- Creaig Dunton
- Albums and Singles
Global Clone compiles tracks from earlier cassettes for fickle digital ears, though still retaining their obliqueness (none of the five tracks are titled). GMS and Pete Swanson are coming from the diverse background of some of the more current "mainstream" noise artists (a la Wolf Eyes) by encompassing a greater variety of influences, such as industrial, electro-acoustic, and dub, as opposed to the "crank the distortion to 11 and get mic feedback" that many other artists adhere to, and it shows. The tracks making up this disc are more about the mood than the full on audial assault, such as the lo-fi siren loops with vocal chants and growls on the sprawling 22+ minute second track, and the sloth-in-molasses slow third track, which trudges through thick muck with feedback, guitars, and dubby percussion elements. The last two tracks, also the shortest, are perhaps among the most conventional of the noise scene, building on looped siren tones and distorted synths akin to some of M.B.'s (before he was Maurizio Bianchi and found Jehovah) earlier output.
Any sort of "noise" work is basically an acquired taste, but some are able to transcend the "I can endure 50 hours of Merzbow" club and become more than just an endurance test, and this is one of them. You're not going to see the Yellow Swans opening up for the LCD Soundsystem anytime soon, but the restrained textures and mood of Global Clone will make it more palatable for less adventurous listeners.
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These nine instrumentals hover like gossamer in the air, demanding little attention. There are surely some exceptional moments to be found, like the standout track "Blue Sands" or the bittersweet ending of "Sun Against My Eyes," but too many bland patches broke the spell of what I did enjoy. Schott plays a variety of instruments into a lot of space that she previously may have filled, however subtly, with some enchantment hovering just out of earshot. Because that playfulness is lacking on this album, it suffers a little from too much politeness. Many of the melodies are so sparse that they seem bare without any further accompaniment, no matter how elegant they may be.
As a soundtrack to a melancholy film or as something pleasantly unobtrusive to play in the background, this works just fine. As active listening material, however, I hate to admit that it just didn't grab me.
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Flower actually plays shahi baaja, and it doesn't sound so much like a banjo as it does an electric dulcimer. Either way, the instrument carries with it an Eastern sound and an overhanging drone. Combining this with Corsano's propulsive drumming feeds its mystic vibe to powerful effect. The give and take from the very beginning of "Earth" sounds like they've been playing for many years, and their differing styles are remarkably compatible. They change tactics with "Wind" as Flower shifts to bowing his instrument and Corsano switches to hand drums. "Fire" finds them stretching out for a longer excursion, and here they reach some meditative heights and blissfully transcendent moments. There may not be a lot of variety between these three tracks, with "Earth" and "Fire" sounding pretty similar in their construction, but if considered as a snapshot of a performance, it's a fantastic and engrossing reflection of their vision.
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Von Südenfed is the unlikely pairing of The Fall's irrepressible Mark E. Smith with Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner of Germany's Mouse on Mars. What results is not quite a post-techno version of The Fall, and not quite the post-punk reimagining of IDM. Instead, it's a dozen tracks of mutant digital funk fighting for attention as Smith drones, mutters, mumbles and hiccups his way through the machines, short-circuiting everything in his path.
There is a sense in which Tromatic Reflexxions might be the perfect realization of cyberpunk aesthetics: high-tech and low life. Mark E. Smith's rowdy, curmudgeonly vocals play the part of the drunken Mancunian football hooligan who has unwittingly wandered into a switched-on Dusseldorf club pulsating with mutant dance-funk extrapolated into its future manifestations by a sophisticated super-processor, and begins angrily ranting at the top of his lungs. Mark E. Smith has been quite vocal about his lyrics being influenced by writers such as Philip K. Dick, and the music of Von Südenfed goes some way towards realizing a musical soundworld that addresses these lyrical concerns. Not that you would know that judging from the press the project has received so far.
A recent feature in The Wire seems to indicate that this album was formulated partially as a response to LCD Soundsystem, who MES claims ripped him off, James Murphy stealing his vocal style for "Losing My Edge," and using the same rhythms as MoM. There's a problem with the claim that Murphy and Co. ripped off Smith and Co.: the LCD Soundsystem single came out in 2002, long before Smith's first collaboration with MoM on 2004's "Wipe That Sound" 12". Even discounting this time discrepancy, I think Smith sells himself and Von Südenfed short by claiming that Murphy in any way copped their style. LCD Soundsystem is all sass and low-fidelity throb: party-fodder for Williamsburg hipsters, single-minded and unsophisticated. Von Südenfed is avant-garde future funk for a generation that hasn't yet been born; a chaotic, eclectic and scattershot trawl through the many nuances of a tense and problematic musical assemblage. It is many things, but crowd-pleasing disco-punk it ain't.
