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Community Library
"Dinosaur Days" is an all-out explosion of wiggling, analog bass and skittering percussion that had me on my feet the instant it began bumping. The robotic machinations of Gregory Zifcak's and Marijke Jorritsma's imagination and technology is more playful and more addictive on this 12" than anything found on their Sticky Buttons release and that's saying something. This is a two-sided release, though, and there's no reason to neglect that rubbery, balloon-like chaos of "Ptery D" or the more groove-oriented stagger of "Animal Minded." Eats Tapes like to stick to their four-on-the-floor formula, but the whacked-out tape manipulations and frantic melodies that splatter all over the walls defies categorization.
I had the chance to see them just recently on their Eats Coats tour and their live show was a energized burst of morphing synthetics and odd-ball distortion, much closer to what I'm hearing on this single than what's present on Sticky Buttons. There was a sense of child-like curiosity in their set and the random dancing of several patrons seemed to fit the innocent approach that was putting smiles on everyone's faces. If the fat, honking bass, unusual vocal samples, and even stranger musical deconstructions aren't enough to make even the most serious hipster smile, then I don't anything else will ever be capable.
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Much of contemporary jazz seems relegated to the dinner club crowd and lite FM stations, with all of the cultural cache of an open mike poetry night at a neighborhood community center. That it was once America’s most popular music for many decades is hard to imagine in today’s culture of tedious pop ephemera. What used to be a progressive style stopped evolving ten or even twenty years ago by all appearances, and has since been claimed by nostalgia buffs seeking comfort in the familiarity of old songs “updated” by younger performers.
Yet apparently nobody’s told any of this to 12twelve, and for that I’m grateful. Even though they only have one horn in the group, a saxophone, they manage to encapsulate the best aspects of a variety of jazz styles, from classical jazz to bop and free jazz. The exemplary rhythm section keeps them grounded yet invigorated, while the sax frequently takes off into passages of soaring lyricism. Despite a few exceptions, I’m not normally a huge fan of guitars in jazz, but here it works well as it investigates musical horizons without the burden of leadership.
There are some rock-like moments, such as the tasteful wah used on “Profesor Ali” and “Il Monstro,” yet even these are handled expertly enough to add texture without removing the music from the jazz idiom. The group isn’t afraid to be weird, either, like the noisy and abstract “9è 4°” or the electronics and anxiety of “R2 Chapa.” A couple of the songs even start with overheard conversations, at times lending the disc a casual and relaxed atmosphere. The album has enough differences between songs, and sometimes with plenty of changes within the songs themselves, that there isn’t a dull moment to be found. The emotions follow suit in a wide range of expression that never bores. Likewise, their vigorously imaginative and skillful efforts here go a long way toward revitalizing the genre, bringing to it a youthful energy and lack of compromise that hasn’t been evident for far too long.
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If early '90s sounding techno happens not to be your thing you’re unlikely to enjoy the majority of this release. Tagged as ‘remixes and reconstructions’ from Danny Hyde’s (Coil member and remixer) Aural Rage project, this harks heavily back to the last decade’s commercial electronic music. Some of this could very easily be passed off as having been taken from charting releases of that era, and this is sort of a backhanded compliment to Hyde.
Some of the sounds and styles on here sound like they really do belong back there. For example, the five tracks featuring Joanna De Seyne’s vocals are a little too thickly voiced, a little too techno diva and safe sounding for the world of 2006. Having never been fully seduced by Hyde’s Love’s Secret Domain Coil-era work, it’s understandable that a lot of this should be passing by me. Perhaps without the remixing efforts of DJ Poltergeist and MC Ramification (whom I’m starting to convince myself are only Hyde pseudonyms anyway), this might be a little more rough and edgy.
When it does slip away from the grips of the remixers (according to the credits), as on "Hippy Cult Leader (Intro)"or "I Don’t Need That Deviant Sex Thing (Calm Before the Porn Edit)", it seems that little bit more human. Inventive and restless without being too dense, they manage to carry that baggage of yesteryear without sounding like they were recorded in it. On the plus side there seems to be a lighter touch to Sinsemilla Dreams than there was on A Nature of Nonsense, this appearing less noticeably layered. These tracks seem to be more jagged, and in the case of the latter song is instilled with a motionless melancholy; the title becoming more of a realisation than a rehashed eighties punch line.
