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It is fair to say that every Midwife release is a deeply personal one, as Madeline Johnston has never been one to mask her true feelings with ambiguously poetic language or aesthetic distance. This second full-length is an especially heavy one though, as it was composed as a sort of letter to Johnston's late friend Colin Ward (the two were roommates at Denver's beloved former DIY art space Rhinoceropolis). Fortunately, cathartically transforming dark emotions into powerful art has always been where Johnston shines the brightest and that remains as true as ever with Forever. In fact, she has arguably only gotten better, as Forever's lead single "Anyone Can Play Guitar" actually gave me chills the first time I heard it. Thankfully, the other five songs do not pack quite as much of an emotional gut punch, making this album considerably more well-suited for repeat listening than, say, Mount Eerie’s similarly inspired (and emotionally devastating) A Crow Looked at Me. There is certainly plenty of pain and anger to be found on Forever, but that darkness is beautifully mingled with warmth, hopefulness, and a characteristically unerring instinct for great songcraft.
Given how this year is shaping up thus far, the sentiment of the opening "2018" unintentionally feels even more apt for the present, as the lyrical content boils down to just "This is really happening to me" and "Get the fuck away from me, 2018."For Johnston and many other Denver artists, however, that year will always be remembered as the year of Ward's untimely passing, which was arguably the culminating event for quite a demoralizing couple of years (Denver shut down Rhinoceropolis in 2016 in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire).Despite the justifiably hostile lyrics, however, "2018" is an eerily lovely piece, as the repeating lyrics are warmly hiss-soaked and feel almost like a mantra.And, of course, the underlying music is quite beautiful as well, unfolding as an understated, slow-motion dreamscape of chiming arpeggios and reverberating slashes of distorted chords.By comparison, the more driving and hook-filled "Anyone Can Play Guitar" feels like a bittersweet breakthrough to a much later stage of grief, as Johnston notes that anyone can tell a lie, fall in love, or say goodbye, then breaks into a simultaneously haunting and defiant chorus of "You can't run for your whole life."That said, the chorus later transforms into the much darker sentiment of "I'm not coming back this time."As dark as it is, however, "Anyone Can Play Guitar" is an absolutely mesmerizing pop song that is equal parts seething, mysterious, and gorgeous.Johnston is a master at making a few simple lines feel increasingly fraught with deeper meaning as they repeat again and again in shifting order.Similarly, she has a real instinct for vocal effects and harmonies, masterfully using distortion and hiss to actually increase the sense of intimacy and rawness.Throughout the entire album, Johnston's confessional-sounding vocals consistently find the perfect blurry middle ground between sharp-edged and sensuously breathy.
The following instrumental ("Vow") briefly dials down the simmering intensity of the album, as it is essentially just a quietly lovely progression of chords allowed to linger until they decay into near-silence.Notably, however, that interlude acts as a bridge between the album's two distinct halves, as the remaining songs are considerably brighter in tone.The first of that trio ("Language") is a warmly tender elegy that almost feels like a love song.It also features the first real splash of color on the album, as Johnston enhances her characteristic slow-motion arpeggios with a squirming, shivering, and shimmering motif that sounds like a swirl of backwards guitars.After that, the album gives way to a second divergent interlude: this time, a poignant spoken word recording by Ward himself entitled "C.R.F.W."I am a little surprised that Johnston did not make that the final piece on the album, as both the voice of Ward himself and the moving final line would have made a perfect and poetic ending for the album (and it dissolves into a quite a heavenly wake of quavering drones as well).The ending that Johnston chose instead is quite strong too though, as she stomps her distortion pedal and launches into a fuzzed-out gem of shoegaze-y pop bliss ("S.W.I.M.").In fact, that may even be a more perfect ending, as its comparatively muscular, bright, and hopeful tone suggests that Johnston emerged from that dark stretch unbroken and even stronger than before.Moreover, it is the piece where Midwife most sounds like a full band, showing that the collaborative community spirit of Rhinoceropolis lives on through Johnston and her quartet of guest musicians (Tucker Theodore, Randall Taylor, Jensen Keller & Caden Marches).