As I suggested earlier, Von Südenfed opt not to recreate the noisy motorik of The Fall's classic sound, eschewing primitive post-punk clatter for plasticated synth peals and patently artificial beat constructions completely abstracted from whatever organic source they might have originally had. On tracks like "Fledermaus Can't Get Enough," the influence of The Fall's kraut-rock-abilly chug-n'-swagger is clearly present, but the track is tweaked and edited to within an inch of its life. The Fall have experimented with electronic music in the past, notably on 2000's The Unutterable, but have never embraced the hedonism of techno to quite this extent. MoM themselves have changed quite a bit since their early days of making wacky, chirping micro-dub. Radical Connector featured live drumming and vocals, including a wildly successful party anthem in "Wipe That Sound." Three more years down the line, their more radio-friendly instincts have merged once again with their propensity for odd and jarring bleepscapes; the addition of Smith on vocals adds a dynamic, unpredictable element that tips the scales into something completely new and unstable
A number of different approaches are tried across this album. "The Rhinohead" has the form of a straight-ahead rock song, but the devil is in the details: layers upon layers of digital fuckery, twitters and arpeggiations contribute a thick atmosphere that fights with the song's poppier instincts. "Flooded" and "That Sound Wiped" come the closest to DFA territory, MES delivering a sly, sardonic monologue against a loud, overamped future-disco track. MoM take every opportunity to tweak, mutate, double and vocoderize Smith's vocals, making it seem like they have the ultimate control over the shape of the track. This changes on tracks like "Serious Brainskin" and "Duckrog," where Smith's unhinged vocal delivery seems to pull apart the track at its seams, introducing an unstable element that threatens to upend the track, to which MoM can only respond hysterically with banks of glitched-out synths.
Even though Tromatic Reflexxions is chaotic by necessity and eclectic by design, all the tracks still sound like they belong together, and the group marks out their own unique sound that is quite different both from The Fall and Mouse On Mars. Von Sudenfed are not exactly playing to any current trends in underground music, but rather blissfully exploring their own mutual idiosyncrasies, engaging in a peculiar conversation across generational and stylistic differences. That this conversation turns out to make for such an interesting and often exhilirating listening experience is almost beside the point, as I'm sure they'd still be doing it even if no one was listening.
samples:
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Paul Dickow has more than impressed me since the release of Drumsolo's Delight in 2004. Since that time a series of outlandishly excellent 12" records have been released and Dickow has proven he can turn any song into gold if given the chance to remix it (check out his remix of "The Love That I Crave" by The Blow for proof). Future Rock rounds up everything great about those singles and situates them within the context of a solid full-length record chocked full of jazz, rock jams, and dub thick enough to make even the most resigned yuppie learn how to move his hips.
Kranky
"I Have To Do This Thing" from the World House 12" sealed the deal: Dickow's brand of dub-turned-psychedelia became the undisputed champion of deep sound the second the synthetic bass melody began pumping its fuzzy electronic blood through the echo chambers of drums and funky keyboards that populated the rest of the track. I listened to that song an unhealthy number of times and in the process found myself dreaming about what a full-length record would sound like were it to be populated by such unrelenting groove. Future Rock begins where "I Have To Do This Thing" left off with a ring of ultra-processed sound oozing with all manner of mirco-sounds. Dickow has not simply rested on his past success, however: he incorporates a phased vocal performance touched by subtle guitar rhythms and squirming bass right from the start. "Can't Roll Back" foreshadows the entire album, exhibiting an increased complexity in Dickow's music that isn't as immediately evident on his previous 12" work and that only makes the music better. It spins, shuffles, moans, sings, and pounds away for nearly 60 minutes without a hitch or wasted note.
Dickow maintains a density throughout Future Rock by building songs up piece by piece and then mixing each of the elements together like a master alchemist. Amazingly, each part of every song is prominent and powerful enough to take center stage and serve as a focal point around which other parts might play. Dickow, however, always seems capable of adding more to his swirling mix, as he does on "Future Rock" and "Red Screen." Both songs swim with a virtual army of instruments and each expands and contracts naturally without sounding muddled or confused. As the songs progress and new elements are added, old ones float back into the limelight and emerge as new. The result is a mass of music that is brimming with one catchy and addictive part after another. "Phantom Powered" originally caught my attention with its crunchy bass line, but repeated listens found my attention focused squarely on the rumbling of reverb-rich samples that accentuate that bass line. The songs begin to feel organic at some point and all the varied rhythms and melodies merge into a coherent whole that is unthinkable without each of its constituent pieces.
In interviews Dickow has spoken about the technicalities involved in writing and recording Future Rock. In some cases knowing what went into a record makes it better and aids in understanding why everything sounds the way it does. Future Rock is the rare record that needs no explanation and sounds exquisite from the start. What the technical side may have added, however, is a depth uncommon to many beat-laden records. Every song on here gets better with time and as of this writing Future Rock has probably been played well over 15 times from start to finish with a number of spins reserved for a couple of favorite tracks. There's a lot of complexity on Future Rock, but its immediacy goes a long way in making it great.
samples:
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Skye Klein opens Compressor with the furious bitch-slap of reversed bass, cracking snares, and an ominous array of machine noise perverse enough to warrant comparison to Venetian Snares. "Gridlike" is melodic, catchy, and vicious in its delivery, a near perfect combination of song-writing and sonic attitude. Klein tries to maintain that intensity for 48 minutes and almost succeeds.
