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Brown was, of course, a member of cultavant-garde band Tuxedomoon, the San Francisco collective that pulledup stakes and moved to Belgium in the mid-1980s. Last year LTM reissueda couple of albums by fellow Tuxedomoon alumnus Blaine L. Reininger,and it's actually a little weird how similar Brown and Reininger's solomaterial sounds, especially considering how little it resembles theirwork in Tuxedomoon. For their solo projects, both artists developed adistinctly MOR style of urbane, jazzy pop music with literate,world-weary lyrics. Luckily, Blaine L. Reininger's albums were saved byhis prodigious talent on strings and his use of neo-baroque chamberquartet orchestrations. Steven Brown has no such saving grace however,and 1991's Half Out,his third solo album, suffers from "adult contemporary" blandness andan annoyingly overcomplicated production style. Each track is filledout with loads of superfluous compositional elements: keyboards, horns,emulators, synthesizers, strings, drum programming, accordion, guitarsand backup vocals. It's all a bit exhausting, making relatively minimaltracks like the point-counterpoint "Violorganni" (a duet withReininger) a welcome respite. For the majority of the album (and thefour extraneous bonus tracks), Brown's music seems over-calculated andpseudo-sophisticated, from the tiresome opening monologue ("I've got amillion things to say but I forgot. I could write a book but I lost mypen."), to the ill-advised Cole Porter cover ("In the Still of theNight"). In an effort to prove how intellectual and literate he is,Brown name drops Jean Cocteau, randomly breaks into French and Italian,and spins some incomprehensible yarn involving "Willy Loman with hisFlemish Reader's Digest." Frankly, it's all a bit pompous, a collectionof empty artistic gestures that don't seem terribly substantive. Iseriously doubt I'll be giving Half Out another spin any time in the near future.
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People who can't rap shouldn't and programmers with some degree of ability shouldn't bother enlisting those tired vocalists when they aren't needed. Point in case: Todd Drootin of Books on Tape makes some mildly entertaining, low-end electronic fuzz dependent on bass and drums and then decides that it must be too boring to stand alone.
Melissa Dungan enters this scene and proceeds to rap like a 12 year old girl obsessed with coming off as "old school." It's a truly sad scenario of adolescent proportions until Dungan stops rapping and starts singing some reasonably tolerable lines variously concerned with such topics as Donnie Darko and shoes of different colors. The EP is five tracks plus five remixes; one remix is provided for each original track. The Master Cylinder remix of "Chartreuse" is actually quite good and is worth a few listens or perhaps it could serve as a nice addition to a mix CD for long, relaxing drives. While there are plenty of groove-filled rhythms pulsing through most of these tracks, the vocals always end up cutting through them like a chainsaw to bobbing rolls of fat. It's messy and irritating because those rolls of fat are mesmerizing and fun to watch while they last. Eventually the remixes stand out and above the original tracks, but only because the lyrics are buried deeper in the mix and because the remixes aren't trying hard to be surprising. They simply move along at their own pace and provide a continuous mood and steady rhythm. There's nothing but standard fare going on here; the price is pretty nice for a ten song EP, but it's depressing that only two or three of those ten songs are worth paying attention to.
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There are warm tones bubbling up and over thesurface of this ocean and the water's rhythm provides nothing but asoothing cushion of air on which to relax. Over the course of the firstfive tracks this same feeling is reproduced in slightly varying ways:guitars stretch and crack, pseudo-pianos jumble against each other, andfairly straight-forward guitar solos dominate the mix of electronicpercolation. Sadly this is all the album has to offer; one completerotation through this record reveals a monotonous production that neverallows any of the synthetic strings to stand out as anything more thanpassing scenery: listening to this record is much like trying to catchall of the details in the trees on the side of the road while passingthem by at one-hundred miles per hour. It isn't as though the music ismoving by too quickly, but all the sounds end up blurring together inan unsatisfying way. There are exceptionally beautiful moments on someof the songs, but it is as if they are predictably beautiful. MarkusReuter and Ian Boddy can sequence and orchestrate music quite well, butthey limit themselves far too severely to produce more than one or twotruly engaging tracks. This kind of shimmering music feels as if it isstuck in time, undeniably in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Instead oftrying to escape from song structures that have long been worked out byother musicians, Reuter and Boddy both revel in sounds and structuresof a tired genre with a vague hope of making them sound moreinteresting.
