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Steamin' Sounds
“Slateblue, Dark Seafed” by Scanner opens the proceedings and promises much about the rest of the album. Processed vocals and tribal drumming dominate the piece creating a very surreal atmosphere. There is a lot of attention to detail throughout the piece as little flourishes of synthesiser and segments of field recordings pop up all over the place but Rimbaud keeps it all tasteful and under control. This is followed by “Ode to Tzi” by Black Sun Productions. This piece shows, like a lot of their work, a heavy influence from Coil. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way at all; they sound like they picked up a lot of the magic from their time touring with Coil.
Aural Rage and the Legendary Pink Dots both contribute a fine track each. “I Don’t Need That Deviant Sex” by Aural Rage (former Coil engineer Danny Hyde) is quite different to anything else on the album; it is quite upbeat and weird in a funny way. It is a progression from his last album and sounds really good. “A Japanese Manual for a Crooked Wheel” by the Legendary Pink Dots, along with the Black Sun Productions explore the darkness and unknown that Balance was known to visit but neither one has that dramatic and humorous edge that pushed Coil’s music further than anyone else; Hyde captures much more of that side.
I’m in two minds about Steven Stapleton and David Tibet’s contribution. “Die, Flip or Go to India” is an alternative take of a song that originally appeared on Bright Yellow Moon. It is very good and quite different to the original version (it seems more vibrant and eventful in this take) but I wonder if an alternative take of an old track can be seen as a fitting tribute to a dear friend. As much as I like the track I don’t think it really cuts the mustard as a tribute.
Balance himself appears on “The Coppice Meat.” This originally was only available on the bonus CD from the Moon’s Milk in Four Phases compilation. I’m delighted to see this get a wider release as it is one of the finer tracks from the Coil back catalogue. Balance recites an Angus MacLise poem with powerful dark and swirling drones surrounding his voice. The time when this was recorded represents the peak of Coil’s career in my ears. This is a particularly fitting piece to pick for album in tribute to Balance; the music is superb and the lyrics are especially poignant.
Also of acute interest to Coil fans is Peter Christopherson’s new project The Threshold HouseBoys Choir. “So Young it Knows no Maturing” shows that his musical skills made it to Thailand intact. This is a far better song than the one included on It Just Is…, another tribute album. It consists of processed vocals (one or more of the Threshold HouseBoys) and synthesiser that reminds me a lot of the Musick to Play in the Dark albums. It is a haunting and beautiful piece and is worth the price of admission alone.
Of the rest of the artists, I have no idea who they are. The tracks included aren’t particularly interesting and, with the exception of Kah’s “Stokers Siding,” don’t capture any of the essence of Balance. It feels more like they were included to fill up time on the disc. A visionary and influential man needs a more fitting tribute than a few run of the mill dark ambient bands.
I think all of these tribute albums have missed the opportunity to make a perfect tribute by including a lot of sub-par artists. I’ll probably take the best tracks from X-Rated and put them on a CD with the best of the other tributes and make my own album. What I will say about this album is that there are a good number of quality tracks that make it worth getting but the few less than stellar contributions ruin the flow of the album and take away from the sentiment behind X- Rated: The Dark Files.
samples:
- Scanner - Slateblue, Dark Seafed
- Aural Rage - I Don't Need That Deviant Sex
- The Threshold HouseBoys Choir under the direction of Peter Christopherson - So Young it Knows no Maturing
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title: Feels Like Home
catalog #: krank097
formats available: CD
CD UPC Code: 7 96441 80972 1
Release Date: July 10,2006
Content: Feels Like Home balances the more accoustic approach to Jessica’s songwriting on her most recent (untitled) album with the blissed electricity found on her earlier material. Gossamer vocals hover over delicate melodies, accented by tasteful bits of percussion, piano filigrees, and sundry guitar sounds. Feels Like Home is the most refined example of Jessica Bailiff’s musical vision to date.
Context: It’s the first full length of solo material from Jessica in 4 years but she’s been doing anything but taking a break. Check her fruitful collaborations with Dave Pearce (as Clear Horizon), Rachel Goldstar (as Eau Claire), and Jesse Edwards (as Northern Song Dynasty), as well as a featured appearance on Odd Nosdam’s latest album where she made vocal and instrumental contributions.