Extreme
"Clip Incident" had me very excited. I was convinced that Klein was actually capable of topping the awesome power of "Gridlike" by expanding what it delivered in five minutes over the course of an entire album. "Gridlike" was to be the watermark against which the rest of the album could be compared: a slow burn of rhythmic chaos and uncomfortable synthetic groans. As "Clip Incident" came to a close I found myself a little worried; the music began to wander and any sense of identifiable structure began to slip away. "722" reaffirmed my belief that this record would grow on me over time. Its slow and nearly jazzy beginnings were vividly atmospheric, relaxing, and just a little menacing. I imagined a thousand crickets carrying chainsaws, the sound of their lullaby turned into a nightmarish drone, and their typical appetite substituted for human flesh.
I turned out the lights and turned up the volume and went along with the music, expecting to be menaced but not terrified... only to be surprised by the gunfire Skye unleashed at certain points during the song. There wasn't much melody and at points the track meandered here and there, but I was kept enthralled by how versatile the song was. Klein has a way of constructing tunes such that they can bend and shape them in any number of ways without risking coherency. Unfortunately, in making these tunes so amorphous, Klein also sacrifices his songs and focuses solely on mood. This would not be disappointing if it weren't for the fact that "Gridlike" happens to be a near perfect marriage of songwriting and spirit. Nevertheless, I sat listening to the record fairly enthralled and happily dreaming up any number of seedy deals gone awry, an entire underworld of quick glances and heavy breathing opened up, but was not too last in my imagination.
"Ghost Summer" is fantastic but represents the last truly spectacular song on the record. As Compressor moves through each of its remaining four songs, my attention begins to waver and for some reason I find it easy to push the record into the background. On the other hand listening to each of these tracks on their own is a treat; they all stand out in various ways without the other tracks getting in the way. The album is neither too long nor too short, it simply sounds flat after repeated listens because many of the songs sound like extensions of each other or like inferior versions of each other. If this had been released as an EP with only the first four songs, I'd probably be showering it with accolades. As it stands, I'm impressed on the whole with the relatively minor complaint that some of these songs seem derivative of each other or like unnecessary restatements. "Black Note" is a fine song on its own, but "Clip Incident" does the exact same thing with better results. So goes most of the album, but I don't want to slam it on the whole. Skye Klein has been making music for a long time and Compressor is indicative of some experimentation, the first steps of which are just slightly awkward.
samples:
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Available August 2007
Black River Song - listen to full song
We Are Him - listen to full song
"Michael Gira is one of maybe ten people in the whole world who inspired me to pick up a guitar and try to write songs in the first place. He continues to be a tremendous influence on me. A new Angels of Light record is always cause for celebration around our house, and though each one is always better than the last, this new one is going to be hard to top… Forget everything you know about Michael Gira and Angels of Light, even if you love everything you know about Michael Gira and Angels of Light (which I most certainly do) - We Are Him is an intimidatingly great album and a highlight in a career of highlights…. Michael Gira taught me that you don't need to play loud to play heavy, you don't need to compromise to be a success to those who really count, and all you need to make rock and roll soup is some piss, some vomit, a little blood, and a few hundred wet cigarette butts." - James Toth / Wooden Wand
"We Are Him is the most assured and relaxed Angels of Light album since the debut, and deserves to be considered alongside Gira's highest peaks. The frightening rage of old Swans surfaces several times, albeit in more bucolic clothing; the contrast is bracing. Lyrically Gira's constantly in-pocket, addressing his subjects with renewed agility, but
also in a very relaxed voice; if De Sade had lived long enough to tell folk tales around a campfire, some of them might have sounded like this. The genuinely playful orchestration - banjos? horns? chimes? slide? check – is by turns charming and perverse, and has a band-of-brethren feel to it that's both ominous and exiting. The title track is like a pure shot of adrenaline. An intimate, unexpected masterpiece." - John Darnielle/The Mountain Goats
We Are Him began with my usual vows to keep things simple this time, finally, and I failed once again to live up to the task. I went into the studio with Akron/Family as backing band (as they had been on Other People). We recorded all the basic tracks in a week. They played drums, bass, guitar, piano, and backing vocals. Despite Akron's valorous efforts and fine performances, things sounded thin and tentative to me, so I started calling my friends to help me flesh things out. Christoph Hahn came to Brooklyn from his home in Berlin (Christoph played in Swans for a while, and has played in several Angels incarnations - he has his own group called Les Hommes Sauvage too) and played his usual stellar "kraut-abilly" electric guitar stylings, as well as open-tuned lap steel. That helped considerably, and gave the songs balls, or bowels in many instances, as well as occasionally lifting things up nach Himmel… Next came Bill Rieflin. Bill is as fine a gentleman as you'll ever meet. He also played in Swans at one point. When I met him he was drumming in Ministry. He's since moved on to play with Robert Fripp (off and on I think), Robyn Hitchcock, and he currently is the drummer for REM. He's an incredibly expressive musician, on a variety of instruments. He played: Hammond B3 organ, Moog synthesizer, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums/percussion, piano, casio, and backing vocals and probably 3 or 4 things I can't remember at the moment… Next the spirited and gracious Eszter Balint played fiddle/violin to great effect. She played mostly drone based parts, but injected a lot of feel through inflection and modulation. She's a wonderful player and she also just brings a sense of warmth into the studio which is most welcome. She also sang some backing vocals here and there. Eszter first came to wide public notice through her central role in the film Strangers In Paradise, but she's gone on to become a fine singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter in her own right - look her up!....
