Here is sound art created from recordings made in Marfa, Texas, on and around the Donald Judd installations in 2002. It is solidly in the camp of those who consider elements of weather and the environment to be musical, and silence to be something much rarer than gold.
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Here is sound art created from recordings made in Marfa, Texas, on and around the Donald Judd installations in 2002. It is solidly in the camp of those who consider elements of weather and the environment to be musical, and silence to be something much rarer than gold.
This Sub Rosa release explores electronic hum and crackle and low level environmental buzz. Vitiello has to put in the hours to capture the raw material and then make decisions about which to process in the studio, and to what extent. His preferred method of tweaking is using older analog equipment which may account for the fact that this seems warmer and more organic than much installation music. Getting the most out of Listening to Donald Judd arguably relies on a familiarity with the art works in question. Without that, it probably comes across as an outtake from the Paris, Texas soundtrack.
Judd was an engineer in the military, studied philosophy and wrote art criticism. He declared that painting was "finished" and argued that objects should not represent anything, but merely exist. He refused the term minimalist when applied to his own work and had maximum talent for acquiring financial backing from the Dia Art Foundation to purchase much of Marfa. To put it simply, Judd's work revealed designers and engineers to be artists by exposing the architectural and industrial essence of buildings. He utilized the entire natural area as a huge gallery. It's not exactly Land Art in the strictest sense but somewhat similar in breadth. Judd impressively shed the shackles of gallery and frame. Though as a merging of art and nature, to be honest I prefer the naturalistic, transitory, beauty, created and filmed by Andy Goldsworthy. (Maybe someone will record one of Goldsworthy's ice sculptures or his amazing leaf or water based works.)
So, Marfa is now a somewhat unusual remote small town with ultra-modern galleries, a fancy restaurant, and the Chinati Foundation which showcases Judd and a few other artists, engineers, or whatever they choose to call themselves. Despite that, it obviously remains very quiet, and yet anyone, who finds everyday life to be ripe with portent, meaning, and the romance of ordinary mortality, will find these recordings attractive or maybe even moving. The droning quality of some sections is fitting since Judd's favorite instrument was bagpipes.
Vitiello has captured the sonic capacity of Judd's sculpture, an action that, amongst other things, again poses the question of where objects end, and examines their relationship to nature. The results are cleverly edited to make clear that this work is concerned, as Vitiello has made clear elsewhere, with space rather than time. I am reminded of a piece by Dallas artist Denise Brown; a memorial rendition of her father's hand sculpted from a block of wood and placed in her garden. Over time, the hand will absorb the environment as surely as it has changed the view of that corner of her garden. Vitiello inhabits an artistic terrain which would have us hear such an interaction. The hand may disintegrate completely (not all things are as durable as fired clay). I suppose that Judd would not have favored her representation, but surely there is an element of reproduction in even the most austere design. Where the back and forth transformation will end, I'm not sure. I like to think it won't.
Vitiello may be best known for both World Trade Center Recordings: Winds After Hurricane Floyd, derived from the placement, in 1999, of contact microphones on the 91st floor of Tower One, and also his co-production of a couple of From The Kitchen Archives releases. The six pieces here, crackle, drip, squeak, throb, and hum with life and its absence. This flow is punctuated by the relative excitement of a passing train. I recommend listening to them all fairly loud, but that may be sacrilege. The audio snippets I can provide offer scant insight into how the record deserves to be appreciated or despised in it's entirety.
Consider leafing through a copy of Judd's Complete Writings while hearing this document of a snapshot in space, rather than time.
Somebody once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. How many people would dance to Listening to Donald Judd is unclear, but I am reminded to finish refining a choreographed ode to the Norman doorway of Tutbury Church.
samples:
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The title of Wrong Meeting should be taken as a fair warning, and a very apt title, for those expecting business as usual for Keith Tenniswood and Andrew Weatherall. On first listen it certainly feels like someone's replaced this TLS album with the wrong record. Despite these initial doubts this record quickly becomes one of the duo's finest efforts to date, without sounding like any of their previous records. Anyone expecting the bumpy electro of their Emissions era or the low end basement sleazy jams of From the Double Gone Chapel, will be sorely disappointed and needs to start keeping up with Weatherall's total lack of continuity.