If Forever was an album by almost any other artist, I would probably be disappointed that there are only four fully formed songs, but one aspect of Johnston's artistry that I genuinely love is her singular talent for distillation.It is not an exaggeration to say that the entirety of Forever's lyrics could easily fit on a (very small) napkin, but that beautifully illustrates the minimalist genius of Johnston's approach to both language and songcraft.While every song on Forever seems like it was created solely to convey one single important thought or feeling, the full meaning of Johnston's words is left teasingly elusive through fragmented repetition…until a crucial phrase is finally allowed to complete at the song's end.And the song DOES end at that point, as there is no point in lingering around once the message has been delivered.Every single word is chosen for maximum impact and anything that could shift focus away from that impact has been mercilessly carved away.And on a larger scale, the cumulative arc of these six pieces was clearly designed to pack an undiluted emotion punch (and it succeeds).In fact, I am tempted to compare Forever to a perfectly cut diamond, but that is exactly the wrong metaphor, as the beauty of Midwife is that Johnston's songs feel wonderfully raw, direct, and deeply human rather than polished or overwrought: these are great songs and this is great art.Admittedly, it is hard to say if this album quite tops the absolutely stellar Prayer Hands EP (we may have a tie), but it is very easy to say with complete confidence that Midwife has had an unbroken hot streak since the moment the project debuted.While I know it is only April right now, Forever is unquestionably one of the most focused and powerful albums that anyone will release this year.
Samples can be found here.
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On June 5th, Subtext presents Kistvaen – the fourth solo studio LP by Roly Porter – which takes its name from a type of granite tomb found predominantly in Dartmoor, southwestern England. Scattered across the moorlands, the kistvaens were often found covered in a mound of earth and stone. They housed dead bodies, allowing them to lie facing the sun.
With Kistvaen, Porter speculates on the burial site as a mirror, or a gate in time. Excavating stories and images of ancient burial rituals, the record teases out similarities in emotional and social rituals between the Neolithic period and today. While a myriad of social, cultural and technological factors drastically differentiate our contemporary period and the end of the Stone Age, certain affinities may still be found in experiences of death across eras.
Venturing across histories, Porter soundtracks a moorland burial unanchored in time. Raw, unprocessed vocals are folded into field recordings made in the area, wordlessly relaying tableaus of burial rituals in Neolithic Dartmoor. Kistvaen features three singular vocalists: Mary-Anne Roberts – from medieval Welsh music duo Bragod, Ellen Southern – of Bristol's Dead Space Chamber Music group, and Phil Owen – a singer and researcher in vocal traditions.
Kistvaen contrasts primordial motifs with that of the 21st-century life in designed environments and an evolving virtual existence. The music blurs boundaries between field recording, folk instrumentation and digital processing, which although beatless creates a profound effect using dark ambiance, deep electronics, and immersive sound design. This is otherworldly sonic necromancy, where long dormant spirits are evoked, summoning an extremely heavy presence.
The pieces that comprise Kistvaen were developed for an AV performance of the same name with visual artist MFO, which has appeared at Unsound, Berlin Atonal, and Sonic Acts. The long-player was recorded during various rehearsals/performances and also at BinkBonk studios in Bristol.
More information can be found here.
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For many centuries Indonesia, from the Malay Peninsula throughout the vast archipelago, has been subjected to successive foreign cultural invasions which have left their deep imprint on the indigenous way of life. Among the first was the Mongolian intrusion from central Asia. A later cultural wave came from India when Hindu merchants and immigrants introduced Hinduism and Buddhism into the islands. Subsequently, about the 13th century A.D. Islamic influences penetrated the archipelago. Finally in the 16th century, Western culture and Christianity came into the picture. Although, after four centuries, Western civilization has by no means superseded the Islamic hold on Indonesia (90% of the population are Muslims), it has already reshaped the outward appearance of Indonesia life to a considerably extent. The cultural diversity is naturally reflected in the music.
In the current globalized and digital communications-dominated era, influences from the Western world become more and more evident, in everyday life , as well in popular art and music from Indonesia. But listening to the tracks included in this compilation presented by Unexplained Sounds Group, you’ll discover how traditional Indonesian music, even in its more 'primitive' forms, as well in the very elaborate and developed ones from Javanese and Balinese tradition, are still very much recognizable. The current mix of influences in the experimental and avant-garde music from this region has resulted in an extremely fascinating kaleidoscope of sounds.
More information can be found here.
