- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Somnimage
Trespassers W immediately brought to mind Piglet and that little broken sign he had outside of his home. "Trespasser W," as though it could've once warned unwelcome guests about the presence of a 12 gauge shotgun on the premises. So, taking that as a warning about the band itself, I expected the band to be especially dangerous sounding. No need to be heavy or grotesque, but with a topic like sex I'm always happy when someone approaches it with a fresh, typically un-American view (sex and death, sex and power, sex and deity, sensuality and pain). There are no lyrics available anywhere for this album, however, and often the vocalist's voice is hard to decipher behind the rapidly changing instrumentation, so what I do hear from him are words like "pussy" or the mention of objects like "hand cuffs" and "nipple brushes." Whatever the end of sex is, this album doesn't make it easy to find out what the band's opinion on the matter is.
Musically, Trespassers W jump all over the place without much warning and seemingly without reason. The album begins with pseudo-chamber music and a small narrative, but quickly jumps into an American influenced country-rock song. It sounds like a stiff replication rather than the result of an appreciation for the genre and its roots. Later there are light noise pieces assembled from the usual junk drawer of sources, standard pop tunes, and oddball arrangements that don't warrant a comparison to anything else. If all the music on the record were as consistent as those cut up songs and semi-noise pieces then Sex and the End of It would be worth hearing from beginning to end. On an album that is 16 tracks long there is simply too much filler material; well over half of the disc could be done away with and I'm not sure anyone would miss it.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Di Mira is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, often finding a synthesis of electronic and acoustic instruments so perfectly blended that the differences between them are frequently difficult to discern. The arrangements are elaborate yet without any superfluous orchestration. Instead they proceed like languid currents that are always on the move and never stagnant. Although it’s true that a streak of melancholy runs through most if not all of the tracks, the effect is more usually wistful than depressing.
One thing Di Mira doesn’t do, however, is sing. Those duties are shared by three guests, all of whom are excellent singers capable of lending Di Mira’s songs the emotional vulnerability needed to remain convincing. Patrick Zimmer, who sings on two of the tracks, gets one of the album’s more notable lines on “Cut-Out-And-Keep Quarrels” when he sings, “I’ll take my credit cards/I’ll buy you a ghost.” This one, like most of the others, takes a while to unfold, but with rewarding results. A beat doesn’t surface until a few minutes into the song, but it embellishes the mood, extending the song’s effectiveness, as does the bass that enters a minute later. Other songs have a consistent approach, resulting in tracks like “Indecision” and “Mixologists and Waifs,” which are also both tender and thoughtful. “Tree Shadow” has the album’s only harsh elements, snippets of digital static that are used percussively, but they have a short leash and are thoroughly contained by the violin, piano, and classical guitar that surround them.
The album closes with the sweeping instrumental “With the Passing of the Seasons,” which finds Di Mira aided by four additional musicians on strings, clarinet, and drums, ending untidily with a few unexpected notes that are more of a question than a statement. Yet there’s no question that this is a marvelous debut that reveals more elegant layers with each listen.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
The record is certainly a change in direction and momentum if not overall mood. Despite all of the trickery and disconnect that I’ve loved in the man’s music thusfar, he’s made only mood music, never process music, however much process is on the sleeve. Dedicated fans may be turned off, though I was not. Giuseppe Ielasi is essentially an album of piled loops and the artist’s first grab at rhythm-based composition; process, in the broadest sense, is immediately apparent throughout. Nearly absent is the guitar that brought Ielasi up and stripped him down last year in the opaque skeletal blues/room tone suite Gesine.
Now comes a record of kitchen-sink-constructed analog delay homage to the Chain Reaction label, full of dubby clomp and snap and Vangelis wash, but cut through with all the expected vinyl scrapings, bedroom creepings, and anti-alien warmths of an artist whose first goal is intimacy and calm. Beats emerging almost accidentally from repeated piling, slide into the asymmetrical and plinkingly abrasive, composed as they might from the doorhinges, bottle tops, and creaked footsteps of a neighbor’s existence, or just memories or premonitions of my own. Those who’ve ever wanted to hear Loren Connors improvise over a Clicks And Cuts volume might hear it coming through the ceiling with this one.