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The album picks up where2003's The Rose left off: piano-soaked melodies almost completely void of the electronic beats and rhythms that made his 2001 debut Infinite Love Songs so infectious. This is where the problem lies, however. With Infinite Love Songs,Hecker was not only powerful in his originality, but he authored somepowerful songs that linger long after they're over. The problem thatplagues Lady Sleep is similar to The Rose: the lyricsare a tad too timid and moderately obscure, almost completelyincomprehensible at times, uncatchy and forgettable; and without thedaring rhythms and beats of the first album, as a whole, the album isdangerously bordering on completely miserable. Furthermore, Hecker'soriginality seems to be slipping too: songs like "Lady Sleep," andespecially "Dying," painfully echo Sigur Ros while on "Yeah, EventuallyShe Goes," the album's only track that choses to (almost) rock, Heckeris plainly resurrecting Radiohead's "Creep." Perhaps Hecker is tryingto find some hit power for his formula, and although I can give himsome mad props for the stunning piano and string arrangements,everything else is far too bland and disposable. Perhaps it's time fora remix album to add some color back into his palette.
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Songs like "California" and "Everybody's Song" are instantaneously catchy, and it doesn't take many listens to easily sing along. Finding a cool comfort in a quieter approach are songs like the haunting re-recorded "Silver Rider," originally released on the "Murderer" single, and "Cue the Strings," which could easily be a nod to the Secret Name version of "Will the Night" with its use of (no surprise here) strings. Towards the end, the album lightens up with two fictitious autobiographies, "When I Go Deaf," where Alan sings about all the benefits of going deaf, and "Death of a Salesman," where he faces the doubts that nearly all musicians have at one point in their life.
Low have done a complete 180 degree turn on The Great Destroyer, as their deeper subjects tackled are the loudest rock tunes and the sillier lighter things are the quiet, slower numbers. The biggest criticism people have been giving (and all it takes is a few web searches or to be signed up on an email list to witness) has been "this isn't the Low I love." As music listeners, we're all guilty to some degree of taking a certain "ownership" of music, especially when it isn't multi-platinum hitmakers that everybody in your family or office knows. (Oh, that's "Jon" music they say around me, and I'm sure many people reading this have had the same thing happen at the home or office.) My criticism isn't with the musical choices the band took, as Low still sincerely dedicate themselves to perfection within the pop/rock framework, but with the production. Dave Fridman, the overrated knob twiddler for Flaming Lips who nerdy hipsters drool over, has seemed to fail to keep up with Low's enthusiasm. Layers of distorted guitars and beefed up drums get out of hand and sound like they're clipping at overdriven levels. If they wanted to sound amateurishly distorted, then they've done a good job, but there are moments on the album that sound way too accidentally muddy. Regardless, this is an album that I have grown a great fondness for in the short time I've been listening.
It's not entirely unexpected from Low, but it's easy to see that executed in such a bold contrast to their trademark can go either way: treasure or trash. This album is an elephant in the livingroom and people will undoubtedly have a hard time getting around it without an opinion.
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Cover artwork is collected froma few of Steve's own personal favorite paintings for the original cover(all were different on the original 1987 issue) and the overall designechoes what has worked for Nurse in the past. Although all the musichas been released before (both on LP and various CDs), everything iscurrently out of print. This is the first time all the songs have beenreunited on a CD, and it sounds wonderful. Tracks were originallygathered from cassette-only releases, compilations, a live bit, andother odds and ends. All have been remastered and sound more vibrantthan ever, from the nasty organ through piano banging on the opening"Mourning Smile" (which probably shouldn't have gone on the CD releaseof Spiral Insanato begin with), to the shrieking banshee noises on "Sheela-Na-Gig," andthe dying manatee sounds on "Astral Dustbin Dirge," which mostdefinitely shouldn't have gone on the CD issue of Homotopy to Marie."Swamp Rat," although it's rarely a popular song with existing fans,undeniably has the elements that fans fell in love with NWW for: aconstant pulse (even if it is a cheesy drum machine in this case), anoccasionally repeated sample, a drone of some sort, and someunconventional instrument playing over it. Even the least intoxicatingsongs never got boring. While a lot of musicians and distributors andfans think the collapse of World Serpent was a bleak moment, I lookforward to more classy reissues like this with the delicate time andenergy invested into restoring a original running order and remasteringrecordings with the finesse that somebody like Colin Potter possesses.
