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Tanglewood's warm reception and the Jews' lauded first foray into live performance and touring must certainly have been a balm to Berman's much-publicized bouts with depression and addiction, if Lookout's opener "What Is Not But Could Be If" is any indication. The lyrics point to focusing on new beginnings rather than dwelling on the errors of the past, yet the stilted wording and Berman's melancholic delivery don't make a very convincing case. It's a weak song and not a great choice to begin the album, no matter how thematically desirable it may seem. The stronger "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat" with its purposeful ambiguity would have been better.
The poor start does this album a disservice, because immediately afterwards follows its strongest stretch of material, beginning with the fiery "Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer." Berman's wife, Cassie, has taken on a more prominent role on this and the last album, and here she gets the chorus on the album's strongest track, "Suffering Jukebox." Her voice is a nice complement to Berman's both here and when it is a hazy background element on the Maher Shalal Hash Baz cover "Open Field." "My Pillow Is the Threshold" is one of the album's more serious, darker tracks, ending with eerie clouds of ambient feedback. "We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing" is a fairly conventional but nonetheless effectively sweet song that should send pangs of jealousy throughout the group's Nashville peers.
The only section other than the opener that isn't so great is a sequence toward the end. "San Francisco B.C." has an enjoyable energy, funny lyrics, and good music, but "Candy Jail," coming right on its heels, seems like a jokey novelty in comparison with its "peppermint bars, peanut brittle bunk beds, and marshmallow walls." It's as insubstantial as, well, cotton candy, and the subsequent "Party Barge," complete with watery engine sounds, seagulls, and foghorn, doesn't fare much better. With so many humorous songs in a row, the effect is too light and too easy to dismiss.
The layers of guitars and voices, especially Cassie's, are particularly well done on this album, and for the most part, the writing is as strong as ever. Apart from a weak track and an unfortunate string of fluff, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea has strong moments that rival the best of Berman's work.
samples:
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Bomb the Bass is back, but put away that smiley face: this is no nostalgia trip. With Future Chaos, Tim Simenon revamps his long-running project to produce a record that's fresher than anyone might have expected from an outfit that got its start in the '80s. Tickling tweeters and pushing the limits of low-end, the album hovers confidently on the cusp between futurism and vintage, boasting the sort of confident songwriting that's a rarity anywhere, much less in electronic music.
Simenon calls it "electronic music with soul," but that barely begins to describe it. At once lush and chilly, intimate and alien, Future Chaos is a synth-rich album boasting guest vocals from Jon Spencer, Mark Lanegan, Fujiya & Miyagi's David Best, Toob and Paul Conboy.
BOMB THE BASS FUTURE CHAOS !K7
Out September 30th 2008 -
cover in September / October / November issues
File Under: POP
Additionally the following singles will be released
August 26th - DIGITAL ONLY - "So Special feat Paul Conby" with remixes by Michael Fakesch & Toob
October 28th - "Butterfingers feat Fujiya and Miyagi with remixes by Adam Sky & others
Note: the initial copies of the CD will be a limited edition double disc with a bonus disc of remixes -
tracklist:
disc a
- Smog (feat Paul Conboy)
- Butterfingers (feat Fujiya and Miyagi)
- Old John (feat Paul Conboy)
- Burn the Bunker (feat Toob)
- So Special (feat Paul Conboy)
- No Bones (feat Paul Conboy)
- Black River (feat Mark Lanegan)
- Hold Me Up (feat Paul Conboy)
- Fuzzbox (feat Jon Spencer) - [FREE MP3 download]
disc b
- Butterfingers (Adam Sky Ravebummer Mix)
- Butterfingers (Dan Aykroyd Mix by Various)
- Old John (Future Funk Squad's 'Jonboy' Remix)
- Burn the Bunker (Toob's WHATGOESONINHEMSBYSTAYSINHEMSBY Mix)
- So Special (Specialized by Michael Fakesch)
- So Special (Toob's Special Special Mix)
- Black River (Gui Borrato Remix)
- Star (exclusive bonus edition track)
It's been 21 years since Bomb the Bass' "Beat Dis" helped usher in the era of sampling, acid house and DJ culture. It's easy to forget how monumental the single was. Going straight to number two in the UK charts, the song's success quickly propelled Simenon from underground DJ to in-demand knobsman. Long before Marc Ronson or Timbaland, he was the go-to guy for the Midas Touch. In those early years, he co-produced Neneh Cherry's stone classic "Buffalo Stance" and Seal's "Crazy"—not a bad run for an upstart fresh out of sound engineering school.