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A humble compendium of guitar music from across nine separate compilations & regional issues, including pieces from the Tu M'p3 web-series, the E • A • D • G • B • E disc on 12k (along with an earlier, shorter version of the same), the 2nd Early Monolith business-card disc on Twisted Knister (available briefly in a cigarette vending machine in Bremen ca. 2005), the Brainwaves compilation on Brainwashed, the I Don't Think The Dirt Belongs To The Grass boxed set on Carbon, the Idioscapes on Idiosyncratics (plus a completely different alternate take), an unrealized Bodies of Water Arts & Crafts fundraiser-set, the Fabrique disc on Room40 (plus an alternate, separate piece recorded at the same time, never issued), and finally the Beaterblocker #2 compilation.
More information can be found here.
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I was legitimately blindsided by Clarice Jensen's wonderful 2018 debut (For This From That Will Be Filled), but it left me with absolutely no idea what to expect from her in the future, as it was an unusual collection consisting of a collaboration, an ambitious solo composition, and a piece composed by Michael Harrison. As such, it was hard to tell if Jensen was a brilliant cellist with great taste, an extremely promising composer, or both. With the spellbinding The Experience of Repetition as Death, Jensen definitively confirms that she is indeed both, as she ingeniously employs loops and effects to craft a beguiling, varied, and richly textured five-song suite inspired by personal tragedy, Freud, and Adrienne Rich. Though death is a definite and deliberate theme, Jensen transforms it into something sublime, transcendent, and achingly beautiful. Moreover, the album's mesmerizing centerpiece ("Holy Mother") completely decimates any preexisting conceptions I had regarding what one person can achieve with a cello.
The title of this album is lovingly borrowed from Adrienne Rich's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," as Jensen has a deep admiration for Rich and her work and that particular poem holds deep personal meaning for her.However, it was actually Freud's writings about the death drive that indirectly led to the unusual conceptual framework of this album, as Jensen was fascinated by his thoughts about the "compulsion to repeat self-destructive behaviors or re-live traumatic events."Unsurprisingly, that got Jensen thinking a lot about how to break out of the repetitive nature of our existence.Needless to say, it is not hard to see how such thoughts might have immediate practical applications for an artist whose work is largely loop-based by necessity.In essence, Jensen set out to disrupt and transcend familiar patterns in order to subvert a creative death drive (or, at least, a creative stagnation drive).The most immediately graspable and overt evidence of Jensen's clever escape from the prison of repetition lies in the album's gorgeous bookends: "Daily" and "Final."In the opening "Daily," a warmly melodic cello theme languorously unfolds over a bed of drones, gradually blossoming into a more complex crescendo of overlapping loops.It all feels quite seamless and sensuous, yet the theme is actually "fragmented into three different tape loops and never expressed fully in order."On the closing "Final," those same loops are revisited in degraded and disrupted form until they are finally allowed to converge into a rapturous finale in which four separate loops unite in achingly lovely harmony.
While both of those pieces are absolutely gorgeous, the three pieces that lie between them offer a more varied array of pleasures.Notably, the first of the trio ("Day Tonight") is yet another variation on the same loops used in "Daily" and "Final," albeit an unrecognizably extreme one.According to Jensen, the theme is presented in an "unfamiliar key," but it also seems like it has been time-stretched until it is essentially a drone piece (it is twice as long as the other two pieces made from the same material).Eventually, however, it builds to a half-fluttering/half-stammering crescendo of sorts that calls to mind classic minimalism à la Steve Reich.The following "Metastable" is yet another drone-based piece, but it coheres into a bass-heavy and queasily see-sawing pulse of organ-like chords that were inspired by the omnipresent rhythmic beeping of hospital wards.It is interesting both rhythmically and texturally, but it does not have enough of a melodic or harmonic component to leave a deep impression.That is not true of "Holy Mother," however, which resembles nothing less than a roiling, endlessly shifting, and downright apocalyptic organ mass.While intermittent surges of rumbling low-end admittedly imbue the piece with a seismic intensity, Jensen nevertheless pulls off a nimble balancing act between light and darkness, as the organ-like tones dance and flicker like sunlight through a stained glass window.Aside from being a visceral tour de force, "Holy Mother" is quite striking in how dramatically Jensen is able to alter the sound of her cello, as she employs an array of effects to alternately transform her bowed strings into a glimmering nimbus of overtones and a mass chorus of deep voices.She also pulls off a neat trick at the end where the attack disappears to leave only the spectral reverberations (which then disappear as well to leave behind a wake of shivering feedback or overtones).