Next came Julia Kent on cello and Paul Cantelon on violin. They played multitracked string sections on a few songs here and there, "arranged" on the fly. Julia's a member of Antony and The Johnsons, and she does some arrangements as well as playing therein. Paul is primarily a pianist, composer, arranger and recently a soundtrack composer for some high fallutin' films, the names of which I now forget, but I like the way he plays violin, with lots of warble and feeling. He and Julia work quite well together too and have the added advantage (from my perspective) of tolerating my vague descriptions and out of tune humming-of-part suggestions, and then taking those scanty guidelines and making something musical and fully realized out of them. No mean feat !.. Next came my pal and x-neighbor in Brooklyn Steve Moses. Steve's a drummer and trombone player. He's in the band Alice Donut and also has his own solo extravaganza called Drumbone and also an improv duo called Lambic. He played trombone like a brontosaurus on this record. He also played drums and trombone on a few of Devendra's YGR releases… next came the estimable musical encyclopedia and flute player (and multi instrumentalist ) of true finesse David Garland. He played flute on a few songs, and also did some rather deep backing vocs. He's another great presence to have in the studio, though he's a little intimidating because he's such a repository of all things musical. He hosts the shows (on NYC public radio station WNYC) Evening Music and Spinning On Air. Aside from playing classical music and film scores and more, he's also been a big supporter of people like Devendra, Akron/Family, Mi and L'au and other contemporary rock/folk related music, as well as myself. David's also a songwriter/singer and should be checked out too!...
Next came the glorious Siobhan Duffy and Larkin Grimm, singing "Chick Vox"on several songs (and Siobhan sings a cameo on the song Not Here/Not Now). Siobhan drummed for years in the NYC noise/skronk band God Is My Co-Pilot, but she went on to become the singer of the group Gunga Din, then drumming for Kid Congo and also Flux Information Sciences. She's sadly temporarily retired from music. She's got a very particular and unique voice, and it's a big loss. Larkin is a wild-ass Georgia mountain woman, or She-Shaman, or something. Ha ha! She too has an amazing voice, a huge range and as a songwriter she's eccentric and fiercely expressive and really coming into herself. She's got a few CDs out - look for 'em. We're also in the nascent stages of working on an album that she'll be putting out on Young God Records… Next came my old touring buddy Phil Paleo. Phil was drummer in a band called Cop Shoot Cop, but he played drums and yes, hammer dulcimer in Swans final phase. He played hammer dulcimer on a few songs here… Birgit "Cassis" Staudt played accordion and melodica on a few songs. She's played and toured in several Angels incarnations, and she's a chanteuse you can find playing cabarets and nightclubs in NYC… My big buddy and protector Pat Fondiller played a little mandolin here and there. He did a great job. His hands are bigger than the mandolin! Pat played bass on an Angels tour a while ago, and he also plays in the hard rock combo Smokewagon… The record was recorded at Trout Recording by Bryce Goggin and at Seizure's Palace by Jason La Farge, both in Brooklyn, and in fact right around the corner where I used to live. It was mixed by Bryce at Trout. Thanks to them, and all the above! Also big thanks to the fellow musicians/friends who supplied the
extremely kind words about the record on this page… Michael Gira/ ‘07
"the moment I played -we are him- my heart exploded with the feeling 'that voice!!!!!!' and it has done it to me everytime I have ever heard it. From my first cassette of filth to this newest work, michael gira's singing is my favorite gentle violence and lovers strangulation. Now is the best he has ever sounded and I cannot without sounding insanely thrilled express how much this means to me. -we are him- is touching, frightening, wonderfully different and whole." } - Jamie Stewart / Xiu Xiu
"What‚s a young turk to do when Michael Gira, at 52, is at the height of his powers? Everything I‚ve loved about his previous work ˆ the apocalyptic soundscapes, the window-shattering drums, the glistening acoustic passages, the voice like God speaking out of the whirlwind - is distilled and reimagined in these songs, and infused with an organic warmth that only makes them the more urgent and harrowing. By turns frightening, funny, cathartic, wise, even strangely sweet, "We Are Him" is a sprawling masterpiece by an artist whose muse seems more fertile than ever."
