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Release date: July 24th, 2007.
This 7" is limited to 400 copies and was designed, signed and numbered by Barbez's Dan Kaufman. 100 are on red vinyl and 100 are on white vinyl. These two intense numbers were inspired by both a pleasant trip through a small historic neighborhood in Mexico city and the detestable Iraq war. Cover art was inspired by the abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Look for the next Barbez record sometime soon on Tzadik.
These two songs were recorded and mixed by the great Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, John Zorn, Swans) at B.C. studios near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY in 2006. They were mastered by Fred Kevorkian (White Stripes) at Avatar Studios. The first song, Mexico City Impressions, was conceived on a trip to Mexico City while strolling through a lovely neighborhood called Coyoacan where Frieda Kahlo, Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera once lived some 60 years ago. There's a kind of Parisian feeling to the neighborhood and to a little park there with a carousel and people selling little bags of Mexican sweets. It's an extremely vibrant place, full of Meso-American sounds and colors floating about. This short pulsating song is my impression of that vibrancy, color and heartbeat of Mexico City, and an homage to the enchanting sound of the marimbas you hear everywhere in that city.
The second song, Somebody Get Rid of the King, is an angry lament that comes out of a great fury at the Iraq War and especially at the cruelty of the United States towards the detainees it holds in Guantanamo and in the tortures it perpetrated at the Abu Ghraib prison. The subject was close to my heart as I spent several years working as a researcher with famed journalist Seymour Hersh on his book, Chain of Command, which detailed these outrageous war crimes. The song begins in a slow and mournful vein only to transform into a punk-rock blowout full of rage.
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Release date: July 24th, 2007.
Organized Pitches Occurring in Time consists of two 25 minute pieces of music, both spawned from the same conceptual composition/score by Duane Pitre, titled Ensemble Drones. With their form reminiscent of works by La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music and their tonality touching on the floating works of Terry Riley, The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump Organ Base & The Ensemble Chord in C with a Major 7th and a Guitar Base are aural tapestries based on a minimal tonal palette with their instrumentation consisting of guitars, alto saxophones, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, tone generator, and pump organ.
The Ensemble Drones composition varies from the traditional sort as it is rule-based with the score consisting of a set tonic, set pitch classes, playing methods, technique restrictions, and spontaneous conduction. The score is a structure for the performing ensemble to improvise on—order spawning chaos producing order that is different on each occasion of a performance or recording. Ensemble Drones is discipline and freedom, both within each other, the first major focus of the work. Variance is the second major focus of the composition; with instrumentation, ensemble performers, tonic, pitch classes, and the physical space varying from performance to performance, the results can never be the same.
One way to view Ensemble Drones is like a compositional "body" as in the composition taking human form. The score is the skeletal structure that gives the "body" its general shape and feel. The pump organ, for instance, could serve as the circulatory system, the bass clarinet as the muscles, cello and saxophones as the internal organs, the electrically generated tones as the nervous system, guitars as the flesh, viola as the skin, violin as strands of hair, and the listener—the listener acts as the eyes. Not in the sense of vision, though—each listener will "view" the same compositional body differently, and, in return, the body will view itself differently with each new set of eyes. This helps to analogize the last major focus of the Ensemble Drones score/composition, which is perception.
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Release date: July 24th, 2007
Eleh's Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis Vol. 2 requires dedicated and careful listening. High volume and/or headphone use is highly recomended for maximum experience - especially on the B-side which is focused on ultra low end bass pulses being slowly modulated by bass frequencies well below the level of human hearing. Side A is a detailed account of the emerging frequencies resulting from the carefully crafted meeting of seven sine waves.
It is also highly recommended that stereo listeners are seated at least seven feet away from their speakers, centered, with ears at speaker height. 500 made. 200 gram vinyl. Deluxe letterpressed jackets. Dedicated to Charlemagne Palestine.
Eleh was formed to specifically to pay tribute to early experimental minimalist pioneers especially La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros and Charlemagne Palestine. This record is pressed in a deluxe edition of 500 on audiophile quality 200 gram vinyl.
