The third full-length album from Yoshimi P-We's female rock quartet, Kila Kila Kila refuses to immediately deliver the goods as generously or bountifully as their previous two albums of densely layered psychedelia. Green and Gold and Feather Float were jam-packed with kaleidoscopic melodies and shimmering guitars, creating thick syrupy whirlpools of hypnotic grooves with saccharine group harmonies and bright, sparkling production. Kila Kila Kila is a more difficult proposition, with Yoshimi P-We veering away from her pop tendencies, preferring instead to emphasize the more abstract and improvisatory elements of her music.
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The third full-length album from Yoshimi P-We's female rock quartet, Kila Kila Kila refuses to immediately deliver the goods as generously or bountifully as their previous two albums of densely layered psychedelia. Green and Gold and Feather Float were jam-packed with kaleidoscopic melodies and shimmering guitars, creating thick syrupy whirlpools of hypnotic grooves with saccharine group harmonies and bright, sparkling production. Kila Kila Kila is a more difficult proposition, with Yoshimi P-We veering away from her pop tendencies, preferring instead to emphasize the more abstract and improvisatory elements of her music.
"Ene Soda" is a sparse call-and-response between Yoshimi's sporadic electric guitar wallops and an array of twinkling bells and effervescent percussion. "Suzuki Ring Neng" takes a cue from Asa Chang and Junray, slowly developing out of clipped phonetic utterances and looped percussive retorts, finally exploding into a luminous Kraut-prog jam, complete with a mesmerizing bassline and chirping synthesizers. OOIOO takes a crack at Tortoise-style post-rock instrumentalism with the energetic jazz of "On Mani," driven by a pount-counterpoint conversation between trumpets and two lively drummers. "Northern Lights" is another extended jazz-rock improvisation, with some oddly mutated vocals and Yamatsuka Eye-trademarked birdcalls forming competing textures. "Aster" is something again entirely again, a 15-minute disparate avant-rock exploration featuring guitar melodies that seem to quote freely from traditional Japanese folk styles, echoed in delicious vocal harmonies that float cloudlike over the driving rhythms. It's hard to say exactly why I don't have the same affection for Kila Kila Kila as I have had for OOIOO's previous albums. It's certainly marvelously produced, with each instrument crisply resonating, each part intertwining into a complex whole. Compared to their past work, however, it feels a little thin and underdeveloped, perhaps a result of Yoshimi's new emphasis on improvisation and away from studio multitracking. That said, it's still a fine album by a talented group that are probably incapable of making anything other than buoyant and adventurous music. 
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There is no doubt that the pressure has built up for a strong follow-up to the astounding 2001 album Scary World Theory: it was gloriously received by critical acclaim worldwide, followed by trans-continental tours, and a decent amount of well-publicized respect by some of the biggest names in modern rock and pop music.
While the band didn't crack under pressure, they have clearly taken a step in a direction that might disappoint fans of their other albums. The most noticeable difference is that Faking the Books is much more of a "rock" record than anything the group has done previously. After the mellow and meandering opening title track, "Call 1-800-fear," comes on strong, establishing a more prominent guitar presence than ever. It continues through the album where the drums aren't as programmed as they were in the past, and the feel is much more extroverted and rawkus than the rather timid and reserved Scary World Theory. Electronic hums and twitters sound more like afterthoughts and additional coloration as the album sounds more geared around their live show—perhaps both influenced and built for the stage. "Left Handed" is thankfully included for those who didn't want to shell out for the high priced three-track import, but there isn't much else here that is memorable. The issues I have with this album aren't with the production, the playing, or the melodies, it's with the songwriting this time around I think. Uninteresting lyrics are repeated ad nauseam in nearly every song, almost making the music seem somewhat wasted. While I love the group and love their sound, I do admit however that coming away from this record, I have less songs stuck in my head. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate this album by a long shot, but I can't see myself adoring it as much as I have for them in the past. It's kind of like salsa. Sure, there are people who haven't had salsa, and try it and love it the first few times. Soon enough, everybody gets it with their meals and after a while the only salsa that gets noticed and remembered is the salsa with a certain kick. It far exceeds any expectations, with a taste that is often remembered and desired. I think I'll spend more time with that kind of salsa.
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Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) has taken Komëit's (Julia Kliemann and Chris Flor) recording "Falling into Place" apart to remodel its contents. He's kept the essential vocals, guitar lines and other critical signatures from the original and just enhanced their lightness of being.Monika Enterprise
The purely instrumental "Parade" is a great example as it just glides along. "It's A Good Thing" reverses Flor's guitarloop and highlights the sinewaves in Kliemann's keyboard while adding undercurrents of freshly stripped white noise. The crawling to life simulated toy keys on "Readymades" is a lullaby for shoegazers everywhere. Tentative percussion and playful pitches brighten its melodic sphere. Suddenly the tandem vocal serves a higher confidence on the linguistically ironic "Rearrange" where they sing "Let's melt words together, take these words for real." Vibe-a-riffic "Schemes Like These" is the would-be hit here - groovy underbeat currents and false-start tapping percussion make for something both movement conscious, in an imposing milieu. Closing with "Three Hours" Lippok's homage to his peers seems to end up somewhere between Mr. Rodgers' neighborhood and something more poignant from Pearl Jam, through the eyes of sea monkeys. Kliemann's wet vocal oozes over a repetitive chord and the formalities of a dissonant, hollow piano.