There are still small particles of dub and electro in the mix, but this record presents an almost conventional band sound for the duo. Weatherall's sneering vocals are now the main element of the songs where once bass ruled. Oddly enough for me, considering my own love of TLS as an electronic outfit, it's the straight rockabilly of "Evangeline" and the rock 'n roll of "Work at Night" that stand head and shoulders above the rest of the album. The Clash and PiL influences that can be found scattered throughout their interviews finally make their presence felt in the sounds, not just the attitude. The grumbling bassy pub rock of the opener, "Patient Saints" isn’t the best way to open the album, but this is just the perverse side of TLS poking through. They've refused to make this album an easily accepted transition.
After a few handfuls of listens, and after the initial what-the-fuck has worn off, Wrong Meeting is just another in a long line of superb TLS albums; it's just not what was expected. There's no point in resenting Weatherall for keeping on the move musically, it was always part of the appeal.
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The fifth LP from the Swedish producer is a significant expansion on its early vinyl only incarnation, with a massive bonus track added. It's a dark, yet comfortably fascinating journey through the wilds of Sweden.
There isn't a more specific description for this album other than "electronic," as it doesn't fit into any single style or genre. Mixed as a massive, uninterrupted piece, the disc is intended to be an audio document of the town of Ludwijka but its variety and depth go far beyond geographic boundaries. Having never been to Sweden, I can only assume how well this approximates the environments and ambience of the region.
The first third of the album is the most dance-floor friendly, overflowing with organic textures, analog synths, and fragments of speech, matched with thumping electronic beats. Even though they are superficially more conventional, a more in-depth listen reveals a world of textures and patterns that are almost impossible to discern. A little bit of everything can be heard throughout this entire album: piano, standard synths, recordings from Ilar's childhood, and even his cat.
The next three tracks are a bit minimal in comparison: basic digital IDM click rhythms, minor synth and piano chords, glacial tones, and a lot of reverb. The geography in this album is clearly evident, from the earlier tracks' urban industrial sprawl, teeming with rhythms and bits of missed conversations, followed by the midpoint's frigid snowfield ambience, and ending with the native percussion and bird sounds of the final two pieces. The sound of the birds flocking in the country side actually gives an almost tropical feeling to the ending of this journey, even though I highly doubt there are rainforests in Sweden.
The final track, exclusive to this CD reissue, is about 15 minutes long and actually feels like the journey through Ludwijka in reverse: starting with the crows and birds from the final two tracks and going from there into a long form drift of textures and chill out sounds back to the beginning. It's a sort of "mega mix" and its placement on the disc doesn't detract from the overall conceptual feeling of the disc.
Anders Ilar has created an audio journey through the wilds of Sweden, and while it is not well suited for the club or the DJ set, it is great for simply sitting down and absorbing. Dark, but warm and familiar, it's a damn compelling work.
samples:
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A note for note cover of any Atari Teenage Riot song is a silly idea but that is what D-Trash Records have offered up with The Virus has been Spread. Nearly every track here is a straight-up cover lacking in any imagination, vision, or sense of danger. As such, The Virus has been Spread is a limp and impotent attempt at a tribute. It is most likely a way for this label to get its acts some spotlight; it has bitten them in the tail because after listening to this CD I do not want to hear any of these artists again.
What made Atari Teenage Riot special was not the music nor the lyrics but the attitude. The music got fairly mundane quite quickly and the lyrics were always a bit suspect. However, the conviction in the delivery of the songs was always enough to make Atari Teenage Riot live up to their name. Unfortunately, every single artist on this compilation has missed this integral part of the equation. The only times when I felt any element of chaos or danger were when the artist making the cover has sampled from the original version of the song. This again overlooks an important part of what made Atari Teenage Riot more than another techno-cum-metal band: all their samples were home made and not lazily borrowed from someone else's music. It is especially depressing when the Atari Teenage Riot samples are followed by pure garbage like DHC Meinhof's "Revolution Action."
