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The Red River is a short recording of seven songs, devoid of clutter and benefiting greatly from Harris Newman's bright and sympathetic production. On the title track, Newman ensures hypnotic acoustic guitar plucking is to the fore while a tale of goodness and slaughter sneaks into focus. The lyrical weight and sadness of the song are reflected by Jerusha Robinson's cello. Some of the songs create simple mystery through repetitive guitar and clear yet perplexing storytelling. The characters are believable and the songs have arrangements which allow their voices to be heard. In the past decade or so, Alasdair Roberts and Richard Youngs have done this almost without peer. Smaldone's work implies a similar integrity and growing confidence.
Another stand out is "Pale Light". This languid track juxtaposes a sparse soul arrangement (featuring Tim Harbeson's lovely cornet playing) against strange folk lyrics such as "I ask not forgiveness/it was never of malice/nor to jeremiad ends." The rhythm sort of begs for a slightly hysterical falsetto vocal. Smaldone doesn't quite go that far but he does use the top of his range (his "head" voice rather than his "chest" voice) and it works very well. "Pale Light" is the most fun here and the best praise I can offer is to say that it might have dropped off Sandro Perri's Tiny Mirrors disc. There are some nifty guitar fills, a slashing rhythm, and a series of peaks on "A Derelict (That Bore Your Name)" but despite hearing every word I'm unclear what the song is about.
Micah Blue Smaldone has previously gained inspiration from US music of the 1920s but on this record he crosses the ocean and draws upon earlier European. The pieces which open and close the album, "A Guest" and "A Drink," both have a chiming quality that the aforementioned Mr. Roberts might appreciate, and the former adds instruments one at a time to build into a full band piece.
The cover art shows a woman with antlers. The image suggests the kind of transformation which has long been a staple of such unforgettable folk songs as "The Famous Flower of Serving Men". The Red River doesn't contain anything quite in that league but it is a high quality record with enough hazy ambiguity and contrast to ensure repeat listens.
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The set looks pretty special; the four 3” CD-Rs are enclosed in a clear, plastic amulet with a gold band holding the container closed. Also inside is a small, signed piece of paper with the tracklisting and a sticker. A black velvet-like bag keeps the whole thing safely snug. Once I had pried the amulet open and had a listen, I was immediately impressed. While the note with the set clearly states that these are sketches for a new soundtrack Christopherson is working on for a film he intends to shoot about temple tattooing in Thailand, the pieces hang together particularly well.
Overall, Christopherson has continued with the post-Industrial exotica style (to borrow a phrase from Jonathan Dean’s review of the first album) but things are less hectic here. The mutated Thai boys’ voices are again a key feature and Christopherson’s beloved string samples make another appearance but a far calmer course has been taken by this choir. Of course, it is impossible not to compare Christopherson’s current work with the music of Coil and fans of Coil will not be disappointed in his current direction. There are nods to Coil classics, the mood is similar in vein to the Musick to Play in the Dark albums and "Distonto" on the fourth disc is very much reminiscent of “Chaostrophy” (on Love’s Secret Domain). The strings and liquid, nocturnal mood capture the same nightly essence of the LSD album.
However, it would be a mistake to simply write off The Threshold HouseBoys Choir as Coil Mk.2. Christopherson is clearly being affected by his new life in Thailand and this shows in the music. This collection and the Form Grows Rampant album have a far more languid and tropical vibe to them compared to the pastoral and urban directions that Coil went in (and I get the feeling that Christoherson’s exotic side is tempered in SoiSong by Ivan Pavlov’s colder approach to music). What is most striking about this music is the joy that shines through it. “The Hangman’s Ball” starts off as being quite restrained in tone but before long a powerful and undeniably ecstatic trumpet erupts from the heavens (albeit the trumpet sounds programmed but the sentiments still ring true).
Although initially only available at the Brainwaves festival, a further 155 copies are to be made available online for those unfortunate souls who missed out on a rather extraordinary live performance by Christopherson. Those despairing of the limited numbers can take solace in the fact that this music is intended to be finished and (by my reckoning) most likely will appear in a similar fashion to Form Grows Rampant. Completists can head over to the Threshold House store and start hitting the F5 key now...
