Writing brief and delicate music at a time when epic bombast was the norm, Satie's compositions would go on to become some of the most influential of the 20th century. This disc presents some of his best-known work as well as a few pieces that are less frequently heard but no less enthralling.
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Writing brief and delicate music at a time when epic bombast was the norm, Satie's compositions would go on to become some of the most influential of the 20th century. This disc presents some of his best-known work as well as a few pieces that are less frequently heard but no less enthralling.
The three tracks that make up "Trois Gymnopédies" are among Satie's most instantly recognizable. These pieces strongly influenced both Debussy and Ravel, who would later rise to greater fame and recognition than Satie ever did in his lifetime. Here Bojan Gorisek plays with more patience than I've heard on others' recordings, and it's an interpretation that suits the works admirably. Also fairly well-known are Satie's "Gnossiennes." Gorisek's phrasing emphasizes the songs' rich harmonic peculiarities with abrupt bursts of volume. Whimsical and playfully erratic, these pieces embody both Satie's wit and eccentricities perfectly.
Although Satie was the music director of Montmartre's Chat Noir cabaret, not much of his music reflects this aspect of his life. One of the few telling influences of that experience comes through in his "Je te veux," a waltz that became a popular song on the nightclub circuit. It was meant to accompany bawdy lyrics by Henry Pacory, which unfortunately are not included here. The song itself is one of his more straightforward pieces yet not lacking for exuberance. "Embryons desséchés," translated as "Dried Embryos," Satie says is incomprehensible even to himself: "I wrote it despite myself, impelled by Destiny." Its moments of rapidity and harmonic texture make it one of Satie's more unusual works.
His one-act comedy, "Le Piège de Méduse," is a precursor of sorts to Dada and Surrealism, music Satie describes as "seven tiny dances for Jonah the monkey." First published alongside three Cubist woodcuts by Georges Braque, the work is also notable for the fact that Satie first performed it in 1914 with sheets of paper between the piano's strings and hammers, one of the earliest examples of prepared piano on record. The 21 tracks of his "Sports et divertissements" were written to accompany a set of etchings by Charles Martin. Averaging about 30 seconds in length, they concern upper class recreational activities such as hunting, yachting, golf, and tennis, and contain plenty of tongue-in-cheek ennui considering their brevity. Of these, the longest and most entertaining is "Le Tango perpétuel," or "Nonstop Tango," in which Satie repeats the same melodic phrases of this traditional form, prefiguring the use of loops and repetition that was to come several decades later.
Not only is this collection an excellent introduction to Satie's work and the fundamental ideas that many others would later draw upon, Gorisek's invigorating performances breathes new life into these compositions for those who are already familiar with them in the first place.
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Portland-based artist Daniel Menche deconstructs the organ and trumpet on this latest album, yet little of the resulting work reflects these instruments in obvious ways. Instead, these four tracks sound like mechanical insects mating with pink noise and then giving birth to an apocalyptic swarm.
The first track starts on the threshold of audibility, patiently creeping closer with an insidious bass rumble. Each passing minute adds further layers of scratchy drone while the volume slowly but surely continues to rise. Subtle pulsations and cryptic Morse code messages pierce the veil only to be overtaken by a stronger distorted signal that clears everything in its path until abruptly vanishing and erasing everything that's come before. Menche's adept at starting a track at one location and ending it somewhere altogether different, leaving listeners few clues as to how they had arrived at their final destination.
Starting more delicately like a piano on fire, the second track contains more obvious structural changes, yet these aren't completely cut and dry either. Alien rhythms vie for dominance with what sounds like a melting phonograph playing melancholy classical music, and it is this struggle between these two elements that gives the track its drama. The 22-minute piece goes through several phases, including a lengthy inhuman passage that sounds like appliances run amok, before it ends with a triumphant soaring drone.
The third track begins with an alarm dropped off the deep end of a pool of static that learns to swim its way to the top. As it reaches the surface, it is unmasked as a fiery klaxon conqueror, swallowing every last drop of static before it eventually dies of hunger. The fourth track also opens with a slow and quiet fade as did the first, but this time proceeds with inventive panning and guttural blurps rather than swollen dense layers of sound. The organ is more apparent on this track, like aurora borealis shimmering in the night sky and settling briefly into an interstellar sigh. Towards the end comes a droning passage that sounds like a church organist onboard a descending airplane. Rather than building toward a fiery climax, instead Menche closes it with a meditative ending that dwindles peacefully.
