to include loads of Faust references while Peron gets lost in the beats.
Schiphorst 2008 is a good live album but I am not sure if it will find welcoming ears outside of hardcore Faust (and NWW) fans as the recording quality is not exactly stellar. The mix makes the best of the bootleg quality recording but the end result is flatter than I would like. A little oomph in the low end is definitely needed. That being said, the actual performance captured transcends the actual recording quality, listening to this album makes me wish I was there as Faust sound like they are having great fun and to hear it live would be awesome.
samples:
Read More