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Twisted Village
By night,under the auspices of their group Major Stars, Wayne and Kate areequally enthusiastic purveyors of hard, loud and ferocious nonstop rockn' roll ecstasy. They've opened up for Comets on Fire on tour, eventhough their brand of high-octane, often instrumental rock is heavierand more substantial than the Comets' most wishful daydreams. This isnot to suggest that they are superior; rather that they are more pure,unadulterated and outright, unashamedly rawk. People who like to namethings call Major Stars a "psychedelic" rock band, but they're no more"psychedelic" than the sludge at the bottom of your Turkish coffee.What they are is kick-your-ass, balls-to-the-wall, energized freeformrock, full of big fat hairy riffs and powerful dynamics, rapidlyswitching gears to chase the next monstrous pummeling chordprogression. The foursome gel perfectly on stage, and this record,their first to be recorded in a state-of-the-art 25-track studio,captures the group beautiful, and is perhaps the best reflection yet oftheir live sound on record. The only things missing are the flyingsweat droplets and the heady breeze created by Kate's headbanging,hair-tossing stage theatrics. There are only four tracks and about 40minutes of music, but when the rock is this meat-and-potatoes, it can'thelp but leave me satisfied, even though I certainly wouldn't turn downseconds. "How To Be" wastes no time introducing their particular brandof crashing, resounding guitars, sounding exactly like Lester Bang'shyperbole-filled description of a Who gig, rather than what The Whoreally sounded like. The background is filled with a solid wall ofguitar runoff, Casey Keenan's caveman rhythms, forming a backdrop forWayne's soul-shredding post-Hendrix guitar performance, pulling farmore sound out of his instrument than should be physically possible."Song For Turner" is long and lyric-less, a study in reigned-in rockchaos if ever there was one, pausing for some detuned guitar noiseevery now and then, shifting to another rhythm and key when it suitsthem. It's totally accessible and totally grandiose, leading into thealbum's power-pop pit-stop "All Or Half the Time," which rivals TheBevis Frond for pure, pleasurable rock songcraft. Ending thingsbrilliantly is the 15-minute "Phantom #1," which starts out as slowlyshifting modal guitar drone, totally thick and hypnotic, beforeintroducing rhythm and rapidly upping the tempo until the song hasbecome a roof-lifting heavy metal beast, grinning and majestic. Nobullshit: Major Stars is just damned good rock music, so how come youhaven't heard this yet?
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Nothing can stop this band from forcing me to participate in the most sinister of feelings. They're soaked in evil, sex, and those lonely and terrifying sensations that only open, dead spaces can convey. Bohren und der Club of Gore associate themselves with doom metal via their own website, were formally a self-described "hardcore" metal act, have all the mystery and intrigue of the best David Lynch films, and yet none of these descriptions get to the core of this quartet's sound.
Geisterfaust, translated as "Spirit Fist," is broken up into five long floods of keyboard, sparse drums, and atmospheric sludge, each named after one of the fingers on a human hand. Never heavy or loud in the way that a metal act might be, Bohren manages to flatten everything in its path with its rather morose and morbid disposition. At the same time, having sex to this record seems to add a certain personality to the act, a kind of intimacy in the round, smooth edges of every sound that slow every sensation and motion down to near nothingness. It's appropriate to say that the song index on this record serves as a map to the movements of the entire record. Instead of having five completely distinct songs, there are simply five takes on a theme that is presented by "Zeigefinger." As the music moves forward, the quarter oscillates between moods, but never takes the tempo beyond its initial sluggish pace. Silence dominates the music just as much as any sound does; when the band goes quite there's an anticipation for the next chords or notes to strike. The structure of Geisterfaust builds up a sweaty uneasiness that pulsates almost maddeningly throughout each track until "Kleiner Finger" reaches its final moments. It's like knowing a monster is just around the corner, its thumping feet crunching forward ever so awkwardly, but having nowhere to run or hide. It's a long, hysteria inducing wait for a terrifying end. And, speaking of ends, the final two or so minutes is remarkable. The most simple of additions draws the album to a close and makes the barren wasteland that was paved before ignite with a lustfulness that can only be sparked by absence and resignation.