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To date his resumeincludes production duties for MURS, Mr. Lif, Wildchild, CL Smooth andDeclaime, and has dropped many a verse on records produced by Madlib,Stones Throw patriarch Peanut Butter Wolf, and others. The reason forthe debut's delay is unclear; he's been signed for a while and has beenrecording even longer—he did his first demo at age eleven, was foolingwith production equipment in Madlib's room long before then, and in hisadult years put out a slew of singles in addition to his guest spots.The favor is returned on The Disrupt:Jay Dee provides a heavy Detroit club banger, Madlib gives brotherlylove on six eclectic tracks, and other members of the extended StonesThrow family also lend a hand. The foundation for a great debut isthereby laid, but something seems to be missing. Oh No is supposed tobe the star, and the veteran of one too many a guest spot and 12" can'tseem to carry the load through the admittedly solid seventeen trackswithout the help. The album teems talent and creativity but at thesacrifice of cohesion, balance and continuity: the heavy hitting TheRide (with samples pulled from Nintendo classic Ninja Gaiden) is followed up by mellow, soulful thought-provoker Getaway. The years that Oh No spent creating snippets of material rather than longplayers are evident on The Disrupt.It works two ways: he's clearly picked up nearly all the tricks of thetrade, and provides nearly everything the hip hop listener could wanton the multifaceted Disrupt. But in the end, the record feelshewn together, an amalgamation of otherwise worthy parts but not aperfect whole. That in turn raises the question of whether or not hiphop is an album-oriented genre—and if Oh No has picked up anything fromMadlib, he should be advised to follow up The Disrupt withsomething more cohesive. This is the only complaint, though, and it's aminor one. Oh No's talents as producer, MC and DJ are evident. Thesecombined with the guest spots make what might be slapdash patchwork forsome a delicious rap smorgasbord for others.
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Hipshot
His long-standinginterest in Hawaiian steel guitar, Pacific culture and exotica reachedits apex last year with the release of his Rayon Hulaalbum, a fascinating experimental work combining dizzying loops fromold Arthur Lyman records with Cooper's impressive improvisation onsteel guitar.
Cooper's new limited CD-R release on his own Hipshotlabel is a recording of an October 2003 live performance at animprovised music festival in Rome. The live set is composed of onelong, slowly evolving piece combining field recordings, real-timesampling, digital treatment and loops with live improvisation onCooper's 1920 National tri-plate lap steel guitar. It's a richlyevocative work that meanders lazily through oceanic expanses ofelectronic twitters and drones, to lush jungle landscapes filled withexotic birds and hypnotic curls of delayed steel guitar. Twice duringthe performance, all of the disparate elements gel unexpectedly intogentle vocal songs.
The first is a cover of Van Dyke Parks' "Movies IsMagic," and Cooper transforms the nostalgic ode to old Hollywood into awarm and nuanced thing of beauty, with his lazy ripples of guitar givenjust the right touch of digital processing. The other song is"Dolphins," a track by 1960s folk singer Fred Neil (though TimBuckley's haunting rendition is probably the most notable), whichCooper gives a soulful rendition against a backdrop of abstractelectronic noise and sparse, minimal guitar. At times during thelengthy experimental interludes, especially during the "Virtual Surfer"section, the dense noisy textures, animal sounds and psychedelicelectronics sound remarkably similar to Black Dice's recent Creature Comforts.
The album is incredibly rich and evocative, and as a live performance,it's utterly flawless. Cooper takes live guitar processing and samplingas his raw material, using it to build something complex andsubstantive, full of ideas and surprises, not just abandoning ithalf-formed. Everyone who thought Fennesz' last record was the best of2004 would do well to listen to Mike Cooper's Reluctant Swimmer/Virtual Surfer,to hear similar musical strategies brought to their full potential by aveteran musician in his artistic prime. As usual, the only way to get acopy of this limited CD-R is to send the artist cash inside a birthdaycard to Hipshot headquarters in Rome. Frankly, I find it incrediblethat one of the many trendy experimental record labels in Europe hasn'tsnatched up Cooper's last few albums for a wider release.