- Jonathan Meiburg / Shearwater
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digi-pack CD re-issue with bonus CD
available 6/18/2007
Dream Glasses Off - listen to full song
“…delves into those bleak hours before the sun comes up, with raw emotion that's calculated to disturb. Stark, gorgeous songs weave a spell of deep-seated loneliness coupled with unceasing introspection; the album is a gut punch from the first hanging, ethereal note. “ – Salon.com
“Lullaby for Liquid Pig is deceptively potent; in just thirty minutes it divines your most closely held memories, guiding you farther farther back with endless, heartbreaking choruses…” Pitchforkmedia.com
“Lisa Germano pushes confessional intimacy to unsettling extremes …Unashamed candor often spells dreary self-indulgence. In Germano's insightful hands, it's fascinating and strangely exhilarating.” - Blender
Nobody makes records like Lisa Germano. This music seeps into your system with a warm glow like alcohol gently working its way into the bloodstream through the lining of an empty stomach. From the first moment you’re drifting weightless through Lisa’s gossamer world, where everything’s infused with a woozy, fairy tail melancholy, and maybe just a hint of the sour taste of last night’s wine. Liquid Pig is particularly beautifully and richly orchestrated, but also so intimate and saturated with a peculiar sadness (that can suddenly shift to joy or whimsy) you get the feeling you’re drifting through the dreams inside her head, led along by the soft breeze of her breathing. Lisa says that if you removed the breath from her voice there’d be nothing there. That particular quality is perhaps what draws you in. It really is the sound of a lover whispering a song or a secret in your ear. These songs are intimate, even “confessional,” but they’re certainly not limited to the personal. Seems to me, any human being with a sense of their own frailty ought to find a place for themselves in this beautiful and seductive music.
This album was first released in 2003 but the label that released it disappeared very soon thereafter, and it sadly went out of print. It’s my extreme pleasure to make it available now and I hope that this time it reaches the audience it deserves. - Michael Gira / Young God Records
LULLABY FOR LIQUID PIG: 1. Nobody’s Playing 2. Paper Doll 3. Liquid Pig 4. Pearls 5. Candy 6. Dream Glasses Off 7. From A Shell 8. It’s Party Time 9. All The Pretty Lies 10. Lullaby For Liquid Pig 11. Into The Night 12. …To Dream
BONUS CD – 20 songs (56 MINUTES): 1. It's A Rainbow (home recording) 2. (Live from Lisbon): Way Below The Radio / Guillotine / Moon Palace / Woodfloors / Pearls 3. My Imaginary Friend (home recording) 4. Flower Steps / From A Shell / Turning Into Betty (live from Largo Club) 5. Candy (home recording) 6. Liquid Pig (home recording) 7. In The Land Of The Fairies / In The Maybe World / Golden Cities (live from Lisbon) 8. Wire / Red Thread (live from Largo Club) 9. Dream Glasses Off (home recording) 10. It's Part Time (live from Lisbon) 11. Making Promises (home recording)
SOME REVIEWS / ARTICLES THAT APPEARED AT THE TIME OF LIQUID PIG’S FIRST RELEASE:
From Salon.com
Hard luck, red wine and loneliness
Lisa Germano made her hauntingly beautiful record alone, then turned down a tour so she could take care of her cat.
By Julene Snyder
April 1, 2003 | It's not surprising to learn that as a child, Lisa Germano delighted in self-inflicted pain. In some ways, she's never stopped picking her open wounds.
What's unexpected is that she doesn't mean it literally. "I used to lock myself in a closet and torture myself," she recalls. "Not cut myself or anything, but I'd have these childhood fantasies where everything was awful. I'd make myself cry, and then it would end when I was crying so hard that the prince would have to come and save me."
Now in her mid-40s, she's long since stopped waiting to be rescued. "I don't believe there's a prince coming anymore," she laughs. "I'm just sick of the whole thing." On the phone from her Los Angeles home, Germano sounds incongruously upbeat for a self-described "fairly dark person," but she blames her perkiness on morning coffee. Her demons tend to come out at night.
Boy, do they. Germano's latest effort, "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig," delves into those bleak hours before the sun comes up with raw emotion that's calculated to disturb. Stark, gorgeous songs weave a spell of deep-seated loneliness coupled with unceasing introspection; the album is a gut punch from the first hanging, ethereal note. "These are your secrets, hidden inside," she murmurs on the opening track, then lays them out, one by one, like canapés at a suicide's farewell party.
The tone is hardly unexpected, as Lisa Germano has never made music for the faint-hearted. For the last decade, the multi-instrumentalist (violin, piano, recorder, guitar, voice, etc.) has specialized in delving into the deepest crevices of her psyche, exposing nerves, tendons and viscera until she reaches the white gleam of bone. While critical acclaim has been lavish for album after album -- six since her self-released 1991 debut -- audiences have not flocked to buy Germano's records. This is a crying shame, as her intimate, near-whispered delivery and spare arrangements tower above your average chart-toppers' best efforts.
