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The artwork of this split CD-R wins the award for creepy package through the post for this week. A card sleeve with scarlet stencilled skulls inside a red flecked bandage runs a close second to receiving dead rodents in a jiffy bag. Out of the three pieces here (two Robedoor tracks and the single piece by Bologna Pony), only one piece, the Robedoor finale, fails to balance on the awkward line between a riveting listen and a generic elongated feedback blow-out.
Evoking dread atmospheres, the main bones of Bologna Pony’s "Witch" appear like faces in the smoke. The slightness of the ringing tones and the tension built through restraint spits the notes metal cycles and clicks of steely strings. The temptation for the duo to have let rip must’ve been near unbearable. Their decision to not rely on the wire wool grind of guitar noise allows the space for swells of vocal moan and scything single notes. The layers sinking into bitter tasting dark and the crush of rattles that echoes out into the fade of a gorgeously bleak trip.
The usually reliable Robedoor score a hit and a miss with their two contributions. On the positive side there’s "Blue Circle," which channels a fly trapped by solder in an electric circuit. Stopping just short of a burning flesh stink, half way through it leans on the steady boil until sawing jaws take the rest of the track apart like pulling spider’s legs. "Blue Surrender," on the other hand, starts like its going to be a bad impression of Sunn 0))): all smoke and the churning toll of bells but it doesn’t move on from there. Swallowing itself in weak gulps, this diet immolation seems to burn out as it circles on its own tail. With Robedoor not having had put a foot wrong previously, it's a surprise when this doesn't meet the high expectations and fails to take off. Two out of three ain't bad.
samples:
- Bologna Pony - Witch
- Robedoor – Blue Circle
- Robedoor – Blue Surrender
 
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The duo's clever moniker, the soft fetishworthy fabric genetically spliced with a cold dangerous tool, could never be lost on the astute listener. Its music, while never particularly pretty, always allows for an uneasy, narcotic calm to share space with the unrelenting rhythms. Industrial in the purest sense of the word, 8 Reports doesn't diverge too much from that loose formula over the course of its eight tracks, fitting in well with such provocative Silk Saw albums as Preparing Wars and 4th Dividers, two of the finest Ant-Zen records to date.
Alt's typically brilliant artwork this time around depicts a crude, sub-Kraftwerkian mechanical man, an automaton bearing the dust and wounds of years of neglect. Such imagery immediately evinces an excellent mindset for appreciating these recordings. "Conductor" builds slowly through percussive clicks, as if mimicking how the abandoned robot might sound when finally turned on, culminating in a repeating lo-fi surge that implies a readiness to serve. Beginning with a dark ambient passage of almost clichéd sounds, "Faggoted" drops a frenetic beat, looped at an assembly line pace, surrounded by a restrained cacophony of shifting tones, bleeps, and drones. Sparks fly like white hot snares ever so suddenly around the five minute mark, teetering towards territory already covered extensively by Pan Sonic, a forgivable lapse considering the two acts are essentially contemporaries.
"Sleep Will Come" plays out like a machinist's lullaby of hypnotic hum and high-pitched ringing electronics, the sounds one might encounter trying to catch a nap in the factory's empty break room. Closer "Defeated" conjures the spectre of 2-step garage before growing in rhythmic complexity and disquieting intensity, climactically sputtering out in a series of hiss strewn delays and filters, powering down the sad contraption perhaps indefinately.
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It was January 1996 on the Carribean coast of Honduras. The musician in question was looking to catch a ride with a local vessel to the neighboring islands. There was one shrimping vessel in port that day, and its captain Jimmy willing to take disheveled hippies on board. He spoke some fragmented english, the boat set sail that evening. This album is dedicated to the idea of Jimmy the high-wire shrimper. Misplaced nautical charts, trade winds, shortwave miscommunication, midnight whispers, amorxxx.
Alien8 Recordings is reissuing Radio Amor, originally released on Mille Plateaux in 2002, in order to maintain the availability of the work of one of our label's most important artists. The recording has been out of print for two years now, out of grasp of Hecker's growing legions of admirers. Hecker is still basking in the universally glowing reception of this year's "Harmony in Ultraviolet" on Kranky (Score 8.7 / Best New Music on Pitchfork), the follow-up to 2004's "Mirages" on Alien8 Recordings.