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from Drag City's Web site:
Up for (re-)evaluation this summer are a couple of seminal works of Mimir, that lynchpin of the ever-mysteriously-shrouded Streamline imprint. Let’s whisk a veil or two aside, shall we? Streamline is the brainchild of Christoph Heeman, leader of such projects as H.N.A.S., Mirror, the Dom records label, and yes, even and especially Mimir! He’s bequeathed to Drag City the manufacture and distribution of such Streamline projects as, uh, H.N.A.S., Mirror, and yes, even Mimir (also CDs from Andrew Chalk and Limpe Fuchs; LPs from Nurse with Wound and Xhol Caravan and both formats from Little Annie). There’s a word for what Christoph does — and if anyone says nepotism, they don’t have ears! The Streamline sound is a subtle but deep examination of silences and repetitions, atmospheres and controlled improvisations. The two Mimir reissues forthcoming catch Mimir in two different phases — and if two separate Mimir releases aren’t potentially confusing enough, these two Mimir titles should do the trick: one’s called Mimir and the other’s Mimyriad. Of course, hardcore fans of Mimir will know the difference, and if you don't come on too strongly they might deign to explain it to you.
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Originally released in 1971 as a tiny private pressing in Japan, this rare psychedelic album finally makes it to CD for the first time. Apparently it took a couple of years to track down the material, but the effort was certainly worth it. Great musicianship, excellent production, and the skillful mixture of various styles make this album enjoyable from beginning to end.
Grounding the album's stylistic shifts are several carefully constructed rock songs. "Foolish Guy" and "Tears of a Child" are concise and catchy examples of pop, and the Dylan-impersonating "Grey Hound Bus" is almost convincing enough to be mistaken as a cover. Yet the band truly excels when they have the time to stretch out and turn their material into sweeping emotional experiences. "Mother Nature's Sun" is a touching anti-war protest that goes through a variety of moods, while "Tomb Stone" is a wandering desert plainsong in which the protagonist yearns for death. In contrast, "To Reiko" is a soft and gentle antidote for existential angst.
Although their rock songs frequently recall a predominantly West Coast style, Brush also have an experimental side that's equally vital and interesting. "The People of Glass" from the opening suite starts things off with a dire warning from a solo 'electric effects organ,' providing a mystifying introduction to the group. Elsewhere, the brief piano flourish of "Day Break (Bridge Is Drumming)" changes the direction of the album into something more classical. But the band’s not heading toward parlor respectability, either, as proved by the free-for-all demolition that is "Die a Dog's Death (In Vain)."
The booklet that comes with the disc is void of liner notes, but it has plenty of illuminating photos and illustrations as well as lyrics. Each of the songs on this album is distinct, and the running order continually keeps the experience fresh. With such quality songs and worthwhile diversions, there's very little to dislike about this album.
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One of the most revered musical pioneers of the 20th century, Erik Satie also had connections to the avant-garde of other artistic disciplines. This album contains primarily his collaborations with Picasso and Cocteau, as well as a couple of other seldom heard works. Performed by Bojan Gorisek, who has recorded Satie's entire piano oeuvre, this is a playful and entertaining collection that presents another fascinating side of this eccentric composer.
The most famous of these collaborations is Cocteau's controversial ballet Parade, which was specifically written to promote the aims of cubism. Cocteau commissioned Satie to compose the music and Picasso to design the set and the costumes, bizarre examples of which adorn the cover of this album. Two versions of this are presented here, one on piano and another with the backing of the New London Orchestra. Sound effects were performed along with the music in the original production of the ballet, predating Edgard Varese's similar tactic in Ameriques by several years. Yet the sound effects were imposed against Satie's wishes, and subsequently, they're left off of the piano version here yet restored on the orchestral version. The music is lively, betraying little of the theory behind his elegant yet innocuous "furniture music" or the endurance-testing Vexations. If anything, the melodies reflect Satie's previous day job performing at cabarets and music halls than his serious compositions. What makes them distinctly his, however, are the number of brief, tongue-in-cheek passages and their propensity for irresolution, something that irked many of the popular sensibilities of the day.
Mercure was also a ballet, and this time Picasso developed the scenario as well as designed the sets and costumes. Its premiere was a scandal of sorts, with elements of the Dada and Surrealist movements infighting and creating enough of a disturbance that the performance ended prematurely when members of the audience were arrested. The music of Mercure is, as its title suggests, a number of brief tracks that frequently shift moods unpredictably. Of these moods, several suggest the placidity of Satie's better-known material while plenty of the up-tempo sections keep things moving.
Also included is "Divertissement (La Statue Retrouvee)," a piece commissioned for a wealthy society figure's masked ball under the direction of Cocteau, with Picasso again doing the sets and costumes. The song is unique in that it was written for an organ and ends with an unexpected trumpet solo. Characteristically, the novelty's over all too briefly.
Satie rightly gets a lot of credit for changing the course of music with his unique ideas, which makes his collaborations with other highly regarded artists that much more intriguing. The performances on this collection are excellent, and I'm especially appreciative of the orchestral versions included here, sound effects and all. Gorisek and the New London Orchestra have done Satie justice, illustrating again why Satie's reputation continues to grow with age.