Germano's chosen subject matter doubtless has something to do with the elusiveness of financial success, especially in the context of a recording industry that celebrates superficiality. The bleak "Happiness" (1994) explored the depths and valleys of depression and relationships with breathtaking directness. ("You wish you were pretty, but you're not … ha ha ha/ But your baby loves you, he tells you so all the time/ Oh, that must be why you're so happy together.") Yikes.
Her subsequent full-length release on 4AD, the harrowing "Geek the Girl," is an even more devastating dose of raw sensation. (Liner notes describe the record as the tale of a girl who is "constantly taken advantage of sexually" yet who still dreams of "loving a man in hopes that he can save her from her shit life What a geek!") That album's pièce de résistance, the nervous-breakdown-inducing "A Psychopath," culminates with a recording of an actual 911 call made by a terrified woman as an intruder breaks into her home. It's deeply chilling and more than a little creepy.
True to form, 1996's "Excerpts from a Love Circus" was a muffled scream, as Germano wielded her sweet, often-tentative voice with a surgeon's precision. The matter-of-fact self-loathing of "I Love a Snot" reveals flashes of humor and self-knowledge: "Tubby tubby butt, tubby tubby face, tubby tubby stomach when I am with you Icky icky breath, each and every kiss you're a snot, and I adore you."
But honesty doesn't pay the bills. 1998's "Slide" turned out to be her last with indie label 4AD. In spite of reviews lauding the work and a burgeoning sense of hope woven through the record, it ended up selling a disappointing 6,000 copies. "They're still my friends, but I understood," Germano says about 4AD's decision to drop her. "They've got to pay the bills." - - - - - - - - - -
Still, the muse doesn't stop coming just because payday's been canceled. Germano's been tinkering with "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig" for the past three years -- in spite of having no record label and no money.
"I don't even want to make a lot of money. Just enough," she says. "I don't know how people make it. I've stripped away my life so I just live in a room." (Her income comes mostly from her day job at Book Soup on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, where she's worked on and off for five years.)
So in true DIY fashion, Germano recorded "Lullaby's" 12 songs at home -- a practice she's become accustomed to over the years -- and ultimately put them on the audio-editing software ProTools so that she could send tracks to various musicians to get their input from a distance, since a lack of finances prohibited working together in person.
With contributions by former Crowded House frontman Neil Finn, ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, and Wendy Melvoin (Wendy and Lisa/Prince), "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig" is an excellent -- albeit deeply disturbing -- addition to the Germano catalog. It's slotted to be released in April on ArtistDirect's new Ineffable label.
At first listen, one would think that the album is unambiguously about the seductions of booze (specifically, red wine). And while it's true that many of the songs on "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig" have to do with alcohol, Germano says that in talking about the album, she's come to the conclusion that it's not really about drinking at all.
"I've had to figure out what it is about," she muses. "You strip away and strip away and strip away until you get to the real meaning. And even though some of the songs are about alcohol, it's mostly about loneliness, about being thirsty, being thirsty for more than you can get -- than you should get -- it's about being needy, about being a pig."
Germano believes that drinking every night masks a deeper void. "There's something about alcohol that's either 'I'm a big drunk alcoholic' or 'Let's go out and have some fun,'" she says. "But it's really about the behavior. A lot of us have this need, this behavior. We have our vices. Some people have sex with a million people, some do heroin, some drink, but it all comes from the same lonely place."
She laughs and tries to lighten the mood. "To mock your own behavior makes it less sad. Even the title [of the album] is mocking myself, that 'Everything is about me' thing, being so self-consumed. There's just too much me sometimes."
Of course, "too much me" is the very essence of Lisa Germano's work, and "Lullaby for a Liquid Pig" is no exception. The hazy, almost underwater vocals of the opening track, "Nobody's Playing," are accompanied by a hesitant melody picked out on piano keys. When she murmurs, "Circles and circles/ Places to drown/ All that you feel/ Is you're going down," there's a doomed inevitability, a noose that only grows tighter as the album progresses.
The discordant opening of "Liquid Pig" is a rumination on morning-after regret, Germano's accusatory whisper "Who did you call/ What did you say" a precursor to the certainty that whatever you said, whatever you did, you'll doubtless do it again -- and feel like shit the next day. The delicate prettiness of "Pearls" is laced with self-loathing ("Hurry world/ Whirl and whirl/ Stop when you fall down") and the siren call of home.
"That song is about alcohol," Germano says. "When you look inside, you see some really bad shit. But then, as you're getting drunk, you feel like you're home. But that's not right, getting drunk to do that. It strips it away and then puts it back in. When you hate yourself, all sorts of stuff grows, but in the end there's nothing to learn from alcohol."
