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Mush
This collection of reworked versions of Marc Bianchi's 2003 albumincludes remixes that stay close to his original versions as well asadventurous deconstructions. By keeping the same running order as theoriginal LP, the set is much more listenable than many remix projects,as there is only one version of each track. By selecting a group ofremixers that are likeminded, he has ensured that the album won't straytoo far from various combinations of pop music and electronica. Thisworks to the advantage and disadvantage of the set. The Album Leaf doesaway with the chaotic beat programming of "The Young Machines" andinstead offers a pleasant, but ultimately uneventful melodic electronicversion. Arab Strap's take on "Something To Do With My Hands" is thebest example of a new version that keeps the structure of the originalsong intact, while improving upon its arrangement. The beat they haveused in place of the original's is simply much better, placing the songin a more contemporary setting. Interestingly, Arab Strap vocalistAidan Moffat has resisted the temptation to add his own vocals to thisremix, as he has done to others in the past. The Stereolab version of"Girl Problem" is the most deconstructed, recontextualized track of theset. It's hard to tell if they've used any sounds from the originaltrack at all. They have added what sounds like organ, drums, and allmanner of strange analog keyboard sounds, and in the process have madea better track than anything on their own last few albums. Thejuxtaposition of Bianchi's lyrics "I've got a girl problem; I've got adrug problem..." against this absurdist backdrop of bleeps and organbursts goes miles toward downplaying his often overly emotionalleanings. Super Furry Animals take on "Sleepy California" is a case inwhich a similar juxtaposition is less successful, as they have setdepressing lyrics about a dying grandmother to silly, bouncy music. Sixof the ten remixers have kept the original's vocals intact,highlighting the importance of storytelling in Her Space Holiday songs.To their credit, none of the remixers have used repeated vocalfragments, which are often annoying. Matmos and Blockhead havecompletely removed the vocals from their respective remixes of "TechRomance" and "Meet The Pressure." They both offer excellent, highlydeconstructed pieces based on a few elements from the original. Thebeautiful, weepy strings which Matmos have used as a key element intheir instrumental version of "Tech Romance" prove that Bianchi doesn'talways need to rely on direct lyrics to strike an emotional chord inhis listeners. While it may have been interesting to hear a few actsless familiar than these pop/electronica sympathizers try to remixtracks, it may have disrupted the flow of the album. By choosing areliable, if slightly conservative, group of remixers, this album hasturned out to be a highly enjoyable companion piece to The Young Machines.
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Schumacher is an artist for whom the passage between sound installation, performance pieces, and isolated recorded works has been an increasingly fluid process. His first release since last year's lauded Room Pieces, Stories covers much of the same thematic ground, confusing concepts of atmospheric, incidental sound "events" with the markers of a scripted, real-time performance. Here, Schumacher's interest is an exploration of the narrative urges latent in musical composition and the expansion of these urges, as both the context in which a piece emerges, and the way a piece is constructed, are shown to be fragmented, multifarious.