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I doubt anyone would disagree that following up last year's stellar In the Maybe World would be a difficult feat, so Young God and Lisa Germano decided to reintroduce this scarcely available 2003 release (ironically frequently heralded as her best release to date) to a larger audience, adding a bonus disc of home demos and live recordings.
Young God
For 20 years, Germano has gone from backup musician to front and center stage, courted to dumped by major labels, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter to "retired" and working as a retail clerk yet staying connected and collaborating with some large names (Neil Finn of Split Enz/Crowded House, Johnny Marr, and Wendy of Wendy and Lisa/Prince & the Revolution, for example, all appear on this disc). Over the time her lyrics have, if anything, become far more candid and less opaque while her arrangements have become more intoxicating but through their own delicacy: piano, strings, guitars, marimba, xylophone, and various other instruments are always complimentary, never competing for loudness' sake.
Lullaby for Liquid Pig on its own is a masterpiece, her return after a five year absence following her final 4AD release, Slide. Songs vary from the haunted house proto-pop of "Candy" or the more hit-friendly "It's Party Time" to the sparsely arranged, tinkling piano and hushed strings of "Pearls" to the dark and creeping "Liquid Pig," driven by pulsing drumming and bass guitar, accented by unhuman noises and sound effects. Through her lyrics she channels ranges of themes and emotions from the personal to the abstract, taking the roles of a caring friend, a hopeless romantic, a little girl, and a drunk over the course of the disc. There's no points that feel weak or flawed nor are there ever any moments that are the slightest bit predictable or cliché.
The bonus CD is an extra present for those who are finally getting the disc but it's also more than worth the price of admission for hardcore fans. Extra CD for Pig is approximately 20 minutes longer than Lullaby for Liquid Pig and contains 20 songs in 11 tracks. The song order is unique: it goes back and forth from a home recording to a string of live songs contained within one track. Of the home recordings, Germano gives us stripped-down versions of the otherwise maximal "Candy," "Dream Glasses Off," and "Liquid Pig;" plus a drum machine-enhanced "Making Promises," an old version of "It's Party Time" and something the fans have passed around for years; "It's a Rainbow," recorded originally in 1997 with OPB; and a new unreleased song "My Imaginary Friend." The live recordings took place in both Lisbon and Los Angeles and are all solo performances with Lisa on piano, organ, or guitarselections include material from In the Maybe World, Slide, and even Moon Palace.
This Young God reissue is a fantastic breather until the next record and with the success of last year's monumental release, I'm sure 4AD are shitting themselves that they ever let her go and will undoubtedly make their catalog more available (if they haven't already). Then again it's a perfect time to collect the stuff for those who are only new to her sound.
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This 3-CD compilation of singles, non-album tracks, and unreleased material by Amp stays true to their mantra of honoring composition and accident equally. The resulting harmony is by turns uplifting, somnambulant, frustrating, lush, raw, glorious, and imprecise while a hollowness seems to lurk beneath the distorted beauty.
In a sense, Richard Amp and Karine Charff are Amp, but the band's history has involved many collaborators (27 are listed in the notes to this collection). Disc A opens with "Sketch a Star," featuring Richard Amp on guitar. This previously unreleased piece is described in the liner notes as "an exercise in getting an 'analogue' saturated sound replicated using computer technology." Perhaps due to the inclusion of bass and drums, "Remember," the band's first single, is as structured as anything here, but takes a while to get off the ground. The dreamy strum, fuzz, and warble of "Melatonin Red" have an evaporating gorgeous quality.
It took me a while to warm to the vocals on this record, as some of the instrumental pieces seem more intense. Although Karine Charff has always been considered the first "proper" Amp vocalist, Dave Mercer did some singing after the very short-lived tenure of someone called Jo. Ironically, Jo's rather pleasing aaahs and ooohs are featured, along with piano and Ray Dickaty's flute, on "There She Goes." Things take an open and airy turn through the hypnotic delays and tape-loops of "Walking A Line" and the (primarily acoustic) guitars of "A Small Light." A muffled contrast is apparent on "ICU," however, which uses the sampled voice of a baby and sounds like dub in a hospital. The dark and penetrating "Frise" is less an example of shoegazing than a sonic x-ray of the foot and, per its title, "Strangely Charming Quark" comes across as a slow relation of Hawkwind.