Those wondering how the remixed tracks with Jhonn Balance worked out this time ("FJ Nettlefold" is versioned here twice) may be interested to hear that while one take is harsher and the other is squelchier, neither are as good as the original. Hopefully Sinsemilla Dreams is just a brief remix project stopgap along the way to the next album.
samples:
- Argento Meets the Skinheads (Black Zodiac Mix)
- FJ Nettlefold (Radar Angels Mix)
- I Don’t Need That Deviant Sex Thing (Calm Before the Porn Edit)
 
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Raster Noton
All four of the tracks are quality stuff. All are based around simple rhythms with various noises and counter rhythms layered on top. It's deceptively simple at the surface, but there’s a lot of background detail that only reveals itself after a few listens. The first half of the CD is pleasant enough but neither of the first two tracks sticks out as being memorable.
The EP definitely peaks on “Path. #3 (Dynamo Baby, Bore me Numb)” (probably why Pavlov gave it a title and not just another number). Here, a solid rhythmic base is paired with an airy synth melody reminiscent of some of Kraftwerk’s Tour de France melodies. It flows along nicely as Pavlov chops and changes it, stopping it from becoming stagnant. It leads into “Path. #4,” which sees Pavlov manipulating some basic rhythm sequences slowly, sounding like commercial dance music with a lot more bite.
Patherns is neither his best nor his worst work but it is a worthy effort by Pavlov. It was surprising to see an EP by him so soon after the last album, especially considering it wasn’t just a bunch of outtakes from the same sessions. It could have been far more prosaic but the accessibility of the material made the EP worth listening to. Unfortunately I don't think this has the longevity to keep me coming back to it.
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Substantia Innominata
Drone Records have always released high quality music with the greatest of care and Knappe's new label, which focuses only on 10" releases, continues that tradition of care and excellence. Asianova consists of Ure Thrall (from Voice of Eye) and Pamela Passmore; this album also includes guest musicians Paul Valsecchi and Marlon Porter. I was happy to see that this quartet got right to the point on their sleeve. Without a doubt Asianova seeks to "create music about the intangible" and to connect the external world with the internal world in a meaningful way. This may seem like an ambitious project, but I've always been of the opinion that music, especially drone and rather non-temporal or anti- temporal music, is capable of exactly this.
The title might mean something like "book of ultra-memory" or "record of high memory" and the washes of rattles, chimes, and low tones that flow out of the speakers certainly sound ancient, informed by a universal memory of the cosmos and the stars. The artwork includes celestial references, further suggesting that the group is trying to bring the universe home to us, or perhaps us home to the universe. Some songs, though they flow into each other on both sides, feature of a heavy emphasis on percussion with synthetic waves groaning over heavily distorted and washed out beats, all of them focused almost entirely on the bass end of the spectrum. Vocals light up the music at various points, though those points are thematically grim sounding and brief. Each side makes sense as a whole, though they start in similar ways. The "Mnemo" side, however, grows in stature much more quickly than the "Magna" side, sounding off with insectoid horns and reversed vocals. The effect is haunting and relaxing simultaneously. Asianova have a tendency to quickly bring new sounds and surprises into their music quickly and without warning, keeping me from calling this album relaxing altogether. There is a palatable tension in the air and the play of deep, low sounds and other effects keeps the record moving at a pace that seems to stop time: the record is over before I know it.
The record has been spinning on the player for three straight rotations, now, and I'm still picking up small nuances the group has buried in their music. There's plenty to hear on this disc and furthermore the entire package is so well defined and so immaculately thought out that I can't help but fall in love with it. Perhaps this is music with a purpose, music not designed solely for entertainment, but that doesn't confine it to purely academic or purely meditative music. It's enjoyable on an aesthetic level, but the personal and spiritual material it brings to the table is the main course that draws me in the most.