Making the artist's job easier is a new lushness, previously unavailable in his music and not the result of an increased density of the stereo field but, rather, of an exploded range of sounds. String and horn sections, multiple percussionists, vocalists, guitarists, even a bass clarinetist join Schumacher's typically synthesized piano and guitar mastery, all to be subsumed, like most of Room Pieces, by a computer's "random" fragmentation and regeneration functions. The results are four lengthy fields or towers (to use the cover's analogy) of sounds, grouped at a staggered, stuttered, and loosely over-lapping pace. The true randomness of the pieces' construction becomes doubtful as bits of playing or tone color get accentuated and repeated to establish the relationships responsible for any kind of "story" that develops. The computer's presence does allow for a juxtaposition of context, however, in that it submits a reorganization or restructuring of real-time, often improvised instrumentation. Also, the machine's flattening-out and stratification of such a large, presumably interactive ensemble of musicians removes traces of any original intent, player dynamics, or acoustic relationship within a performed piece. Narrative is not developed explicitly through the additive layering process (nearly obscured by so much digital splicing) but through a series of abstract visitations: chirping, sunny static augmented by the sound of a violin struggling to get up; a synthetic tap-drip turning to labored footsteps, then to a guitar's white noise drawl; Schumacher's stately piano intoning over dim hospital noise, a fake heart's pulse. The cast of story-tellers produce a kind of flowery, electrical ambience that reminds me Tod Dockstader's early work or recent pieces by Olivia Block. The same buzzing, life-seeking atmosphere fills Schumacher's rooms and creates, in shuffled panoramic, his stories. There is something that feels melancholic or even a little old-fashioned about the moodiest moments here, constructs of disembodied female croons, floated piano chords, distant radiophonic voices, and disappearing drones. I feel as if wandering a lost city corner, among half-abandoned high-rises and century-old shacks, their inhabitants and technology ringing in a song of life and existence where no story rises above the rest, and hidden stories of the past speak out. Schumacher's compositions are like electric bubbles of experience, fused in molecular netting and thick in the air of any room. To witness such music in an installation setting might even be harmful, producing only sensory overload or a reluctant linkage to visual media. Regardless, Stories is an example of Schumacher's talent as telling as any I've heard, a strong addition to the catalogs of both artist and label.
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Willowtip
It's pretty much impossible these days to spit in any direction at aNorth American metal/hardcore festival and miss some band for whom AtThe Gates' Slaughter of the Soul forms the backbone of their sound.While a well-intentioned and, while being disturbingly over-rated,solid album, most of the unlistenable trash that has been spewed forthas melodic death metal over the past decade can be traced back to thisone blip on the musical landscape. Thankfully, the merry men in Arsishave emerged from four years of relative obscurity in Virginia spentcrafting their debut album and what could easily be considered thefirst melodic death masterpiece of the 21st century. Gone are theclich? that have plagued all but a handful of bands, for they have beenreplaced by this amazing razor sharp, ultra catchy, simply wonderfulcollection of tunes that will have even the most modest of peoplelonging to grow their hair out, throw up the horns, and have a greattime trying to keep up. Setting the pace right out of the gate with theferocious "The Face of My Innocence," it becomes immediately clear thatthis isn't your older brother's death metal, but something completelyoriginal and without equal on the modern metal landscape. There is notone single recycled riff, not one slightly uninteresting passage, notone second where you might doubt that you are hearing something thathasn't been done before with this type of precision and raw power. Theyeven manage to make the usually snore-inducing verse-chorus-verse songstructure work on "Maddening Disdain" with Malone tapping out a playfulmelody over drummer Michael VanDyne's ever-steady double bassonslaught. A true original toeing the line between vicious andmischievous with an authoritative expertise that concedes to neither,"A Celebration of Guilt" truly is the definition of essential.
