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This sort of restraint has often been a prelude toa blizzard of harsh noise in Karkowski's past work. KHZis successful because it develops in a gradual manner, rather thansimply being an exercise in quiet/loud interplay. This calm atmosphereeventually gives way to rapid clicking, analog patterns which hover ata moderate volume, and help the piece achieve a sense of movement. By24 minutes these hums and buzzes have become a much louder chorus ofshifting electronic pulses that are a massive payoff. The next fourminutes are an excellent study of the interplay between thisall-enveloping drone and some subtle, high-pitched staccato rhythms.The arrival of a brief noisy section towards the end is barelynoticeable due to the gradual accumulation of intensity thatcharacterizes the flow of the piece. Karkowski benefits greatly fromthis collaboration, as it seems to encourage his (relatively) subduedside. It is to their credit that the pair have restricted the length ofthis piece to 45 minutes, resisting the temptation to fill the CD toits capacity. While too many abstract sound artists explore only oneend of the sonic spectrum, Karkowski and Davidson have succeeded inproducing a work that focuses on the way these elements can worktogether. It is uncertain what relevance the only sleevenote,"rebounding=junk of life" -R. Selavy, has to the sounds containedwithin, but any alliance with Marcel Duchamp's feminine alter-ego is agesture to be applauded.
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Many of the tracks are approximately two minutes long, andcould have been developed into longer pieces. "Bewley in Grey" is onetrack that ends too soon, just as a nice ambience begins to swoop inand swirl around the repetitive guitar patterns. The short pieces whichwork best are those that are based on field recordings. "Cluster at CWMEinion" consists of sounds of creaking, rustling, and the faint voicesof distant animals. If some of the instrument-based pieces were longerand more fully developed, these short sound-collages could work betteras links, and would provide contrast. However, since almost all of thetracks are fairly short, with only five of the 17 passing the fourminute mark, they all end up sounding like sketches. Some of them dowork well as such, but others, especially "Lakeside" and "Bewley inWhite", would have benefitted from added instrumentation. Fi'satmospheric, pastoral quality is a good foundation, but too many of thetracks introduce loops without adding much to them. The album's longesttrack, "Cantaloup Carousel", starts with a strummed, melodic guitarpattern that sounds like an introduction to an actual song. However,this pattern continues for almost six more minutes with littlevariation besides an effect that makes it sound as if it's being playedon a warbly cassette deck. While many of the tracks work well asinstrumentals, some of them sound as if they are lacking vocals. Ifthere were a few vocal tracks, or some other percussive elements added,the album would have more depth. Wilkinson may have feared that addingtoo much would have made the album sound cluttered, as it seems thathis approach is somewhat rooted in minimalism. By adding elements withsubtle gestures, he would have added variety without taking away fromthe album's appeal. Simply developing a few of the stronger pieces intolonger, more finished works would have been another way to give the setmore depth. As a debut album Fi shows that its' creator has alot of potential. It would be nice to see him develop these elementsinto a more fully realized work.
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Although I understood theband's progression and need for growth, I never appreciated it or likedit as much as the older Hood. But the band produced some memorablesongs in these less memorable albums (and one thing which has neverwavered was Hood's ability to produce stunning album covers—they havegood aesthetic sense and photographic ability to beautifully captureEngland's fine fields with every album and single—this album is nodifferent). What is presently more caustic and inimical to Hood's soundnow, though, is their newfound alliance with San Francisco's Anticoncollective, the blossoming and sometimes intriguing indie hip hopoutfit. The Anticon influence is felt straightaway from the firstoffering after the introduction, "The Negatives." The song begins witha recycled hip hop beat which sounds ill-suited for Hood's accustomedrural beauty. The impingement of the city's sound into Hood's usualrusticity is hard to accept, even harder to accept than the previousmetamorphosis from short, concentrated meanderings into longer,digressive journeys. Were there room here for philosophical musingsabout urban sprawl and perhaps even the noxious Colonial influence onthe motherland, we might be able to discern why Hood have wanderedastray from their once-chosen path, adopting both the urban and theAmerican. But before we can think too much, "Any Hopeful ThoughtsArrive" follows closely on "The Negatives," confirming the Anticonalliance and dismissing any real hopeful thoughts. Again, a hip hopbeat with jump cuts and electronically scratched samples begins thesong, later mixing with the more Hood-ish arrangements (strings;layered