While I am impressed that many of the bands here have managed to replicate some of the frenzied feedback featured on the original tracks with high fidelity, their pedestrian plod through the songs is less than inspiring. Rabbit Junk's "Start the Riot" sounds more suitable for a bingo hall and regrettably it opens the album; hardly an encouraging start. By far the most heinous of bad covers on this compilation is Howard Roark's take on "No Remorse (I Wanna Die)" as it is not only an insult to Atari Teenage Riot but to the one good song that Slayer have done since 1990 (the original being a collaboration between the two). The one decent attempt comes from Hansel with their version of "Ghostchase," instead of trying to out-Digital Hardcore the kings and queens of Digital Hardcore they remove nearly all the metal aspects of the music and replace them with orchestral instrumentation and silences. It is not a particularly great cover but compared to the rest of The Virus has been Spread it is leagues ahead.
If I sound harsh, it is only because Atari Teenage Riot are close to my heart and it pains me to hear so many mediocre versions of their songs used in a crass attempt of self-promotion. I have only managed to sit through all of this a couple of times, I keep getting the urge to put on 60 Second Wipe Out at obscene volumes instead. The Virus has been Spread intrigued me as D-Trash have had a long history with Digital Hardcore Recordings so I hoped it might be a competent attempt at paying tribute to an often overlooked but great band but I was sadly deceived.
samples:
- Rabbit Junk - Start the Riot
- Hansel - Ghostchase
- DHC Meinhof - Revolution Action
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This project takes a unique approach to music: rather than instrumentation, it is based around the sound of writing and drawing. It makes for some original textures but it lacks a coherent feeling and compositional structure that would have made it more compelling.
The audial byproduct of a pencil or pen scraping against paper is often ignored as the necessary and forgetable side effect of a different artistic project entirely. Craig Dongoski (aided by Aaron Turner of Isis with numerous album covers to his credit) chooses to focus on this subtle element and make it the basis of an experimental work.
Samples of writing and drawing are processed and utilized throughout, sometimes very clearly and overt ("Scattered Shavings," "A Choir Speaks") while in other cases are stretched to a different texture entirely ("Mask," "Being Born Broken"). Other samples are utilized such as female voice fragments on "Mask" and Turner himself contributing some highly effected guitar, most notable on "Shrine of Wreckless Illumination." The sounds vary widely from track to track: both of the "Being Born Broken" tracks are based upon lo-fi samples, rhythmic synth sounds and loops of digitally processed noise while "Scattered Shavings" has the recognizable sounds of drawing paired with segments of disembodied voices, rough field recordings, and digitized rain sounds.
Taken as a whole, the disc features some rather exceptional textures and sounds, especially given their source. However, the weakness of the disc is that it feels more like a pastiche of sounds rather than a specific composition. It lacks the sense of structure and development that the bigger names in the avant garde field tend to build upon. Given the unique approach to the work, I think it is something Dongoski can build upon and refine with future work.
samples:
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Fag Tapes
The main male vocalist probably wouldn't need a Mortis mask to get into character for his role here, the unsightly ringmaster of this session, as he seems to only know how to express himself in barely human terms. Uncontrolled screaming wails, repeating wolf howls and grunts, groans and moans all mesh to build blocks of very human, but very disturbing, musical clots. Exploring the sounds ignored by even the ugliest of sound poets, even when it sounds on the verge of monstrous collapse, it retains a structure and brief flits into melody. The higher female voice carries most of the repeating lines, spewing sounds as brutally as the male vocalists. With all the pieces sounding too structured to be a straight live take, the sometimes reverbed singing creates a soft mass of vocal sounds. From whimpering lonely orang-utans to Japanese ceremonial belches, this could provide awesome source material for some some budding bedroom cut-up artist. Expressed a bizarre union in a thin layer of chaos, this brutally deep male and female onslaught is complex to enough to inspire repeated stopovers in spite of its unattractive surface.
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This sliver of no-fidelity grate of beat and fog and the distant growled vocal is proof again of why so much of the current noise crop is nothing but a crowd of arrivistes and poseurs. This brief chunk of multi-tracked nastiness soon runs out, echoing metal percussion and muffled bangs swimming in rivulets of tar with minute glimmers of clear sound. They may not be as well known for their isolationist traits as their noise, but this is a great example.