The album matches the adventurousness in sound-sourcing of previous disks with a willingness to pile and repeat. Element of surprise somewhat deleted, an underwater drone dance party emerges, notes and figures popping and overlapping each other with some kind of natural freedom. The music involves the same consideration I needed to fully appreciate records by Zoviet France or Philip Jeck, time spent realizing that immediate recognition of process or effects is part of the music, increasing its physicality and in many instances becoming platform or counterpoint for the hidden parts. Ielasi increases the sensation of physical action and comfortable warmth in every element, offering his cascading loop conglomerates to the womby closeness that surrounded Gesine with increased cinematics and darknesses. It’s more difficult for me to appreciate Ielasi having been nurtured on the artist’s previous output where a certain fragility comes through (via more guitar and improvised textures), but this is a very fine record and no doubt a grower like all the rest.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Speedcore spaz-metal seems to be the launching point for Cutting Pink With Knives, who have created an album where the average song is no more than a minute long. The ultimate love letter to conceptual and compositional efficiency, Oh Wow! has a singular purpose and direction and it executes its plan perfectly, and without an ounce of fat. I would have imagined that the gimmick of ultra short songs that all run together and are composed of hardcore drum blasts, speed-metal riffs, and insane mumble-screaming would get old quickly, but it never has time to. I was wondering when the first song would take a break from the relentless madness and when I checked in at the four minute mark, the disc was already on the fourth track!
There are some surprisingly musical moments in these songs; the places where the video game melodies complement the Marshall Stack arpeggios are particularly nice. The ultra-compressed, cut up drum samples are sometimes the only give away that this whole thing might be the product of a late night sample-binge into the world of cheesy metal records.
Oh Wow! winds up being the most absurd record I've heard all year, but also one of the most fun. It's a record that takes a single funny premise and beats it across the skull like a jackhammer. The last track doubles the album's running time with a final gag where a single guitar bit is looped over and over for ten minutes. It's now taken me almost twice as long to write this review of the album as it would have taken just to play it back in its entirety, but that's a good thing. Cutting Pink With Knives know just how far to push it and then just when to stop, making "Oh Wow!" a can't-miss addition to my collection.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
LTM
Gnac sounds pleasant; it's soft and practically recorded to be listened to while reading a book and looking chic somewhere in a crowd of people. There's a lot of piano, soft synth pads, and sleep inducing percussion that persists on and on into an infinity of simple beats and rubbery effects.
Tranmer loves to write annoying smooth jazz tunes that are composed of almost synthetic sounding acoustic guitars and popping bass lines; the two sound way out of sync with each other, as though they belong to two separate worlds of total crap. If I heard this in a store somewhere I think I'd probably mistake it for some in-store muzak station or a local artist that just found out what a synthesizer is and also happens to love "Native American" artwork. With all the emphasis on how smooth the record is, there are few (if any) dynamic shifts to speak of. This is one calm lake from beginning to end.
This would fit in just fine at a coffee house somewhere in the trendiest part of New York City. That way a bunch of self important musicians and art students could be bored to death by it instead of me.
samples:
Read More
- Gary Suarez
- Albums and Singles
Wasting little time, M.R.K.1 bursts through the gate on the A side with an astounding beat heard by many on the recently re-issued Virus Syndicate album The Work Related Illness and its preceding "Ready to Learn" single. Renamed "Ready for Love," this soulful stunner surpasses most of his already commendable catalog with dizzying percussion and one of the catchiest vocal hooks I've heard this year. The remainder of the record can't meet the impossibly high standards set by this undeniable single. "Daywalker" retreats to the familiar dark terrain of the One Way album, with cinematic samples and orchestral strings setting the stage for combat. Surprisingly melodies emerge on the flipside, and there's almost a Luke Vibert quality to the squelchy, quasi-acidic "Rat Trap" and the dreamy noodling of closer "Stardust," implying some sort of underlying linkage between M.R.K.1 and the rest of Planet µ's seemingly disparate, eclectic roster.
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
As the title suggests, the songs themselves loosely share an afterhours theme, invoked by the opening “Wake Up Call”: “This city is calling/On your hopes and your dreams/Midnight is falling/Till the skies ever bleed.” After the brief intro arrives an intimidating wall of rhythm that commands obedience, announcing that the party starts here.