Throughout the '90s, Bomb the Bass continued to blaze trails with the UK hip-hop classic Bug Powder Dust, the trip-hop blueprint Winter In July and the dubby Clear. All the while, Simenon racked up production and remix credits for acts like Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Curve, Björk and Massive Attack. Just as important were his many collaborations with a surprising range of artists: J. Saul Kane, Jah Wobble, Sinéad O'Connor, Hector Zazou, On-U Sound—even actress Minnie Driver turned up in the mix.
On Future Chaos, Simenon's guest vocalists are as inspired as ever. David Best, of Brighton Krautrockers Fujiya & Miyagi, spreads his trademark free-association whispers all over "Butter Fingers." Toob, the duo of Jakeone (Jake Williams) and Red Snapper's Richard Thair, lend a nervous, sultry touch to "Burn the Bunker." Jon Spencer—yes, he of Blues Explosion fame—infuses "Fuzzbox" with the distant purr of robot phone sex. Paul Conboy, of A.P.E. and Corker/Conboy, sings and shares writing credits on five more songs, with a lush-yet-understated touch that recalls Thom Yorke in his mellower moments. But the most striking appearance here might be Mark Lanegan's. Formerly of the Screaming Trees, a onetime member of Queens of the Stone Age and collaborator with PJ Harvey, Lanegan has a voice like no other; on "Black River," his smokes-and-whiskey drawl proves the perfect complement to Bomb the Bass' rich sonics.
The sonics are the other thing that quickly distinguish Future Chaos. Simenon may have made his name as a savvy cutter of samples, but this time out he's gone back to basics—to the grace of analog sound design and the finesse of a well-turned musical phrase.
"A lot of the stuff I was originally working on, it got to a point where I was feeling really frustrated," says Simenon of the long process of assembling the album. "So it was time to strip everything back, just bring it back down to its core parts: drums, bass, some tones and some voices."
A vintage piece of kit helped him find his focus. "Rediscovering the Minimoog really was the turning point for getting into Future Chaos," he says. "Simplicity, you know. As clichéd as it sounds, it was like throwing the book away, but that’s what I had to do. We’d just set up in Paul [Conboy']s kitchen. It was basically us without loads of gear—just the Minimoog, a laptop, and a mic set up. That was it. There's so much that goes around producing records; doing things this way and that. But this was us saying, Fuck it, let’s just record some tunes, you know."
The results don't sound like a "fuck it" kind of album, but there's certainly a rare degree of freedom here, from the range of tempos to the way that Simenon and his collaborators stretch out and explore every range of the spectrum. The more you listen, the more you hear—ghostly tones, stealthy modulations, diamond-like harmonics that dissolve upon impact. That's immediately clear with "So Special," the album's first single—a melancholy disco lullaby with harmonies downy enough to rest your weary head upon.
An electronic album that isn't bound by genre; a pop album that's not afraid to stretch out or space out. Future Chaos is these things and more, and it's here now. If this is the shape of chaos, maybe we don't have so much to worry about.
BOMB THE BASS - WEB LINKS
http://www.future-chaos.com (up from August 22nd)
http://www.bombthebass.com
http://www.myspace.com/bombthebass
BOMB THE BASS WILL BE TOURING
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Artist: Boyd Rice & Z'EV
Title: Untitled
Catalogue No: CSR105EP
Barcode: 8 2356644882 2
Format: 12" in B&W sleeve
Genre: Industrial
Buy 12" | Download EP 21st August
This stunning 12" brings together two long-time San Francisco friends and legends of the Industrial music scene, both active since the late 70s!
Boyd Rice is well-known for his project NON and for his collaborations with Death In June, Rose McDowall, Coil and Tony Wakeford to name but a few.
Z'EV is a prolific composer and conceptual artist, who utilises metal percussion and electronics to create mystical rhythmajik - and who is also known for his collaborations with hard-hitters such as Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi, Psychic TV, KK Null, Organum and many more.
These two exclusive tracks are a precursor to the forthcoming album for Mute. Ltd x 1000 copies on heavyweight vinyl and shrinkwrapped.
Tracks: A1. Untitled (8:01) | B1. Untitled (16:01)
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Artist: The Triple Tree
Title: Ghosts
Catalogue No: CSR96CD
Barcode: (CD) 8 2356644852 5�
Format: CD in digipak with booklet
Genre: Folk Noir / Experimental
Buy CD | Download Album 21st August
The Triple Tree consists of Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Andrew King aided and abetted by M, Autumn Greeve, Kris Force (Amber Asylum), Guy Harries, Renee Rosen and John Murphy (Death In June, SPK, KnifeLadder etc), and is an extended homage to the supernatural fiction of M. R. James (with a certain nod to his notable studies in the New Testament Apocrypha) the greatest ghost story writer in the English language, and the finest medievalist of his generation.
