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Artist: Sistrenatus
Title: Sensitive Disturbance
Catalogue No: CSR108CD
Barcode: 8 2356647112 7
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Black Ambient / Industrial
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Blurring the lines between Dark Ambient, Industrial and Noise, Sistrenatus storms forth, shifting between oppressive aggression and unsettling atmospheres. "Sensitive Disturbance" is the third offering from this now legendary Canadian act, whose debut "Division One" was issued on Cold Spring in 2007. An aural journey through the urban decay of abandoned factories, scorched landscapes and underground passageways. "Sensitive Disturbance" is an abrasive rendition of the industrial revolution in its darkest phases.
Tracks: 1. Disrepair | 2. Frequency Contamination | 3. Rusted Earth | 4. Echoes From The Past | 5. Slow-Wave | 6. Lost Transmission | 7. Forgotten
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Artist: Bleeding Heart Narrative
Title: All That Was Missing We Never Had In The World
Catalogue No: CSR106CD
Barcode: 8 23566471325
Format: CD in digipak
Genre: Orchestral / Avant-Garde
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Reissue of the stunning debut BHN album from spring 2008 (Ltd x 200). Working with a constantly evolving autumnal orchestra of layered cellos, repeating piano melodies, hushed vocals and mutant textures of sound and noise, Bleeding Heart Narrative has constructed a unique, haunting and compelling album. BHN is the work of sole composer, artist and producer Oliver Barrett, working in the live spectrum as a septet. Presented in a digipak with the new and exclusive bonus track 'Blueskywards'. We can't recommend this highly enough!�
Tracks: 1. BHN | 2. As If Yearning Was All And More Than Enough | 3. Black Glass | 4. Braids And A Necklace | 5. Blueskywards |
6. A Nest | 7. This Is The World Before This Is | 8. Discovering Abandoned Houses | 9. Nothing Is Out In The Yard
10. Though Your Feet Have Left Footprints | 11. Finding The Door | 12. Lillian Gish
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Artist: TenHornedBeast
Title: My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth
Catalogue No: CSR106CD
Barcode: 8 2356647092 2
Format: CD in digipak
Genre: Guitar Drone / Doom / Dark Ambient
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The TenHornedBeast rises again. Five new compositions from black ambient / doom overlord Christopher Walton - three remixes / expansions / contractions of songs from the debut album "The Sacred Truth" and two totally new pieces that are in a similar style to this dark masterpiece. Walton has stripped some of the songs to their bare bones and allowed them space to breathe again. This album is all-new but continues the atmosphere of the debut and can be considered a companion piece. Presented in a matt-laminate, spot-varnished digipak.�
Tracks: 1. Ruins Son | 2. Black Wals Rusing / Black Stars Falling | 3. My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth |
4. The Sword Was Our Pope | 5. Fenris Wolf
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Artist: Anni Hogan
Title: Kickabye
Catalogue No: CSR99CD
Barcode: 8 2356648862 0
Format: 2CD in jewelcase
Genre: Murder Ballads, Funeral Pop, Experimental
Shipping: 30th March 2009
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In a musical career spanning three decades she has worked with many successful artists in a variety of capacities. As a DJ she performed with artists including: Soft Cell, The The, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept, Japan, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Adrian Sherwood. On Piano and Keyboards she has performed live and in studios all over the world with artists including: Soft Cell, Simon Fisher Turner, Nick Cave, Paul Weller, Barry Adamson, Lydia Lunch, Zeke Manyika, Sex Gang Children, Yello, Caged Baby and of course Marc Almond.
Cold Spring is proud to present her debut release expanded and brought to the public for the first time on CD.
"Kickabye" features some of the leading lights of the alternative scene: NICK CAVE on 'Vixo' (exclusive to this release), MARC ALMOND on 'Burning Boats', FOETUS, BUDGIE (Siouxsie And The Banshees) and GINI BALL amongst others.
The first CD is the original "Kickabye" EP (produced by Jim "Foetus" Thirwell), plus 10 extra tracks from the same period.
The second CD is also tracks from the same period. 'Blue Nabou' features YELLO. Production by BARRY ADAMSON on 'Hopes And Fears', 'Wasting Time', 'Senseless', 'A Place To Belong', 'Everything We Do', 'Self', 'The Story So Far' and 'Each Day'.