Press for some Jessica’s past work:
“Jessica combines folk accoustic guitar, droning guitars, and overarching vocals to create a lush, mysterious world reminiscent of a place between the songwriting of Nick Drake and the spirit of so-called sonic experimentalists like Kevin Shields and Sonic Boom”-Dusted
“Finally, a female singer that can be sweet and pretty without being sugary and grotesquely sincere. Jessica Bailiff sings floaty trip-out songs so slow that you’ll have to check your pulse. But after you discover that, yes, you are alive, you’ll be really happy to be listening’ – Portland Mercury
“This is pure mood music...but whatever that mood is, it’s impossible to nail down in one adjective.” -Independent Journal
“Bailiff’s records are syrup-thick with dizzying fx collisions. Tracks bob and float on tides of ever-receding tonal howl, while the sweet precision of her vocals hangs deep and latern-like” – The Wire
Track Listing: 1. What’s Inside Your Mind? 2. We Were Once 3. Lakeside Blues 4. Brother La 5. Persuasion 6. Cinq 7. Spiral Dream 8. Evidence 9. Pressing 10. If We Could 11. With You
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Mute are pleased to announce the release of the long-awaited Fad Gadget by
Frank Tovey project on 11th September 2006.
The 2 DVD and 2 CD package features a specially made documentary covering
Tovey's life and career up to his untimely death in 2002.
It will also include rare and unreleased tracks and live footage of
legendary performances, as well as classic songs recorded under both his own
name and his alter ego Fad Gadget.
This release has been put together by Frank's family in conjunction with
Mute, utilising the Mute and family archives.
Full details of the tracklistings for this package along with sound and
visual clips will be available in the coming months.
www.fadgadget.co.uk
www.franktovey.de
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Strange Attractors
Continuing the annoying trend of "free-folk" hipsterism is Castro and his medieval band of merry marauders. The Young Elders come from a wide array of musical backgrounds and one would expect this fact to influence the sound and continuity of the record. Instead, Castro sticks to using unconventional instruments in familiar ways. There's a reason that knights in shining armor and damsels in distress come to mind when this album fires up and it's not because the record is imaginative. In many cases it mimics stereotypes about some period music that everyone should be familiar with. Hollywood has made it easy to recognize what some sounds are supposed to emulate. It is impossible to create genuinely medieval music because we aren't living in medieval times and, as a very smart man once said, all music is folk music because all music is made by people. As a result, these songs can be nothing more than new voices looking back at stereotypical examples of music most people never got to hear anyhow. These two facts situate this album somewhere between fanciful adoration for a series of instruments that belong most strongly to a certain period and poor reproduction meant to express the ideas of a musician who lives in the 21st century.
I'm quite familiar with the fact that Current 93, Six Organs of Admittance, and many other bands I enjoy use "folk" music and "medieval" conventions to mold their sometimes unique sound, but there is a difference between someone like David Tibet and Nick Castro. While Tibet joyfully exudes his love for histrionics and period instruments, he also leaves an impression of himself on the music that gives it character, a shine that is impossible to find elsewhere. Castro, on the other hand, merely reproduces what everyone is already familiar with. The music is absolutely gorgeous, the musicians involved have all had their hand in performing lovely ballads, intricate instrumentals, and shimmering bits of harp and recorder driven melancholy. Aside from that beauty, however, is nothing new with which to become enamored. A song like "Altar" sounds festive, bringing to mind all manner of fairs, competitions, and heavy drinking, but it also reminds me of Robin Hood in a bad way. This brings me back to the whole "free-folk" association: Castro is neither free nor folk. His music is emulative, an attempt to incorporate the past with the present and a stab at tackling some very well arranged music that positively shines with beautiful melodies and unusual instruments. There are no free form jams nor drones of guitar work that claim to have their heritage in jazz music. There's plenty of unusual instruments that feature elegant performances and soothing bits involving cello, oud, harmonium, and harp, but there's nothing particularly experimental or unusual about any of it. It all sounds very, very familiar most of the time.
If any of the names on this record float your boat, then chances are this record will be of interest. The songs aren't bad, they aren't poorly written, and with all the talent in the band it goes without saying that everyone plays quite well together. I can't help but feel that this is just another album in a long line of "folk" records, though. "Folk" records that have absolutely nothing to do with folk music (as in Nick Drake) and even less to do with free form music (as in John Coltrane and Derek Bailey). It's pretty, but there's plenty of it to be found everywhere.
samples:
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The albm consists of eight songs, all of which named for cities where either Rjyan Kidwell or each of the eight players have most likely lived at some point. The title, Actual Fucking seems to be a reverse euphamism: explicit sexual words used to describe something non sexual. The musicians engage in playing with each other, moving together in rhythm, making sounds they wouldn't be making alone. Live drumming, live guitar playing and digital manipulation jam on tunes which are both far from cliché and fun to listen to. The music grooves from the first minute and during the instrumental breaks the musicians break into some hot action.
