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These 12 solo piano pieces have been infused from the core out with FX and reverb, expanding the sound of the ivory sounds into swollen tones of filament and filigree. It is unclear whether the title inspired the music or the music inspired the title, but it is the perfect metaphor for this collaborative release.
A treenail is a wooden peg used in shipbuilding, water causing the peg to swell and hold together timbers. These sweetly engorged notes diffuse into each other making the songs on Treenails seem like whole entities instead of collections of played parts.
The use of varying degrees of repetition and reverb make a grand and gracefully balanced show of both the untouched and the altered playing. Both hushed and unadorned sounds huddle together in Treenails, some with the briefest starry halo of drone and some heralding hazier incoming skies. The use of reverb gives a rolling gait to some of the multiples of notes, movement and brevity keeping Paine and Crosbie from getting anywhere near new age territory.
It is only the 12 minute "Firestopping" that sails a little far from shore, and as the lengthiest track by a good seven minutes, it feels like it is swallowed a little bit too much effects. With the majority of the tracks being under three and a half minutes, the relatively short durations are more like passing periods of reflection than atmospheric pieces. It is undoubtedly beautiful stuff, songs re-forming in slow cartwheels and snatches of music heard as sonatas sinking through quicksand. They're too broad and full for mere sketches and are more mini-watercolors of mood that are stepping stones far beyond the similar experimentation of other artists.
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Diamanda Galás much-anticipated compilation of tragic and homicidal love songs, Guilty Guilty Guilty, will be released worldwide by MUTE U.K. on March 31, 2008.
from the press release:
In her 17th album – the first since 2004 –the dark queen of extended vocal techniques turns standards from jazz, blues, and country music into her own musical genre. Using the full extent of her vocal arsenal and a virtuosic piano technique, Galás carves songs of doomed love into haunting works that promise to rip your heart out. Featured on the album are her much acclaimed reinterpretations of Ralph Stanley's reaper song, "O Death"; O. V. Wright's "8 Men and 4 Women"; "Long Black Veil" made popular by Johnny Cash; "Time (Interlude)" sung by Timi Yuro; Tracy Nelson's "Down So Low"; her signature rendition of "Autumn Leaves"; and the favorite "Heaven Have Mercy", made famous by Edith Piaf.
Guilty Guilty Guilty delves into the grief and outrage of those whose love has been shattered. Sophisticated vocal weaponry combines with a driving, sometimes jaw-dropping, percussive piano style to conjure up raw emotions ranging from fleeting happiness to the terror brought upon by the death of love. With this new album, the avant-garde diva reaches into the heart of blues to take it to new, unheard-of places of lonesomeness, occasionally breaking into Middle Eastern scales or the ululating wail of the Amanes (improvised lamentation from Asia Minor)."Horror is Galás's great subject and her performances are an attempt to dramatize it," writes Greg Kot in The Chicago Tribune (October 2007). "But her music is also defined by empathy, an embrace of the abused, the underdog."Guilty Guilty Guilty's tracks were recorded at "Diamanda's Valentines Day Massacre," the Knitting Factory, New York City, February 14, 2006 (7:30 pm & 10:30 pm), except for "Long Black Veil," recorded at Tonic, New York City, March 20, 2006, and "Interlude (Time)," recorded at Auckland Town Hall, Auckland, New Zealand, October 25, 2005. Recording and mixing engineer is Blaise Dupuy.
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- Matthew Amundsen
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The band played for five years before recording this album and their experience together shows in the tightness of their arrangements and their ability to change directions at whim. Unfortunately, the songwriting usually doesn't do enough to distinguish them from countless other groups of the period. They are at their best when there's an urgency to their playing, especially songs like "Ricochet" and "Free," which have the hardest-hitting riffs. Also of note is their cover of George Harrison's "If I Needed Someone," a loose but impassioned take on the original. A lot of the other songs, though, are fairly typical psych rock with few moments of genuine excitement. It doesn't help, either, that the vocals are serviceable at best.