Radio Amor is a key release in Hecker's discography, bridging his output between our "Haunt Me" (2001) and "My Love is Rotten to the Core" (EP, 2002) releases and 2004's "Mirages". "Radio Amor is a brilliant soundtrack for daydreaming, and Tim Hecker's effective variations on a few central ideas once again show a gifted composer at work." - Pitchforkmedia
Release date: January 23, 2007
Label: Alien8 Recordings
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VP Records presents the King Jammy “Selector’s Choice” collection on four double CD sets. Demonstrating the full range of styles and artists produced during the most prolific period in King Jammy’s career and dancehall in general. The track list is a who’s who of reggae on everything from love songs to hard core party tracks. The mixture of instrumentation and song themes display the popular trends and issues of the day and all contain the vital element of the King Jammy’s sound. Each CD chronicles the top tracks form the essential King Jammy’s riddims released between 1985 and 1989. Each 2 CD set comes with a track by track description written by famed reggae writer Rob Kenner, plus vintage photos of Jammy and members of the Super Power sound crew.
Label: VP Records - http://www.vprecords.com/
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Originally released by Swedish jazz imprint Moserobie in 2003, Live at Oslo Jazz Festival (Virus374) features a special one-time performance of Swedish political punk band The (International) Noise Conspiracy in collaboration with noted jazz musicians Jonas Kullhammar and Sven-Erik Dahlberg.
Live at Oslo features songs from T(I)NC's first two albums on Epitaph, Survival Sickness and A New Morning, Changing Weather, transformed into more dreamy arrangements. While retaining the T(I)NC-ness of the original material, the band with their guest musicians improvise freely for some spaced-out jams. The fact that Dahlberg and Kullhammar, a five-time Swedish Grammy nominee, are accomplished jazz musicians is an icing on the cake of this surprise party. Reminiscent of The Ex's collaboration with avant garde cellist Tom Cora in the early 1990s, Live at Oslo demonstrates T(I)NC's willingness to take risks and collaborate with musicians practicing different genres to expand their sound successfully.
Live at Oslo has never been available commercially in North America and is a highly sought-after missing link in T(I)NC's catalog. Alternative Tentacles is proud to bring this album stateside, revealing a whole new facet to a familiar band with an established sound.Alternative Tentacles founder and (I)NC fan Jello Biafra writes; "My first reaction to (International) Noise Conspiracy was, 'Aha, the missing link between Chumbawamba and the Hellacopters!' It's cool how they set themselves up so they can expand in any number of directions at once. Don't be put off by the jazz reference here.Sure, it's smoother, and yes, jazzier than other I.N.C. releases, but in such a way that most I.N.C. fans will really dig it. It's another essential piece of the puzzle."
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Archive
“Studio Session” features echoing wind instruments and synthesisers that build up some interlocking drones and set me ill at ease for the entire 40 minute piece. It always sounds like it is going to break into a motorik style rhythm and the first couple of times I listened to it I was disappointed that it does not break into something more immediately satisfying. However, once I knew not to expect the expected and instead concentrated on what was actually on the CD, it became highly absorbing for me.
As the piece progresses, it does get more and more active. Splashes of guitar disrupt the flow of the atmospheric drones. The synths begin to sound haunted and the mellow vibes that are so strong in the first half of the piece begin to dissipate. The electric sitar and violin add an uneasy franticness to the piece. On one hand it feels like the musicians making the drones are trying to pull the piece towards something slow and meditative while the others are trying to let all hell break loose. A couple of times it does get a bit chaotic but before long the group settle back into a quiet but tense hypnotic drone. The piece finishes with the group intensifying their playing to create a flood of sound that feels incredible after over half an hour of holding back.
On the live side of things, the band is joined by Acid Mother Temple’s Makoto Kawabata. Musically "Live Session" is cut from a similar cloth to the studio work (and oddly it sounds better recorded too). This time the drones are supplemented with periodic moaning vocals bringing the piece down from the spacey atmosphere of "Studio Session" to something more earthly, like a descent to hell. Also, unlike the studio piece there was no problem getting into "Live Session," instead it instantly engulfed me. Stabs of guitar cut through the sustained drones adding a thick layer of menace to the piece.
Out of the two pieces, "Live Session" definitely comes out on top. I find myself skipping the studio piece the odd time, it is not that it is in any way inferior but I found the live material far more engaging. I do not know if I could be bothered with other releases by Astral Travelling Unity as they seem like they are a bit of a one trick pony but Studio and Live at least is a nice addition to my ever growing weird Japanese music pile.