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Sub Rosa
They reach pastdeconstruction as a means or an end, entering new space, a labyrinthinelogic all their own. A lot of this probably has to do with the artist'sfavoring rounder instrumental combinations: strings of a chamberensemble sort, bare piano, brass, metal percussion. Akiyama's last, If Night is a Weed...,inspired Fennesz comparisons because of an ambitious textural grandeur,though this came obscured by spare compositional style and atemperament informed by the deliberate pacing and structural rigor ofclassical music. One of If Night..'s pieces was dedicated toSteve Reich, and Akiyama's music does reflect an attempt to carry thepure variants and divine gravity of Reich's Phase or Ensemblepieces into digital interpretation. If the last record was ambitious instriking a solemn, Reichian pose against the computer's pixilatedshimmer, then Small Explosions is ambitious in a new way. Stillin chamber-glitch mode, Akiyama works within much more scatterbrained,dissonant territory, sketching disquieted spaces through overlays ofwhat sound like largely improvised events. The coalescence of fragmentshere is the artist's most subtle, often stratified by atonalcounterpoints and layers of at-home ambience. Sounds of sleepybreathing in the first track indicate Small Explosions's increased interest in sound-travel and the unreality of dreams. Several of the string heavy sections recall, for me, the Waking Lifesoundtrack in their floaty circularities and spirited-away atmosphere.Akiyama shows also a new reliance on bell tones which give the music asense of distance and foggy boundaries that was not present within theintimate, single-room simulacrum of If Night.. and previousworks. Despite being probably the artist's most pared-down andsilence-ful music yet, with even a reduction in the field recordingsthat colored other records, Small Explosions feels the most far-out and heavily transporting of all.
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Thirsty Ear
Often, pairings like this come from well-intentionedmusicians who want to work together, but don't realize that the sum cannever equal the parts, so I braced for the worst. Happily, Drums of Deathmanages to avoid most of the cliches of supergroups and celebritymusical pairings of this sort, and instead boils down some signatureelements from each artist involved into a quite listenable whole. JackDangers' production is well balanced with Spooky's turntable antics,while the MCs simply do their thing over the rhythm section of Lombardoon drums and Dangers on bass. The Meat Beat head honcho proves thathe's still one of the best groove bassline generators on the planet,and DJ Spooky's cuts and sample selections work well to enhance ratherthan drag down the proceedings. It's Lombardo's drums that I can'tswallow all of the time, as they have an unshakeable "rock" sound thatdoesn't always serve the songs the way a more nuanced sounding kitmight. The grooves are tight if a little clangy on the cymbal end, butit always sounds like a metal drummer slowing down into a hip hopgroove rather than just an accomplished drummer gelling with hisbandmates. That's not to say the drums are bad—in fact almost everytrack gives sample hounds a free shot at an unobscured drum loop fromthe session, but I just wish the drums were somehow more processed andfitting with the primarily dub-leaning vibe. Chuck D and Dälek enhancethe record with vocal performances straight out of their standardplaybooks and there's enough guitar noise and metal riff sampling topossibly draw the the long-haired set out of their comfort zone alittle, which I have to imagine is the point with a lot of this.Skipping past the embarrassing Spooky on turntable/Lombardo on skinscall and response piece, and the oddly-lifted Jack Dangers sci-fisoundtrack pieces, Drums of Death winds up as a suprisingly funamalgam of styles and sounds that manages to overcome the threat ofnovelty, even if it never elevates to the heights of its contributors'individual accomplishments.
samples:
- Assisted Suicide (featuring Dälek)
- B-Side Wins Again (featuring Chuck D)
- Incipit Zarathustra
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- Lucas Schleicher
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ICR
Both recordings centeraround a metallic center that floats, sometimes soundlessly, throughevery shift and turn. Haphazard sounds often leap and stutter inperfectly flawed ways, unannounced, but appropriately and not without acertain dynamic effect. Listening to the November recording, I'm struckby the sound of rainfall, giant caverns, low mist hissing like a snake,and the images of monstrous architecture long forgotten populate everyhollow shuffle of electronic vibration. I'm tempted to say that Potterand Bradley went somewhat psychedelic that day, their time-laped soundphotography catching all manner paranormal phenomenon and, in a lot ofways, it is hard to escape that idea. The low rumble and sitar-likeblosoms that shapeshift on each song sound completely cosmic, betrayingtheir computer and electric origins. Most surprising, however, were thesymphonic flourishes and wooden bells that hit at the last moment onthe November piece. Bradley and Potter have found a way to take theirbest studio work and translate it into a live environment withoutsounding entirely too busy or far too worried about any one sound. Itsounds as though they went into these performances almost entirelynaked, armed only with the notion of some textures and a nice, solidtheme. The minimalistic and generally open feeling of this record setit apart from their other work, but also show that a live experiencesuch as this can be just as good, if not better, than what's done in astudio. Only 200 copies of this release were pressed, each coming in ahand finished sleeve and signed by Potter and Bradley. It's anamazingly vivid and unfortunately rare recording of this duo at theirfinest.