vocals; thoughtfully-plucked guitars, repeated as befits theirdelicateness). The hip hop elements add nothing to the song; rather,they detract and derail, calling the listener's attention harshly away.The song is actually quite dazzling underneath the initial andlingering cityscape. Another song similarly afflicted is "The LostYou," the lead single from the album. The latter half of the album isby far the more pleasurable. "Still Rain Fell" is the best song on thealbum (the title coincides with my first favorite song of Hood'sdigressive period, "S.E. Rain Patterns"), eschewing wisely any of thecity sounds and retracing the more classic Hood sound. Just listen tohow the band, halfway through the song, mimics the sound of the gentlerain first with their guitars, then with their percussion. These aresounds the city cannot appreciate. Poetically, "L. Fading Hills" fadesout with the most panache on the album, nearly demanding another fewminutes to contemplate the ending themes further. The last song, "ThisIs It, Forever," is a two and a half minute sound collage tryingdesperately to be a song, recalling a lot of what was most compellingabout the old Hood. It's not so much the song "The Lost You" whichtroubles me. It's the lost Hood. The band has lost their way slightly,having wandered too far off some woodland path and emerged throughbrush and shrub on the boundary of some deformed city whose siren songhas lulled Hood into a misguided collaboration. The later moments of"Outside Closer" give hope that some new streams and meadows mightpersuade them back towards their riotous roots in Spofforth Hill.
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Bits of vehemence become swallowed in layers ofpretty chords and moments of relative peace over and over again. Addunexpected time signature changes and stop and go dynamics andbasically every aspect of this EP has been covered adequately. Ifnovelty is found to be necessary, behold the furious slamming of adrummer playing behind a child's first trap set and be satisfied. Whilethe percussion does sound amazingly sharp and sits well with the wallsof musical whirlwind that move with it, the necessity of using achild's drum kit is questionable and stands out like a bad stage propmeant for audience amusement only. "It's Christmas Time Again...," theEP's final track, is an eleven-plus minute monstrosity composed of eachof the previous three tracks: this basically adds up to more of thesame. Instrumental passages of romping grind and heaviness juxtaposedby melancholy and riffs right out of 80's do not become more impressiveover time. This music is not like a good bowl of chili; it doesn'ttaste better the next day or after it's been sitting in the fridge fora night. After being offered song after song of repetitive andultimately uniform rhythmic torture, By the End of Tonight sounds likeit just doesn't have enough ideas for an EP, so the prospects of abetter full-length seem dim for this band. They're all technicallyaccomplished performers, but that doesn't make up for the lack ofsubstance that ultimately dominates their recorded performance.
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Phiiliip
He spells his namePhiiliip so that Google searches return more accurate results, and getsinvited to open for Momus on his 2001 American Patchwork tour. I was atthe show, and though I found Phiiliip's fried electropop to beexcruciating at best, I found the man himself to be strikinglyattractive, in that post-Danceteria-Berliniamsburg-by-way-of-West-Hollywood kind of way(which probably says more about my bizarre predilection for thatemaciated hustler hipster look than it does about Phiiliip'sbeauty), and I was seduced into buying his debut album Pet Cancer.When I finally got up the courage to actually listen to the CD, I wasquite bemused by the artist's combination of Beck vocals, Gary Numanposturing and Larry Tee electrotrash bedroom electronics. I was alsobemused by the constant drug references ("U Did 2 Much K") and thepersistently nihilistic lyrics. Though I still wasn't convinced thatPhiiliip had any real value musically, his album was at least funny andendearingly odd. Not that I spun the thing very often, the cheaplylopsided beat programming and annoying vocal processing making it apretty trying listen.
Now comes the follow-up, complete with an arsenalof guest appearances from The Soft Pink Truth, The Streets, Avenue D,Excepter and Khan. While Phiiliip seems to be attempting to move awayfrom the schizoid bedroom pop thing and a little more into music thatcould be deemed danceable (maybe), Divided By Lightning isunmistakably still the work of that cute but untalented aesthete Ifirst laid eyes on four years ago. More stunningly annoying beatprogramming covered up by layers of digital sediment and bafflinglyoverworked vocal mutations. More lyrics about sex, drugs, exclusive loftparties, nouns, zombies, drugs, clothes, drugs, celebrities, self-pityand drugs. Hell, I'd be the last person to criticize an artist becauseof his obsession with drugs or drug music, but Phiiliip's drugobsession seems particularly lazy. He explicitly references Ketamineand Adderall in the liner notes, both of which I am familiar with frompersonal abuse, and I'm not at all surprised that Phiiliip is tooderanged to be able to tell good from bad.
