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Sub Pop
What bugged me most about Rosie's songwriting is the amount of clichés that she uses both in her lyrics and in her music. “Pretty Dress” is about not being accepted when you’re young and growing up to get your prince in the end. Pass the sick bucket please. Equally cringe and vomit inducing is “Let It Be Me,” a cover of the Gilbert Becaud song. A male voice duets with Thomas and he manages to sound as bored as I feel, it’s like Thomas slipped a couple of Valium into his drink prior to recording.
I’d love to find something on this album to enjoy but it is one painful song after another. Thomas’ earnest singing is a chore to listen to, she tries to worm in as many quivers and wobbles to her voice to let whoever is listening know that she is really feeling the power of her songs. The problem is there is absolutely no power to her songs. As a result her overwrought vocals sound trite and devoid of any real emotion. On “Tomorrow” she sings: “Birds fly above you/Love is around you/I would like to be too,” which is a terrible set of lyrics and Thomas does it no favours by having virtually no presence with her singing. As well as that, she warbles the word “above” so badly that I want to scratch the CD into being unplayable. No amount of vocal gymnastics can save a weak song from being anything other than a weak song (not that her singing is impressive enough to qualify for gymnastics).
If Songs Could Be Held is a wishy-washy excuse for an album. Rosie Thomas is a hackneyed songwriter who should be lucky to be playing open mic nights let alone getting a contract with a large record label. How she landed such a deal is a mystery to me, especially after being subjected to this CD.
samples:
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Beauregarde broadcasts her attitude right away with the album title, which from the Latin roughly translates as, "I hate the common crowd and I spurn them." Yet as antisocial as she presents herself to be, she offsets much of it with bratty black humor, especially with titles like "Adolf Hitler's Emotional Side," "I Can't Believe, Hedgehogs Have a Bone Inside Their Cock," and my personal favorite, "I'm the Tiennamen Square Guy and You All Are the Fucking Tanks."
The album begins with "Flanger When You Die," a brutal assault that gradually transforms into beats underneath her imploring shouts. Other than "The Man Who Shot at the Squirrels (A Tribute to Glenn Benton)," most of the songs aren't quite so harsh but many come perilously close. Things aren't so chaotic all the time, with songs like "Try to Misunderstand This One" and "Tiennamen" flirting with pop, though she uses sneak attacks to subvert those conventional impulses. She slows things down a little with the mostly instrumental "How to Use a Good Idea Until It Turns Into a Bad Idea" before revving her engines again for another run.
Her approach is child-like as she grabs whatever bits and pieces draw her attention at the moment and drops them in favor of something else per her whims, assimilating her influences so quickly that they nearly vanish before they can register. As a result, her songs never have a chance to get stagnant or wear out their welcome. Almost always abrasive, they're also cathartic and invigorating. I can't complain that the album's sole flaw is its brevity considering that the remedy is simply to play it again before my frayed synapses have a chance to heal.
samples:
- Adolf Hitler's Emotional Side
- I'm the Tiennamen Square Guy and You All Are the Fucking Tanks
- I Can't Believe, Hedgehogs Have a Bone Inside Their Cock
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Digitalis
At first I thought the cloud of popping and cracking sound that Uton opens this album with was going to resolve into a soft commotion of rhythm and melody. "Aikavirta" suggests crescendo and prologue, the slow accumulation of tension that makes every release such a wonderful feeling. I waited and waited somewhere until I realized that what I was hearing composed the whole of the album. I like abstract music a lot, but the best abstract has to offer always makes some reference to form and structure. Even the most nebulous albums ranked among my favorites feel as though they're traveling somewhere. If not, they're sustaining some sound, thought, or feeling that warrants such stasis. Mystery Revolution, on the other hand, begins adrift and ends adrift, without much in the middle to suggest a journey ever occurred.
Flutes, whistles, bells, chimes, analogue bellows, and all manner of fascinating source material manages never to come together for Uton. Whatever mystery his foggy music hides stays that way until they very end, negating and reflecting any light that even comes close to it. Strings buzz and shift restlessly on "Taivaan Sini Sokea (Soikea)," but never do more than that. They don't necessarily match very well with the other sounds on the song, they do not add to whatever sensation the song inspires (in my case, I feel almost nothing listening to this record), and they certainly don't seem to be arranged very well, becoming lost in the rest of the music. Everything seems to be arranged without forethought or plan.
Improvised music has its place and there are plenty of people who will swear by the possibilities it presents to the musicians and the audience when it is performed, but in this particular case all I get out of listening to this record is a little bit of frustration. Uton has a knack for picking out some interesting noise, but his talent for arrangement is his Achilles' heel.