Join Dr Wakeford and the Rev. King as they search for the Three Crowns, attempt to Cast the Runes, purchase The Mezzotint, follow Mr Abney’s "remarkable enlightenment" in Lost Hearts, and join Count Magnus on the "Black Crusade"! Winter evenings will never be the same again…�
CD Tracks: 1. Ghosts - Prologue | 2. Three Crowns | 3. The Stalls | 4. The Mezzotint | 5. Mrs. Mothersole | 6. The Ash Tree
7. The Malice of Inanimate Objects | 8. There Was A Man Dwelt By A Churchyard | 9. Lost Hearts
10. Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You | 11. Black Crusade | 12. Casting The Runes | 13. The Ghosts Of England�
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Artist: Deadwood
Title: Ramblack
Catalogue No: CSR104CD / CSR104LP
Barcode: (CD) 8 2356644862 4� / (LP) 8 2356647122 6�
Format: CD in jewelcase / Coloured vinyl LP in j-card sleeve
Genre: Black Ambient / Death Noise
Buy CD / LP | Download Album 21st August
“Ramblack" is the follow up to Deadwood's successful 2005 album "8 19" (CSR53CD). Over the past 3 years this Swedish artist has been toiling away, creating a new black ambient / death noise masterpiece and "Ramblack" is the result. Cloaked in a more raw and morbid sound then its predecessor, this album truly changes ones perspective of audial darkness. This analogue beast of an album layers the tonal prayers of demons and the distorted cries of angels, sickness and depravity. True Death Electronics. The soundtrack to your end. "Ramblack" features guest vocals from Norwegian Black Metal legend Maniac (Skitliv, ex-Mayhem), whose vocal approach on the song 'Forakt' shows the full range of his capacity. Truly one of the most sick and twisted pieces of sonic art ever recorded. Enjoy the disease!�
Vinyl edition is limited to 300 copies on coloured vinyl with 4 tracks from the main CD album and a 15+ minute exclusive track, 'Cell Of Sirclin'.�
CD Tracks: 1. Deteriorate | 2. Null And Void | 3. Kadaverdisciplin | 4. Forakt | 5. Bloodcult | 6. Ordo Infernal | 7. Akeldama�
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Audio Dregs
Future Rock was certainly a telling title, but for all the rocking the album exhibited it also displayed a clear preoccupation with ambiance and minutiae. Between the rubbery bass lines and snapping snares were waves of carefully processed electrical currents and sizzling synthetic effects. As it turns out, if you take the rhythm section out of Dickow's musical palette, there's a whole world of living melodies and microscopic field recordings to be appreciated. Music for Lamping takes a light to Strategy's less danceable side and emphasizes all the clattering noise and radiation that usually serves as mere accompaniment.
The 14-minute opener, "I Can't Stand the Rain," seems to reveal its title as a lie. Dickow slowly builds an electrical downpour out of potent blips and melodic bubbles until it finally fizzles out in a familiar wave of subdued sound. The effect is comforting and simple: Dickow pushes his artificial world of sound to its limit until it finally reaches the organic world and approximates the soft tapping of rain on a window or roof. "Cathedral Spark" then reaches further into the abstract and creates a space of echoey alienation. With the title in mind, any comparison to a cathedral's mammoth acoustics seems apropos. The sound is busier and less somber than what one might expect to find in a cathedral, however; bells ring and wooden percussion shuffles like a deck of cards throughout the song with a repetitious and airy organ whiling away above everything. "Bike Click" summons otherworldly voices into the mix of sound and casts them to the solar winds, rendering any comprehension impossible. By the time "All Day..." fades out and its simple, unadorned sequence ends, it seems as though Dickow has slowly journeyed from firm, sensible ground to a completely groundless, gravity-less dream world.
