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Punk ascendants in the stripped-down indulgence of theiraesthetic only, Wizardzz are for anyone who always wanted Lightning Bolt to putmore of the airy shimmer in their melodies and maybe get a little disco in thebackground. Brian Gibson is surprisinglyas chop-ful a drummer as Brian Chippendale of the Bolt, giving every one ofthese songs the propulsive, stomping edge they need to stay fun and keep out ofretro-wank regions. This record shouldbe essential for anyone who loves Lightning Bolt drumming because Gibson’sstyle is so similar to that of Chippendale while also opening up a bit, pushinginto lighter, more infinity-tinged acid patter under the washing electric coolof the keyboards.
Porter nearly outshines the drumming, dropping gliding,shimmering melodies in addictive, reductive homage to synth heroes likeTangerine Dream, while at once charging ahead into spacey dance beats that aresometimes neck-and-neck with Gibson’s pulse-playing. Unlike some Lightning Bolt, everything soundsthoroughly composed, never pursuing freak-outs that might boil over and ruinthe cartooned mood. True, some of thisstuff sounds very video-gamey and ‘twee’ in that sense, but once you’re insideit’s hard not to deny that kind of adrenaline fully its work. As a cornerstone, Wizardzz end the album witha particularly energetic live song recording, proving that just the two can doit all in real, kept time—pretty damn ecstatic and fun. Also, if you’ve ingested this one and wantmore Wizardzz, know that a short live video recording comes included with theDVD release of Gibson’s animated feature Barkley’sBarnyard Critters: Mystery Tail(Load), which may or may not include scoringby the band.
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Durtro Jnana
Penny Rimbaud's approach was to weave a ragged punk collage of dirtymusique concrete and industrial noise to match Annie's apocalyptic beatpoetry. Adrian Sherwood took the On-U-Sound approach to a new level forMs. Anxiety, placing her brutal and pithy hysterics amidst a baffling,complex network of techno and dub mutations, bursts of noise andunexpected audio collisions. Guest spots on other artists' workproduced varied results, but Annie often still sounded lost inhostile surroundings, with the notable exception of her hilariously disturbingmonologue on Coil's "Things Happen" from Love's Secret Domain.
Starting in the mid-'90s, Annie's new team of collaborators andproducers put the singer on more solid, less experimental footing. Can"Khan" Oral and Kid Congo Powers of Gun Club sexed it up and camped itup for their Legally Jammin' releases. Larry "Electroclash" Tee andJoseph Budenholzer used traditional instruments to cushion Annie'sincreasingly more understated vocals, lending the singer asophisticated, downtown NYC jazz-room feel. This new album, Songs From the Coal Mine Canarytravels down this same path, with sophisticated jazz ensemblearrangements for every track, placing Annie's voice front and center,with all of its wounded imperfections and evocativeness intact.
A sticker proudly proclaims "Produced by Antony," perhaps trying to catch the eyeto Mr. Hegarty's newfound legion of rabid fans for album sales, asLittle Annie herself remains unjustly obscure. To be fair, this isn'tjust a cynical sales tactic, as Antony's presence is felt throughoutthe album, which features his piano playing, backup vocals, andsongwriting skills on several tracks. The tracks that Antonyco-wrote with Annie, especially "Absynthtee-ism" and "If I Were a Man,"have very much the same quiet torch song vibe familiar from Antonyand the Johnsons material, but the spotlight here belongs to Annie.This is simultaneously the album's biggest weakness and its greateststrength. Those who don't connect with Annie's subtly disarming lyricsor her savvy, time-ravaged vocals might find the album a bit slight.It's probably true that songwriting has never been Annie's strength,and though she is bolstered here by very talented collaborators, therearen't really any showstoppers on the album. Attentive fans willeven notice some repetition, a couple of songs that are reworked frompast releases.