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The title comes from poet and mescaline-prophet Henri Michaux; it is his vision of standing in a rainstorm, its persistent torrents, rather than enacting cleansing or comfort, are instead divisive, penetrating the body towards a thunderous disintegration. "I was, and was not, I was caught yet I was lost, I was in a state of complete ubiquity. The thousands upon thousands of rustlings were my own thousand shatterings." Three recordings make up sound artist Seth Cluett's own homage to rain, one a field recording taken during a storm, the preceding two consecutive reworkings of the resulting master tape. Cluett presents the three parts in "reverse" order: the first was created last as a reinterpretation or a remembering of the second, which was performed as a live manipulation of the original tape, a performance guided by the artist's recollections of the experience of recording the source material, presented unchanged in the third section.Sedimental
I think some of the reasoning behind this sequence traces back to Cluett's continuing interest in the factor of the human presence, however passive, within an auditory environment. In its initial representation, the rainstorm comes twice removed from its physical or natural circumstance, so that by the end of the three sections an ultra-gradual transformation has occurred as the sound moves slowly back toward a presumably "pure", or actual manifestation. The artist's emphasis is on the way his own perception (as a physical presence acting within a space), or even the memory of his perceiving, come to effect his reactions to, or processing of, particular phenomena. Cluett uses Michaux's words to bring out the powerful and disarming qualities of rainfall, its infinite variety and its Zen-like totality, how it maps every surface with a thousand all-reaching arms, while in the same instant performing a complete white-out of the landscape, a wall of coagulated sound and blurry, impressionist vision. The glancing blows and shatterings that Michaux felt in the rain Cluett has obviously shared, and his "response" pieces try to simulate the water's dual personality. The artist establishes the rain's blanketing, everywhere-at-once quality in his use of the drone, a blank constancy slow to rise and fall but one which opens onto an inner world of speeding detail. The manipulated rainfall becomes a rich, organ-esque heaviness given the illusion of speed by the layering of purer sounding tones in slowly climactic modulation. Cluett describes being inspired by the excited movement of a glacier in Pakistan: "a very fast slow". The saturating effect of the disc's first two tracks is remarkable given the artist's limited resources and deliberate monotony; when played loud the outwardly placid drones ease into streaming patterns, relentless and pummeling, though also comforting in the way they hold the body and the room in edgeless reverberation. While the first section is the more dramatic, its tones breaking several times into peaks of throbbing feedback, the second segment is longer, slower and eventually more successful in recreating the rain's effect as an immersive soundworld of both dizzying speed and suspended landscape. This makes sense given the track sequence, as the second piece should theoretically be closer to the original experience of the rainstorm. When in the third section the rain and thunder arrive as originally captured, the recording interestingly fails to do justice to the captivating power explained by the first two. The familiarity of the sounds comes almost as a comfort after such intense precedents; however I will say that after sitting through all 15 min. of this rain, by the end I did feel a lot nearer to an open window, and wincing at the thunder for sure.
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- there is the fact of its bursting
- there is the fact of its plunging headlong
- there is the fact of its being torrential
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Now comes Audika's deluxe, remastered, expanded reissue of World of Echo, which in my opinion, stands as Arthur Russell's most fully realized masterpiece. Originally released in 1986 to very little fanfare, World of Echo is an inscrutably brilliant album of minimalist pop, Russell showcasing his unique method of singing and playing the cello simultaneously, a skill that he developed over years of private rehearsal. The album consists of 14 tracks of Russell playing and singing in his remarkably unique style, every track coated with gorgeous layers of feedback and reverb, with subtle undercurrents of electronic ambience forming an eerie, dislocated cushion of air, upon which the melodies float.
Rather than using drum machines or live percussion as he had done in the past, Russell opted for a nearly rhythm-less environment, the time signatures instead provided by a subtle implication in the pulls of his bow and the vacillations of his voice. The rhythm is never missed, though, because it's still there, living in the margins of Russell's distinct phrasing, his uncanny ability to suggest layers of complexity and harmony in deceptively simple melodies. The artist's unique use of echo reached its absolute zenith on this album, with the subtle play of delay joining each successive vocal phrase or plucked note to the next, creating an amorphous current of sound that answers each call like a quickly decaying chorus. Though most of the lyrics on World of Echo can be discerned, it seems clear that Russell was more interested in the shapes and sounds of words than creating a meaningful lyric, an intention that is made clear is Russell's brief liner notes. The artist connects with his dance music past with the inclusion of several songs which revisit his best disco sides—"Wax the Van," "Treehouse," and "Let's Go Swimming"—transforming them into painfully intimate echoes of his personal history. There are ripples and eddies and snaking jet streams on World of Echo, there are moments of an intensely confessional sexual nature, moments of sadness and of joy.