For me, the route chosen on Being Ridden would have been great, as I would love to hear an instrumental version. I don't like the spoken/singing that Kidwell is doing on nearly all the songs and whoever the girl is singing on "Denton" is bordering on unbearable. The string sounds and acoustic guitar interplay on "Chapel Hill" is gorgeous while the lone instrumentation of a multitracked guitar on "Ybor City" after the phone message is endearing. "Covington" opens the second half of the record and grooves like a top notch Nice Nice track and Rjyan's vocals and lyrics are enjoyable, but not sing alongable nor memorable. While he's both rapped and sung in the past, he's proven himself capable of words both amusing and catchy. When the lyrics are simplified, like on "Chicago," with repeated refrains and direct melodies and muliple singers, the execution is a bit too show-offy. It's like everybody involved wanted to make an LCD Soundsystem record but didn't quite achieve effective results. A stunning instrumental, "Tucumcari," closes the album on a beat-less Moon and the Melodies-ish (Cocteau Twins clearly -with- Harold Budd) feel, and if this is purely the work of Cex, then I'm eagerly waiting the forthcoming release on Temporary Residence. If it's the work of the rest of the lineup then I'm gonna start a letter campaign to get all the players together again.
samples:
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While it may sound like an entire Balkan gypsy orchestra playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat marches, Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar, is largely the work of one 19-year-old Albuquerque native, Zach Condon, with assistance by Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw). Horns, violins, cellos, ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiels, drums, tambourines, congas, organs, pianos, clarinets and accordions (no guitars on this album!) all build and break the melodies under Condon's deep-voiced crooner vocals, swaying to the Eastern European beats like a drunken 12-member ensemble that has fallen in love with The Magnetic Fields, Talking Heads and Neutral Milk Hotel.
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It is no coincidence that world class bassist and producer Bill Laswell is involved in this project. For one, it is Laswell who produced Matisyahu's Youth. Laswell, the world music genre-fusing genius, has worked with so many notable artists: Mick Jagger, Afrika Bambaataa, Yoko Ono, Brian Eno, Fela Kuti, John Zorn, Peter Gabriel, George Clinton, Herbie Hancock, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Motorhead, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sly & Robbie, Swans, Last Poets, and has remixed the work of Santana, Bob Marley & Miles Davis. As one writer puts it, "Bill Laswell is god. Can you prove he's not?" He is a true maverick and a perfect match for Roots Tonic and Matisyahu's blend of reggae, hip hop, soul and traditional Jewish music. Their chemistry was so perfect, in fact, that after the Youth sessions were completed, Laswell invited Roots Tonic back to his Orange Studios to record this album, Roots Tonic Meets Bill Laswell, which is NOT to be confused with the dub version of Matisyahu's Youth.
With no Matisyahu, Roots Tonic was forced to stand and deliver on an album without vocals or lyrics on which to rely. Deliver they did. With Laswell serving as studio lion Lee "Scratch" Perry to Roots Tonic's Aggravators, Josh, Jonah and Aaron have created a living, breathing disc of instrumental reggae, as funky as, say, the classic "Macka Dub" by the Barrett Brothers (Aston "Family Man" Barrett & Carlton Barrett, The Wailers' rhythm section). The grooves are so loose and lively you can tell they were having a blast recording. At the mixing board, Laswell economically weaves in everything from synth stabs to phone touch tones to unrecognizable sound splatters. He stays out of the way of the bass, and heaps echo on the drums and guitar, allowing the high end to spiral out from the music.
Dub as a genre always seems to be making a comeback. Its influence is consistently heard in other forms of music from Radiohead to Missy Elliot. But, judging by the surge of interest in and activity by bands like Heavyweight Dub Champion, Goathead, Dub Nomads, LA's Future Pigeon, to the reunited Systemwide, to Roots Tonic labelmates Dub Trio, Dr Israel and 10 Ft Ganja Plant, American Dub is currently very fertile musical ground. This spring, expect Roots Tonic's popularity to bloom with the release of this album, plus live Matisyahu and solo dates. There is even talk of Roots Tonic opening for Matisyahu.
Roots Tonic: Josh Werner - Bass & Keyboards, Aaron Dugan - Guitar & Sounds,
Jonah David - Drums & Percussion
Produced by Bill Laswell at Orange Music Sound Studios, West Orange, NJ
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