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Audraglint
This EP's artwork is an immediate sign that Nudge still refuse to sit still. The images that adorned Cached and Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis were completely abstract; they're the kind of images that typify the visual aesthetic attached to the IDM and freeform electronic-dance genres. The cover for Infinity Padlock is more visceral and direct. It provides a familiar shape and form that is made disturbing by its deformity and bloody state. The stripped and mutilated half-angel, half-bird that adorns the cover doesn't quite represent the music inside in terms of intensity, but it does hint at the musical hybrid on the record. The band doesn't produce dance music, nor IDM, and they're not exactly a rock band, either. As always, Nudge blend the electronic and the acoustic/organic seamlessly, producing a hybrid sound that no other group can claim as their own. Infinity Padlock sees the organic winning out, however. This EP is replete with stripped guitars and direct vocals, both of which feel like lead instruments from start to finish.
"War Song" begins with a strummed guitar washed out by reverb and echo; the melody is simple and pretty and almost completely untouched by any electronic processing. A simple tabla-rhythm follows the guitars and then Honey Owens begins to sing and the song slowly builds in complexity. Keyboards, rhythmic edits, and vocal additions all swim together in jelly-like fashion. Imagine what a group of jellyfish might look like swimming in slow motion and you might get a sense of how relaxed and gentle this song feels. It's a mass of throbbing gelatin that wobbles to and fro until "Angel Decoy" abruptly interrupts its gentle motion. Here, Brian Foote sings over a strummed guitar. The tune is simple and direct, scored by only the slightest distortion. Over a period of ten minutes, the group allows the song to dissolve into a wash of interweaving noise and chaos. Keyboards enter the fray triumphantly and, for a time, paint the song with a lovely melody that breaks down and eventually succumbs to near complete pandemonium.
There are few drum machines, almost no clicking or stuttering rhythms, and very few computerized melodies anywhere on Infinity Padlock. The songs rely on simple directness and all the production on the record either tends towards psychedelia or total restraint. "Sickth" is the only song that reminds me of anything from Nudge's past and only because it sounds like it could've been produced entirely on a laptop. Honey's voice is front and center, however, and takes precedence over the bubbly sound effects and drifting synthetic noises that populate the song. "Time Delay Twin" closes the EP on a pretty radical note: with an accordion drone fluctuating in the foreground, an electric and acoustic guitar are strummed away while Foote sings a sad song softly in the background. Even with the focus on guitars and vocals in the previous three songs, I couldn't have imagined the EP ending this way. It's a bittersweet love song that completely breaks from Nudge's style and casts the band in a completely different light. It's a pleasant surprise to hear the band approach music this way, but it takes some getting used to; the transformation seems so thorough to me that I'm surprised the name Nudge is on the cover at all. Seeing the group live at Brainwaves this year took me by surprise, too. It'll be interesting to see what road they travel down as the entire group seems capable of tackling anything to which they put their mind.
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Ipecac
Geisterfaust wasn't necessarily a misstep, but it wasn't as satisfying as the rest of Bohren's discography. Fans were bound to be a little disappointed by its naked character: I understand that the band loves to use a minimum of instruments to craft their music, but Geisterfaust gave new meanings to the words "glacial" and "minimal." It only takes a minute for things to get moving on Dolores. Gone are the dry, somewhat pointless progressions exhibited on Geisterfaust; they've been replaced by a lush and more resonant approach that suits the band's music far better. "Staub" opens the record and in just a short time the band introduces a steady rhythm, a bass-heavy atmosphere, and the familiar sound of a rhodes to the record. It may seem silly to talk about Bohren in terms of quickness and movement, but the band wastes no time on Dolores. Only one song surpasses the eight-minute mark and most of them are five to six minutes in length. The music's pace is, as always, slow, but the music is more concise and packed more tightly with energy. It doesn't take a 20-minute epic to make each thumping bass drum and every chord change a momentous occasion; Bohren & Der Club of Gore prove that by casting each of their movements in a dramatic light.