In addition to the remastered CD, which includes four bonus tracks from the same sessions as the original album, Audika has also included a bonus DVD containing two films by Phill Niblock - "Terrace of Unintelligibility" and "Some Imaginary Far Away Type Things." These films both showcase Arthur Russell performing material from the album in a series of tight close-ups, the camera traveling freely up and down the length of the cello, or across Russell's face, or onto the colored light-boxes that form the studio backdrop. It's a very appropriate visual accompaniment to Russell's music, giving glimpses at intriguing fragments, but never revealing the whole. Audika also deserves credit for a great packaging job, with both discs housed in a glossy foldout DVD case containing a beautiful color photo booklet. Taken together, album and film, the effect of World of Echo is narcotic, a hypnotic work of breathtakingly unique music that only grows in its otherworldly appeal as I gradually learn to negotiate its strange new lexicon of mysteriously unintelligible syllables and trancelike, resonant echoes.
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Hymen
This album is a fine addition to the Hymen catalog. As the labeldoesn't issue new albums all the time, it is obvious that they areselective with regards to what they release. Having a high level ofstandards has paid off with Scatterheart,Benny Boysen's second release as Hecq. His sense of dynamics is a keyelement to his music's success. During "Doraccle" the shifts betweenloud and quiet are extreme, and help to sustain a level of tensionwithin the music. At 61 minutes the album is long, but the variety ofsounds and textures keeps the set interesting. The way Egyptianpercussion and pizzicato strings are used on "Flood Me" make it ahighlight of the album. His use of these unusual textures shows thathis influences are more varied than those of many electronic producers.Although Boysen is technically proficient at programming intricatebeats, he doesn't let the process become the focus of the music.Instead the set retains an emotional feel, although it often soundscold and mechanical. There is always an underlying drone or atmospherictexture that keeps the tracks grounded in human emotion. The openingtrack "FDK" begins with over a minute of droning, whirling tones beforethe beat kicks in. From this point on, the percussive patterns arejuxtaposed with the atmospheric elements. By focusing on one element orthe other, there is the possibility to listen with a different focuseach time. The inclusion of several short interludes consisting ofsampled dialogue also helps the set to retain a human quality. Thisseems to be a direct reference to the "skits" often featured betweenthe songs on hip hop albums. While many electronic acts talk of theinfluence hip hop has had on their work, Boysen has addressed thissubtly within the configuration of the album itself. The fact that thedialogue is from films also emphasizes Scatterheart's cinematicquality. Although there is a great amount of variance of sounds betweenthese tracks, they work well together as a whole and flow well into oneanother. Although there are many short tracks among the 23 featured,each seems to last long enough to effectively present an idea, withoutsounding unfinished. The running order is well organized, with "TBE,"the loudest, most chaotic track, placed at the halfway point. Thisshort track's noisy barrage of percussion balances the set perfectly.It's refreshing to find that although there are so many peopleproducing instrumental electronic music today, there is still thepossibility to create an album as fresh sounding as Scatterheart.
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When I first looked at the cover of this CD and the title, my immediatethought was "Please kill me at this very moment and save me from themusic inside, as it's bound to be incredibly pretentious LA glam popwith a European slant, and I can't stand any more of that. Thank you,whoever hears." I'm glad to say I wasn't entirely right, but there areelements of truth to it, and therefore the record surprised me, thoughultimately I did not like it much. Brent Rademaker (Further/BeachwoodSparks) and Michelle Loiselle have a clear knack for pop songs andmelodies, but they seem rather big on glitz and appearance as the linernotes show. This can be an indication of a band without much substance,and the beginning of the record almost reflects that. "Dead Wrong"opens with a slight rephrasing of "Horse With No Name" in a faux GaryNuman delivery. Then, something shocking happens, as the verse hashorrible lyrics, but the chorus takes orbit and firmly finds its placeamong the stars ("Now everybody's doing everybody wrong, andeverybody's singing everybody else's song"). So, in a way, it's anironic parody that opens the record, and that's a bit acceptable, butthe lyrics are still lackluster, and the overall aesthetic seemsborrowed, as well. Plus, the song goes on 45 seconds longer than itshould, into a "doo doo doo" breakdown that is more doo doo. Still, theconcept delivers a benefit of doubt response, and a hope that othersongs will improve it. Sadly, no. "Fashion Death Trends" is where thealbum gets its insidious title, and seems to be about changingattitudes with clothes, and has lyrics in places like "Hello HelloHello" and "Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye." Other songs have promise, withbetter lyrics and more variation, like "The Extremists" and "SoftLight." Then "A Go-see" comes and destroys the momentum. Basically, itdoesn't get anywhere, and it does it real quick. It's derivative, butit has promise; so that's at least one positive thing.