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When I first heard the Peeping Tom album I thought it was great. I listened to it several times in a row, marvelling at how Patton had nailed what good pop should be. I then took a break from listening to it for a few weeks and when I went back it had lost a lot of its sheen. So Patton hasn’t quite nailed perfect pop, it should get a listener involved every time. Most of the songs are average with moments of brilliance. For example on “Don’t Even Trip” there is little of interest throughout the song, the music is passable but the vocals are dull apart from the superb chorus (which starts with a lyric that has Patton written all over it: “I know that assholes grow on trees but I’m here to trim the leaves”).
“Five Seconds” is a strong and promising start to the album. The music is groovy and instantly accessible (not a quality much of his music has possessed). Patton’s singing is user friendly but peppered with a few curveballs to keep me on my toes. It’s nowhere near his best work but as a pop song it works, if more songs sounded like this on the radio I might consider turning the damn thing on. Unfortunately they don’t sound like this and even the rest of the album doesn’t keep to the same level of quality. For every decent song like “Your Neighborhood Spaceman” and “Kill the DJ” there is a “Getaway” and a “Caipirinha.” Apparently Patton has enough Peeping Tom to make two albums but he would have been better making one album using the best of both (provided there are more good songs among those not yet released).
I don’t know what I was expecting Peeping Tom to sound like but I was expecting better after the amount of time that has gone into bringing it about. I know it wasn’t meant to be challenging like Fantomas but I thought it might be less middle of the road. Guests like Kool Keith who I expected to bring a lot to the table were a disappointment. On the other hand, Patton has teased out some good sounds from Massive Attack (who gave up being interesting a long time ago).
When the album finishes with “We’re Not Alone” I am reminded of why I like Mike Patton. I like the vocal gymnastics and sense of adventure that many of his other projects are full of. Ironically these qualities are absent from this last song (and much of the album), it is more in the vain of Faith No More who were boring and far too safe. I hope once Patton gets this return to mediocrity out of his system and comes back with something new to blow me away.
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- Scott Mckeating
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Described by the label itself a “live goof nonsense”, this is a mixture of travelogue, unintentional stand-up and sound check banter. But where last year’s Live at East Banfields Wolf Eyes release was spoken word comedy, this mixes up that formula with musical interludes.
These pieces aren’t mini-disc leftover jams either, they are prime cuts from (I believe) Wolf Eyes, John Olson and Graveyards; it’s these tracks that makes this CD-R worth trawling the net for. Recorded in and around, and on the way into Delaware, the non-musical parts aren’t exactly essential, but stir a few laughs past a handful of listens. The Cockerel-in-studio shenanigans of “Four” or “Six”s odd hybrid of melancholy piano piece and The Police are obviously the exceptions to this rule.
The six minute “Two” takes shredded power electronics to the point where you can hear holes being bored into the floor of the venue. Spilling spools of corrupted magnetic tape from their battered suitcases, riffs are spat out and brutally wronged in front of the audience.
At 20 minutes long the closer casts a low long shadowy silhouette over Del-War Showdown’s comedy moments. This hollow shelled monster of a track flickers down the slow burning fuse, a rotating rasp whining and grinding taking hold of the low end. This piece shifts into something more in line with the UK underground, like a freshly dug-up psych side, its long drawn melodies floating away lazily. The whole shebang ends in an audience screaming themselves ill; Delaware sounds like a pretty wild place.
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- Lucas Schleicher
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Matt Waldron and Allan Zane should have talked about making these two songs available as MP3 downloads. They're both slices of strange and organic noise that I've come to love, but I'm not sure they needed a limited run 12" and 7" record to themselves. The limited run has long been sold out; it was only 33 copies large and featured limited edition artwork from Matt Waldron and is also signed. The standard edition features printed artwork and the same two songs, but isn't signed. There's absolutely no need to press an extra 300 copies of this release when both songs could've been made available for download. The songs are both interesting, but I'm not sure how often I'd put them on just to hear them.