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Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt's two albums last year both represented departures from their trademark audio strategies. The Civil Warsaw the duo incorporating medieval and American folk elements into aseries of pastoral compositions while The Soft Pink Truth's Do You Party? was Drew Daniel's unique take on leftfield digital disco and bottom-heavy electro. Rat Relocation Programis a return of sorts to the old conceptual bag of tricks; a briefexperimental EP that utilizes the microtonal sampling techniquesfamiliar from Matmos' antebellum days. Slightly less academic than the"amplified neural activity of a crayfish" stuff the duo is known for,the sounds on this release were drawn from recordings of a rat humanelycaptured in the couple's San Francisco apartment. This descriptionimmediately recalls "For Felix (And All the Rats)," a track off of2001's A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure that was constructedfrom the bowed and plucked ribcage of their deceased pet rat. Becausethis is volume six in the Locust's Met Life series of "field recordingsand ingenious sound responses," it consists of two tracks: theunaltered recording of the rat protesting its incarceration, andMatmos' digitally processed musical response. I doubt anyone would wantto listen to the fourteen minutes of "Rat" more than once, consistingas it does entirely of piercing rodent shrieks and the sound of tinyclaws trying to breach the metal bars of its cage, with long silencesin between. "Rat Relocation" is a different animal entirely, a longformaudio narrative that preserves the poor creature's squawking, butanswers each shrill cry with a measured electronic response rangingfrom sudden attacks of pummeling drum n' bass, to psychedelic funkexcursions, to minutely detailed DSP fractures that sprinkle the stereochannels with fractal debris. The track feels strangely narrative amidits abstractions, not dissimilar to some of Nurse With Wound's moremercurial sidelong tracks. A clear empathy is created between themusicians and their captured pest, as Matmos attempt to vividlyillustrate the hardwired fight-or-flight instincts of a rat trying toescape its captors, whether they be pacifist animal-loving bohemians orwhite-coated lab technicians. It's an epic on a microcosmic scale.
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Compiling a various artists collection isn't easy, especially for avery young label with a wide array of styles in mind and nobleintentions in their heart. Over three years after the passing ofJonathan Hicks, this collection has surfaced, featuring over two hoursof exclusive audio contributions from much admired acts like Tarantel,The Album Leaf, Jessica Bailiff, and Her Space Holiday, along with ahost of relative unknowns like Moonpony, The Potomac Accord, and UnwedSailor. Jonathan Hicks was a young man from Indiana who lost his battleto a rare cancer at the age of 23. Chris Bennett, an amateurphotographer/filmmaker made a short film entirely in Super 8mmfeaturing Jonathan, still alive and recently diagnosed, and completedit with the intentions of leaving his family an "etheral portrait ofJonathan." The film was sent to various musicians to make soundtracksfor the short film, and the submissions are amazing. While most of themusicians probably didn't know Jonathan, they have provided honorablesounds to go along with the film, from Tommy Guerrero's analogue beatsto the melancholy acoustic guitar and banjo work from Your Friend;pulsing electronic synths of Mikael Jorgensen to echoed piano, violin,and drums from Early Day Miners. Tunes like the Album Leaf's"Jonathan's Song" are simple yet rich with a beautiful sadness, whilethe compilation's closer, "Figure Eight," from Jessica Bailiff ispossibly one of the most chilling, yet wacked out pieces I've everheard bleed from her guitar. Additionally, the silent film is includedto play along with a favorite submission or to simply watch in silence.Most of the people who end up with this collection will never knowJonathan Hicks, but he must have been special enough for somebody to beas dedicated to see this project through to completion. Proceeds fromthe sale of the compilation will be donated in Jonathan Hicks' honor tothe Children's Inn in Behtesda, Maryland, a place where Jonathanreceived treatments for over two years.