At times sounding like a building collapsing in slow motion or else a late-night swim at the bottom of the ocean, Bleeding Heavens is proof of Menche's uncanny talent for mutating common sounds into tracks that are dizzyingly unworldly. A tour of his universe is unlike any other and well worth the time and attention invested in attentive listening.
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Another installment in the label's "Arc" series, the debut release from this NY based artist is a study in bedroom recording, a simple and lo-fi, yet captivating work of experimentation.
The four tracks that make up this disc all draw from the same sonic pallet: guitar, electronics, and a harmonica of all things. However, even with the same instrumentation from track to track, each piece feels like its own distinct entity, thematically similar, but standing alone. The moderate length opener, "Jejune," starts off with the harmonica, which is not something most of the listeners are used to hearing in this sort of context. Convey doesn't play the blues with his mouth harp though, but instead lays down a drifting wall of slow, shrill harmonica through a set of subtle effects and processing, while eventually a loop of synth tones begins to bubble up through the mix until it becomes the dominant element towards the end.
Instead of letting the harmonica continue to lead, "Oospore" opens with a looped set of percussive rumblings that continue throughout to form the "rhythm" of the track, as a plucked guitar motif enters and becomes more and more noticeable as it increases both in volume, presence, and delays. In an entirely different direction is the short piece "Shuck," which sounds as if a collection of found sounds were excised from breaking toys and stretched out to prolong the agony, a chaotic set of rattling and ringing that can't be clearly identified, but still manages to somehow be rhythmic given its loop-based nature.
The closer, "Idle," actually covers the span of about half of the disc, and yet again takes the entire instrumentation of the album and creates something that is different than the previous tracks. Heavier on the effects, the guitar is overdriven, distorted, and grows louder throughout the first half, hitting shrill tones that could easily induce migraines, but accompanied by lo end heavy bass feedback that somewhat makes for a rhythmic backing, but not quite. The guitar backs off and retreats back to a less painful, calmer chime, but the sub-bass feedback stays, ending the album on an interesting contrast.
Convey does an excellent job of creating a work that feels like a set of someone's bedroom improvisations that are wonderfully composed and structured. There is the lo-fi analog warmth one would expect, and the always exceptional mastering by James Plotkin keeps this naïve warmth there, but never feeling amateurish or distracting, but instead contributes to the sound and the mood here. It is a great first work from an artist who will hopefully continue to release stuff as interesting as this.
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Zero have made an odd, joyful and coherent debut, despite lurching from post-rock tension to whimsical melody, covering Devo, and borrowing vocal styles from at least two eccentric Englishmen.
Zero includes former members of the group Bastard, and given those names, it is perhaps not too surprising that their accessible and well-structured sound is tinged with an alluring nihilistic nonchalance. The opener "Big Screen / Flat People" has fuzzy, chiming guitar as well as stumbling rhythms familiar to anyone who loves The Fall (an association reinforced by the weird approximation of trademark Mark E Smith vocals: snotty, languid, and yet laser-like). Indeed, a whole album of that would have been absolutely fine with me. But Jokebox shows that Zero has more than one trick up its sleeve.
"Go Stereo" uses a repetitive post-rock riff-and-shuffle to back lyrics about the technical information related to some equipment. "Derby" could slot nicely onto Appliance's unfairly overlooked record Manual. Oddest of all is "Drag Queen Blues," a song that—had Vivian Stanshall pulled a Lord Lucan-style disappearance instead of perishing in a house fire—would have Bonzo Dog Band fans scouring France for a glimpse of the blighter. The loony vocals sound like Viv's whole Vegas-rock-n-roll-in-an-echo-chamber shtick before they accelerate completely into audio-madness.
The instrumental "The Desire and the Importance of Failing" has ticking percussion and a pedal-steel glide that put me in mind of The Books; "Crosby and Garfunkel" is as light and airy as its title suggests; "Pride of the Kids" recovers from worryingly anthemic guitar chords, and mutates into an equally urgent and fluid cousin of Life Without Buildings' "The Leanover"; and the final piece, "Cars, Buses, Etc," meanders through a nocturnal terrain in the footsteps of William S. Burroughs and Robert Quine. The best of Jokebox would have made a very fine EP and there is plenty of promise here. Encore.