But that's not the whole story, as Songs From the Coal Mine Canaryis much more than just the sum of its parts. There is something aboutthe way in which the introspective love ballad "Diamonds Made ofGlassine" merges with the dark, Angelo Badalementi-style jazz backingthat makes it sound like liquid city moonlight poured into a cocktailglass. The upbeat but devastatingly apocalyptic "End Is Near" explodesinto being and careens towards a thrilling Nine Simone-styleconclusion, with Annie giving an impassioned vocal performance, toughfor a singer who can't help but sound languorous and tossed-off. Thereare moments that hint at the scathing punk screeds of her past, butmostly this is a mature, sophisticated Annie, an impossibly coolcharacter, a lady of the evening haunting an out-of-the-way gay bar inNYC, filling everyone's ears with stories of past exploits and bitterregrets.
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Something about the strictness or the purposefulness of the form turnsme off. Everything is heavily composed,tight as a drum, to the point where, played loud, the instruments churntogether rather than rocking forth, a suitable aesthetic for Om’s purpose, butat odds with the notation and timbre of the sounds played, which are still verycaustic, attacking, very metal, full of laboring, intricate hammer-ons...lotsof notes played, not a lot of space between them.
I expect that if they are going to play thisway, with this same Sleepiness, then a logical progression exists leadingtowards freak-out, towards frayed edges, squalls and randomized sound, toward adopesmoker’s predictable decent into hands-up surrender to impulse. Ican’t ignore a degree of excess in the band’s execution; no matter theall-over-ness of the compositions, they teeter into a stubbornness thatdegrades their mood. …And they just plug away. I am no metalhead, but I enjoy my share of that, and certainlyminimalism, as a descriptor and genre-type, but I gained nothing from theseveral times I sat with this. It’s likelistening to a metal record skip mid-verse; the crescendos are surprisinglysmall and uninvolved, the bass distortion gathering everything into a blanketof sleepy sameness.
Though I hesitate todescribe something with such grounding in minimalism as predictable, it’s aword that communicates the dysfunction between Om’smethod and what I gather as their purpose. Granted, this purpose might feel served for someone who listens only tometal; however, I’ve never met such a person, or at least one whose taste was indiscriminantenough to let this stand for some kind of holy minimalism. Also, though I tried to turn it up, I’ve neverseen Om live, a potential mind-changer, as this kind ofmusic is always better when it’s shaking your chest. That said, maybe live is the only way theycan be appreciated; at barely over 30 minutes and boring, Conference of the Birds offers little argument.
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Sub Rosa
The first thing (and probably the most superficial thing) that I noticed about this volume is the lack of the big names that the series has seemed to sell itself on (previous volumes included Cage, Merzbow, Neubauten, Beefheart, Autechre and so on). Volume 4 focuses more on obscure and/or serious artists. Browsing through the tracklisting for the first time, there were few names I recognised (on further investigation, this volume is dedicated to the unknown and unrecognised pioneers). Anyway, time to move on to the music itself.
Most of the tracks across the two discs are rhythmic drones, many ofthem very relaxing, with only a small few "difficult" pieces. Some ofthe music could be seen as boring and predictable as the ideas exploredin it have been reused and improved in the years since these particulartracks were recorded. The majority still sound extremely fresh andsometimes frighteningly contemporary. The opening track by Halimel-Dabh, an Egyptian composer dabbling in musique concrête beforemusique concrête existed, has a haunting quality which astoundsme by being over sixty years old. This small piece of electronic magicis followed by the much duller “Pièce Électronique #3” by György Ligeti(of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame). No doubt it sounded otherworldly at the time but it is lacklustre both in the context of this compilation and in the context of his other works. At the end of the compilation is a beautiful piece by Olivier Messaiaen for the Ondes Martenot, similar in sound to a theremin, which pairs off perfectly with el-Dabh's piece. Both are early examples of using electronics to make sounds that sound far more contemporary than they are (Messaiaen's "Oraison" is from 1937).
Reich’s “Pendulum Music” is included here. I like it but Ulrich Krieger’s interpretation didn’t do much for me. However, like a lot of the music here, the random nature of pieces like “Pendulum Music” means that it’s very hard to enjoy every version of a particular piece. The very nature of noise is its randomness. It shouldn’t be either likeable or dislikeable; it should just be what it is. If it’s aesthetically appealing then that’s just a happy accident (I think there’s a distinction between a piece being aesthetically and conceptually appealing).