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Small Voices
Listening to this album I found myself thinking of Coil’s work, especially in the beat department. While 3eem do not reach the perfection of that group, they make a fair stab at an album and put their own identity on the music. The rhythms are infectious, especially on the opener "Reverse." where the guitars and glitchy beats work together to drive the piece on while the saxophone swoops around them. Danilo Corgnati's guitar definitely lifts Essence of 3eem up from being a throwaway beats and brass album, his tasteful playing provides a wonderful melodic backbone for the music featured here.
Corgnati uses a nice bit of wah on his guitar during "In the Beginning it was an Accordion," which is pleasingly not totally masturbatory. The only thing that slightly irked me was the long final piece, "24 Apes." It takes up over a third of the album but could be a lot shorter; some of the parts that make it up do not quite work as well as others and the flow of the piece is disrupted.
Essence of 3eem sits together nicely; the different pieces all seem to fit together like a soundtrack (but not in that clichéd epic sense of soundtrack that gets thrown around all too often). They demonstrate some adventurous use of sounds with some unusual use of the saxophone. At least it sounds like the saxophone, it may be electronics, either way it sounds good. There is not a bad piece on Essence of 3eem. It is very easy to listen to and get lost in. Granted there is nothing groundbreaking either but it is a solid album rich in high quality music.
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Here, the music is so intensely bordering the line between beauty and deconstructed sound exploration. The sheer breadth of textures and styles that they have used is nothing short of astounding. The lightness of touch and obvious connectivity reveals the brains behind the more visible brutish roots of their more well known and slasher-flick titled material. The band’s DIY press releases have always veered that little bit more to the left than their big releases, documenting more closely the zoned-out splendour in the Coors / weed-fuelled stage jams. Anyone who remains still unconvinced that these guys aren't the real deal, this is the one of the easiest to find pieces of evidence for the defense yet.
The tracks run from just over a minute to an over 30 minute long finale, but it would be ridiculous to try to pigeonhole these pieces into single-styled pieces. Scattered between exploring inner worlds and blowing-out corneas through riotous frequency changes, this is the place where digits are bent from their 0 and 1 roots into self-adapting cyborg sinews. Elements like stuck groove bell work, tape machine cloud cover and delicate looped horns seem like perfectly constructed movements, musical conclusions of thirty minutes of sweaty improv work.
Beautifully cut down to size, Collection is about construction through a group mind with tourmate and longterm friend John Wiese fitting into the dynamic seamlessly. Wolf Eyes steady stream of releases are making this all seem so easy.
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Many contemporary techno producers are deeply in the debt of Bon Harris and Douglas McCarthy, who while not godfathers of that scene are at least cherished uncles. Novamute's decision a few years back to press to wax official remixes of Nitzer Ebb anthems from artists like Terence Fixmer, Thomas P. Heckmann, and The Hacker couldn't have received a better reception. Since then, you'd be hard pressed to go to just about any hard techno event in the known world without hearing at least one of these bangers. Although a companion release featuring those reworks and others was also made available on CD recently, Body of Work, a compendium of 32 tracks including an entire disc of selected mixes, will hopefully acquaint at least some of those revellers with the originators' originals.
Starting from the promising metal-on-metal spark of Warsaw Ghetto b-side "Isn't It Funny How Your Body Works," ending on Big Hit lackluster "I Thought", and hitting all the necessary points in between, the first half of this double disc committedly runs through Nitzer Ebb's recording career, warts and all. Of course the hits are covered, with "Join In The Chant" and "Control, I'm Here" sounding just as incredible now as they did when I first heard them as an angsty teenager in New York City clubs. Though their best known cuts came off This Total Age and Belief ("Murderous" and "Hearts And Minds" being my personal favorites from those), there were several quite memorable singles from the subsequent, less acclaimed Showtime and Ebbhead records. "Getting Closer" and "Fun To Be Had" might not have been furious fist pumping anthems like "Let Your Body Learn," though they showcased the duo pushing their sound further, and successfully at that. The same cannot be said for the selections from 1995's Big Hit, which over a decade later still disappoint and frustrate even their most devoted fans. I'm almost certain that nothing from that critical and commercial flop even made it into the setlists of their North American reunion tour this year.