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The disc opens with what sounds to me like a couple false starts: two brief pieces that barely pass the one-minute mark which oddly have a copious amount of dead space. They sound like either outtakes from album sessions or a guitarist doing a sound check on an empty stage. However, by the time the third piece rolls around I'm seemingly deep in trance and time has completely warped: elapsing way faster than it seems. "Sagrado Corazón De Jesú (Second Attempt)" is a 13+ minute song which is firmly established from the beginning with low tone guitar loops. Higher tone loops are added for more coloring but the star of the tune is the wailing of the repeated and modified theme, sounding like the cry of beastly bird. Knowing Alan Sparhawk mainly as the singer for Low, I can visualize his playing of this song, completely involved in the trance that he's brought everbody else into, too involved to pay attention to time, space, or anybody in the audience. It's perhaps one of the most expressive instrumental things I've ever heard from him.
"How A Freighter Comes Into The Harbor" is the only other piece on this nine-track CD which also stretches to a great length. This nearly 18 minute bit is also constructed from various layers but with the more dissonant higher toned loops it's creepiness is undeniable. While the title suggests otherwise, to me this one evokes the feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like in a dark field, lost, as fog rolls in, making the struggle to find the way back home less possible. Scraping metallic sounds overcome the piece about 14 minutes in, painful as that metal on metal sound when old trains with rusted brakes pull to a stop at the station.
The rest of the disc is colored with short bits and pieces which are mainly noisy outbursts and rarely expanded into actual songs. I can't say for certain whether I'm less fond of the solo show-offery of something like "Eruption By Eddie Van Halen" or the lathe cutting like sounds on "How The Engine Room Sounds," but "How It Ends," the final bit on the album has a beautiful cadence. Faintly (and appropriately given some of the noisy tracks on this album) echoing "When I Go Deaf" from last year's The Great Destroyer, this one would actually have been nicer expanded into something far more substantial than the 55 second tease that it is.
samples:
- Sagrado Corazón De Jesú (Second Attempt)
- How A Freighter Comes Into The Harbor
- Eruption By Eddie Van Halen
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artist: Fe-Mail/Carlos Giffoni
title: Northern Stains
catalog #: IMPREC112
format: cd
upc: 793447511221
release date: Sept. 26, 2006
Northern Stains is the result of a collaboration between experimental phenomenon Carlos Giffoni and Spunk/Fe-Mail members Maja Ratkje & Hild Tafjord. This trio finally met when Giffoni booked Fe-Mail to headline the sunday night of his genere defining Brooklyn based 3 day No Fun Festival in 2005. Early in 2006 Giffoni boarded a flight to Norway and Northern Stains was born in Spunk's Oslo studio.
Individualy and together, Carlos Giffoni and Fe-Mail make records that are rich, detailed, dense and complex, constantly straddling the line between improvised noise and modern composition. It's this attention to detail and warmth that make Fe-Mail & Carlos Giffoni such celebrated artists and kindred collaborators. Northern Stains is often absurd combination of live sounds, feedback, hilarious sampling with a genuine sentimental touch, which nods towards both the northern glaciers and the beauty and brutality of nature. Tomorrow's music today.
The album was recorded live in SPUNK studio in Oslo. Cover artwork by Maya Miller of The Double Leopards.
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artist: KK Null
title: Kosmista Noisea
catalog #: IMPREC111
format: cd
upc: 793447511125
release date: Sept. 26, 2006
Kosmista Noisea is a brand new full length from Japanese legend KK Null (ANP/Zeni Geva). Packaged in a jewel box with a metallic print on a vellum tray card, this was lavishly designed by Stephen O'Malley (Sunn 0)))/Khanate).
Kosmista Noisea (Finnish for Cosmic Noise) consists of live recordings from 3 different locations during the European tour in 2003-2004. Kosmista Noisea 1 is taken from 2 separate live recordings and uniquely combined in the studio into one piece with Talcent, Italy on the left channel and St.Etienne, France on the right channel. This technique is designed to give more depth and multiple dimensions. Kosmista Noisea 2 is a 45 minutes long non-edit of an entire live performance in Antwerpen/Belgium, showing the diversity of KK Null's music from intense clashing wave of noise to structured electro-acoustic ambience, droning isolationist material.
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artist: ANP
title: Metacompound
catalog #: IMPREC110
format: cd
upc: 93557511023
release date: Sept. 26, 2006
Metacompound is the first full length studio album from ANP in 19 years. Lavish metallic ink on vellum packaging by ANP fan and Sunn O))) member Stephen O'Malley. .
ANP was formed in 1984 by KK Null & Seijiro Murayama. In 1987 ANP broke up. 17 years later they reformed for some live performances and released the singular Live In Japan on Important Records. Metacompound, their first studio recordings in over 19 years, is as undescibable as Live In Japan was. Combining free jazz, heavy rock, industrial noise, glitch and free improvised dynamics, ANP creates a sound that is intirely unprecidented.