Disc M starts brilliantly. In terms of glorious distortion, clanging atmospherics, and complementing vocals, "Beyond," from 1997, is hard to beat. In an ideal world it would have been a chart-busting smash! The track "Silencer" benefits from the kind of ghostly vocals that the sister of Kate Bush might mutter if she existed and was kept locked away in the cellar. The simple analog synth, bass, and guitar of "Ipsu Factum" work like a palate-cleansing piece of ginger during a sushi binge. "Le Revenant" is a previously unreleased early version of "Songe," a lovely composition of French spoken word, guitar atmospherics and piano. Another highlight is the urgent trippiness of "Left It [Too Late]" where Olivier Gauthier adds his programming to the core duo.
The third disc, P, which includes some excellent covers, starts with "Ombres" from 1996, credited as a joint Amp/3rd Eye Foundation release. The track is heavy on juddering echo and percussion, becoming either muddled or cloudy with a chance of complex showers, depending on your perspective. "Je Veux," a piece that was apparently mislaid sometime around 1997, has a feeling of urgency, where layers build into a blistering crescendo of guitar, piano, drums, and rather wonderful moaning, perhaps in French. My favorite item here, "Moon Tree," previously only available on the 1997 compilation Angelfood Electronics, is majestic and mournful, with intense shimmering waves of guitar coupled with effects and feedback codes by Dave Pearce of Flying Saucer Attack. It is six minutes of total bliss.
The traditional piece "Scarborough Fair" is treated spaciously with well-placed accordian and harmonium. A cover of the Silver Apples’ "Seagreen Serenades" is a whirling piece of droning percussive brilliance like music for a slideshow of polaroid negatives set on fast forward. Things slow down beautifully with "So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears)," a Spacemen 3 cover that trips delightfully and then stumbles to a stand-still. The effect is like flickering light, waves, or something equally mesmeric. "Televisionface" is metallic and primal, but the cushioned drums create a fuzzy distance between the music and our ear. "Shadowfall," from Amp's first studio session in 1995 and eventually released on the Kranky vinyl version of their third album Astralmoonbeamprojections, is a brief excursion into sonic nothingness. What follows is the original demo of "Tomorrow" from 1998's Stenorette—a fine piece of percusion, piano, and gorgeous lulling vocals overlaid with sweet guitar discordance. There's no mention of accordion, but my ears suggest otherwise. Richard Amp's keyboard, guitar, bass and programming on the scorching, fluttering "Yonder" result in a piece that is as about close to dub as the band come. "When You Have Love" goes on for ages and then, of course, gets most interesting in the last two minutes. Ain't that always the way.
A 2001 track called "Wild Wine Gaze," consisting of field recordings and treatments mixed for inclusion on this compilation, could offer a route into soundtracks or modern classical work. All Of Yesterday Tommorrow is an undoubted treat for fans familiar with either Amp, Movietone, and Flying Saucer Attack. Naturally, the collection looks back, but I suspect that future listeners will also look kindly upon Amp.
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Porn Sword Tobacco's delicate new album reminds me of flexi-discs that once came stuck on the front of music papers, containing excerpts from a band's forthcoming album. Similarly, it succeeds in creating an intrigue disproportionate to its miserly length.
Porn Sword Tobacco is Sweden's Henrik Jonsson. If sound were food, Jonsson would be using manipulated sibilation, piano, guitar, organ, and bass to create a gorgeous smorgasbord in nouvelle-cuisine-sized portions. On "Tools For Trains," a dainty chime echoes like a distant John Henry hammering steel into stone. With a rush of train left over from the opener, a few gossamer-light and highly-amplified guitar plucks, a woman's voice saying something indecipherable, and a molten indeterminate whir, "Den Rosa Sporten" creates sublime sounds which evaporate before the word "wow" can be uttered.
In contrast, "Giftwrap Yourself, Slowly" could not end soon enough. Perhaps it is the introduction of migrating hip-hop beats or maybe that this boiler-plate monotony lasted longer than the two preceding gems. Either way, for me, the ubiquitous boombox cracked the iceberg mood. With the pedestrian thankfully behind us, "Copyright The Universe" eases into a hiss-filled world wobbling with unsteady organ and increasingly rapid heartbeat percussion. Next, "Ljus, Den Yttersta Gåvan" briefly descends into a lush envelope of wah-wah-esque sound that would defy a thermometer; is it hot or cold?. The piece has an emotional plunge while giving off the surreal flavor of what might be termed chamber-funk. "Cubical Fever" updates a nonchalant Latin sensibility; if the track had a chorus, it would be "We are flying down to Rio – on our flight simulators here in our office in Gothenburg."