One band I’m delighted to hear on this compilation is Japan’s criminally obscure Les Rallizes Denudes. Personally I think they fall firmly in the realm of rock as opposed to noise (and definitely not electronic music). Granted they were a noisy band, “Fucked Up and Naked” demonstrates this, but the noise seemed more like a by product than an actual goal. In a similar way “River Blindness” by Andy Hawkins is an example of how noisy rock can be. Feedback and volume have always been standard issue in rock’s arsenal and Hawkins seems to be stockpiling both. These two tracks show how noise isn’t just a pastime for the avant garde composer. Of course they also demonstrate how you can over intellectualise rock and I feel that the compilers have slightly shot themselves in the foot.
The concept of the cut up in music is well worn at this stage. In this day of sampling and easy editing, it’s hard to think of it as an art form as opposed to a tool. Listening to some of the tracks on this album brings home how revolutionary cut ups once were. “Broken Music Composition” by Knizak shows how physical the act of cutting up was; Knizak would break up records and reassemble them in new combinations to make random compositions. It sounds like someone trying to tune in stations on an extremely unreliable radio. The Burroughs tape piece is not strictly a cut up but works on a similar principle. “Present Time Exercises” is a collage of radio and television recordings mashed together. It sounds hackneyed now as dozens of “edgy” artists have done the idea to death but it is still a fascinating window into Burroughs’ unique mind.
There is a lot of material contained here and most of it isfascinating or at the very least of some historical importance. Thereis little to no filler: the people at Sub Rosa have done a sterling jobof picking out nuggets. It is especially impressive consideringthe Anthology project now spans eight CDs. I am impressed to say the least by their continuing high standards.
samples:
- Halim el-Dabh, "Wire Recorder Piece"
- Les Rallizes Denudes, "Fucked Up and Naked"
- Olivier Messaiaen, "Oraison"
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The band has been putting on some of the craziest shows I’veseen, not as much in the spastic energy dept. (though that’s not a problem) aswith a blatant and absurd unpredictability, something un-grotesquelycombinative and childish and uplifting without any sarcasm…lots of costumechanges and bizarre posturing that really isn’t because there’s no directingatmosphere or landscape or character behind it. It's just a beautiful, freewheelingcomedy-as-art, art-as-comedy routine lavished together through the holes in anever-growing, porous, neon sound sculpture.
Shambolic as any “filler” on a Thinking Fellers record and as high-stungand purposed as Zappa in his most-‘out’ stages, Fat Worm makes truly invitingskronk rock concrète, full of polyrhythmic toy machines, convincing fartsounds and guttural word games, everything suited-up neatly and snagged in aroom-size waveform with vaguely collectivized, pow-wow vibe, a communing musicbuilt on myths of unrecognizable phrases, screeching guitar punctuation, anddinner sounds of the damned.
This is NewOld-fashioned American experimental party music; I love it.
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Kranky
Green Inferno was a thick, warm album that swelled and pulsed with all the life of a Florida summer. There were melodies, vocals, and rhythms congregating with swells and synthetic washes; the mixture of earthy textures and incorporeal suggestion was soothing, if just a little offbeat. Lightning Ghost begins with an emphasis on the phenomenal and tangible world, doing away with or deemphasizing the elysian connotations that covered Vida's previous work as Bird Show in the form of drone-like features. Vida's voice stands out on this record, having a more prominent position in the music, but the music itself has changed and many of these songs deserve to be called catchy, among other things. Ben works his magic on Lightning Ghost by emphasizing tribal grooves and simple rhythms, casting them as the gravity around which the rest of the album will flow. The material around that gravitational center is composed of many different sounds, not the least of which is a psychedelic continuity of beating guitars and melodic percussion. Nothing on Green Inferno sounds like this does, but the shift makes sense; there were hints that Vida was capable of something like this in everything he's done.
So the album is different, but that says nothing about how good it is. I said the songs were catchy and that's absolutely true. I want to listen to this album in my car just as much as I want to listen to it in a reclining chair with a nice pair of headphones. The rhythms cruise lazily, but with an insistent pulse and the guitars and keyboard parts interact and tangle together in some very appealing ways; the title track is an especially good example of Vida's tendency to mash all his instrumentation together. The album isn't soupy, but it's carefully arranged so that each sound compliments the next, furthering the organic qualities that the album already has. Vida's misty production also lends its hand in giving the record a naturalistic sound. As each song progresses it works its way deeper into my consciousness not just because it's got something like a hook here and there, but because it belongs there, fits there like it was missing from the start.