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Fonal
Instead of the likes of Mum and Sigur Ros, I must now contendwith decidedly more difficult names to spell like Kemialliset Ystavatand Paivansade. The music itself is a bit more difficult as well,varying expressions of an idiosyncratic, indigenous folk music, all ofwhich seems to share a sense of organic looseness and a fractured,experimental nature. The scene has recently gained internationalmomentum because of a predictably bandwagon-jumping feature in a recentissue of The Wire, but Finland's interest in homegrown experimentalpsychedelia has an inheritance that reaches back to the 1960s, withPekka Airaksinen and The Sperm, all the way to more recent years withbands like Circle. Tampere's Fonal Records has been the main outlet forthe Finnish underground since the mid-90s, and this beautifullypackaged new album from Finnish psych mainstay Islaja is a greatexample of the kind of quality on offer from the label. Islaja is asinger who draws on elements of traditional Finnish song, but shareswith her labelmates a penchant for whimsically esoteric arrangements:fractured melodies, complex layers of shambolic percussion, sampledbirdsong, droning bits, enticing compositional fragments andoverlapping, multitracked vocals. At first listen, Palaa Aurinkoonsounded unstructured, underproduced and generally unfocused, butslowly, over the course of the album, I latched onto Islaja'shauntingly childlike vocals as a guide through the sub-arcticwilderness, and came to understand the unique ways in which thedisparate pieces of the puzzle fit together. Throughout the album,there is a lovely sense of gentle chaos, with instrumental parts,percussion and vocals placed willfully askew in the mix, without overlymassaging them to fit a specific, rigid song structure. This loosenessshares much in common with the Incredible String Band or any number ofnewer psych-folk acts, but Islaja's expressions are uniquely affecting,the exotic timbres and phrasing of her mother tongue, as well as thedense evergreen forest that the players seem to inhabit, lending apeculiarity all her own. Everywhere there are the signs of a wintercoming or winter just passed, a communal group of musicians squattingon the permafrost soil to rifle through a bottomless bag of stringedand woodwind instruments, harps, keyboards and assorted noisemakers,trusting instinct and a momentary impulse to create impressionisticarrangements around Islaja's warm, whispery vocals. The music istop-notch throughout, but perhaps because of a compounding effect, thealbum seems to get stronger as it goes, reaching an apex with the lastfour tracks, each of which are particularly emotionally affecting. Theswansong "Rukuos" ends the album on a wistful note, an enchanting vocalduet matched with harmonium drones and ravishing flourishes of flute. Palaa Aurinkoonjustifies the hype surrounding the Finnish scene, a gorgeous andfragile souvenir from a strangely inviting sub-arctic forestwonderland.
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Pharaoh Overlord is the so-called "stonerrock" side project of legendary Finnish post-rockers Circle. With theirthree albums thus far - #1, #2 and a live album called Battle of the Axehammer- Janne, Tomi and Jussi have indulged their penchant for progressivepsych-rock that had previously only been hinted at in their work asCircle. Where those previous albums were notable for their hypnoticguitar riffs and the frequently caustic wall of feedback and reverb ala Acid Mothers Temple, this new full-length is marked by its relativetameness (except for "Autobahn," which I'll get to later). Instead ofblistering electric solos, the album emphasizes the trancelike rhythmsection, creating a series of propulsive motorik jams that enforce theprimacy of rhythm, structure and the infinite beat. Tomi Leppanen'smesmerizing drumming is highlighted on this album, the inheritor of atribalistic simplicity first honed in on by Jaki Liebezeit. Tomi'sincredibly drums form a complex counterpoint relationship to Jussi'svirtuosic bass and Janne's subtle, dynamic guitar melodies. In manyways, this album is the closest that Pharaoh Overlord have gotten tothe sound of their other project Circle, creating a post-rockamalgamation that traces its evolution back to Neu! and Kraan ratherthan Tortoise or GY!BE. Rather than partake in a lot of showboatingstylistic shifts or wanky guitar solos, Pharaoh Overlord insteadconcentrate on a group sound, building an unstoppable forward momentumwith the canny (and Can-y) use of extreme repetition. "Test Flight" and"Blackout" are both outstandingly trippy and trancey, but both exerciserestraint to such a degree that when a fuzzy, third-eye guitar solobursts forth into the mix, it creates an adrenaline rush of sound.Quiet restraint and focus are pretty much the watchwords of #3,until the 13-minute polyrhythmic excursion of "Laivaus 17" gives way to"Autobahn," which switches gears and brings the album to a grindinghalt, a ten-minute wallow in the sort of metallic grind, subharmonicbass frequencies and crawling doom made infamous lately by Sunn O))),Boris and their various copyists. It's an odd stopgap in an album thatis otherwise bright and energetic, full of precision, dynamism andsparkling production. Where Pharaoh Overlord shine is on tracks like"Octagon," when the seemingly effortless creation of rotating,interlocking concentric circles of rhythm and melody resembles TerryRiley or Steve Reich's rhythmic explorations, with a newfound sense ofstoned bliss and psychedelic awe.