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On this double CD, their third release, Jesse Poe's Tanakh have abandoned songwriting and shifted their attention to creating dark atmospheric soundscapes. Seven musicians contribute to the project, including Pat Best, who must have felt right at home here, as the shifting drones sometimes recall his work with Pelt. The music sounds very much a product of the cavernous temple in which it was recorded.Alien8 Recordings
While listening I felt as if I had entered that space. The booklet's photographs of instruments and other constructions scattered about the dimly lit space enhance the perception of the recording. Although split onto two CDs, one 59 minute track and one 28 minute track, the music is best perceived as one piece. There is enough textural variety to make Tanakh a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience for the 90 minute duration. While it is not easy to deduce the exact instrumentation used, piano, hand percussion, guitar, distant moaning voices, and various low-end drones can be heard rising and subsiding during the piece. It seems that rather than focusing on individual instruments, the group was concerned with conveying a bigger picture that gives a sense of the space of the building itself. The resonances created by these instruments in various combinations, and at various volumes, recall both Organum and the Deep Listening projects of Pauline Oliveros. There are many levels of activity, making this a recording that will reveal different layers of sound with repeated listens. There is a haphazard, yet unified quality to the way the musicians interact with one another. A noisy, low-end rumbling sound is offset by the sound of piano strings being slowly plucked. Light percussion suggests a rhythmic element but does not set a tempo. The music feels both chaotic and calming at the same time. This sense of dynamics is what saves the album from becoming simply "ambient". It is difficult to record one piece that remains engaging for 90 minutes straight, but Poe has chosen musicians who fit the purpose well. The album benefits from having not been recorded in a studio, the immediacy of the sound being crucial to its' success. The abrupt stop at the end of CD2 implies that the tape ran out during what was possibly a much longer session. It also lends a timeless quality to the recording. There is a sense that Poe wanted the recording to be a document of what happened when a group of people gathered in a particular place at a particular time. This is a bold statement to make for someone who possesses talent as a traditional songwriter.
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When a band concocts a formula that is not easily classifiable and isalmost indecipherable at times yet is complete compelling and causeslong periods of not wanting to turn the repeat function off on the CDplayer, they are to be congratulated. Infectious, sinewy, ever-morphingand pulsing with energy almost describe any music from the Berg SansNipple, but these songs are particularly demonstrative of theircreative abilities. The quiet chimes that start the proceedings arequickly augmented by beefy hip hop drums and falsetto vocals that areunrecognizable and cut up jitter-style as the need arises. Low keys arejoined by high squelches and a lovely chimes breakdown, and the trackdrives on with the sinister underbelly of a corrupt afterlife. Perfectsounds for Purgatory, hence the track's title, and just when it seemslike it's all over the wattage increases to 150% for the last twominutes. Then horns break the darkness open and usher in the holinessof "Hark, the Poonie Angel Sings!" Processed vocals mixed with keyscreate an eerie choir from the beyond, and tainted breathy whispersinfect like the dream passages of REM sleep. The track does notoverstay its welcome, luckily, though I found it puzzling that theangels get less say than the poor souls in Purgatory; maybe they'rejust less interesting. "Swordfighting" is a bit crunchier, with a noirbackdrop, much like the theme music for a man on a revenge streak,searching out the next person in the group who ratted him out. The sameghostly choir is present, like the souls to be redeemed egging on theevil work to be done. At four minutes it is a bit repetitious, but notoverbearingly so. The CD closes with the more experimental and quietpulsing of "Memory Hole," and in just twenty minutes the group hasraised hairs and slicked them back, applying a relaxing massage rightat the end. It's a gamut to be run, and they pass without incident.