I suppose the only thing preventing me from declaring that The Experience of Repetition in Death is a start-to-finish masterpiece is the fact that the more experimental pieces ("Day to Night" and "Metastable") feel like a bit of an extended lull compared to the more melodic and emotionally resonant pieces that come before and after.It seems crazy to lament the fact that the album is not an uninterrupted parade of career-defining triumphs though, as three brilliant pieces out of five is more than enough to make me fall completely in love with this album: the high points are extremely high indeed.Unsurprisingly, it was the intensity and bold vision of the epic "Holy Mother" that first grabbed (and held) my attention, but after listening to the album on headphones a few times, I became convinced that "Daily" and "Final" are Jensen's most towering achievements to date.Both pieces are an absolute master class in both composition and performance, as each is warm, poignant, and beautifully melodic on their face and both make masterful use of looping.With closer listening, however, they reveal themselves to be significantly more than they first appear, as the elegant interplay of the loops and the shimmering accumulation of quivering overtones in their wake reach a level of sublime brilliance that I rarely, if ever, encounter (despite some very diligent searching on my part).With those two pieces, Jensen masks the complex within the simple and makes it all seem effortless and perfectly natural.To my ears, those thirteen minutes alone are more than enough to ensure that The Experience of Repetition in Death will be one of the albums that leaves the deepest and most long-lasting impact on me this year.Clarice Jensen is one seriously formidable artist.
Samples can be found here.
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This latest release from Félicia Atkinson is ostensibly a minor and somewhat transitional one, as it is a cassette intended as a sort of culminating document of a year spent traveling and performing. As with all recent Atkinson releases, however, the reality is far more complex, enigmatic, and deeply conceptual than anything that can be easily summarized in just one sentence. Partly inspired by the paintings of Helen Frankenthaler and partly intended as "a reassessed document of public performance with improvised studio interventions acting to break the linear stream of the live-on-stage temporality," Everything Evaporate is an intriguing and sophisticated release that seems to exist at the borderline of form and dreamlike abstraction. As such, it is not the optimal entry point for the curious (that would be 2019's The Flower and the Vessel), but deep listening reveals this release to be every bit as absorbing as the rest of Atkinson's recent hot streak.
For the most part, Everything Evaporate is an remarkably apt title for this release, as several of these songs sound like they are heeding that command in real-time.On the opening title piece, however, Atkinson largely picks up exactly where she left off with The Flower and the Vessel.Granted, it is a bit more minimal than usual, as Atkinson's breathy monologue unfolds over an oscillating and gently heaving bed of droning bass tones.Her seductively accented voice remains sharply in focus though, so the heart of the piece is an mysterious, poetic, and evocative spoken word performance.At this stage in her career, Atkinson’s ASMR-influenced narratives are very much the strongest and most instantly recognizable feature of her work, as she manages to make even mundane phrases like "can I get a cup of coffee please?" seem pregnant with deep hidden meaning.While her voice is unquestionably the center of everything, however, there are plenty of unpredictable other factors driving and shaping Atkinson’s recent work, as she seems to draw a significant amount of inspiration from both literature and visual art.And, of course, those "outside" influences rarely manifest themselves in expected or conventional ways.The following instrumental "I can't stop thinking about it" is a prime example of how those disparate threads converge, as Atkinson conjures up a surreal miasma of plinking marimbas, chirping birds, and spectral drones. At first, it all feels like a lazily clinking, disjointed, and formless haze, but the drones sneakily increase in richness and intensity for a shimmering and dreamlike crescendo.Notably, that piece also contains an excerpted fragment of a Helen Frankenthaler interview that recounts how she ruined a painting by messing with its fragile ambiguity.While that recording makes up a very small part of the album, its sentiment seems to be the guiding force at the heart of Everything Evaporate.I suspect Atkinson was being quite sincere when she titled the piece "I can't stop thinking about it."