The sexy, somewhat slinky aesthetic they've carried with them since Gore Motel is still present and all the comparisons to Angelo Badalamenti still make a good deal of a sense, but it has been suggested that Dolores is somehow brighter than everything else in the band's discography. I've read other reviews that suggest the band is somehow "opening the blinds" and casting out a bit of the doom and gloom for which they're so famous. It seems to me that this is an illusion generated by the way the songs are arranged. For instance, both "Unkerich" and "Still Am Tressen" feature the kind of saxophone playing expected in a black and white film about a lonely detective. There are fleeting moments of major progressions that sound almost hopeful, but both songs are drenched in impenetrable loneliness. Beneath the surface of these "brighter" songs are lurking suspicions and hazy motives. It is always raining in Bohren's world, there's always danger looming around the corner, and every moving shadow is a reason to stay alert. Whatever light manages to make its way onto this record is quickly snuffed out by cavernous echoes and cheerless drones. Even "Von Schnabel," a simple and sweet song led by the vibraharp, is tainted by ominous tones and uneasy atmospherics. The illusion of brightness comes through on this record because the band provides an illusion of safety and hope. It's a bit sadistic, really; the band lets joy into their world only to crush it and bury it.
In short, Dolores is something of a return to form; at the very least it's a return to the sound that made Bohren a band loved by so many. The writing is more dynamic this time around, but also more to the point. The cinematic aspects of the music are not gone, but the band does seem more concerned with song-craft than pure atmosphere. I haven't heard this much movement from them since Gore Motel, but this record is filled with more nuance and subtlety than that one.
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Most of the electronic processing and instrumentation remains extremely subtle: the microbits of static and near sub-audible power line hums of "Very Well Drawn" never shift attention away from Mariska Baar’s sparse vocals and plaintive playing, but instead add an entirely different, yet totally complimentary, layer to the mix. Similarly, the acoursic guitar of "For I Have None" receives only subtle and slight phasing and flanging, while the vocals are buried in a nice warm layer of reverb, along with the occasional white noise swell.
Songs like "Di-o-day" are almost imperceptibly treated, the electronic elements are buried deep in the mix, the focus being on the untreated guitar and pure vocals, the electronics laying deep in the mix provide more of a subtle ambience than anything else. On "Mees", the production simply serves to bury the guitar distant in the mix, the remainder of the track hovering near complete silence.
There is a bit more notable electronic treatments on tracks like "Thole 1," which has high end shrill feedback and string like layers that dominate the mix, the angelic vocals obscured below the din. More subtle is the layers of warm static and noise on “Magpie” which sound more like the result of a record laying in dusty storage for years and being played for the first time.
Only the opening and closing tracks ("High Pitched Drone" I and II) feel purely electronic, the first part having quiet lo-fi vocals and digital harmonium type tones, while the latter is a collection of fragile, yet rich tones that are beautiful in their purity.
The combination of traditional folk instrumentation and more modern electronic treatments work very well here, rather than constantly overshadowing each other they instead provide beautiful counterpoints. Part of this is surely due to the fact that the electronic elements Machinefabriek adds to the mix have an organic, human quality that helps, rather than hurts, the delicate human voice and guitar that is here.
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"Dissociate" is an early and clear indicator of what will be coming up. An ambient/abstract electronic collage is mixed with a straight ahead drum machine rhythm and distorted bass elements. While the beat stays constant, the other electronic elements are constantly shifting and changing, making for an extremely dynamic mix. More blatant is "Machine", with its modern-day industrial bass synth and noisy drums, with added skittering percussion and eventually a segue into full on hardcore techno.
The rhythms and bass lines throughout the album channel the likes of late 1980s Skinny Puppy or Front Line Assembly. Not blatantly stealing at all, instead it feels more like long standing influence or appreciation. The drum and bass rhythms that make up "Empty Eyes" and "Run" are a different element entirely, bringing up later period Techno Animal and Scorn in terms of grimy distorted beats, the former’s gentle string samples are a stark contrast, and the latter’s heavy synths and noise glitches make for a darker journey all together.