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Nagisa Ni Te is primarily the work of Shinji Shibayama and his partnerand muse Masako Takeda. Over the course of four albums, the Japanesepsych-folk duo has carved out their own niche among their moreavant-leaning Japanese contemporaries, creating subtle and lovely popmusic that floats by like a gentle summer breeze. Their name, whichmeans "On the Beach" in Japanese, seems to be a direct reference toNeil Young's classic album of the same name, and they do seem to takesome musical inspiration from Young as well. Though their music at timeseems minimal and unadorned, there is a deceptive simplicity at work intheir arrangements. A wide range of instruments is used, as well asgenius multi-tracked vocal harmonies, but always in a refreshinglyuncomplicated way that never seems too calculated. Their chief subjectis nature, and love of the same, as evidenced by the included lyrics,given an English translation by The Wire's resident Japanophile Alan Cummings. The Same As a Flowerevokes the pastoral simplicity of nature in understated surrealistterms, where the sky is "tall as a flower," "brambles taste sweet" andthe sky is "shattered by fish." The album seems to be the duo's mostgelled statement thus far, full of beautiful melodies that etchedthemselves into my brain quite naturally after only a few listens. Theopening title track has a catchy chorus and a catchier melody, a simplesweet duet about the contemplation of a flower. Though Nagisa Ni Te'sprogressive tendencies and eclectic influences seem often to suggestIncredible String Band or other 60s acts, their consistentlyuncluttered arrangements put them closer in style to Belle andSebastian, without the twee affectation. Using only an electric guitarand evocative vocal overdubbing, "River" is able to hauntingly evokethe gentle currents and eddies of the song's namesake. "Wife" is aninstrumental intermission that recalls George Harrison's solo work, orthe Beach Boys' "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter." "Bramble" floats byat a leisurely pace for 11 minutes, ending with a hypnotic guitar andmellotron duet. It's organically psychedelic without resorting to thetired repertoire of studio gimmickry that characterizes most modernpsych. Truly, the album is lighter than air, and constantly threatensto float away like so many dandelion spores. But while it's stilltangible, it's as lovely and uncluttered as any psych album you'relikely to hear all year.
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On the 4th of May this year Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd died. He is oneof the most important figures in the history of reggae music; he openedand ran the now famous Studio One recording facility in Kingston, waspresent and perhaps partially responsible for many of the stylisticdevelopments within reggae, and put out some of the first records fromsuch individuals as the Heptones, Burning Spear, and the Wailers."Studio One Classics" collects 18 tracks from 1964 to 1981 and itclearly demonstrates the brilliance, depth, and soul of reggae and allits variations. Carlton and the Shoes of 1968 are placed next to theHeptones of 1978 and the Wailers from 1965 are heard next to tracksfrom Sugar Minott and Lone Ranger from 1980 and 1981; while the styleschange and shift from track to track and attitudes slip from relaxed topoppin' and feverish, what this compilation makes so evident is thatthere is more heart and love in these tracks than any dancehall orR&B performer today could ever hope to touch on. Hearing DennisBrown perform "No Man Is an Island" or Sound Dimension bleed "RockfortRock" is like a slap to the face because its thatmuch better than anything that's been thrown onto the radio ortelevision screen. And while I can appreciate Bob Marley, listening theWailers bop through "Simmer Down" makes me wonder why this part of hiscareer hasn't received more attention than anything else. Every lasttrack feels fresh, too, with songs like "Rougher Yet" and "Pretty LooksIsn't All" exhibiting all the sounds and feelings that a large numberof future dub, reggae, soul, and jazz lovers would emulate and developout of. This is an excellent set of songs from one of the mostimportant, if not the most important, studios in all of reggae.The beginning of every change in reggae history can be heard here andat the top of its form - it simply doesn't get much better than this.If only Prince Far I and Toots and the Maytals had been includede onthis compilation, then it could have been perfect.
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