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artist: Steven R. Smith
title: The Anchorite
catalog #: IMPREC108
format: cd
upc: 793447510828
release date: Sept. 26, 2006
This is the 7th release in Important Records' ongoing Arts & Crafts Series. The Anchorite is a full length vinyl only release packaged in a hand made linocut created,printed, signed and numbered by Steven R. Smith. Limited edition of 500
Eleventh full-length solo release from multi-instrumentalist, instrument builder Steven R. Smith. In contrast to the more labored arrangements of many of his solo records, The Anchorite was recorded in the winter of 2005 without the use of overdubs straight to stereo 2-track using three separate amplifiers and a combination of loops, tapes and live performance. As the title suggests, the record focuses on the nature of solitude and draws upon a black spaciousness seemingly born in the spirit of Popul Vuh, Arvo Part, and Medieval troubadour music.
Steven R. Smith also releases records under the Hala Strana moniker which focus on the traditional music of Eastern Europe, and is a member of the San Francisco improvisational group Thuja. He has recorded for numerous labels including Catsup Plate, Soft Abuse, Emperor Jones, Last Visible Dog, Jewelled Antler, and Darla.
Important's Arts & Crafts series combines hand made packaging created by the artists featured on the recordings that the packaging contains. Previous artists in the series have been Lee Ranaldo, The Dresden Dolls, Jad Fair, The Hafler Trio & My Cat Is An Alien.
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Silber
The pieces on I Have Nothing are all quite short. In a few cases I could have done with some more time for the piece to develop but for the most part the lengths are spot on. “Cymbol” is the perfect length; it gradually develops from some abstract scratching noises to a slow rhythm and melody. It hits its high point and peters out at the right time. In general I find it’s hard to get such minimalist arrangements like this to work when they’re under five minutes but If Thousands manage to do it well. The first four or five tracks are wonderful vignettes, capturing strange moods and atmospheres beautifully.
Unfortunately, after starting strong the album loses its steam about half-way in and doesn’t recover. “Walking Otis” marks the start of the decline; it is a dull piece that goes nowhere (almost literally as the field recording used sounds like someone walking in circles). The rest of the disc follows this piece’s lead and ambles about doing nothing. There is the odd track of interest like “Children with Horns” and “Alpha” (and “Alpha” only regurgitates what they were doing earlier on “Cymbol” albeit better). There are a couple of pieces that are OK but don’t fit at all with the rest of the material such as the banjo-led “Stella and Me” which seems like it’s thrown on at the end of the album.
It’s a shame that some great tracks are hidden among so many average pieces. This album could have been reduced down to a fantastic EP but as it is, I’m disappointed. McShane and Molina should have spent more time on I Have Nothing, the two days of improvisation that made up the recording sessions obviously weren’t enough. With more work and a better track selection this could have been a lot better.
samples:
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On the surface, Follow the Train’s full-length debut has it all. The production is sumptuous, and the skilled musicians frequently create gorgeous, yearning passages. Even the cover is vaguely arty and aesthetically pleasing. Scratching a little deeper, however, I found ordinary lyrics, sometimes painfully so, and little else that generates much excitement.
It seems that songwriter and vocalist Dennis Sheridan has been going through some growing pains recently, from realizing the value of unfulfilled yesteryears on "Endless Summer," to his disastrous yet unrepentant loquaciousness on "I’m Not Sorry," to his existential fears on "Afraid." He rarely sings above a whisper, as if his anguish is too great for him to raise his voice. Given the not-quite-poetry of the album’s title, I’m not surprised. It’s probably for the best, though, considering how unremarkable the lyrics are when looking closer in places. I’m certainly not questioning Sheridan’s sincerity, but the ways he sings combined with the simplicity of some of the lyrics themselves makes any genuinely grand emotions he conveys sound trite.
The music is so well played at the beginning that I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics until the aforementioned "I’m Not Sorry." When he sings, "I’m not sorry/But I’m still sad/I still feel sad," I can only roll my eyes at his self-pity. I thought things might get a little more exciting with a song called "Up in Flames" in which he even mentions the words "Rebel Yell," but alas he’s only talking about the song by Billy Idol and not the bourbon of the same name, which would have been appropriate considering that the group is from Kentucky. Coincidentally, the name of the song that follows is "Kentucky," and it is also the album’s nadir. When Sheridan shares the profound revelation that "Kentucky/Is beautiful," I have to agree. On the couple of dozen North-South trips I’ve made in my life, Kentucky has always been one of the biggest highlights (sorry, Indiana!) with its dramatic hills and exposed rock, yet I would think that such a breathtaking landscape would inspire a sentiment more vivid than "Is beautiful." While it’s no "Georgia On My Mind," this song should at least guarantee the band a coveted slot at the state fair.
In some ways, this feels like a waste of good musicians but sometimes the band isn’t helping. Although the music is well-played, it does little to distinguish itself from its Anglophilic leanings apart from some enjoyable synth flourishes. In all honesty, though, the album is so glossy, unobtrusive, and self-absorbed that there could be a couple of Top 40 hits buried within it and the band will likely have the last laugh as I’m forced to hear them piped out of clothing stores at malls, in car commercials, and during the parts of romantic comedies where the estranged couple dramatically reunites. Until that happens, and it very well could, I’ll be doing my part to bolster Kentucky’s economy by the quantity of Jack Daniels I’m about to consume after hearing this.
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