Another classic element pops up on more than a few tracks as well, the dialog sample. The aforementioned "Empty Eyes" opens with them, and the beat-less "Sleepwalker" throws pulsing synths over recordings of Jim Jones during the Jonestown suicides. That’s the only track where they are the focus, other than that they are simply another element to the mix that never detract, but aren’t necessarily adding much to the songs.
Tracks such as "Tranquilliser" are not as easily pigeonhole, adding dubby beats and bass elements to the vocal samples and buzzing bass synth that feels along the lines of modern industrial music, but really goes in its own direction entirely. Also, "Fond Memories" features underlying vinyl noise with gentile chiming keyboards that really have the feel of the title, a sense of warm nostalgia among the darker, raw surrounding tracks.
This is a tricky album overall, because there isn’t a great deal of innovation here, but instead makes for an interesting amalgam of other styles that come together here in a different way. It’s very well done and will surely interest anyone with a similar listening history such as myself, but it’s not entirely "new" feeling either.
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There is a sense of the absurd running through the entire album, from the quirky elements of the sprawling 20 minute "Rocket Sandals" that would seem otherwise completely contradicted by the alternating string rattles and traditional playing that would, on its own, be much more tense and creepy. The jaunty synth pattern that opens "Yellow Bedspring" is also a stark contrast to the sharp Psycho like violin parts that come up in the latter half of the disc.
The gospel traditional "Swing Low" also appears here. The string arrangement is probably the most conventional element of the whole album, but the clicking that could almost be a ping-pong match that is being played in the background during the recording, and the falsetto vocals somehow combine the sadness of the original work with a more comical sense that is an odd contrast.
The other elements of the absurd aren’t as dramatic: "This Job is So Boring" meshes fast paced strings with a subtle punctuation of tabla percussion which, without the vocals, would have a very soundtrack quality to it. The lyrics call to mind Tax’s vocal elements of the everyman’s frustrations, though instead of taxes here it is mundane vocations. The white noise blasts that pop up here and there also punctuate the otherwise repetitive work nicely.
"Better Universe No. 2" focuses more on random electronic beeps and bleeps that surround the occasional distorted noise swell that, without the strings that appear here and there, would not be too out of line with the early electronic music experiments of the 1950s and 60s. "Seedling Awakes" takes a more modern electronic approach, all subwoofer shaking low end drone rumble that just has a dash of violin towards the end.
Compared to the other releases of this year, this Aranos album has less of a narrow focus and more room for experimenting and playfulness. The absurdity of the tracks are by far a great asset, channeling the sense of the word as it was originally intended. This is a complicated, yet extremely fun disc, which is a combination that doesn’t seem to occur with as much frequency as it should.
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Peter Elsner and Benjamin Heidersberger founded the Head Resonance Company in 1978 as an interdisciplinary art and research project concerned with studying how ideas are realized in space and time. Under the umbrella of the HRC, they also explored vocals as simply Head Resonance, orchestral samples as Organon, and German new wave as Peter Pixel. It's a combination of the latter and HRC proper that's on this CD. A motif of alarm runs through the fourteen untitled HRC tracks as pulsing electronics, delayed saxophones, bass guitar, and other percussion crash against each other in an atonal frenzy. They also play with beats and voices, trying something different with each track. These songs are brief experiments that are unpredictable but thrilling. Less interesting, however, are the five Peter Pixel tracks appended to the end. A deliberate send-up of Teutonic new wave, the purposeful repetition on these tracks simply becomes too monotonous and militaristic to engage my attention for long.