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All of their work up to this album has been strictlyinstrumental: amorphous compositions, largely ambient, combiningelectronic textures and drone with murky samples, buried melodies andother unidentifiable audio goop. The Bodyshop is a departurepoint for the group; not only is melody front and center on almost allof the tracks, several actually feature vocals. Just to place thisalbum is stark relief to previous efforts, Beequeen also include acover of Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog," with lovely vocals byMarie-Louise Munck of Danish band Armstrong. This is still identifiableas the work of Beequeen, but it feels like a quantum leap for the bandin terms of structure, composition and production. There are stillplenty of pretty moments of quiet psychedelic nebulousness, but thereare also upbeat numbers like "On the Road to Everywhere," which sets alively post-jazz melody against layers of encroaching drone andchirping arpeggiators. It achieves a beautiful complexity, with certainelements standing out in bold relief and others blurry and shapeless,just beyond the realm of cohesion, like thick globs of color on aparticularly formless work of impressionist art. On the whole, thealbum feels very sedate and beatific, but there are tense undercurrentsof radiant darkness that permeate tracks like "Blackburn" and "BuzzbagDrive." The latter is a standout track, a dark Lynchian westernfeaturing noisy swathes of electric guitar from guest Erik Drost,member of Girlfriends and newly of the Pink Dots. At 37 minutes, thealbum feels a bit truncated, but not a moment is wasted. It's unclearwhether this is indicative of Beequeen's future artistic direction, orwhether this was a one-off tangent into partial coherence. Either way,it's a very welcome departure for the group, and speaks to theirongoing evolution and unwillingness to submit to the forces of creativeinertia.
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For Play, their first album for Important Records, Larsenare still using the same basic sound palette as their previous efforts,with perhaps a more concerted push towards melody. Apparently these sixtracks (each mysteriously named with a single letter of the alphabet)began their life as Autechre covers, before slowly evolving intosomething else entirely. If this information hadn't been outlined byImportant, however, I would have never made the connection. WithAutechre in mind as a reference point, I would say that Larsen wereaiming to expose the oft-obscured melodies underlying Autechre's bestwork from albums like Tri Repetae and LP5. Listening tothe play of vibraphone and drums on the album's opening track, I couldimagine these same melodies in the cold, sterile digital environment ofBooth and Brown, but I could just as easily imagine them as thesoundtrack to a late 1960s psychedelic giallo film scored by Goblin. Inthe final analysis, the Autechre connection is really a red herring,and sells the album short. Play is more a competent work ofdynamic ensemble playing by a group that is becoming more synergisticwith each successive release. I don't normally go in for this type ofostentatious, self-important post-rock, but Larsen are so successful atbuilding a melody and articulating its development perfectly over thecourse of an eight-minute song, that it's hard to resist. The droninglayers of harmonium and accordion create a densely abstractarchitecture for the rhythm to inhabit, with the whispered, chanted andgrowled wordless vocals adding that slightly sinister touch. Current 93listeners will notice interesting parallels between this album andC93's Sleep Has His House, as they use a virtually identicalgrouping of instruments. Occasionally, the players reach a noisycrescendo and the bombast is not dissimilar from vintage Children of God-eraSwans. Guest contributions from cellist Julia Kent (Rasputina andAntony and the Johnsons) and violinist Matt Howden (Sol Invictus) lendthe weighty tone of European folk music to the proceedings, which onlyintensifies the album's exquisitely somber mood. Coming off of a yearof disappointing new albums by post-rock stalwarts Tortoise andcountless GY!BE spinoffs, Play breathes fresh air into anoverpopulated genre. Not that Larsen should be tied to that particularstyle association, as they clearly have a vision that supercedes thekind of high-concept elevator music made by the aforementioned bands.Though it's fairly brief as albums go, Play works because themusic is taught, dramatic and entertaining; as soon as the album ended,I wanted to play it over from the beginning.
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Somewhat more lyrically diverse, save for itsrepetitious one-word chorus, the track's quasi-acidic squelches andshimmering synth echoes drive this infectious club-ready concoction.Additional guest vocalist Andreas Byhlin appears on three tracksincluding the extremely poppy "Implosion." Abandoning the subdued andpompous sense cool often found in minimal house, Byhlin lets looseloudly and soulfully over Skugge's clicky rhythms and digitallycrackling loops. Taking cues from vocal house music figures like RobertOwens and Michael Moog, Byhlin continues in similar refreshing fashionon "Set-Up," confidently crooning alongside dirty basslines and spaceyatmospheres. The instrumental numbers are equally as impressive as thevocal ones, as they allow Skugge to use the melodies themselves asremarkable tonal voices within this danceable framework. The titletrack fills the space with deep and subtly dubby synthwork that washesover the minimal 4/4 beats without overwhelming them. While minimalmusic purists might not care for the relative fullness of Volume,Basic Channel-style techno fans and house music heads alike will takepleasure in this first surprisingly sharp release of 2005.
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