This digitally remastered work contains new and exclusive versions of 'The Frost Comes Tomorrow' (originally released on "The Stars We Are" by Marc Almond), 'The Hustler' (originally released on "Mother Fist" by Marc Almond), 'Blood Tide' (originally released on "Violent Silence" by Marc Almond), 'Margaret' (originally released on "Untitled" by Marc And The Mambas).�
Tracks:
Disc 1: 1. Vixo | 2. Burning Boats | 3. Just Like Drowning Kittens | 4. Marat | 5. Kickabye | 6. Delirious Eyes | 7. Hope And Fears | 8. Wasting Time | 9. Senseless | 10. Fleurs Dolls | 11. The Frost Comes Tomorrow | 12. The Hustler | 13. Blood Tide |
14. Margaret | 15. Burning Boats (Foetus Drum Version)
Disc 2: 1. A Place To Belong | 2. Everything We Do | 3. Self | 4. Story So Far | 5. Each Day | 6. Blue Nabou
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Christian Fennesz/Werner Dafeldecker/Martin Brandlmayr, "Till the Old World's Blown Up and a New One
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The three pieces on the second disc (one of those neat 3” CDs embedded in a 5” CD) were assembled from raw group improvisations, each member of the group making one piece each. It does not say in the sleeve notes who has assembled which track but judging from the amount of glitchy computer noise, “Tau” is the work of Fennesz. It could very easily fit on to one of his solo albums but is not the most captivating work of his I have heard (provided it is him!). “Me Son,” on the other hand, has a very different feel to it. The electronic treatments are kept to being background texture and the instruments are left clean. It is not a million miles away from Autistic Daughters (Dafeldecker and Brandlmayr’s band with Dean Roberts). The end result is a nice, clear rock improvisation that is packs large amounts of joy into its five minutes.
These three pieces were then taken, re-edited, augmented, changed and processed over the course of four years to give the album’s title track, a long and spacious piece that little resembles the raw materials, much like the ingredients of a cake are very different from the cake itself. New additions, such as Brandlmayr’s piano and more guitars courtesy of Fennesz, add further flavour to the piece. Large spaces of silence punctuate the delicate and largely sedate musical passages; the mood of the piece is a million light years away from its volatile title.
Considering the length of time it has taken to create these two discs, it is unlikely that there will be another release soon but the depth and accessibility of these four pieces will entertain me for a long time. Till the Old World’s Blown Up and a New One is Created is a wonderful aside from three excellent musicians, showing themselves in a different light to usual and creating beautiful music in the process.
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The Locrian track "Drosscape"” first begins with bass drone and modulated guitar feedback, building tension before dark, clanging sounds and processed screams stab sharply into the track, followed by a traditional wall of electronic noise and guitar pedal abuse that straddles the more subtle underpinnings, taking what was once a guitar drone track into harsh noise territory. Just as some headbanging loop-centric elements begin to really dominate the track, it immediately drops to complete silence.
The Katchmare side sticks with stuttering overdriven noises, early on resembling the loping chug of an old lawnmower before amping up into the traditional overdriven harsh noise style, but rather than sustaining the blast, it begins to uncomfortably cut out, fade to silence before roaring back in, or get chopped up into tiny delays of sound that lead me to question when the track was going to actually end.
If I had to pick a side, it'd go to the Locrian one because it has a wider array of sound and a more dramatic build, but Katchmare's track is a good piece of raw noise crunch that sometimes is just needed to aid in digestion and clearing off shelves, so it is by no means ignorable.
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Long before starting with Brainwashed, I used to run a personal site that did music reviews, which transitioned to a short-lived webzine. After my review of the first album, Mindshaft, bassist Gary Kean sent me a copy of this album upon release, which was on his Purity label. By far, I received more comments and emails about this disc than anything else I reviewed at the time, mostly asking where I got the album. Finally, Relapse has reissued it with three extra tracks, which are culled from the Completion disc of demos and unreleased tracks.
Bodychoke’s previous albums were great, but still somewhat flawed: Mindshaft was too tentative, and Five Prostitutes was too sprawling and uneven. Cold River Songs, on the other hand, was a fully realized album that incorporated many different elements, yet felt like a cohesive work. The first two tracks alone exemplify this: "Control" opens with a barrage of pure, raw guitar noise that wasn't far removed from the contemporaneous Sutcliffe Jugend work, which segued into cello, then pummeling drums, and screamed vocals from Kevin Tomkins.
The next track, "Cold River Song," is a much longer ten minute piece that opens with some gentle guitar before the drums kick in, the track remaining a contrast of clean guitar and cello, but at the same time blown out noise bass and guitar. Structurally it builds in tension, the calm vocals throughout most of the verses are punctuated with the screamed choruses. It all builds to a crescendo that is first eerily calm, and then unhinged and violent, before closing beautifully.