The creeping crackles and beeps of the aptly titled "Do The Astrowaltz" seem to shift the location to an outer space occupied by vagabond musicians. There is no singing on New Exclusive Olympic Heights, but the tracks with non-English titles are such stunning liquid explorations of sound that they almost emulate the fluidity of the human voice. "En Hyllning Till Cyckeln" is the most overtly analog piece, where swollen piano phrases stand out from delicate hiss."Comme-Il-Faut (6 ÅR)" drips away in a flash with its bass-heavy finale on the verge of promising more. "Pappa! Min Kärlek Är Gravid" is a weirdly grandiose music box that is pretty to the extent of being repellant, but non-Swedish speakers can have fun imagining what the title might mean. My current guess is: Father! My trousers are swollen.
A contrasting levity to all the pensive beauty is, I suppose, meant to come from the ludicrous chatter of "My Lovely Wife Becky," but a mention of artist Peter Max set my teeth on edge. The 53 seconds of "Hierarkisk Symmetri Och Romantik" leave a similar residue to what The Dead Texan strew effortlessly in their wake. If instruments can breathe, then this is how their breathing sounds. Listening to this track, I was engulfed by a feeling of instant nostalgia and puzzlement. "U.S. Saloon Props 41/59" is an engaging piece of drone and subtle quasi-twang which transmits more than a trace of Badalamenti, as if Twin Peaks were set in Karlskrona. Again, my only gripe here is that at two minutes it is far too short. Finally, "Vingar Av Svärd" closes the album with many of its best elements in a coherent, swelling blend which Harold Budd could be proud of.
There is an economy and simplicity at work worthy of the name Porn Sword Tobacco which, apparently, refers to the name of a shop at the edge of some forest in Jonsson's home country that sells exactly those three products. (I can only wonder what will happen if a new owner replaces the smokes with cheese.) Engrossed in these translucent and fascinating tracks, I realized that even short experiences can have a profound impact. It might be a mistake to wish that New Exclusive Olympic Heights were three times as long. Maybe its fleeting nature is ingeniously designed to assist in its memorability.
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With Olson always having the capacity to punk things out, Wooley seems to be much more in line with the album's (and trio's) plan to map out space. The trumpet's intrinsically more mournful and contemplative nature means there is more room for whorls of both melody and harsh tones.The slither and scratch of boiled cymbals begins like buzzing flies, the horn edging into the middle ground only to leave a picture of separate elements spread miles apart. Even when these lines cross, sometimes even following each other, there is an eerie dislocation to Mêlée.
The deep murderous cave sound of the tympani dominates the first side, the cello's rough strokes sounding at points like they have been wracked by an electronic pulse racked by shivers. There is so much space across the second side of the LP that the music begins to feel like slipped memories. Moments of playing hint at ideas to run in the silence, the brain beginning to fill in the blanks from Mêlée's seeds.
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While looking at the instrumentation one would expect a jazz album (saxophones, guitar, percussion, electronics), the result is more of a jazz damaged electro-acoustic improvisations that manages to be both extremely minimal, yet surprisingly complex.
I must give Michel Doneda credit: he has managed to get achieve of the most unnatural and painful sounds out of a saxophone that I have heard in my life. Along with the normal jazzy rapid-fire bursts, he manages to get chokes and wheezes out of his poor reeded instrument. The opening track "Floating on the Mass of Blossoms" is based on a bed of minimal rumbling percussion and muted guitar work from Ielasi, overlayed with Doneda's abused saxophone, sounding like the last gasps of someone dying in the desert. The arrangements become increasingly lush towards the end, augmenting the previously mentioned textures with crystalline electronics.
"One Wing of Matter" is more focused on improvised percussion, found objects being used to create the rhythmic elements as a more conventional rapid fire sax blasts out over top. The ending portion of the track has a feeling of massive openness, augmented with metallic percussion sounds and the distinct rattle of an old time 8mm film projector. The closer, "Run Fingers Over Turquoise," is closer in feel to the opening of the disc, the clicks and clangs of minimal improvised percussion and wheezing saxophone over a quiet line of electronic tones and guitar chords. The electronics build to be the focal point at the end of the disc.
As sparse as the instrumentation is, the whole work is extremely complex and subtle. It has a very natural feeling to it. Listening is like being there in the studio with the musicians as they are playing the music, yet each listen reveals a different facet to the sound that was seemingly not there before. It's not the kind of work to put on in the background while doing something else as it commands full attention like it or not. I can't help but focus on the music if only to determine exactly what is going on. It does require a focused and critical ear, so non-adventurous types need not bother.
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