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- Matthew Jeanes
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With heavy use of synths that pad out the backing on every track, Lifeline sounds almost like a Cure record with Broadrick playing over it in spots. That's a good thing if you ask me, but I can see how some folks are going to hear this and think that it's a little more lightweight than expected from a guy known for bleak, menacing works of angst. Even when stacked up against other Jesu records, this one seems intentionally more accessible and maybe sentimental, but that's okay.
The truth is, all that heavy grind scream pound collapse type of material just wears on my soul anymore. I still like to get my catharsis on, but there's only so much of that I can take and maybe it's because I just don't feel the need to stick it to the world on a daily basis like I used to. I welcome the softer and more approachable stuff that Jesu is doing now because it still has enough depth to be meaningful but it's not necessarily reliant on bonding with my inner demons to be successful.
The only track here that doesn't work for me is the one where Jarboe sits in on vocals. I've never been a great fan of her work but I know that she's done some things that I like or can appreciate. Here, her voice just seems out of place and forced as it changes through three or four different vocal styles in five minutes. The approach would be fine if the execution were better, or if Jesu didn't do such a tremendous job of creating a consistent ambiance. Her voice in the middle of a Jesu record reminded me of the affect that an M. Night Shyamalan cameo tends to have in his movies—it takes me out of the experience and breaks the vibe just long enough to kill any dramatic momentum. That can be dangerous for a record that's only got four songs on it. Let's all be thankful for customizable playlists!
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- Scott Mckeating
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The creak of organ has an organic rot to it, the switches in frequency sometime a little heavy/clunky. There are swirls like falling ash, the dry croak of a flickering flame in the wind sending mini-drones through passages of closedown. There could not be any better compliment than to say this could have easily been an American tapes style release, a cleaner take on John Olson's Full Scales project. If it is possible to get a ghost in the machine, then this is the sound of the body’s internal organs closing down before the ghost is born.
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- Scott Mckeating
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First PersonFermenting its own black murmur, this bleak single track nurtures in its grooves a well of static. Floating face up in the dead zone the undertow bass strum stirs slowly, too soft for distant thunder this becomes the first of perceptible layers. Subsequent listens provide different peaks and highlight different paths through the coating of sounds. The occasional lapses into almost conventionally musical tones sometimes disappear altogether, like sound peeling away from a lathe cut on its last legs. Heavy bass stones slip through the shaking, buffeting the speaker with blows and threatening to sink it as multiple levels become apparent. The Psychic is a nineteen and a half minute avalanche onboard an adrift ferry, the onslaught almost feeling like a loop at points. It may be dark black, but there is nothing on this release that sounds like it is built to create fear. There is a total absence of malice within this noise, leaving just the unknowable drift.
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It may have taken a few years longer than hoped, but that other Cornish madman has at last perfected the formula he has relentlessly toiled over with this batch of infectiously quirky acid-blasted instant classics. The chronic unevenness that hindered many of his releases this century is noticeably absent from this gooey mix of "grown folks" electronica.
2007 is shaping up to be quite productive for Vibert. Chicago, Detroit, Redruth, his second long player for Planet Mu, was preceded by The Ace Of Clubs' Benefist album and Rubber Chunks EP on Firstcask. Furthermore, he unleashed a whole slew of digital reissues exclusively via Warp Records' Bleep.Com download service, including several out-of-print Wagon Christ releases and the coveted Plug album Drum 'n' Bass For Papa. As for the remaining months, Lo Recordings is just about to drop his anticipated full length Moog Acid collaboration with the legendary Jean Jacques Perrey, and, according to the Rephlex website, a follow-up to 1993's Vibert/Simmonds album appears due out this year. Still, without having heard these latter two releases, Chicago, Detroit, Redruth is positioned to be his finest this decade.