The first half of the album is nearly flawless in its pace, leaving little room to breathe. The vocals steer the songs away from being purely beat-driven and give them a mostly memorable pop edge. “Coal Oven Fires” has a couple of vocal breaks that offer a brief respite, while the soul-tinged singing in “Butterscotch” briefly lends the song a poignant touch. The album stumbles a little bit in the second half, starting with “E-Lock,” a more traditional dance track that’s ultimately forgettable but for the snarky laugh that occasionally intrudes. “Bella” comes across as a short, obnoxious remix more than something truly original. Following this, however, is the highlight of the album, “Full Moon Rising,” an energetic, rabble-rousing stomp with a recurring group chorus that, after a string section salve, returns for the last time with its ranks swollen by a legion. The ending of the album is awkward, starting with “Triceratops,” a repetitive instrumental that goes on for too long. “Turn Out the Lights” is a peaceful down-tempo song that would have been a nice ending, but instead the disc ends with “Skyline Fantasy,” which isn’t that bad in itself, but considering that the lights have already been turned off, comes across as the last guest at the party who refuses to acknowledge that the night is over, everyone has left, and it’s time to go home.
Despite a few slips, the rest of the album is a necessary reminder of how much fun good dance music can be.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Such an undertaking is no easy task. Not only must the instruments be created on the spot, but so do the soundproof igloos in which they’re to be recorded. The blocks of ice themselves must be perfect, without bubbles or dirt, to be suitable. Chainsaws remove the bulk of extraneous material before knives whittle down the pieces further. Since the ice is delicate and often breaks during the process, there may be several false starts before an instrument is considered acceptable.
The music that results is surprisingly warm even though the compositions themselves are frequently skeletal. The ice possesses an organic timbre much like breath so that the spaces between notes never feel empty. The bass drum resonates more deeply than I expected, while the other percussion, and iceofon, hit like falling rain.
Most of the songs are ambient and meditative, letting the listener absorb their atmospheric qualities as much as their melodies. Other than on tracks like “Song” or “Wisdom,” the singing tends to be more pitch than language, or gets gutteral like on “Iceman 2,” soaring alongside the drones and overtones of the other instruments. “Bird” even finds the voice evoking its namesake as if surveying the wintry landscape from high above. The most active track on the album is “Mammoth,” finding propulsion in rhythm, a faint mechanical-sounding echo, and wheezing horns that race to the finish.
I wish liner notes detailing the procedure or at least photographs of the instruments had been included, but perhaps that would spoil some of the mystique. Even so, the disc comes with a vial of water embedded in the jewel case, symbolically uniting the product and the process. The music surpasses the gimmickry, however, sharing unique sounds that otherwise would go unheard. Although the album could have used more changes in tempo at times, perhaps that would only ultimately distract from the deliberate peacefulness of the locale and the music itself.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Dirty on Purpose concentrate on musical themes instead of concepts. Something about lakes, lights, and looking saturates the songs. It’s nothing particularly weighty, but rather good fodder for songs about sweet memories without being too sentimental. “Light Pollution,” with its dulcet guitar aiding the drumbeat crescendo, urges to “take the long way home,” a sentiment which is in danger of being cliché but here ends up just being something universal which we have all felt, if not sung to ourselves. In fact, this particular sentiment hasn’t enjoyed such privileged championing since the Piebald classic “Holden Caufield,” a song which tended towards the more maudlin instinct which Dirty in Purpose manage to (barely) avoid. But the two songs might have more similarity than you think. Although the band is unburdened by heavy music ideas, their music is intricately executed. Threads of harmony and rhythm are interwoven expertly, making an album which sounds at once both tight and airy. The songs are not over-wrought, breathing simply but not simplistically. “Marfa Lights” recalls Eric’s Trip (the band, not the song), though that band was ironically a much dirtier and fuzzier version of Dirty on Purpose. The exchanged male/female vocals favor the comparison, but there is something more genetic to the music which draws the comparison closer. Both bands share a likeminded sense of melody, echoing each other’s hooks, though you might have to work harder to distill the melody of Eric’s Trip from their rapturous sludge.
From the liner notes, I cannot discern if there are any female singers featured on the songs. I see that there is an androgynous-sounding backup singer called Jaymay, which could be a spiced-up version of the name Jaime. But the entire time I listen to the album I swear that I can detect the distinct breathiness of a double-X chromosome. Listen to the vocal flourishes on the first four songs and tell me that you don’t envision a fey-looking female vocalist standing on stage, holding no instrument but swaying sultrily to the music. If no female element exists, then the band has an impressive vocal range of hearty tenors to near-castrati who decorate each song delicately. “Summer Dress” relies on its fragile guitar theme, notes building in unison with the vocals. Neither instrument treads too carelessly on the other and as the song reaches its end with an impressive concord, you forget how dangerously close it came to shattering the whole way through. It’s a fine balancing act, carried out consistently through 11 songs and leaving me with the conviction that buying new music based on old tropes might be worthwhile again.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Read More