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- Jim Siegel
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Warp
The eight tracks on work well as rhythmic studies, withrepetitive patterns shifting gradually, sometimes several times withinone track. The opener "LCC" rushes out of the gate with rapid-firebeats sputtering out of the speakers, only to switch to half-timeshortly after the three minute mark. This tactic recalls the shift fromstraight 4/4 to a pronounced shuffle feel that took place half waythrough "Cipater," the opening track on 1997's Chiastic SlideLP. While some tracks, such as "The Trees" and "Fermium" recall themore straightforward feel of their early work, others are almostarrhythmic and are similar to their recent work, sounding like theirmachines are careening out of control. "Augmatic Disport" is a case inpoint, and begins with four minutes of beats made up of successive fastrolls, which is followed by three minutes of more sparse, disjointedphrases that sound as if they are being hiccupped up by the machines.The one and a half minute section that concludes this track is one ofthe albums truly divergent passages. During this section the jarringrolls and bursts of activity fade away to reveal a straight 4/4 patternthat clearly references the techno of their past. This is the closestBooth and Brown have come to creating chilled out techno since 1994's AmberLP, and the fact they only hint at it after eight minutes of heavyrhythmic bombardment makes it all the more effective. Naturally, thefollowing "Iera" sends us swiftly back into 2005 with its stop-start,slightly off kilter kick and click patterns. The fact that more than afew of these tracks bear titles that are actually in plain English(some of them even common words) is another noticeable reference totheir past, as this practice has not been used this extensively since1995. Although Autechre tracks often create an image of a straightfaced duo, 15 minute closer "Sublimit" shows that they do possess asense of humor. After several minutes of repetitive beats, a sectionensues during which downright silly sounding horn stabs are introduced.These, plus the low, thuddy snare sound with which they are duelling,obviously reference the nascent days of hip-hop. While Booth and Brownhave been vocal about the influence of early hip-hop on their music, Ican't help thinking they're having a laugh here. Although they are nolonger breaking new ground, Untilted is still an enjoyable listen due to the sheer talent the duo possesses.
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- Andrew Culler
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Monika
And while Chicks may sometimes appear capable onlyof recycling the past, Gut's accomplishments with Monika place heramong progressive artists never content to let nostalgia or pastreferentials guide their work. Hints of punk's subversive wit and DIYaesthetic enter the Monika sound, but the musicians seem lessinterested in countercultural rejection than in promoting reforms to aunifying pop language. Nearly all take advantage of the electronicmedium, but never as an end in itself, the computer never more than anelaborate editing desk, a treatment for whispered vocals, amplifier ofincidental melodies or siphon of city sounds. Monikans are almostuniformly female, urban and stylish without appealing to trends. Allmaintain a pop sensibility, though even the most twee (Figurine,Florida, Burka Band) are never so naïve that ironical detachment isrequired for their enjoyment. The sleek and minimal German electroniccode exists only as subtext for this music, its creators poised totease out quietly overwhelming melody and sundry pop eccentrics withenough ease and regularity to suggest that perhaps Monika shouldhead-up the Kompakt Pop Ambientseries so the title might gain some meaning outside of signifyingbeat-less microhouse throwaways. This is new and vital pop music,relevant in both past and present contexts. The archetypal Monika groupmight be Contriva, a trio that began as a subtle and melodic post-rockunit but, by the time of their first record Tell Me When, hadshifted within this basic structure to create a fragile and confidentinstrumental pop treasure, its musicianship still visible but findingtranscendence from studied post-rock-isms through the arrangement oftimeless and suggestive pop figures across an electronic song-line. Monika Forceis the label's second budget-priced sampler, special not only becauseit is a great label introduction (compiled by Gut herself) but alsobecause it compiles many of the marginally available remixes andvinyl-only tracks even a previous Monika enthusiast may not have on onedisc. Some of the label's best tracks like Manuela Krause + Pole's"Mein Freund de Baum" and Barbara Morgenstern's "Aus heiterem Himmel"are included here in their 12" and 7" mixes alongside newer classicslike Contriva bassist Masha Qrella's wonderful "I want you to know,"also in a b-side mix. Morgenstern, my favorite Monika artist, evenincludes an admittedly weak bonus video for her song "We're all gonnafucking die." In absolute justification of its title, Force is the prefect place to begin submission to the new Monika world order.