There may be some strange instrumentation here, but the music isultimately very approachable. Before, Ben might've alienated somepeople by abstaining from more conventional song structures andsticking to rather abstract work, but now he is welcoming thosestructures into his music and putting them to good use. They don'tdominate the album, but they add to the mystique of Vida's alreadythrobbing and shrouded music. I think this may earn Vida some new fansand I don't think it's too big of a stretch to imagine a record likethis being a gateway to stranger music for people who've never reallyexplored new and different styles. Ben Vida has created a sound all hisown, but kept much of the music familiar enough to be inviting.
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11 Fingers
The music on Fluorescent is dark and cinematic. It’s easy to visualise scenes of Hitchcock-like suspense and murder to the album. Each track adds a new scene to the story. Will our hero find the killer? Will he survive finding the killer? Should he go up those stairs? And so on. The best part is, each time I listen to it, the script changes depending on what elements of the music I’m paying attention to.
Most of the tracks have sweeping drones and subterranean rumbles underpinning delicate, glassy sounds with pops and glitches adding a touch of spice to the mix. "Rentip" and the annoyingly named "::.:" sometimes stray onto well worn paths, at times Fluorescent sounds like Dockstader or Fennesz, but the majority of the tracks are captivating. “Sol” is one of the highlights, combining atmospheric and stratospheric sounds with radio waves (hence the Dockstader comparison) to create a warm and pleasant ambience, perhaps the love scene in my mind’s movie.
The album reaches a climax with the phenomenal “Amt,” which builds up with a looped drum line and what sounds like a squadron of fighter jets revving their engines. Listening to this on headphones made the sounds come alive. This is definitely the action scene. What impressed me with Fluorescent is how coherent the album is. Despite “Amt” being a lot more active than the rest of the album, Poo links the entire album together by using a restricted palette of sounds used on this and the other tracks. Tracks like “Inkleva” and “Almofun Suelr” are distinctly different pieces of music but they are undeniably cut from the same cloth.
Fluorescent is a promising debut for Poo. It is well-assembled and enjoyable to listen to. There are multiple layers to the music; depending on the time of day or mood I was in I ended up picking up on different threads running through the tracks. Fluorescent is by no means a classic album but it is an album that I will be returning to.
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Quarterstick
Feast of Wire made me dance, daydream, and flat out rock when it was first released. There was a misty, unspeakable quality to the whole album that made it shimmer, but there was enough force and drive in the music to give it a sharp edge. It was fun to listen to and catchy to boot, but there was enough fire in the songwriting to make it stand out, to make it feel individual and unique. Garden Ruin, on the other hand, sounds flat. Its visual equivalent is a large, flat mass of land filled with nothing but sand. Gone are all of the flourishes that made previous Calexico records feel special; it sounds as though the band took everything that made them great and filed it down to be perfect for radio replay. Normally an average album from a great band is still worth paying attention to, but this is an especially bad drop in quality for Calexico.
To be more clear, every last song on this album is catchy in some way or another, but after just a few minutes I lose interest in the music and start to wonder what else I have that I could put on besides this. It took me a few tries to get through the entire album, not because I didn't like any of the melodies, but because I could literally predict when the vocal harmonies were going to appear and when trumpets or slide guitar would make an entrance. At points I thought Mark Knopfler was going to appear on the album. The smooth guitars and utterly soft texture Garden Ruin carries with it reminds me of why Dire Straits' last album failed so horribly. This isn't exciting rock music, this is horribly bland background music meant for people to ignore. Remember watching High Fidelity and thinking that the Belle and Sebastian reference was horribly appropriate? That's just how I feel about this album. It's ambient music without any of the attractiveness that Eno and others managed to pull out of the genre. It's music to play for your parents when they're worried about the kind of music you're getting into. It's a distraction and place holder for other bands that sound dangerous and that are palpably horned. Nothing about Garden Ruin is edgy, it's simply a record to pass the time with, while nothing more noticeable is happening.