The other side is a falling evil clone choirboy, a distorted descent into damnation. It feels a lot longer than its counterpart, not because it is or because its crap, but because it sucks tension like marrow from a bone. This is the sort of Wolf Eyes release that'll see the Sub Pop buying public bringing a charge of sedition against them for refusing to do what's expected.
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There are no titles for the tracklisting; you are encouraged to find your own way through the release, searching for your own reference points. "Deleted scenes..." is:
-a very important artifact and document
-an album for personal introspection
-your own personal and individual soundtrack
It was mastered and cut by the legendary Berlin Dubplates and Mastering team and released by our friends on Belgian based WeMe Le Disque. The cut (as you would expect) has been done beautifully and has been set a little lower volume wise than normal to allow for additional surface noise from vinyl playback over time to individualise your own experience. The release also features artwork by U.K. based artist Guy Denning and will be limited to just three hundred copies for the world.
LP tracklisting:
a/ untitled - 21:39
b/ untitled - 23:26
c/ untitled - 23:30
d/ untitled - 23:05
Pre-orders for "deleted scenes / forgotten dreams" can be placed at:
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/shop/other/mewe/weme09_caretaker.html
In addition, special pre-orders are being taken for a signed and numbered copy of this album for just £13, which includes p&p anywhere in the world. Only pre-ordered copies (placed before the release date of April 30th) will be signed and numbered.
To listen to an excerpt from this release, go to:
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/releases/vvmother/weme_caretaker_deletedscenes_12.html
Visit The Caretaker Microsite for additional information and for further free downloads of older memories.
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/caretaker/index_sub.htm
...and before we forget--the new Fast Lady / Scorpio Scorpio 7" single is also now available for pre-ordering at only £5 a piece (including p&p, as usual):
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/releases/vvmtest/vvmt666.html
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"Family Tree" explores the upbringing of an artist who--in his tragically short career--produced three albums which continue to be treasured by fans. Recorded in the late 1960s, the 28 tracks feature lo-fi recordings made on a reel-to-reel tape recorder at his home, Far Leys in Tanworth In Arden, as well as eight songs recorded on cassette during his sojourn in Aix En Provence. The inclusion of two songs, "Poor Mum" and "Try to Remember", written and performed by Molly Drake bears testament to her musical influence on her son, conscious or otherwise.
After Nick Drake's death in 1974, his parents Rodney and Molly Drake began to receive visits from fans compelled to understand more about the source of his music by traveling to the place where he lived and died. For Rodney and Molly, this was no invasion of privacy. On the contrary, aware that this might be the beginning of the recognition that their son had longed for in his lifetime, they invited those fans in and quite often shared the music a young Nick had recorded on an early reel-to-reel recorder. Often fans left with their own cassette tapes of those songs.
Some third and fourth generation versions of these tapes circulated among collectors on rare bootlegs for decades. The overwhelming fan demand for unreleased material or stronger versions of these poor-quality bootlegged songs has thrown up a challenge to the estate to release something worthy of his legacy.
The "Family Tree" release will include a letter written from Gabrielle Drake to her brother in which she reminisces about their growing up, their family life, and explains how she has tried to preserve his legacy as she thinks he would approve. "I hope that, in the circumstances, you could have given "Family Tree" your blessing. Or if not, that you could have at least looked on with that wry smile of yours."
"Family Tree", unlike Nick's albums which contained only his own material, features the young artist mastering the compositions made famous by Bob Dylan, Blind Boy Fuller, and Jackson C Frank. It also showcases his early songwriting skills on tracks like "They're Leaving Me Behind", "Blossom" and "Come Into The Garden". In segues between tracks, the listener hears Nick speaking aloud to himself, even laughing in between takes. The album also includes two versions of songs that ended up on Nick's first album "Five Leaves Left" which were recorded by his arranger Robert Kirby whilst they were both studying at Cambridge University in 1968.
You need only hear Nick and Gabrielle's exquisite blood harmonies on "All My Trials" - or Nick playing clarinet with his aunt and uncle on Mozart's "Kegelstatt Trio" - to realize that this was a house whose inhabitants entertained themselves and each other by playing music. In the album closer "Do You Ever Remember?" Molly Drake sings not just for their sorrow, but also for the laughter that once resounded throughout a happy, loving home. It's a laughter that resounds - sometimes literally - throughout the whole of "Family Tree". In doing so, it brings us closer to who Nick Drake was than perhaps any written account of his life thus far.