In the accompanying liner notes, bassist Joachim Ussing writes that the recording sessions ended prematurely every night because the producer and technician became too stoned to continue. This might explain some of the unevenness of the mix, with the bass in particular all but fading into the background for stretches at a time. With a little more technical attention, some of these songs could have had more impact. As it stands, it is still not a bad album, merely an ordinary one.
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- Scott Mckeating
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Recorded in Sheffield near the end of a European tour, the pair sound relaxed and fill the hall with the autumnal swell of their acoustics. The pair's babbling brook of notes shape "Cold Rain" into a perfect balance of song and winter breath smoke. Their gentle dishevelled playing turning into extended guitar runs, the blues pulled loose. Their choices here take a route connecting Delta phantoms and a stony set of grooves, the threads of their playing toying with plummets into psych paths. The most beautiful trail they wander is through "Anthem of the Cocola Y&T," a free-ish stumble bumble that adds a little dissonance while keeping everything above the waterline.
The only issue to take with the album is their predisposition to lyrical cliché, the standard word fuel of folk and blues is regularly plundered here. There's little difference between some of Meet Snake Pass… and the lyric books of many other mimetic performers. Ending on the briefly sweet note of "Freight Train," MV & EE show their simple duo side is their strongest.
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- Scott Mckeating
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The melody may be a little odd, taking a while to generate earworms, but has a real lamenting intensification. Purposefully or not, Hardwick seems to have been on a real Eno-esque run lately. In the face of such competition Machinefabriek come off worse, the balance between ingredients seeming a little randomly strewn. Left floating for a little too long, the elements used bring to mind some of the botch attempts at soundscapes made by Hafler Trio.There are a few endearing rough edges (feedback and static), but repeated listens don't offer anything further.
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- Matthew Amundsen
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Part of the problem is that the group uses the same basic blueprint for each song, with little variation. The tempo remains constant from track to track, the bass never quite hits an engaging groove like good dub should, and the guitar is more of an accent than a lead. With little of interest to latch on to, I found my mind wandering far more often than not. While song titles like "London 67" and "Syd's Psychedelic Adventure" raised my hopes for something wild and offbeat, the former is overly introspective and mellow while the latter relies too heavily on samples, is only loosely psychedelic and not adventurous at all. All but one of the eight songs are over five minutes in length, meandering all over the place but not going anywhere.
The album's mood is consistently relaxed but lethargic, inspiring little devotion. What little atmosphere it generates is mostly lifeless, and the production is dull and antiseptic. More than anything, it just didn’t take me anywhere I haven’t been before.
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Canadian electronic musician Hugo Girard has taken an interest in the subject of hypnosis and created an album based around the idea of simulating or accompanying a session through the employment of analogue electronic drones, sequences, and rhythms.
Hypnosis is one of those things people are eternally fascinated by and about which many myths have been generated, not to mention also spawning a self-help industry in which the process is utilised to aid in quitting smoking, overcoming phobias, and similar. Plus, who hasn't come across the thrilling mystery story plot where the evil villain (with the use of the ubiquitous pocket-watch and a ridiculous moustache) hypnotises some unfortunate innocent victim into committing a dreadfully heinous crime in his stead.
Vromb's music is characterised by subtlety of composition, constructed from washes of wave-like drones, subtle tones, and quiet electronic sequenced rhythms that constantly change and metamorphose; and strange voices speaking in French add to the sense of experiencing an altered state. The music has a serpentine quality, undulating and deeply hypnotic (pun intended), insinuating itself into the deepest levels of the consciousness and crawling into the crevices of the subconscious where the darkest secrets hide. The beauty of it is that there is nothing overt about the music; instead just the merest hint of a suggestive influence at work. Put the headphones on, lie back and let it all wash over and seep in. That said however, I felt a slight uneasiness bubbling away like an undercurrent, as if to point out that hypnosis is not necessarily healthy or beneficent and that like most things it also has a dark side; for me though it is that merest suggestion of an edge of darkness that defines the music's attractiveness. This could, indeed should, be classified as an intelligent rendering of ambient dance, the sounds and rhythms evolving naturally and following on one from the other easily; this is definitely music for the head and not for the feet. As reluctant as I am to employ comparisons I will just this once reference early- to mid-'70s Tangerine Dream as a way of providing some musical co-ordinates, especially in terms of the sequencer rhythms.