It's not that I think the songs aren't worthy of a physical format like vinyl, but digital media would serve both these songs much better. They're brief compared to the typical Irr. App. (Ext.) composition and their relation is tangential at best. The printed artwork is nice, but could easily be downloaded. As far as the music itself is concerned, it's hard to determine exactly how "Hypothetical Tardigrade Resurrection #1" is related to the other songs of the same name from Waldron's Perekluchenie album and Wyrm's work, which I'm mostly unfamiliar with, is entirely unlike anything I've heard from Irr. App. (Ext.). Wyrm, made up of Zane, Terry Stalcup, John Murphy, and Kensaku Nishizato (who appeared on Nurse with Wound's An Awkward Pause) has a metallic focus that brought Organum to mind almost immediately. Their work, however, slowly becomes more distinct with the addition of other textures, like alarm clocks, bells, cricket-like noise, voices, and brushes. "Labyrinth Defector" is very involved composition featuring layers of sound, but I'm not sure I'd be tempted to put this on the record player just to hear it.
Had these been made available in a digital format, I think they'd find their way into my play lists, but as it stands I think I'll be putting on full-length recordings from both these bands, instead.
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The pseudo-baroque orchestral opening to “Your Old Street” confused me until I heard the nudity of the song’s stark opening; chamber pop gives way to just Tristan Wraight’s and Erin Fein’s vocals with a soft bed of strings and brushed percussion. It takes over two minutes before the signature chirpiness of Headlights shows up. The contrast between the prelude and the song’s core is the essence of the band. They throw sounds off the wall and bounce them around to recombine with more conventional pop standards. Once again, the results seemingly work, but I don’t know why. It just sounds good. Fein’s playful vocals run up and down throughout the song, radiating little lyrical flourishes and subtleties. It could take a few listens to understand their impact. But it’s all just prolegomena to the anthemic centerpiece of the album. “TV,” as I have intimated before, is two and a half minutes of perfected pop. The crescendoing vocal energy grows beyond measure; it plateaus three-quarters through only to pick up momentum at the very end. The song is all about timing, the same way that its titular subject is. Consider the Law & Order syndication phenomenon with which everyone will be familiar: when A&E still had the syndication rights to Law & Order, they would play two back to back episodes (three times a day), allowing the first to finish entirely, credits and all, before starting the next.
Now, by splitting the screen into two halves, TNT (which admittedly shows more episodes per day) enjambs the start of the subsequent episode under the credit titles of the previous episode. The whole effect of the timing is rushed, squinty, and wrong. Headlights offer a more A&E approach to their music, an antithesis to the TNT economy. Each note, each song is justly rounded off and completed before going on to the next. Songs or notes can be fast and efficient, but they never impinge or intercede. The re-recorded version of “Put Us Back Together Right” cleans up the song from the 7-inch but sounds a little antiseptic for the effort. Still a rousing and fine song, it simply loses a little of the grittiness from the split single (a puff of a labial P-sound here, a yelp there.) The way Fein clips her enunciation of the chorus doesn’t alter the song dramatically but it is just enough to get the sense that the band and/or producer was unnecessarily trying to tighten up the sound for the album. It could be that I just like my indie-pop a little dirty.
The album’s midsection slows down after all the activity of the first three songs. “Lions” feints to pick up the tempo with a short blues-rock-inspired two minutes, but the album actually and ironically reclaims its energy with “Words Make You Tired.” It’s not a prototypical rocker, but the density of the band’s sound here makes you take notice. There are more layers here than a normal Headlights’ song, centered by a pentatonic synthesizer theme which recalls a little of the Magnetic Fields’ “Tokyo A Go-Go.” The album’s end gets even fuzzier with saturated electronics and keyboards. It’s the sound of the future, envisaged from the '80s.
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Although Another Thought is not a finished album per se, but rather a collection of some of the best bits from Russell's archive of unreleased recordings, it nonetheless retains the feeling of a coherent whole. The archivists responsible for choosing and sequencing the songs did an impressive job of making the album into a something of a narrative, and nothing here feels like it doesn't belong. This is impressive, as stylistically, the CD is a mixed bag, drawing from several different modes of Russell's music. There are cello-driven vocal pop songs that recall the material on World of Echo, as well as experiments with drum machines and synthpop sounds that come closer to the material collected on Audika's Calling Out of Context. There is even a nod to Russell's Paradise Garage days, with an alternate shorter take on the mammoth 12-minute mutant disco side "In the Light of the Miracle."