What makes this compilation particularly worthwhile even for those who own all these albums is the inclusion of selected material found on the singles, including rare songs and remixes that retrospectively deserve more exposure. Many of these treats are found on the second disc, my favorites being the alternate mixes, a number of which are only available on long out-of-print singles. Ranging in style from the grit and grime of "Shame (Mix Two)" and "Control I'm Here (Strategic Dancefloor Initiative Mix) to the funkier "Fun To Be Had (Long Version)" and "Hearts And Minds (Mix Hypersonic)," today's technoheads can get a crack at dropping these into their current sets without digging endlessly through musty used record store crates.
For years now, rumors have gone around regarding a retrospective release for Nitzer Ebb. That being said, I find it extremely frustrating that Mute failed to offer any visual component, as a DVD encompassing the videos and some live performances from the band was anticipated for some time. Regardless of fault, the omission of this material is disappointing, and I can only hope that at least a video collection can be salvaged from this historically rocky artist-label relationship. Of course, considerably more desirable would be a new Nitzer Ebb album, and I don't give a fuck who puts the damn thing out.
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The album opens with the quasi-mystical drones of "Been So Long," and it’s not long before some Indian-influenced drumming enters the picture alongside Cabic's vocals. Cabic's guitar remains in the background for much of the song, and it’s a refreshing way to begin this album considering how guitar-oriented the group’s first effort was. "You May Be Blue" is also a change of pace, relying more on a bottom-heavy rhythm rather than a melody to convey its urgency. "No One Word" hearkens back to Vetiver's earlier work, but the addition of a graceful slide guitar is a pleasant update.
The album hits a dull spot in the middle with songs that aren't a whole lot different from other things the group has done. I like the drums on "Idle Ties," but the song as a whole is little boring, as is the lengthy "I Know No Pardon," which follows. "Double" marks another change for the better with subtle drones that eventually open up into a sweeping string section. An even greater divergence is "Red Lantern Girls," which ends in a searing electric guitar outro that's more exuberant and energetic than anything I've heard recorded by this group so far.
Cabic can get a little too sentimental when the mood strikes him, and a succession of such material becomes a little numbing. Also, his singing style strays too far into Banhart territory sometimes, which isn't terribly surprising. Yet despite these flaws, this album is a remarkable improvement over the debut. Cabic's songwriting has undergone tremendous growth in the intervening years, and this recording is the proof.
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20 Buck Spin
Starting with what sounds like a gargantuan Lovecraftian nightmare slowly plodding in the distance along a black chasm, this hour long piece immediately sets me on edge. The ambience that Kneale builds up recreates that paranoia that is only present at 2am when there is no one to turn to. When that Lovecraftian nightmare finally arrives there is an abundance of high pitched howling which sounds absolutely terrifying. A buzzing, didgeridoo-sounding chant further brings the mood down. As the packaging suggests, at high volumes this racket is transcendental (but not in the blissful way as I think Kneale may have intended).
After 17 minutes of this amazing dirge, the guitars and drums rip into the mix. At first it felt like a bit of a letdown after such an incredible introduction. However once I got over the shellshock and got into Kneale’s treacle-like riffing I was captured again. The tone on the guitar is filthy. It sounds like the guitar was dragged through the gutter and the amp was cursed before it was recorded in a tomb. The drumming is basic, just a primal beat harking back to the plodding nightmare sounds of the section of the piece.
What strikes me as being one of the most powerful parts about Bliss and Void Inseparable is the lack of "proper" vocals. Some of the new wave of doom bands try and vomit their lungs up in an attempt to be grim. Kneale dispenses with lyrics and his vocals are used sparingly to form something more like an ill wind blowing through a crevice on a bleak mountainside. The grinding riffs mutate into a more tolerable but equally crushing feedback and piano refrain. Like pretty much everything else used to make this album, it is chilling to listen to.
By the end of the disc I am exhausted and feel like I need a shower to get the grime off me. Actually, even halfway through I feel like stopping because it is so heavy but perseverance pays off because I feel like I have done a marathon by the time it is over. Maybe this listening equivalent of the runner’s high is the bliss that Kneale refers to in the title. I feel like I have earned the privilege of putting the CD back in its sleeve, I would not be able to listen to this all day every day but Bliss and Void Inseparable is the sort of heaviness that I need from time to time to clear the cobwebs (and annoy the neighbours).
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