Such droning wandering does not suit Strategy as well as the busier, more detailed songs do. "World Service" thankfully sees Dickow filling his music up with jumping cuts of reverb-soaked effects and pulsating shifts in pitch and texture. "Lower Macleay" continues this trend and rounds the album out with a final 14-minute hallucination. Dickow makes full use of that time, proceeding from a rainy field recording to a wet and vibrating mess of synthetic errors and scratchy samples. It's a beautiful amalgamation of melody, unnatural "rhythm," and perfectly arranged events. Dickow's liberation from the beat is an excellent happening and cause for some excitement. Hopefully this isn't a one-off performance and other, similar recordings aren't far off.
samples:
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Envy contributes the three tracks that open up the disc, followed by Jesu’s two. “Conclusion of Existence” is all treated shoegaze guitars and lots of synths: the thick production and quiet vocals actually put it not far removed from the second side of The Cure’s Disintegration with a modernized digital sheen. “A Winter Quest for Fantasy” retains a similar feel, but is focused less on the electronic and more on the guitar, the electronic percussion this time replaced with living drumming. “Life Caught in the Rain” cranks the rock up noticeably more, especially in its midsection where they return to their hardcore roots, even if its just for a brief time.
Jesu, in this case Justin Broadrick solo, take up slightly more room on this disc with only two tracks, the sprawling “Hard to Reach” and “The Stars That Hang Above You.” As aforementioned this is Jesu sticking closely to an electronic sound, there’s no heavy layered riffing like is usually featured on the full length albums, instead it is made up mostly of synths and heavily treated guitar, though some good old fashion metal elements show up here and there. “Hard to Reach” begins with a long passage of skittering digital percussion, tons of layers and effects over it before the vocals kick in, where Justin continues Jesu way of actually singing rather than the growl he developed within Godflesh. While it stretches for over 13 minutes, it stays consistently gorgeous. Oddly enough it’s not like the other long form tracks Jesu has put out, such as on Heartache and Sundown/Sunrise, because this retains the feeling of a singular track, rather than the others feeling like multiple elements combined into a single piece.
The shorter “The Stars That Hang Above You” opens like “End of the Road” from the Lifeline EP ends with its layered synth and heavily treated guitar, but tacks on a a noisy breakbeat that could have been lifted from the early days of Techno Animal. Even with the rough beat, the track is probably one of the gentlest, most pop oriented tracks Justin has ever released, while still retaining everything that has made Jesu great thus far. Even the second half of the track, when the heavy guitar and drum machine kicks in, it stays slow and beautiful.
Both bands have, in my humble opinion, contributed some of their best work to this split disc, and their sounds make for a natural compliment to each other. It is interesting to see that Jesu is actually the less “rock” project this time around which, back in Godflesh’s heyday, I would have found to be an absurd thought. As probably the biggest Jesu fan on Brainwashed, I was absolutely gushing at how great the two tracks on here are, and I’m still doing as much.
samples:
- Envy - A Winter Quest for Fantasy
- Jesu - Hard to Reach
- Jesu - The Stars that Hang Above You
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It’s good to hear that some folks who are doing the whole "drone metal" thing are remembering where the roots of the sound are, as opposed to simply trying to ape the "big names" of the scene. This relatively new Greek band definitely wears their influence on their sleeves, creating this homage to the Church of Black Sabbath and the holy scripture of Earth’s 2.
The short (by comparison) opening track "Aurora" is the most uncharacteristic of the three included here. What sounds like violin or viola scrapes are met with odd vocal sounds and backward guitar elements.As a whole it has a very disorienting feeling to it, like the sounds of being lost in a deep dark jungle somewhere with no sign of civilization in sight.
This brief prelude is much different than "Tabula Smaragdina", which opens with the remaining duration of the disc’s raison d’etre:slow, distorted guitar riffs that are allowed to sustain for a reasonable amount of time, creeping, pounding drums and growled metal vocals.It does have a similar vibe to the big boys like Sunn O))), but there is a greater sense of propulsion here:rather than drifting like an iceberg, it instead creeps along somewhat faster like a steamroller with a bad attitude.Throughout the first half, the guitars get louder and more "metal" but never really quickens the pace, nor should it.The second half opts for a more experimental approach with less conventional, treated sounds and chanted, rather than snarled vocals.It is a nice break, but when the slow motion Earth chug returns at the end, it just feels right.
This general vibe continues into "Asmodeus," which opens with heavy pounding drums and distant, whispered vocals that are somewhat of a contrast from the previous track.The vocals become more and more prominent, but for the first half stay rather restrained.Later on there is a greater emphasis on dissonant processed sounds, and the vocals become more screamed rather than sung which, unfortunately, somewhat cross into metal cliché realms.The drums at this point alternate between rapid fire blasts and pure sparse space, but the overall track stays slow.The ending of the track calls to mind "Aurora" in that it is focused more on reversed melodies as opposed to monolith riffs, but is even more subtle and quiet than anything that preceded it.