The next piece, "Transparent, in movement," continues to explore that same hazy, impressionistic, and erratically plinking aesthetic, but Atkinson's voice returns for another cryptic monologue and the piece gradually converges into a slow, stumbling rhythm of sorts.Naturally, that alone is enough to make it a stronger piece.However, that is arguably just the piece's backbone, as a hallucinatory swirl of peripheral sounds blossoms outwards as the piece progresses towards an eerie finale of darkly twinkling piano.The following "Don't Assume" opens as yet another spectral haze of blurred drones and disjointed marimba plinks, but they are bolstered by an ascending roar of more visceral, metallic tones this time around.The piece admittedly takes a while to catch fire, yet it is worth the wait, as it eventually opens up into a genuinely creepy crescendo of overlapping, pitch-shifted voices and snatches of sinister-sounding sing-song melody.It feels like I am eavesdropping on a group of dead-eyed, possessed children joining together for either an occult incantation or a distracted performance of a macabre nursery rhyme.That late-album descent into darker territory continues into the closing (and ominously titled) "This is the gate," as an insistent harp-like chord obsessively repeats over a phantasmagoric mélange of floating feedback-like tones and murky smears of metallic chimes.Gradually, form emerges as rippling piano arpeggios overlap and the underlying metallic shimmer converges into a loose pulse of sorts.By the final moments, it actually blossoms into something quite beautiful as Atkinson's buried voice murmurs beneath some tender, lingering chords and a warm, all-enveloping hiss.
Those final two pieces are my favorite ones on the album and rank among some of Atkinson's finest work, particularly "Don't Assume."That said, "This is the gate" is probably Everything Evaporate's most radical creative breakthrough—or at least the most successful incarnation of the aesthetic evolution that runs throughout much of the album.More than any other piece, "This is the gate" evokes an absorbing and gently hallucinatory state of suspended animation, as Atkinson creates the illusion that all of the instrumentation is floating, decontextualized, and untethered to any structure.Then, she begins subtly sliding each piece into place until her lazily lingering tones converge into a warm web of rippling harmonies engulfed in a comforting sea of hiss.That is not a far cry from what happens elsewhere on the album, however, as the biggest difference is only that other songs achieve a similar sleight of hand by transforming disjointed percussive instruments into richly layered drones.As a result, Everything Evaporate is an especially rewarding album for focused listening, as it is a delight to hear Atkinson pull metaphorical rabbit after rabbit out of her hat, subtly and surreptitiously transforming her hyper-minimal palette of misused marimbas and a voice into pieces of impressive depth and mystery.
Samples can be found here.
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Beatriz Ferreyra, former pupil of Gorgy Ligeti, is an experimental music composer with many distinguished accolades. An academic who has published notable papers, she now works as a free composer taking commissions for concerts, festivals, ballets, and films. On Echos+, we hear her in peak form crafting intriguing and unique experiments in vocal manipulation. She uses the voice as base material for stereo-shifting computer music creations that arrest and delight.
Room 40
The album is split into three pieces that are entirely different in character. The first piece, "Echos,"is a wildly inventive chorus of sampled vocalizations and spoken phrases, drawn together in a patch quilt symphony built entirely of the human voice. This is not just a simple stringing together of voice recordings like Christmas lights; it is an incredibly dynamic nine minute song with sudden stops and crescendos and palpable vibrancy. Words fail to describe the surprising results, a meticulously built, sonorous joy to listen to.
The second piece, "L'autre ... ou le chant des Marecages," where the word chant could be translated as 'song' but actually more accurately describes the piece when translated as the cognate 'chant.' It opens with strong imagery of Gregorian chant, then takes a turn for the more mysterious with sound manipulations that evoke horror and alarm. Again, the principal texture here is the human voice.
The third and final piece, "L'autre rive," apparently departs from vocal sample as instrument, though it is difficult to tell what the source samples are for these electronic machinations. Full of action and punch, it does not rest long on an idea. Percussion adds a strong element of drama, making this conclusion feel like a film score for the jungle.
Echos+ is a masterwork of a composer who is well versed in her tools and patient enough to imbue her creation with unlimited subtlety and detail, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Hans-Joachim Roedelius is better known for his work as a founding member of the bands Cluster and Harmonia, both household names for fans of 1970s krautrock. This solo album, Selbstportrait Wahre Liebe, feels like a more clinical approach to krautrock, with all of the difference and repetition and none of the bombast. Filled with stately electronic keyboards and synthesizers, this minimalist document has the hair-raising effect of a calm, deliberate tea ceremony.