"Your Submission" is another track that emphasizes this duality: it focuses initially on cello, unconventional guitar sounds over a quiet rhythm and the calmer vocals of Paul Taylor before the track explodes into screams, rapid fire drums, and pure guitar noise. The chaos carries over into "Victim," which has a cello lead over guitar squall and tribal drumming.
The penultimate track (on the original album) "Ideal Home" is perhaps the most significant departure here. Not only does it remain a slow, reserved track driven by cello and bass, but also represents the most drastic differences lyrically. Most of the album is thematically linked to general themes of misogyny and murder of the libertinage sort, but rather than similar bands (noise or otherwise) singular focus, here it is the insecurities and weaknesses of the fictional criminal(s) that are the topic. Original album closer "Aftermath" is another dramatic, mostly instrumental piece that meshes careful restraint with dissonant squall to great effect, but remains second to the 16 minute feedback behemoth "The Red Sea," that closed Five Prostitutes.
The three bonus tracks here are obviously drawn from the same sessions and would have not been out of place on the original release. "White Light Killer" is a rapid-fire rhythm track lead by distorted bass that blows out into raw noise at the choruses, structurally and conceptually similar to "Control," but it still stands on its own. The level of polish on this demo makes me think it may have been intended for the rumored album on American Recordings (yes, Rick Rubin's label) that was never finished, and the band disintegrated. "Woman Unkind" is a contrast between extremely sparse instrumentation and quiet vocals and sheets of jagged noise guitar, and its thin lo-fi production is a strength rather than a weakness. "Trial" feels like a companion piece to "Victim," its early Killing Joke like drums, distorted bass, and cello mixed with Paul Taylor's screaming vocals.
While the disc is purported to be remastered, I am skeptical. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because the original issue sounded, and still sounds great. The bonus tracks have a general roughness to them, which is not surprising given they were originally demos. Relapse's presentation, however, leaves something to be desired. The inclusion of the full lyrics is a definite bonus, and it is always reassuring to know that my interpretation of the words wasn't too far off, but the art design smacks too much of trying to market it as "metal" and “extreme." The faux crime scene black and white photography and bold, block fonts aren't as pleasing as the original pressing's black and white cover painting and sparse layout.
It's nitpicky, but my love for this album would no doubt lead me to pick out flaws. For the average person, none of this will matter, because the music is the most important element, and that is entirely spot-on. The more important thing is that this album is once again seeing the light of day, and hopefully it will not remain as unknown and unappreciated for the next ten years.
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A single track live collaboration between the two New York composers, this was recorded in Portugal last year and focuses on the duo's interest in the composite of piano and digital music, both in the sense of laptop processing piano, and as the two working in harmony as different instruments. The result is a beautiful collage of sounds that never sounds like to disparate technologies in competition, but working together in a complex piece of art.
For the performance, both artists sat together at a grand piano, both playing the instrument and their own respective laptops, while Kirschner focused on the keys, Deupree manipulated the strings of the piano, causing it to make uncharacteristic and unnatural tones.The piece opens with soft electronic washes, digital strings, and traditional sounding piano, an ambient electronic sound that is not too far removed from the likes of Tangerine Dream.
Eventually the more electronic elements slink away to put the focus on music box like notes, piano, and electronic chimes, then allowing ambient synth passages and light, crackling static to take the spotlight.This is later met with the sounds of muted piano strings and reversed delays, leading to film-like tension that is never overpowering, but definitely noteworthy.
The sustained passages of tone and twinkling piano dominate the middle portion of the piece, quiet and distant sounds stretching out into the frigid air.Alien noises enter to duet with the piano, gong like synthetic pulses and warm staticy bits round out this part of the performance.This is supplanted by higher end electronic buzzing and more defined, untreated piano playing swelling to the surface to become the focus.
As the piece heads towards its conclusion, a stronger static buzzing noise takes over before the ending, in which the layers of piano and electronics are slowly stripped away, leaving only the most rudimentary tones and light, vinyl-like static elements remaining before dropping to a series of stuttering rhythmic pulses, perhaps the final digital fragments of the sound being drawn out.
Throughout its 36-minute duration, this collaboration shifts and flows, but it stays rather similar throughout.There are no drastic changes, for better or worse.While I personally tend to prefer long form compositions like this to have some elements that completely shock or disorient, I don’t think that would have worked in this setting, which is based more on subtle beauty than dissonant exercises in laptop abuse.