samples:
- Masha Qrella - I want you to know (Tobi Higgs mix)
- Komëit - Parade
- Barbara Morgenstern - Aus heiterem Himmel (Dntel mix)
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- Andrew Culler
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Monika
Each of these women not onlysounds like a brilliant new discovery, but each seems to both alongsidethe other three, but neatly within Monika's intimidating history. Theseare bedroom assemblages that beautifully support the title's rejectionof the solitary woman as locus for sentimentality or dependence. Allfour operate through the synthetic rearrangement and augmentation ofincredibly intimate recorded moments, be they hushed, after-hoursvocals, noodled guitar or nocturnal street and room ambience. Theresult is a very global sound, borrowing folk tropes from severalcultures (artists are Western and Eastern European and South American),weaving absurd post-modern fantasy tales, marshalling abstractpolitical statements, and dragging tense emotional ballads intoexpansive geographic space. Each artist contributes four to six tracks,within which each oscillates between more abstract cut-and-pasteselections and conventional hook-built songs, creating a successfuldynamic between potent atmosphere or sketchy ambience and charged popsongs that rival some of Monika's best. Rosario Bléfari and ÈglantineGouzy show particular mastery for microtonal percussion programmingcapable of piercing the music's small spaces, introducing the sounds ofthe street into a song's rhythmic milieu, or skittering around a smoothvocal. Despite the wealth of surrounding matter, the vocals do becomethe focal point for each artist's contribution; their voices so uniqueand expressive that they demand center stage, at least two of thempulling off Spanish and French rapped lyrics after crooning with nakeddelicacy in the previous tracks. Gouzy shuffles from creeky, Bjorkiannaïveté in "Nurse Song" to a complementary, provocative and playfulstyle in the obscure "Zone A." It's impossible to pick a favorite amongthese four artists, or to adequately represent even one of them in asound sample. Each is at once a great melody-maker and uncompromisedsculptor of diverse sounds, making this, my favorite compilation so farthis year, a hard first volume for Monika to top. - Andrew Culler
samples:
- Rosario Bléfari Partir y Rununciar
- Tusia Beridze Gorod
- Èglantine Gouzy Zone A
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- Jonathan Dean
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Subliminal Sounds
Amidsttheir infectiously mannered vocal harmonies (all in Swedish) andbackwards guitar symphonies, Dungen also interspersed unexpectedpassages of blistering acid guitar. Where Ta Det Lungt was a study in balance and dynamics, 1999-2001—Dungen'srarely heard first album, newly reissued on CD with bonus materials—isa far more untamed and problematic proposition. Made up of threelengthy tracks that each move through a number of jarring, Faust-stylemovements and rapid transitions, Dungen's debut is a mess, but aconsistently enjoyable one at that. Marked by its patchwork tendency tocrossfade into something quite different every few minutes, the albumfeels quite a bit hairier and proggier than its successors. In additionto the baroque psych-pop stylings familiar for the group, each track isalso chock full of odd passages of Jethro Tull flute solos,effects-heavy experiments in psychedelic ambience, free-form folkmeanderings, piano and slide-guitar duets and a myriad other musicalgestures too varied in their approach to encapsulate here. The overalleffect is of a group of talented musicians who couldn't decide howexactly to gel together and execute a single, coherent musicalstatement, so instead opted for maximum eclecticism, throwingeverything at the wall to see what would stick. As such, it's far froma satisfyingly conceptual whole, but other than that, it hardly makes awrong move for entire 18-minutes-plus length. The opening track startswith a recognizably Dungenesque vocal harmony backed by droningbackwards guitar, before fading into an extended instrumental jazz-rockpiece, a brief section of Comets On Fire-style synthesizer acrobatics,and a shimmering wall of drones with sampled birdsong. All of thisbefore the song has reached the halfway mark. A comparison could bemade with Xhol Caravan, who used similar tactics on their classicrandom radio-dial turning Motherfuckers GMBH. Like Xhol, Dungendon't seem to take themselves too seriously, juxtaposing breezy lightpsych-pop with third-eye sitar attacks, pausing every now and then foranother sunshine pop chorus. 1999-2001 is the kind of albumthat could very easily have digressed into turgidity and tedium, buthappily remains afloat as it coasts through a kaleidescopic variety ofwhimsical and hallucinogenic changes.
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