Bureau B
The opening piece, "Spiel im Wind," is a shifting kaleidoscope of small repetitive figures, like an avant-garde song in the round. "Wahre Liebe," translation "true love," is a piano led piece that unfolds like a poem, in a meandering stream of thoughts both beautiful and unsettling. "Winterlicht," loosens the formalism of earlier tracks and explores a duet like an open conversation, with pauses for contemplation. "Nahwärme" has many layers of sound, with the principal piano voices subsumed by ambience that lifts the curtains to let the sunshine in. "Gerne" conjures the spirit of Steve Reich with its propulsion in repetition, and interlocking pieces moving like the gears on a steam engine.
The tone remains consistent throughout the album. It is engaging enough to place full attention on while still having the quietude of a soundtrack to a slideshow film. Fans of krautrock, minimalist composition, and even some post rock will find this album engrossing.
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Euzebio is Robert Piotrowicz's first record of solely modular synthesis after a period of working within different contexts. The recent Crackfinder was a collaboration with Jérôme Noetinger and Anna Zaradny, and Walser was a film soundtrack, so there has not been a "pure" Piotrowicz record for a while. It is obvious, however, that he has not lost his way when it comes to his preferred instrument. Again he coaxes some of the most varied sounds yet from his bank of electronics (in this case Buchla and EMS synthesizers), and focuses not just on the noisier characteristics of his previous works, but also some more traditional, rhythmic structures to vary things nicely.
Like a lot of work centered on modular synthesizers, there is an extremely kinetic feel throughout all five compositions on this record, but even with all the chaos, there is a distinct sense of composition and structure."Euzo Found Guitar," for example, is a swerving ball of inorganic guitar sounds and dramatic, synthetic string scrapes for its opening, complex and multilayered.However, it is not long before he shifts things to a rhythmic, almost skeletal techno sound before closing things up on a tense, forceful note.
The same hints at traditional structure can be heard on "Elektros Spong" as well.Opening with an amazing approximation of pummeling drum sounds, Piotrowicz injects an array of jerky, erratic synth sequences that on the surface sound like pure entropy, but instead reveal a multitude of organized, interlocking sections.He transitions from heavy to skittering drum sounds and low bit rate synth layers before closing things out on a satisfyingly disjointed note.He utilizes a bit of everything on "To Fleh," opening from sputtering laser beams and big dramatic synth swells into faux birdcalls and chiming bells.In many ways it reflects his soundtrack work, as there are all the big, dramatic stings of an action movie trailer, but far too varied and nuanced to work in that capacity.
Intensity largely reigns supreme throughout Euzebio, but there are of course moments where the album relents.There may be some wet synth thuds throughout "Flares Et Wasser Hole," but resonant bell tones and carefully constructed melodic fragments are more at the forefront.Closing piece "Ocarina Wars" makes for the perfect conclusion to the record.Opening with a dense wall of malfunctioning 1970s computer mainframes, he throws in a healthy selection of laser bursts and mangled synth leads.There is also the occasional synth thud that, the way it is used, could almost herald the opening of a thumping techno track, but he never allows it to get off the ground.
Even when Robert Piotrowicz was deep in purely synth records, he always had a knack for balancing the unpredictability of what miles of patch cables can do with a composer’s sense of construction and dynamics.It would seem his collaborations and soundtrack work have further influenced him, because the hints of music and film score bombast are prevalent here, but nicely subsumed into his own repertoire.I have never found a dull moment in Piotrowicz’s catalog, but Euzebio is certainly a new high water mark for his work.
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The start of the album made me think of what my grandmother would have said: "What is this twaddle?" and "Is this what you call music?" White is foremost a drummer, first founding Dirty Three with Warren Ellis and Mick Turner, and with bands as varied as Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and The Blackeyed Susans. Conversely, Marisa Anderson is a classically trained master of melancholic guitar rooted in American folk, neo-classical and African guitar styles, with an early foundation in country, jazz and even circus bands. With musicians as these at the helm, this becomes perfect jam music; not jam as in "jam band" or Grateful Dead, but a rich psychedelic tapestry woven by practiced hands that take pleasure in breaking the rules of jazz foundations and serve to transport the listener to new heights.