The first few tracks all share the cloistered, up-close feel of Russell's most disarming songs. His throaty, soulful voice and beautiful cello playing - by turns lush and sweet, then staccato and percussive - combine with his close-mic'd recording style and simple, romantic lyrics to create a suite of lovely chamber pop masterpieces. "Another Thought" and "A Little Lost" are exemplary of Russell's songcraft, pitched somewhere between the nearly alienating minimalism of World of Echo, and the oftimes embarassingly dated sound of Context. Again, there is the feeling throughout these songs that Russell has developed a wholly unique affinity for his instrument, using it in ways that have never before or since been attempted. Something about Russell's humble beginnings in the lonely expanses of the American Midwest seemed to allow him to ignore most of what was going on around him in the fertile 80s NYC scene, and use his voice and instrument in ways completely original to him. Those who have seen the film of Russell performing on Audika's CD/DVD reissue of Echo will know that he played and sang at the same time, often improvising, gently finding the melody and his voice along the way.
Also in fine form throughout this disc is the trademark Russell use of echo—not the cheap delay pedal variety used by every wannabe psych-rock group, but a more subtle usage, a way to prolong and highlight certain syllables, to suggest a complex rhythmic architecture behind deceptively simple cello figures, to impart a mood of sensuality, all soft lenses and romantic lighting. I've been listening to a lot of Arthur Russell for the past six years, and its come to feel as if he's whispering in my ear. The aspects of his asexual vocals that many find repellant at first become soothing and seductive, far more nakedly romantic than anything you'll hear on your local "quiet storm" radio program tonight.
One major difference about the songs collected on Another Thought are the lyrics. Russell was known for underplaying the importance of lyrics in his vocal works, claiming that the words were chosen for their sound and assonance rather than their meaning. This position is certainly supported by the lyrics to tracks like "Let's Go Swimming" or "The Platform on the Ocean," often just mantra-like lines repeated endlessly until they become alienated from all linguistic sense. However, many of the tracks on this CD have lyrics which could only be described as heartfelt, meaningful and poetic. There's still that certain naive, romantic sensibility, but also in the mix is evocative lyrical imagery, as in "My Tiger, My Timing" and "Me For Real," the latter describing an intense bicycle ride through the city, leading to a revelatory moment of introspection.
Another Thought is one of two Arthur Russell releases seeing the light of day this year, the other being Audika's double-disc reissue of Russell's orchestral works, First Thought Best Thought. The most recent volume of Kitchen Archives label included some rare live material by Russell as well. Though this is great news for fans, it may also mean that the sun is finally setting on rare Russell material that can be posthumously unearthed and released. It's just too bad that the man himself couldn't have lived to see his work being re-released and appreciated by a whole new generation. The music on Another Thought attests to the fact that Russell never stopped thinking, and was always innovating and refining his unique and alluring soundworld.
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"Creatures of Cadence"
CD
Despite what the title might suggest, “Creatures of Cadence” is not about endings, completion, or finality. Instead we find Menche inviting a slew of new mediators into his cathartic miasma. The medium now extends beyond the rich and unfathomable depths of somatic sound. His ongoing dialogue between body and mind has found sympathetic resonators in a myriad of instruments (percussion, cello, horns, and zither) that have proven through the ages of being capable of channeling both our most ecstatic joy and profoundest grief.
“Creatures of Cadence” finds Menche in full exploratory mode; excavating well-concealed networks of sonorous information through a systematic deconstruction of drone and pulse. In the process, he further erases any perceived division between hearing / feeling and performer / instrument. The result, if consumed at the appropriate amplitude, is nothing less than a sixty minute journey through a voluptuous and pristine mania.
“Creatures of Cadence” is a work commissioned by Crouton and Longbox Recordings and published in conjunction with Menche’s first Midwest U.S. concerts: in Chicago and Milwaukee, September 29 and 30, 2006. Released in an edition of 500, including three full color inserts and overwrap with images of detailed bird drawings peppered with a whisper of the disturbing by Eric Stotik. It is our sincere hope the listener will find the packaging for this release a fitting visual analogue to the vehement beauty of the aural.
This release will be available at the corresponding concerts, September 29, 2006 in Chicago and September 30, 2006 in Milwaukee, and will be available through both Crouton and Longbox Recordings thereafter.
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