There's a raw quality to Germano's voice on many of the songs here that she freely admits is owed to her vices: "I like some smoke and some wine when I sing," she says. "It makes me like the sound of my voice. It doesn't make it gravelly, doesn't make me turn into Marianne Faithfull. It just deepens it." She almost sounds giddy on the song "Party Time" when she drawls, "And I smell like wine, most of the time, a big red wine."
The album's title track flirts with the idea of going cold turkey before quickly backpedaling: "Well, if I do stop/ Or if I don't stop/ It doesn't matter/ I probably won't stop." A fluid segue into the next song, the almost dizzy introspection of "Into the Night," finds Germano making a laundry list of denial: "What not to see/ What not to hear/ What not to be/ When you begin seeing your sins."
A slender hint of hope snakes through the album's last track "To Dream," tempered with a heartbreaking fragility. Of course, after all that's come before, the listener clings to lines like "Don't give up your dream/ It's really all you have/ And I don't want to see you die," hoping that wishing might just be enough -- just this once -- to make it so. - - - - - - - - - -
Germano's labor of love is coming out on veteran record producer Tony Berg's newest venture, Ineffable Records (billed as a "creative collective" of artists). The release will almost certainly not change Germano's immediate financial situation; she had to plunk down nearly every penny she got as an advance to pay the vet bills for her ailing cat, 12-year-old Miamo-Tutti. "The cat got really sick really quickly," Germano says. "I had to feed him by hand and give him medicine a couple of times a day." The sick kitty meant that she had to postpone a planned tour with former Crowded House frontman Neil Finn, a decision she says Finn supported wholeheartedly.
"John Cougar probably would have had me arrested," she laughs, imagining telling the hard-rocking Mellencamp that she couldn't go on the road because she had to nurse an ailing kitty. Since nearly every article ever printed about Germano mentions her one-time affiliation with his band as a fiddle player, she kicks herself for bringing it up. "I've tried so hard not to have the press mention it!" she laughs.
Besides her dark past as a backup musician for heartland rocker Mellencamp, Germano has another incongruous skeleton in her closet. In high school, she was a cheerleader. "I didn't expect to make it and was shocked when I did," she recalls. "Even then I was not a positive person. I got yelled at every day for not smiling, so I quit." She laughs when she tells the story, but she sounds as if she's still unsure as to what went wrong. "I thought I was smiling," she says ruefully.
Sadly, Miamo-Tutti (who Germano describes as a "very Italian cat), ultimately didn't make it. ("I'm sure [he's] having a big party with all the other cats up there," she says in an update on her Web site.) Perhaps he'll make an appearance in a future Germano song; a likely scenario, given her penchant for turning episodes from her own life into art.
When asked what it's like to perform such personal material live, Germano is matter-of-fact. "These songs really work best when I have a sense of humor," she explains. "It lets the audience think, 'This is hard, but at least she's all right.'" While she doesn't get stage fright, she does say that wine can help her to focus better. "It's important that I really start breathing before I go on. My voice is all breath. Without the breathing, there's nothing there."
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- John Kealy
- Albums and Singles
Side one, "Seeress," is a gentle and spacey number, Jarboe providing not only her beautiful voice but also organ and piano. Musically it is not a million miles away from her former comrade in arms Michael Gira's current output but that is unsurprising as both artists occupied the same musical plane for so long. The flip side is a completely different animal. The Sweet Meat Love and Holy Cult is a new improvisation-based group featuring Jarboe and an array of collaborators. On this untitled piece Jarboe chants and howls, almost doing away completely with lyrics. Her vocals combined with the lurching tribal rhythm make the music feel like it is tumbling out of the speakers. It is an incredibly powerful piece of music, full of the spirituality that Jarboe has embraced. Her conviction and energy is captured perfectly on this gem of a track. Anyone who may have lost interest in the years since Swans dissolved would do well to check this out, I am certainly highly impressed with this 7" which has reignited my interest in Jarboe.
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There may not be a more satisfying album than this released all year. Wound tight around the spine of a clear idea is a simple and elegant network of art, music, and performance cemented in wonder. Torch Songs is firm and tangible: a mass of skin, muscle, and bone that strikes and, in striking, cuts a path from earth to the stars.
Die Stadt
Jonathan Coleclough, Andrew Liles, and artists Geoff Sawers and Iwanaga Keiko have done more than offer up an album for consumption. It is impossible to pick up this release from Die Stadt and ignore the work binding the songs together: a full-color, painted poem (its contents spanning three languages) dresses this beautiful gatefold sleeve.