Personally I have always been a tad suspicious about claims that such music can induce altered states of consciousness, principally because the claims made seem so fantastic and overblown. What surprised me about this release was the fact that I caught a tiny glimpse of the possibility that specific sounds and cyclic tones can indeed produce the desired effect in the brains of those so attuned. Even on a purely superficial level this is a thoroughly relaxing album but not in the vapid or insipid New Age sense; this has enough darkness and bite to make it engaging and satisfying on both a musical and intellectual level, plus you could actually shuffle and sway to it if you were so inclined.
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B.Baphomet's rough hand-cranked dark ambient is nowhere near the detached (I think they call it 'glacial') end of that market, its measured input of black/doom influences giving it a living cruder feel. The solid elements like bass notes on Einslpundahgn's "Dronedisciple" and "Rites Ov Catharsis" aid in preventing it from becoming a straight mood exercise or too dredging or sludgy. As enjoyable as this inward disdain is, it is only when B.Baphomet steps away from the darker moods that the music connects for me.
The two darker pieces suffer slightly from odd elements creeping into the blend of sounds. Bleeps and excessive use of oscillated noises means that moods are fractured and left unable to heal in time. When "Our Hearts Would Break," the final track arrives in a spooked-out rain of rhodes and vibraphone it almost immediately melts into gorgeous. There's such a great bass line and a huge positivity about the whole piece that it smacks of heavy ocular treats.
The whole thing breathes like some classic Hancock / Ayers track put through drone filters. It sounds like the work of a man who couldn't even comprehend the concept of misanthropy. Maybe Myk Colby aka B.Baphomet needs a new pseudynoum to explore this territory further.
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On Stare of Dawn the Chris Hladowski (Scatter and The One Ensemble) helmed The Family Elan is intuitively shaping new music from traditional ethnic folk forms. With melodic phrases and sounds from (what sounds like it could be) the Baltic States, Turkey or the Middle East, Hladowski even summons up medieval folk to contribute to the mix of flavours. Playing instruments like bouzouki and long-necked lute (I think) he creates a drive and draw as the music falls in and out of stable forms, reluctant to come back to earth to settle as a model melody.
Complemented by Hanna Tuulikki's (Nalle / Scatter) tangling fiddle and woodwind, there are light circlets of drone around some of the playing. But Hladowski's playing feels most heavily indebted to rhythms, the individual layers may be gently picked and played but it is possible to hear his strumming as a refined thrash of tantalizing colours and notes. The actual rhythms played here, a tambourine's sharp petal shake, take second place to this more fluid playing. Movement feels an inferred recurring theme here, the spinning sense of dervish motion on "Monumental" and the river flow majesty of "Cascade Danse of Airs."
While not an obvious spiritually indebted record, Stare of Dawn feels like it delicately flirts with something above and beyond. The lyrics are reasonably scarce, seeming more like chants or entreaties than clear-cut lyricism. There is a snag in the splendor of sound that comes right at the album's end, "Over the Hills and Fields I Wander (The Dells of Earthly Wonder)" seems to unspool unsatisfying to its conclusion. Notwithstanding this slip, Stare of Dawn is an intimate and precious record.
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The second full length from these American black metallers lives up to their feral and deadly-sounding name; each of the four songs on this disc stalk like the canine predator of the band's name. The group refine the techniques they developed on their first album; the mixture of classic black metal with other, gentler influences comes together wonderfully this time.