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Dust-to-Digital
The most immediately striking thing about Art Of Field Recording is the sound quality. Smith's Anthology was compiled entirely (and somewhat illegally) of transfers from scratchy 78s using 1950s technology. While this obviously could not be avoided, it resulted in a great deal of hiss that made Anthology sound more like A Very Important Historical Document than a collection of absolutely great and listenable songs. Rosenbaum's field recordings, on the other hand, are crystal clear, which imbues the tracks with presence and immediacy. Also, the occasional intrusion of outside sounds (such as crickets) inarguably enhances the backwoods magic herein.
The most important difference, however, is the focus. Harry Smith's intent was to preserve great recordings by roots music titans like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and The Carter Family. Field Recording shifts the focus to the actual songs themselves: most of the artists represented here are unknown, semi-professional musicians (I believe Scapper Blackwell is the biggest name here). In fact, some of the performers were stumbled upon though what Rosenbaum calls "shotgun" collecting—showing up at a strange town and just asking around to see if there were any old-time musicians around. Furthermore, many of the performers were recorded near the end of their lives (many look downright cadaverous in the accompanying book's photographs). As such, missed notes, rusty and off-key singing, and confused monologues are not at all uncommon. Rather than detract from the songs, they add an endearing element of charm and intimacy to the proceedings. Many tracks evoke the sense of sitting on a porch listening to a drunk grandfather belting out songs he remembers from when he used to work in a train yard.
Rosenbaum's decision to include pre- and post-song banter borders on genius. Now-deceased catfisherman Jack Bean oozes gruff charisma and effortlessly steals the show with his salty proclamations, particularly when he laments that his voice sounds like a "busted bunghole" or expresses concern that women might be corrupted by his off-color lyrics. Other times, the performers provide amusing asides, useful contextualizations, or welcome insight into their character. I was particularly stuck by how some performers were somewhat incoherent and unintelligible when speaking, yet completely clear and focused when launching into a song they probably hadn't sung for thirty years.
The set is divided into four themed CDs : Survey, Religious, Accompanied Songs and Ballads, and Unaccompanied Songs and Ballads. All four are uniformly excellent and intelligently sequenced, but I most enjoyed the unaccompanied songs. The raw, naked acappella performances were often uniquely stirring and a welcome respite from homogenizing modern recording and artifice. The set comes with a 96-page book too, which is both comprehensive and intermittently fascinating (particularly the pictures).
Stylistically, Field Recording covers a lot of ground: country, acoustic blues, hillbilly folk, English ballads, cajun accordian dances, incendiary fiddle showcases, work songs, slave songs, gospel, and many others. The highlights are too numerous to recount- there are very, very few weak tracks in this collection (and even they usually have character). If pressed, however, I'd say my favorite track is Bobby McMillon's "The Devil Song", a rousing sing-along about a man whose wife gets taken to hell, only to be promptly returned (it contains the immortal couplet "I been the devil 'bout all my life, but I never been in hell til I met your wife").
Over the course of 107 songs, Field Recording evokes nearly every mood or emotion a song can elicit: some are spooky, some are joyous, some are sad and beautiful, and some are quite funny. Invariably, however, they all pointedly illustrate that a timeless and well-written song can sound good no matter who is singing it and highlight the sad fact that regional idiosyncracies and musical traditions have largely vanished from our culture. Thankfully, given that Rosenbaum has spent over fifty years tirelessly and lovingly preserving as much as possible, I am sure that we can look forward to future volumes. Dust-to-Digital has not let me down yet.
Samples:
- Jack Bean - Steamboat Bill
- Fidel Martin - La Grondeuse
- Bobby McMillon - The Devil Song
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David Thomas's career trajectory has been an odd one: Minotaur Shock's first album (Chiff Chaffs and Willow Warblers) was a pleasant and generally well-reviewed foray into the "folktronica" genre. Since then, he has been increasingly weird, self-indulgent, and freewheelingly eclectic. Of course, he has also become much more inventive and skilled as an arranger, but his muse has led him into a stylistic no-man's land that will likely appeal to very few people. As such, Amateur Dramatics was only given a digital release from 4AD and seemed unlikely to be released physically until Audio Dregs stepped in.
The Minotaur Shock website gives a very amusing account of it all (4AD spends "a lot of money on lavish felt-lined gilded box-sets made by nimble-fingered faerie folk who live in the woods," so artists with a limited audience "do not command the same kind of influence over the Powers That Be and their kingdom of jewel-case goblins"). It also features an innovative sliding scale for download pricing based upon factors such as how taxing the track was for his hard drive, how annoying it was to mix, and whether or not the song is danceable.