The best moments on thealbum come from the collaborations, with the clean-edged throbbingsassiness of "4 the 2nd (Soft Pink Truth Remix)" and "Off the Leash(Khan Remix)" coming the closest to Phiiliip's experimental artfagdance music aspirations. Other tracks attempt to piggyback the NYCnoise movement, most notably "Blue Moon (Excepter Remix)," whichsubjects the Henry Mancini classic to the Black Dice treatment. Just toenforce the painful eclecticism of the album, Phiiliip ends with asustained power electronics attack ("Fuck Music") and a low-fi versionof the Boyz II Men ballad "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday."It's all so incredibly fucking weird that I really wish I couldrecommend it, but I can't.
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Thankfully, Kirk's creative juices and frustration with the state of the world birthed this diverse yet cohesive collection of forward-thinking music from the former Cabaret Voltaire member. Though the title is an overt nod to King Tubby, Kirk doesn't let that restrict him from showcasing work encompassing various genre influences, regularly within the same song. The opener, titled "The Truck Bombers Of Suburbia", exhibits this eclecticism at its most extreme, with awkwardly looped and heavily effected samples of classic rock, funk, and dub abruptly clashing with one another. Previously released as a 12" single, the grinding quasi-dancehall track "Who's Afraid (Of The Red White And Blue)" sets the tone for this largely nasty, aggressive album and introduces listeners to vocalist Pat Riot, who I can only assume is yet another entry in Kirk's lengthy list of pseudonyms. (Rather than confuse readers further, Kirk and Riot will be treated as separate entities for the duration of the review.) Riot's distorted voice can also be heard growling midway through the handclap-heavy dark techno number "Smoke Em Out," a reference to George W. Bush's blunt yet unsuccessful approach to dealing with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. "Goat Dub Reaction" mixes Middle Eastern melodies and keyboard strings and pulses over looped hand percussion rhythms, with the occasional vocal from Riot. On "Desert Rhumba," Kirk updates the classic Sheffield bleep sound he helped define, with a gritty synth riff driving a litany of furious protest chants. "Heart And Mind Of Dub" closes things out with a relatively traditional dub groove, its instrumentation augmented with liberal use of echo chamber delay and even a noisy remnant from earlier on the album. Despite the diverse influences represented here, this is a remarkably complete release, with the vocals effectively holding several tracks together that may have seemed too different otherwise. As an eager follower of Kirk's recent output, I can say that this is his most accessible album in some time, and the best so far of his post-9/11 work. I cannot help but wonder what would happen if only other electronic artists, particularly those of the younger generation, would follow his lead and use their music to speak against injustice, hypocrisy, or whatever specific issue concerns them. Call me what you will, but if this is the type of music that war and right-wing global politics can spawn, then we need a lot more of it. Get cracking, people.
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Mostnotably, however, My Long Accumulating Discontentfeatures intelligible vocal parts and nearly unedited instrumentalpassages. His music is ever-expanding and finding new modes ofexistence. There is no sense here in talking about drones or noise.Though the music can be a collage of random samples and instruments attimes, this record also features a queer and convincing logic thatstems from its almost antique sound. Tracks like "Dissolved (Te WhareAo Aitu)" and "The Sour Accompaniment" make a direct appeal toantiquity and play on the notion that these songs are all part of somemorbid dream set far in the past; almost like Tim Burton's vision ofAmerica at the turn of the century. On the other hand, there are softand fluid pieces such as "The Children's Infirmary or Precious andSugar Foot" and "A Cold Spring in Summerland" that play off lessfamiliar sounds and structures. While sounding distinct and perhapsmore inviting than their musical neighbors, they ooze an aroma wovenout of dust, old age, and memories better forgotten. I have an inklingof an idea that there is some form of a band environment behind theseseventeen tracks—saxophones, nervous cymbals, melodic vocal parts, andnarrative elements all play a part in various places—and there is,periodically, a very direct and uplifting song structure that standsout among the other pieces without being a show-stealer. I doubt Lilesis forming a familiar band whatsoever, but the music that's usheredforth from his mind and those of the musicians used on this album isundoubtedly more structured and mesmerizing than anything else I'veheard from him. Despite this, he's also managed to maintain thehaunting, demonic, and perverse demeanor that makes his music so uniqueand alluring. It's the addition of new sounds and structures to hismusic plus his ability to manipulate those structures that make thisrecord stand out so sharply in my collection. Songs like "An UnkemptGarden or the Cod Cape" and "The Captain's Apprentice" are the mostemotionally stunning songs I've heard come from Liles and it is intheir shape and movements that they become so remarkable. It's a shamethat I missed this record in 2004, it deserves a great deal ofattention as it is one of the most exciting records I've heard from therealm of all music subconscious and spectral.