On the other hand, the DVD included in this package is even more tantalizing than the HRC tracks on the CD. The program is a tour through the collective's archives and activities, presenting snippets chronologically alongside music from each experiment. Yet the overview is also a bit frustrating because each segment lacks depth and context, instead focusing superficially on the visual and musical aspects of their projects without going into too much detail. I would have loved to find out more about the time they used a false demo to get an invitation to play at a jazz festival, where they proceeded to play their dissonant anti-jazz unabated, or else the time different members of the group visited a gallery opening wearing pig masks and carrying radios playing different music. Their vocal experiments also sound pretty amazing, and I wish they had included selections from that period on the CD. As a teaser, however, the DVD succeeds marvelously.
19 Tracks is a great introduction to this decades-spanning collective. Their music is enthralling on its own and supplementing it with a DVD of historical highlights makes for an irresistible package.
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The mix of acoustic instruments and electronics makes for a relaxed late-night vibe, one that's not terribly involved but doesn't quite stray into light jazz territory either. The music doesn't say much on its own but instead serves best as support for the many guest vocalists, whose personalities give the tracks definition. Graham Lewis makes "The Best Things Are Left Unspoken" one of the album's highlights, while David J comes up with the best lyrics on "Sleaze," in which he bemoans the city's vanishing seediness. Winston Tong gives his track a literary bent with the reading of his own vivid translation of Baudelaire's L'Invitation au Voyage. Dotted between the other guests, the Strange Attractor's live mainstay Marie-Claudine gets four songs of her own which give the album a sense of continuity.
The pair of abstract contributions don't serve the album quite so well. Richard Sinclair's "Loneliness Is a Crowded Room" is hazy and meandering. Similarly paced and fittingly named, Peter Christopherson's "Snail" also stagnates the album a bit. Perhaps the album's most chilly and somber track, it's also somewhat of a disappointment. Christopherson adds the vocal stylings of Nat and Tye of the Threshold Houseboys Choir, but they're so muted and glacial and the accompanying music is so minimal that the track seems at odds with the rest of the album. Enjoyable on its own, it seems a little out of place here.
Otherwise the album mostly succeeds. Van Hoorn and Van Kruysdijk's great backdrops in combination with the various personalities of their guests makes for songs that exude after hours mystery and decadence.
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After 23 Skidoo's auspicious debut Seven Songs achieved unexpected independent success in the UK the group consciously pulled away from anything approaching its scratchy, industrial, ethno-funk. For a while they embarked on a path involving tape effects, cut-ups and a Gamelan style percussion derived from conventional instruments and scrap metal. The resulting 1983 album The Culling is Coming alienated and bemused listeners in equal measure. Later that year, though, Alex and Johnny Turnbull, (the nucleus of the group) decided to put some distance between themselves and other clanging noise-making combos of the period such as SPK and Test Department (who by then were employing jackhammers in their performances). To that end, Skidoo hired a bass player, Sketch Martin (from chart duo Linx) to enable them to edge a little closer to commercial music. Ironically, at the time Sketch was apparently looking to move away from commercial music but the merger was an oddly effective compromise. The initial result was the 12" single "Language" and more importantly the 12" "Coup" perhaps the most obvious contender for 23 Skidoo's one chance at an absolute chart smash.
Of course "Coup" was never released in 7" form which meant that daytime radio airplay was never going to happen. Live performances also didn't happen as the Turnbulls were busy concentrating on their martial arts training! To compound the shot in the foot, as was often the style at the time, Urban Gamelan did not feature either of the singles. Instead "Coup" appeared as the almost unrecognizable "GI Fuck You" and "Language" masqueraded as a meager percussion version. While the dub stylings of "Fire," the eerie march of "Jalan Jalan," and the clanging tick tock beats of the title track were radical at the time and still interesting, nothing on the album comes close to the slippery, alarming, brilliance of "Coup." What a track. Aswad's horn section was drafted in to howl after Sketch Martin's spanking bass led the listener boldly down a path while occasional machine gun bursts punctuated the air. The Chemical Brothers would replay that bassline for their inane hit "Block Rockin' Beats" and I trust 23 Skidoo got paid. Yeah, right.
For more on 23 Skidoo be sure to check Jonathan Dean's reviews of much of this material (as released on the Rodin label).
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