Purportedly, there is an underlying concept to this album, but Thomas will not reveal what it is. I am hoping that he deliberately set out to musically mimic the heavy-handedness and over-emoting of amateur theater (I base this on the album title, of course). The album's best moments reveal that Thomas has an impressive knack for melody and nuance, so I have to believe that the low points (most of the first half of the album) are willfully annoying and created in a spirit of puckish glee.
The album's centerpiece is "This Plane Is Going To Fall," an achingly beautiful collaboration with vocalist Anna-Lynne Williams. It is absolutely brilliant and easily eclipses the rest of the album. Also, it is unique here both for adhering to a straightforward song structure and for the inclusion of a vocalist. Every single aspect of the song is compelling: William's cooing, breathy vocals are chopped and layered sublimely; the central synth riff is cool and infectious; and intertwining layers of melancholy violins are piled on as the song builds. Collaboration clearly suits Thomas well.
Unfortunately, "Plane" is not representative of the current Minotaur Shock vision. Nevertheless, there are some other excellent and memorable moments buried near the end of the album. "My Burr" couples a warm synth progression with heartbreaking layers of sad violins (Thomas "wanted to create melodies that snaked in and out like dancing cobras, creating patterns with their swaying scaled bodies as their eyes transfixed like sparkling emeralds".). It is also one of the few times on the album where woodwinds are used in a non-jarring manner. "BATS," immediately following, is a dark and lurching industrial piece. Although it intermittently sounds like a video-game soundtrack, both the layers of noise and glitchery billowing up through the mix and the mangled-sounding melody work beautifully. Eventually, the harshness dissipates and the song seamlessly ends on a melodic and robotically rhythmic chorus of sorts.
The remaining tracks are a mixed bag. Sometimes Thomas's kitchen-sink eclecticism works, frequently it results in something that sounds like a neo-classical Fatboy Slim. The track that fills me with the greatest amount of hostility is probably "Accelerated Footage" (although "Am Dram" also makes me grind my teeth). It is based on a Yaz-worthy burbling synth motif, but that is quickly shat upon by an insistent, misbegotten, and ham-fisted saxophone and violin melody that is reminiscent of the most ghastly moments of Philip Glass's 1986 pop fiasco Songs From Liquid Days.
I simply do not understand Thomas's current aesthetic at all- there are many moments of beauty and complexity on this album that are crassly sabotaged by big, dumb dance beats. I am enthusiastically hoping that David loses interest in Italian Disco/House or finds a worthy collaborator to rein him in a bit before his next release. At the very least, he needs to learn that clarinets and techno are not complementary. Minotaur Shock's deeply skewed sensibility, meticulous orchestration, and singular vision has great potential and it would be a shame if lack of self-editing caused the world to stop paying attention.
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This music is silly and unabashedly so, but like all things humorous the laughter comes as a revelation of truth, and with it, beauty. Buckets of mariachi and haphazard bits of klezmer are strained through a filter that leaves only the barest bones of structure; some of the players build upon it, while others work to break it down. Hawaiian steel guitar and melodica impart exotic tropical flavors while old boards quietly groan in the background.
The band move all over a musical world map, taking me into territory I wasn’t familiar with as they traversed slow to swinging passages. By the end I had thrown out the travel guide I was using and navigated my way by instinct, much as they seemed to be doing. Their sense of direction was as finely honed as their musicianship. Even when I was disoriented by the slapdash arrangements, or overwhelmed by the pervading sense of mania, I never got lost.
“Distracted by the Moon” is a carefree ramble halfway through the album, and the only song with lyrics. They take on the same featherbrained quality of the music. “I’m mistaken for a fool/when I fall down from tripping on my shoes.” I can sympathize. Sirens wail in the background, and some of the instruments are purposefully out of key, but only just so, leaving me enough room to feel disconcerted, but not uncomfortable, as I stumble down the streets with the singer, my eyes glued to the glowing orb hanging there.
There are a few familiar landmarks and guideposts moving through the songs. “La Cucaracha” is one of them. In the hands of Blah Blah 666 it sounds as if the insect has been sprayed with an unhealthy dose of RAID. Dancing frantically, it is about to die. I can hear its legs starting to twitch. Spraying roaches with chemicals has never been more fun.
When the belly hurts, it is hard to breathe, and you start to cry because the laughter has been hitting hard, I know it is time to go to bed. So does this band. The music would easily grate on my nerves if left to run the whole possible 80 minute course of a CD, but at 41 minutes of rollicking fun they know when to stop.
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