"One night I find / myself wandering / through a dark and tangled wood / The air is damp / the trees are dripping / hung with mosses and / ferns..." Abstract music exhibits a tendency to reach for the stars too quickly, to remove itself from the confines of the body and the mud and lilt ever upwards towards the vast, black, and less exacting firmament. For those of us still riddled by gravity and the laws of the sciences, such music is a kind of escapism: whether haunting or illuminating, such music is the space where tired heads can go to rejuvenate. Over time this sort of idealism has rendered a laziness. Many artists and aspiring musicians forget why the space exists and its beauty is slowly effaced in the name of interesting sounds and a vulgar modernism that abhors any romance and every principled conviction. Coleclough and Liles, however, know better: Torch Songs is given a context and framed within a night of strange wandering. As the poem continues, stars become visible through the thick network of branches over our nameless narrator's head, but they are as of yet unrecognizable. Coleclough and Liles begin with their feet on the ground and their music opens from within the earth as it were: it is a weird conglomeration of foggy hums and metallic clattering stretching out as a flower bed. From it a further development will emerge: the stars and that space of comfort are visible, but we cannot begin there or make our journey there easily, and our artists know it.
I won't spoil the rest of the package but this release functions as a whole and it is useless talking about the music without mentioning what it is housed in. The gatefold packaging isn't merely artwork, it's art conceptualized within the performance that is this project's genesis. Torch Songs began in 2004 when Liles remixed Coleclough's live performance at the Intergration 3 festival in the UK. Subsequent recordings were sent to Liles and yielded eight distinct, but unified songs made from spectral moans, glass bowls, metallic knick-knacks, wooden toys, marbles, bows, perverted bagpipes, and perhaps many other instruments of various shapes and sizes. In 2005 Geoff Sawers painted what would become the cover to Torch Songs during one of Coleclough's performances. Sawers painting not only binds this project together, it is featured as part of the music on the record: his brush strokes can be heard on side B. Torch Songs is carefully considered, a well-developed collaboration that pulls out all of the stops and convenes on a meaning or on a concrete thought and moves from there. Further art artifacts are included as images on either side of the LP sleeves and they all seem to refer to one another, each one fleshing out the strange narrative that begins in the poem.
The music itself is not entirely characteristic of either performer, though what I love most about both Coleclough and Liles is evident throughout. On a basic level the music runs a gamut of moods, acknowledging fear, uncertainty, meditative calm, and a lingering playfulness throughout each of the eight tracks. Despite keeping the entire project sensible and understandable from beginning to end, Liles' work on Coleclough's source material is diverse. Each side suggests the next naturally, but each side also surprises and gives birth to new elements. These elements aren't arbitrary, either: as aforementioned there's a tendency in abstract music to move too far outside the realms of the human and to create in a way that ignores the importance of structure, melody, and narrative. Liles' reconstruction may be abstract, but it has identifiable parts and works as a guide, using sound to travel from one place to the next in a natural progression. This puts each of the eight songs right at my finger tips and gives my brain some room to interact with them. I had the good luck to engage this album with good company on a dark night with the windows closed and candles lit. The music shaped the room and made the candles glow brighter, the darkness outside closed into a denser mask, and the individual I was with began to fill the room with me, as though we were the only two people left in the world. It was a singular moment when the music merged with the space and the time I occupied: that memory has been fixed in my mind ever since and will stay there indefinitely.
Torch Songs will not likely be surpassed by any other release this year: I say this without hesitation. It is unapologetically a sumptuous work of art that goes well beyond being just another record or project between two outstanding musicians. That alone would've been enough: had this come housed in nothing more than a simple sleeve with minimal artwork, I would still be impressed by it and it would still be played quite often. But Torch Songs should be taken as an example of what a little extra time and thought can do for a record; all of the "extras" (the artwork, the weight of the vinyl, the presentation of the music, everything in short) renders this release far more substantial and enjoyable. I've heard individuals complain that abstract music is all form and little content, the sputtering catharsis of an air conditioner gone awry: Liles and Coleclough prove it doesn't have to be so. This album has set the bar unbelievably high for me and it's unlikely that I will look at any abstract music the same way now that I've heard it.
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Someone better give Mrs John Carpenter a phone call and tell her someone dug up her husband and taped his rotted ass to stack of synthesizers. Of course, John Carpenter isn't actually dead yet, but this duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes) and Steve Kenney (Werewolves) fill this vinyl with the kind of sounds that his wired-up and bloated corpse would expel from its disc drive.
With "Frozen Fog 1" and "2" hemorrhaging into each other, this LP feels like each side is taken up by a single sprawl of dread-fuelled electric keyboard thought, instead of being split into three parts. A peeling howl of a pulse, the opener's tremors approach distressing levels and twist into a willingly sour sound. The duo's warped sense of rhythm sees the pitch rise and fall like some distorted melody, black sparks coming off the seams. The synth bank squelches along charred and smoky welds, dub aesthetics leading the music into the shuddering breaks of a Lee Perry K-hole. The whole of Frozen Fog seems lit by the last moments of a Star's life.
The cracked and stretched Tron lights of "Frozen Fog 3" give the flipside a colder atmosphere. The piece's patterns swirl and cycle like a nighmare on loop, the visuals recurring seconds after waking. Demons create a smoky audio world entangling the equipment in streetlight and fog. This release does to synth music what Carpenter's The Thing alien did to the bodies it inhabited: it messes with the source, spitting out something twisted and full of dread.
samples:
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