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Although the CD only release is split into two halves as if it were avinyl LP ("Side Cosmic Trigger" and "Side 2AM Visit"), it is very mucha unified work on which the even the track titles seem incidental. Oneof the highlights is the nearly 16 minute live workout "Brighter Than10,000 Cacophonous Suns." During this number, Kohei sounds as if he isrummaging through a pile of scrap metal while an overloaded microphoneproduces ear-splitting feedback trying to capture the action. Thecredit given to clearly audible "screaming and drunk noise fans"alludes to audience and performer having a grand old time wreakingsonic havoc together. "Rock Me," a track originally included on an ABBAtribute album, proves that Throbbing Gristle's Chris Carter is not theonly experimentalist with a fondness for the Swedish disco outfit.Filthy Dabo's admiration goes far enough to require him to end hisblistering feedback massacre 30 seconds before the end of the track, sothat he can whistle along to ABBA on the radio for its duration.Throughout the album he covers both ends of the sonic spectrum, asexemplified by the high pitched feedback and intense low end rumblethat are both prominent during "Rock Me." Moments of respite are fewthroughout the 43 minute set, but there are some sections of relativecalm. "Stabbed Straw Puppet" fades in slowly before the gradualaccumulation of harsh feedback loops commences. The final two minutesof album closer "2AM Visit" consists of the sound of water drippinginto a bucket. "Roulette" features samples of voices, a rewinding tapemachine, and other found elements juxtaposed with blasts of sharpnoise. This track stands out among the all-out noise tracks as havingan almost musique concrete feel. This use of different approachespoints to possible directions in which he could steer the project inthe future. This is not an album for all occasions, but is a perfectchoice for when one is the mood to be dominated by sound.
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Tucker Martine is a producer and sound recordist, responsible for the critically lauded Broken Hearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica from Southeast Asia and a number of other projects too various to mention. Orchestra Dim Bridgesis their first collaborative album, even though they've worked togetheron past projects. The album is not quite what I might have initiallyexpected from the two. I was thinking of something along the lines ofimprovisation on the violin from Kang with production flourishes andfield recordings from Martine. What they've done instead is altogethermore calculated, a unique sort of instrumental post-rock album thatthrows everything including the kitchen faucet into the mix, throwingeverything at the wall and seeing what sticks. There is a definite lackof any immutable formula here; one track might be a simple guitarmelody with shuffling beats; another a chamber quartet obscured bydigitally textured surface noise; and another a dizzying assemblage oflaptop spliced snippets of audio drawn from instrumental performances,field recordings and ethnic plunderphonia. Tucker Martine has a clearpredilection for busy, overworked arrangements full of minute audiodetails, evidenced by tracks such as "Baseer Ornamental," in which arather lovely Oriental violin melody is constantly upstaged byMartine's galaxy of spliced-in effects. This eclecticism, whileinteresting at first, eventually becomes tiring, and by the end of thisbrief album I was left feeling somewhat shortchanged. Although he isundeniably talented, Martine reminds me of the dissatisfied painter whokeeps returning to a finished canvas, adding little background toucheshere and there, until the painting is completely overwhelmed withsuperfluous decoration and has to be scrapped. It's the producer's jobto know when to step back and let the music stand, and save for acouple of tracks, Orchestra Dim Bridges sounds like ahyperactive child set loose in a sound library with a pair of electricshears and a tub of epoxy, which unsurprisingly does not yield veryinteresting results.