In addition to the release of "Family Tree", 2007 will see the release of an upgraded version of the "Fruit Tree Box Set". It will include Nick Drake's three original studio albums and a new book, as well as a DVD of the "A Skin Too Few" documentary. "Fruit Tree" will also be available in limited edition vinyl.
For more information go to:
http://brytermusic.com
http://myspace.com/nickdrake
The complete track listing is as follows:
1. Come In To The Garden (introduction) (Nick Drake)
2. They're Leaving Me Behind (Nick Drake)
3. Time Piece (Nick Drake)
4. Poor Mum (M.Drake) performed by Molly Drake5. Winter Is Gone (Traditional, arr: Nick Drake)
6. All My Trials (Traditional) performed by Nick and Gabrielle Drake
7. Kegelstatt Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, (W.A. Mozart)
8. Strolling Down the Highway (Bert Jansch)
9. Paddling In Rushmere (Traditional)
10. Cocaine Blues (Traditional)
11. Blossom (Nick Drake)
12. Been Smokin' Too Long (Robin Frederick)
13. Black Mountain Blues (Traditional)
14. Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Bob Dylan)
15. If You Leave Me (Dave Van Ronk)
16. Here Come The Blues (Jackson C. Frank)
17. Sketch 1 (Nick Drake)
18. Blues Run The Game (Jackson C. Frank)
19. My Baby So Sweet (Traditional)
20. Milk And Honey (Jackson C. Frank)
21. Kimbie (Traditional)
22. Bird Flew By (Nick Drake)
23. Rain (Nick Drake)
24. Strange Meeting II (Nick Drake)
25. Day Is Done (Nick Drake)
26. Come Into The Garden (Nick Drake)
27. Way to Blue (Nick Drake)
28. Do You Ever Remember? (M. Drake) performed by Molly Drake
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The latest entry in Southern Records' Latitudes series is from Finland's mighty Circle. Even though the combination of the band's name and the title of the album seems like a nod to one of Celtic Frost's classic songs, this release focuses on the band's more spacey sounds than on their classic metal-worshipping moments. Like most of their previous albums, there are some amazing moments on Tyrant but also a few stumbles along the way.
Southern
A recurring problem that plagues most Circle albums is that they get a good idea but never quite pull it off properly. This problem occurs during opening song, "Screaming Luovutus," which was initially the weak point of Tyrant. I was disappointed with the overly frenetic and formless drift of sound that greeted my ears. The interlocking rhythms sound wrong together at first but on the second and third time around the piece began to click with me. I still think it's not quite as strong as the other two pieces on the disc but it is most certainly not the chink in the album's armor that I originally took it to be. On the other hand, despite covering similar ground to the first piece, "Steel Torment Warrior" is immediately accessible. Perhaps its strangeness is softened by having already experienced "Screaming Luovutus" but even so, it works so much better than the preceding track. Part of the appeal is the pulsating synth in the background which is painfully close to Nurse With Wound’s "Intravenous" in spirit. Both of these pieces are good but not fantastic.
The final track, "Amputation Crusade," is where Circle fully engage in their Krautrock revival and this is the role that I always feel is their strong point as a band. The motorik rhythms and spaced out atmospheres are in a completely different league to their heavy metal setting. The languid and hypnotic "Amputation Crusade" is not their best take on the Krautrock theme but it is definitely head and shoulders above a lot of their more recent back catalogue. The slow moving synths and grunts over the almost country-ish guitar melody followed by a supernova of drums and guitar is exceptionally good. This unsettling 15 minutes caps off Tyrant perfectly.
Along with the recent double album Miljard, Tyrant is proof that Circle still have plenty of music left worth listening to. I think their glory days may be behind them but definitely the band is too young for retirement. They could even show a new burst of inspiration rather than re-treading the same worn paths that they have been doing. While I enjoyed their heavy metal edge, I think that edge has become blunted in recent years and in any case, it was always overshadowed by their more psychedelic tendencies. With Tyrant’s looser style I feel the band are shifting in the right direction and I'd like to see where they take it to next.
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