As a debut that was mostly recorded live, Heavensore manages to borrow elements of drone, black metal, and good old sludge/stoner rock in a way that enthralls, rather than bores.Another thumbs up for Utech’s URSK series, which may actually eclipse last year’s awesome ARC series.
samples:
 
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Daniel Padden has been a member
of the cult avant-rock band ‘Volcano The Bear’
since 1995, with several highly regarded
album releases on Nurse With Wound's United
Diaries label, Textile and Beta-Lactam Ring
Records. After moving to Glasgow he started
‘The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden’ as an outlet for
his solo recordings with releases on Catsup
Plate, Secret Eye and Textile. When ‘The One
Ensemble’ slowly metamorphosed into a band of its
own, Padden started to record his solo output
under his birth name, with last year's "The Isaac
Storm" LP on the Ultra Exzema label being the first
seminal result.
Over the years Padden has developed a strong
fascination for obscure musics from all over the
world (re his recent "Epiphanies" article for The
Wire magazine): mouth organ love-songs from
Thailand, The Ramayana Monkey Chant from Bali,
khene pieces from Laos; so-called ‘world’ music from
Burundi to Bulgaria.
Combining these interests with his love for
British Folk and Art Rock (This Heat, Robert
Wyatt), Kraut Rock (Can, Faust), Free Jazz, the surreal
collage techniques of Nurse With Wound
and the odd humour of The Residents, he has
developed a totally unique and highly personal
musical vision without ever sounding
overambitious or directionless.
Gorgeous song-writing is seamlessly transformed into
pure fuzz or string drones, suddenly interrupted by
some improvised reeds or collapsing percussion,
all within the blink of an eye, and never losing its
natural flow.
"Pause for the Jet" is already an
auspicious aspirant for our "Record of the Year".
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The aquatic theme likely would have been obvious even without the title or the book of oceanic photographs that's included. Both of the 20-minute tracks ebb and flow with chasms of reverberating metal that give an incredible sense of space, constantly evoking the feeling of submersion. They stretch time with their languid pace and use silence to suspend it altogether.
Even so, these tracks are far more static than such a theme would indicate. Too frequently, they stagnate rather than evolve. Rather than gaining in strength as they progress and building toward some awestruck peak, they recycle the same sounds and present them in more or the less the same fashion every time they appear. There are a few stretches where it seems like things are about to change and go somewhere different, but these moments disappear before they can be truly effective. The physicality of these tracks is indeed impressive, but too often it's at the expense of substance.
The DVD-Audio disc with its 5.1 mix is obviously the best way to hear this album because of its ability to hold more information than a conventional CD, but more could have been done to enrich the overall experience. While including a gallery of eight photographs as a feature on the DVD, it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to include only still-life photography when seeing them come alive as moving imagery would have been a thrilling option. As it stands, the DVD's photos reveal little more than what's already detailed in the accompanying booklet.
Pacific Codex overwhelms subwoofers and rattles windows as expected, but it never quite takes listeners anywhere new. While it has plenty of low-end depth, the lack of development prevents it from being the sonic immersion it could have been. As such, it's a good album but not a great one.
samples:
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"Eggs" opens with heavy drones that are soon balanced by eerie, slight melodies smeared across the distant background. It's a haunting or at the very least mysterious effect, and the sly introduction of other textures, like faint distortion or mechanical cycles, increases the tension as the track progresses. Heavier bass-wise but overall quieter "1st to 3rd Instar" is also dotted with patches of Liles' piano that aren't a whole lot different from the various "Anhedonia" riffs from his Vortex Vault series. Juxtaposed against whisper-level drones and occasional machine thumps, they sound lonely and bleak. This track is the album's most introspective and comes like the calm before a storm.
The action picks up on "Pupa" with a horse's anguished neigh. It's brief but startling enough to reawaken ears that may have grown dormant over the course of the last track. Bouncing bass tones and a tinny plucked melody lead into metallic overtones, submerged pounding, and faintly buzzing strings that hint of menace. Things come to a head with the finale "Metamorphosis." Not only do the buzzing strings return more agitated than ever, high-pitched screeches like a cacophony of punctured brass instruments grow in a fierce chorus. There's a brief respite before, at last, the flies themselves make an appearance before fading into the void from which they had come.
Liles and Menche make the most of this collaboration, imbuing it with their unique sensibilities to give the album the effective impression of a narrative arc. While this album skirts around territory visited in some of their other work, here the combination of their skills entrances the ear in an entirely different way altogether.
samples:
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