Though remarkably cohesive as a whole, the album engages in a fair bit of genre hopping throughout, from the dangling boom-bap and fidgety squiggles of "Clikilik" to the astonishingly straightforward Plus8-referencing techno of "Argument Fly." Spectacular opener "ComfyCozy" brilliantly slaps a drum n' bass rhythm against a piano-driven jazz performance gilded with electronic touches, recalling for this fan the very first time he heard the aforementioned Plug. As expected, Vibert doles out invigorating acid like "Brain Rave" and the joyously retrospective title track. However, there are some real surprises here, such as "Swet," an eight-minute freaky groove that tactfully samples the instantly recognizable doorbell sequence from The Jetsons. Here, an unanticipated maturity surfaces from a producer oft noted for having his tongue permanently stationed in his cheek.
Of course, the sacred Roland TB-303 box returns as a pivotal weapon in the Vibertian arsenal, delivering those signature squelchy sequences that simply cannot be beat. However, the artist has finally mastered just how to best use that invaluable box in the context of his irreverent yet enticing productions, far more so than on less satisfying affairs like YosepH and Lover's Acid. But any music geek worth his salt knows that acid was—and is—more than a box. The essence of those good old days dominates on "Breakbeat Metal Music," which only sparingly utilizes the 303, and the heavenly "Radio Savalas."
With nary a drippy track in the bunch, Chicago, Detroit, Redruth redeems the unsettlingly hit-or-miss nature of his 21st century work, be it Kerrier District's daft disco, Wagon Christ's kitsch-funk, or any number of styles wielded by his elusive collection of monikers. Though last year's high-energy-meets-deep-bass Amen Andrews vs Spac Hand Luke deviated delightfully from that trend, this new set for Planet Mu represents a creative triumph from a producer who now appears unstoppable.
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David P. Madson continues his explorations in musical collage with this dense mix of chance sounds, "real" instruments such as Dee Kesler's guitar, samples, and the voices of such guests as Jessica Bailiff and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe.
Anticon
Along with plenty of dub thump and melodic blast, Level Live Wires has some pleasing swells and crackling electronics reminiscent of Tim Hecker. The disc is packed with disparate elements, sudden lurches, swerves, complete stops, slowdowns and glides, yet Madson's skill is such that the overall flow stimulates and engages.
For a long time it was a struggle to get into this record. It didn't make sense to me on headphones, and when played through speakers several people demanded that it be taken off. One morning though, I grabbed it as I headed to work and finally its perfect setting emerged: it sounds great on a busy drive when in danger of being late for an appointment. It is all mirrored in this record—the anxiousness, the feeling of speeding along highways, glancing in the rearview mirror, slowing to a crawl, being stuck at lights that appear to be broken, zooming past slouches, picking your nose, braking sharply, keeping one eye out for a traffic cop, pulling away from the lights like shit off a shovel, watching the clock and the speedometer, getting trapped in the purgatory of being behind parallel drivers across all lanes at the same speed, relaxing when some time has been made up, a peripheral glance at a smart young woman in a newer, bigger vehicle, and so on,... Level Live Wires sounded right when I was in motion.
Oddly, only later did I notice that the back cover art shows a car on fire, and the track "Burner" features Madson's recording of an abandoned vehicle exploding in front of his apartment, horn blaring. The overwhelming feeling of the disc is of being alert and anxious. Luckily, I'm usually late and Level Live Wires will be staying in the car.
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This recording of a partial Wolf Eyes reunion line-up, ex member Aaron Dilloway joining Nate Young and Steve Kenney's Demonic duo, shows that chemistry doesn't ever dissipate. Using synths more as manglers of notes rather than creators or melodies, this 2007 show sees a swollen Demons absorb Dilloway into their mass like they were The Blob back in 1958.
Taking out penance on the audience, the big industrial rhythmic opening is like jackbooted monks marching to some chilly crypt. The melting solder notes course like tunnel excavations or the passing of some great sky ship's daylight blackout. The very un-silent running of black panelled freighters smearing everything in LED pocked audio oil slicks. Like insect legs Dilloway's spindly tape work jangles and bonds with the conserve mass of Young and Kenney's work.
The second piece converts a grand old modulated melody into swirls of a sprawling chthonian counter notes. Dilloway's click-and-brutal-chop bursts wire and sockets into a full-on electricity moulting, synths and boxes tuned to putrefy mode. As it stirs, the piece becomes something akin to snail's pace wintery doom metal…sort of.
With a big black low slung bass sound, legs spread in rock mode Demons are continuing to swell their sound.
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