There’s a lot going on with each musician bringing much to the table. It kicks off sounding like noise, chaotic and disjointed to the untrained ear, and it is, but there’s a pining melody on this first track that holds it together if you listen. Push through, because once past the first track, it leads to a complex, but rich and transcendental experience. I come from a familiarity with Jim White as part of Xylouris White with Cretan lute player Giorgos Xylouris, a duo who blend Greek folk into Avantgarde rock with an abandon of free jazz. White brings it here as well, incorporating modern and ancient drums to Anderson’s melancholic guitar.
As background music, it may sound like each musician has their own agenda, but a careful listen reveals the mastery of each musician being able to hold their own agenda, reining it in, blending with each other, and smoothly taking back the reins to reveal the uniqueness and strength of each musician on their own chosen instrument. "The Other Christmas Song" is a perfect example of this. "The Lucky" showcases the skill of each musician, bringing out the best in both.
As a self-professed fantasy geek, the title immediately suggests the event in The Highlander films in which an immortal warrior beheads his opponent and a surge of energy from the deceased occurs. The victor then experiences "The Quickening," absorbing all the power and knowledge the opponent had obtained in life. The play between the two musicians hints at a powerful collaboration, less a competition, as if the two have sought to teach and learn from each other, working to form a tightly knit bond such as to be one mind. With no words to get in the way, you can make your own imaginary film to this as the music gets in your head and your mind starts to wander, creating stories from the soundtrack that is provided by White and Anderson.
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Oud, Lute, acoustic guitar, or lap steel guitar? While my musical knowledge is varied, my ear is not trained to pick out the many instruments used or mimicked by Bishop. He makes guitars sound like any of these aforementioned instruments, at any point in time, with practiced fingers and the equivalent musical knowledge of a library with every note he plays, a master guitarist proficient in a variety of guitar techniques and knowledge of music traditions. His latest album excels in his freer use of experimentation with theme and electronics, crafting a "dream pharmacy" as the title implies.
His previous releases have been focused on exploration of a particular genre. The Freak of Araby was a carefully crafted homage to late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, while the tracks on Tangier Sessions explored the sounds of a C. Bruno guitar from the 19th century that Bishop purchased in Morocco. For Oneiric Formulary, he further expands his already impressive repertoire of styles (Indian Raga, flamenco, surf, baroque, and many others) to craft an "oneiric" feel throughout. He takes turns adding unlikely sounds in the way of electronics that hum behind acoustic guitar, switching to near pop-embellished tunefulness, then leads the listener into nightmare visions in the very next track. Bits of drone experimentation are strewn throughout and unique synthesized sounds diverge from the usual guitar fare.
One such example of Bishop straying from his guitar is found on the opening tracks, "Call to Order." The shortest track of the batch, it kicks off the album with a mild nightmarish feel, or if you'd prefer, David Lynchian dreams, provided by an alien, synthesized theremin. "Celerity" goes back into more familiar territory and showcases Bishop's practiced dexterity, while "Mit's Linctus Codeine Co." sounds like an imaginary soundtrack to a film an alien cantina, or hold music at your local small town grocery store. "Renaissance Nod" is precisely that, a nod to what you might hear a minstrel playing at a Renaissance Faire. It isn't until "Graveyard Wanderers" that Bishop fully takes us into Tim Burton electronic territory, creating an auditory backdrop of rattling chains, dripping water and tortured souls, all of which may or may not have guitar as their original foundation.
"Dust Devils" is a catchy tune reminiscent of bagpipers in the Scottish highlands backed by tabla or djembe. The immediate standout track is "Enville," a pleasant acoustic track worthy of everyone's ears, one of his most melodic and memorable to date, that showcases his obviously practiced fingerpicking. "Black Sara" reminds me of a Spanish film. "The Coming of the Rats" is a wonderful interplay of electric and acoustic guitar, with acoustic guitar forming the baseline, and the electric guitar adding complexity, and seems to tell a story. Closing track "Vellum" concludes the album with a waltzy feel with scattered time signatures.
Dreams don't always make sense. They are not always logical, and can jump from storyline to storyline. Much is the same with this album, and Bishop is always mindful of the varied nature dreams can take. It is a journey of pleasant valleys, dangerous peaks and subterranean nightmares, all on the same album.
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