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Bands like Giants Chair, Cap'n Jazz, AmericanFootball, Compound Red, Boys Life, and Braid are reference points forthe sound with which the Miners flirt. In fact, vocalist Dan Burton'sbaritone sounds similar to Braid's Bob Nanna. Both have a stony andprimitive sound, unmolested by the effects of any formal training. It'shard to tell if Burton's voice (or Nanna's, for that matter) ispleasant or not, but it does give shape and substance to what wouldotherwise be music pretty enough to be heard, but not forceful enoughto be compelling. The more perspicacious listener will realize that theband is actually from the Midwest (Bloomington, Indiana: home of theHoosiers and the town which kindly lent itself to the simple beautiesof "Breaking Away") and that Burton was once in Ativin, a cohort in thelegion which made the initial assault for the prenominate mid-90s,Midwestern sound. So the appropriation of the sound is less fromappreciation than actual practice. "Errance" has an archetypalMidwestern sound trope: at the inception of the chorus, the tempo slowsand the instrumentation falls away and evaporates, leaving only thelightly brushed snare drum, the softly enunciated vocals, and thesparingly plucked guitar. The guitar is almost an afterthought. Thesong's title is curious since the Miners are anything but errant. Theguitars hover and swirl in orbits which revolve around each other,attracted by some musical centripetal force and never shooting off inan unforeseen exit velocity. They might meander, but they never getlost. Speaking of guitars, they are what the band does best. The Minerswrite intricate, delicate, and lovely guitar parts which fit togetherseamlessly. The band is expert at crafting catchy six-stringedmelodies, almost overshadowing or overpowering the rhythm section. Itcertainly doesn't help that the rhythm section is never seriouslychallenged by any of the songs. Actually, "Comfort/Guilt" approachessomething close to rhythmic complexity. Playful drumming mixes withcascading guitars which teeter off the edges of notes, threatening tofall into a cavernous abyss. "Precious Blood" also percolatespromisingly for a few short-lived instrumental minutes but soon enoughrecedes into the next track, "We Know In Part," a more typical slowdrawl from the Miners' canon. Transitions such as this show that theMiners are content to pick-axe their way along quite deliberately,remaining in shafts where it is dark, where everything moves a littleslower, and where the threat of black lung is everywhere. When theMiners do poke their heads above ground, the sunlight is blinding andthey quickly duck down again, comfortable in their Midwestern andmidterranean realm.
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Though his work is understandably lumped in withhis industrial cohorts SPK and Scorn, it actually has a lot more incommon with the spacescapes of Tangerine Dream or the pioneeringambient work of Popol Vuh. Brian Williams is a consummate engineer andproducer as well, and throughout his career has taken advantage of thelatest technology to increase the presence and richness of his uniquelytextural audio environments. 1990's Heresywas a definite high point in a career of high points for Lustmord, andSoleilmoon has just reissued the album in a nice digipack with a newre-master overseen by Williams himself. Heresy is an hour-longmind trip into massive, cavernous expanses of subterranean rock, intodark recesses filled with a sense of slow, abiding dread. Broken intosix pieces each more consuming than the next, Heresy has anarrative arc from beginning to end, as Williams penetrates deeper anddeeper chambers of bedrock, coming closer to the bubbling magma andfrozen expanses of wasteland at the center of a dying star. Buriedbeneath the yawning industrial maw of these turgid reverberations andtime-stretched, strangled screams are disquieting audio details: aconvocation of monstrous Lovecraftian entities devouring the flesh of acorpse and releasing ancient, foul belches into the cold, stagnant air;the deep, bellowing laugh of a murderous tyrant standing victoriousover the bones of his enemies; a muffled cry of terror from the centerof an immense electrical storm. Williams wields his electronics with anear towards audio environments that envelop the listener, slowly butsurely canceling all thought and focusing the attention on thisimmersive dronescape. Lustmord albums appeal to the same part of mybrain that finds inexhaustible enjoyment in the darkest of heavy metal,from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Slayer, Mayhem, Burzum and SunnO))). Like any of the aforementioned artists, Lustmord's penchant forthe shadow side of reality always runs the danger of digressing intounconscious self-parody, but if listened to in the right frame of mind,Heresy is powerful stuff.
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