When a band flattens out like this, I always fear for them, but in reality I'm probably fearing more for myself. I loved Feast of Wire, I even enjoyed their split with Iron and Wine. With Garden Ruin, however, Calexico are getting sleepy and putting people to sleep because of it. I like quiet songs and I like romantic songs, maybe even a few sentimental tunes here and there. The lack of vitality on this record doesn't stem from its subject matter, but from the music itself. A song like "Deep Down" doesn't inspire some feeling of deep emotional attachment in me nor does it drive me to feel particularly alone or angry, fighting internally in the way that the song attempts to. In place of genuine emotions, a sense of plastic and commercialized feeling emerges and completely ruins the song, turning a protest into a meaningless and especially mundane exercise. It reminds me of how easy it can be to make a band ready for radio. All it takes is the right production and a desire to please everyone simultaneously. It's an impossible goal to please everyone and be unique, the best music is always intensely personal and full of all the quirks that songwriters bring to their craft. Calexico, on this record, are trying to sound far too pleasing and have only succeeded in making a boring album as a result.
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Seies is a further improvement and a logical step forwardfrom the previous album, “The Snow” sounds like the bridge between thetwo releases. The guests on the album all fit perfectly withLarsen (or maybe Larsen are just good at accommodating guests intotheir sound). Julia Kent’s cello feels like it has always been a partof the instrumentation. It pairs off with Dellaplana’s accordionbeautifully. Equally beautiful are Jarboe’s vocals. Jarboe can put hervoice to anything and make it golden but with such talent as Larsen’s,the combination is untouchable. “Rever” (which has the same name as thealbum Larsen did with Michael Gira at the helm) evokes feelings ofbeing at sea: Kent’s cello being the warm breeze; the glockenspiel isthe splashes of salt water and Jarboe’s voice is the feeling of freedomof the open waters. In fact, most of the tracks on Seies have a nautical edge to them. This feeling makes me think of Seies as a good precursor to Nurse With Wound’s Salt Marie Celeste: the bright, sunny day in a blue ocean before the terrible night on a black sea.
The third and final collaborator is Lustmord, whose contribution doesn’t sit as well in the context of the album. He adds his usual ambience to “Marzia” but when I listened to it as part of the album, it stuck out like a sore thumb (especially after the wonderful “Haula” that precedes it). However, when I listened to it alone, away from the rest of the album, it worked a lot better. "Marzia" would have been better as an EP on its own or else maybe a track or two was needed to allow a better flow on the album. In any case, this is more of a personal quibble rather than the music actually being bad.
Seies is, as I said before, the best thing Larsen have done so far. I’m always reluctant to say that about a new release as my opinion could change in a week or two but I’m making an exception in this case. I hope they continue to impress and evolve. Judging from their recent appearance on The Eye, my hopes aren’t likely to be dashed soon. Especially if the next release features Baby Dee (a subtle hint if you are reading this, Larsen).
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Staubgold
Theopener, "Wieder das erste Mal," sets a tone for the rest ofthe album. Clanging, serpentine rhythms and wordless throat singinginvoke an otherworldly realm while strings, flutes, xylophones, andmany other instruments come in and out of the mix. Nothing sounds outof place and the pace remains forceful without becoming languid despiteits running length of nine and a half minutes. "Die Farbe aus dem All"also jumps from the beginning, the bass and drums propelling the tempoforward while horns chase after them like sirens and metallic scrapeshover alongside the beat. Not until escalating echoed voices becomegoat-like do things die down, with a loud hum bringing up the rear.Songs like "Five Grams of the Widow" and "Zweiter Sommer" provide avalued contrast to some of the heavier tracks. The former is fairlyshort and airy, with horns making effective low-key statements in aflirtation with jazz. The latter starts with delicately plucked stringsbefore hand drums give birth to a shaggy rhythm that becomes a willowysummer anthem.
A couple of the songs sound somewhat incomplete, buteven those hit some fine moments that might otherwise be lost trying toperfect an arrangement. The album never feels as if the group isover-reaching, but rather they do a good job of maximizing each other'sstrengths. This, combined with their sense of dynamics, makes for apowerful debut that will hopefully entice them into futurecollaborations.
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