Two Hunters is a much stronger beast than the band's first album. While I enjoyed their debut parts of it were a little too melodramatic for me. This is not the case here. Opening with the genuinely surprising "Dea Artio," a slow and almost ambient exploration in mood, it is obvious from the start that Wolves in the Throne Room are not a one-trick pony. I could listen to a whole album in this style but like a razor blade through flesh the next song rips through the delicate mood of "Dea Artio."
The bulk of this album is the same sort of black metal that the group displayed on their previous release. Solid, crushing drumming with a twin guitar attack that veers from sand blasts of musical assault to more complex melodic sections with nods to classic metal like Iron Maiden and in part to folk music in general. This is especially apparent in the final section of "I Will Lay Down My Bones Among The Rocks and Roots" with its beautiful interlude before the final storm of guitars. "Cleansing" begins with a gentle bass line and vocal harmonies care of Jessica Kinney; the type of thing on Diadem of 12 Stars that seemed a little cheesy to my ears. However, this time around they have perfected the balance between heaviness and drama. This is the sort of album that I wished for.
Southern Lord's black metal releases are hit or miss; for every good one there are a couple of absolute stinkers. Two Hunters is one tick in the right column; Wolves in the Throne Room are worth a dozen boring Burzum-by-numbers. They may not be pushing the genre's boundaries in any significant way but within those boundaries they are creating some stunning music. As much as I prize innovation, there is a lot to be said for taking an almost dead formula and squeezing a gem out of it.
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The improvisational, instrumental noise/rock trio known as Grey Daturas, hailing from Melbourne, Australia, have been kicking around making as much noise as is humanly possible since 2001, starting out by improvising live soundtracks to 16mm film projections and then over the years notching up many live shows, supporting such acts as Sunn O))), d. Yellow Swans, Dismember, and Isis. Dead in the Woods is actually a re-release of their second album, originally appearing on the Crashing Jets label in 2004.
These three nuclear alchemists of the impending apocalypse, Bonnie Mercer, Robert McManus and Robert Mayson have, through some arcane understanding of sound, built a weapon of total musical destruction, using nothing more than the standard formula of guitar, bass, and drums. Right from the get-go, when the nuclear furnace that is the album opener "Force is a Weapon of the Weak" explodes out of the speakers in a critical mass of fuzzed out radiation and high-pitched particle feedback, the Grey Daturas make it clear in no uncertain terms that they intend to level everything in sight and to strip the flesh from bones with the bright white hot flash of their monstrous sound. The immediate aftermath of that initial explosion continues with the onslaught of "She was the Cutie of Camp Cooke," starting off with a slow bass figure that then detonates into an irresistible momentum which lays to waste anything that stands in its path; and once that momentum has been gained and attained it doesn't let up. This is the sonic equivalent of shock and awe tactics.
Then just when it feels safe to raise above the lip of the trench in the silence that follows, along comes "A Japanese Romance" to first of all lull you into a false sense of security that everything's settled down.... however that illusion is swept aside as yet another wave of noise stealthily creeps up and demolishes what's remaining. So it goes on, wave after wave; the sheer weight of controlled aggression just keeps piling up and up, over and over, unrelentingly and unremittingly. "Running Amok with Knives" and the follow on track "My Sciatica" sound like the final breakdown, when the fabric holding everything together tears at last under the pressure; there is nothing now to stop the irreversible devolution. This is what the end of the world is going to sound like; as if to emphasise this "Overdue Resignation" indisputably underlines the fact.
The strength of this album shouldn't be measured in terms of decibels but in megatonnage. I have heard many similar albums in my time, but very rarely have I come across music of such heavyweight behemoth-like proportions. It is simply gargantuan.
samples:
- She was the Cutie of Camp Cooke
- Golden Gate Blues
- Running Amok with Knives
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