- Unwed Sailor - Shadows
- The Potomac Accord - For Jonathan
- Mikael Jorgensen - Jonathan
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Sure, Mute are trying to muster up enough support for Throbbing Gristlefor the festival at Camber Sands or to buy those expensive boxed sets,but is this the answer? Mutantis a pointless collection of people who generally bore me to tears likeCarl Craig, who's version of "Hot on the Heels of Love" does nearlynothing to the original other than loop a couple parts for an endlesslydrawn out house tune which goes nowhere. Two Lone Swordsmen don'treally remix "United" but do a lame ass cover which is equally asboring as Carl Craig, but, well, completely nauseating too. There havealready been three full-length albums of TG cover tunes: Entertainment Through Pain on RRRecords, We Hate You CD+7" on the Norwegian Jazzassin label, and In-Formationon Attention Defecit Recordings (later issued by Invisible); and allthree got the point: they're all entertaining while being completelypainful. As for the remixers collected here: Simon Ratcliffe: crap;Hedonastik: crap; Motor: crap! Carter-Tutti: didn't they alreadyremix/reinterpret TG on the EAR releases a couple years ago as Chrisand Cosey? I actually liked those versions. The second Carl Craig mixcomes around and opens with a little bit of promise, but it seems theonly thing he discovered in this version is the echo/reverb unit andpanning. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't think TG was abouthomogenization on the dance floor, but completely hijacking culture. Atleast with Mute's Can remix album, Sacrilege, there were plentyof remixes so far removed and individualized and re-interpretized, thata lot of tracks stood on their own merits. Even the "Yashar" and "Nag,Nag, Nag" remixes of Cabaret Voltaire were pretty good. Maybe with thearsenal of talent at NovaMute's fingertips, something good could havebeen made, but this is just utter crap. Save the agony of 52 minutesand download the 60 second version free from Mute's site and enjoy allof this rolled up into one mix.
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Somebody was right when they thought, "you know, we're really going topiss some fans off with this one." I don't mind so much the twopiano-only bits which hint at a person taking a collegiate levelcomposition course, but the songs that have been the Clientele'sstrength for years are nearly completely absent. The new EP on Spain'sAcuarela label is inspired by the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico andcould have been either left in the group's archives or filtered in to afuture album. As a standalone EP, however, it's completely avoidable.The first real song, "Summer Crowds in Europe," is way too short andinstrumental. It's the pretty fanfare Clientele are good at with aresonant guitar leading a talented bassline and steady drum. However,the EP's middle piece can be completely thrown away. I have listened toa number of drones in my lifetime and will occasionally love them, but"The Sea Inside a Shell" completely sucks beyond belief. It's somebodysitting at an organ for 8½ minutes, adding one note at a time until thething's a complete unlistenable mess. (God my ears hurt more than thenew Pan Sonic record at only three minutes into the track!) This couldbe the longest 8.5 minute track known to man. (Only once have I made itthrough without skipping the track.) The second piano bit follows andfinally, at last (and after what seems too long), the group emerge withtheir only vocal track, "Impossible," which could easily make theirnext album great. The price of admission for this EP isn't worth it,however.
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Rammellzee was among the original NYC subway bombers, not only animportant graffiti artist, but a key figure in the downtown scene thatgave birth to the five elements of HipHop culture. With Jean-MichelBasquiat as producer, he created one of early HipHop's monumentalachievements: the ten minutes of "Beat Bop," with Rammellzee adoptinghis "Gangsta Duck" vocal style, trading elaborate linguistic puns andcomplex rhymes with fellow urban wordsmith K. Rob over a hypnotic avantgroove constructed from minimal violin and guitar. "Beat Bop" was anunparalleled classic of the original cultural zeitgeist of HipHop, soits strange that Rammellzee has only now, nearly 25 years afterrecording "Beat Bop," released his first full-length LP. Theintervening decades of obscurity have apparently provoked Rammellzee totravel further down his own idiosyncratic wormhole, combining hisGothic Futurist philosophies with baroque linguistics, bizarre humorand a clear penchant for the "black folks in space" imagery ofelectro-funketeers like P-Funk, Afrika Bambaataa and The Jonzun Crew.Legions of critics and old-school HipHop enthusiasts have been heapingpre-release praise on Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee,hailing it as a ingenious comeback by an influential artist.Unfortunately, the quality of the music on the record just doesn'twarrant this kind of enthusiasm. In fact, the album seems weirdlydisengaged, a series of turgid, verbose monologues in search of a hook.Instead of hooks, producers Death Comet Crew and Munk provide a seriesof retrofitted electro tracks that aimlessly wander through "PlanetRock" clichés and never find their footing, with sudden mid-track tempochanges and arrhythmic laptop edits that don't help. Rammellzee'sgrowls are processed and vocodered for the most of the album, whichseems a poor choice for such a talented linguist. The messy aggro beatconstructions constantly overwhelm the rhymes, which never fullyintegrate with the music. That's not to say that this album iscompletely without merit. I enjoyed the too-brief "Pay the Rent," astandout track featuring Rammellzee's old colleague Shockdell, the oneinstance on Bi-Conicals where producer and MC appear to belistening to each other. The liner notes are also fun, containingRammellzee's eccentric metaphysical exegesis in the form of a fold-out,Paul Laffoley-style diagram explicating the connection between thehuman reproductive system and the cosmos. Unfortunately, a definitivealbum-length musical distillation of Rammellzee's peculiar genius hasyet to be released. Perhaps if I wait another 25 years, my patiencewill be rewarded, but that's wishful thinking.
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I'm not usually one to buy DJ Kicks or DJ mix records but when I saw this collection from the Kompakt label boss sitting in the used bin, I couldn't refuse. Usually, these collections are from artists, who, more often than expected, have pretty poor taste in music and rarely acknowledge any of their contemporaries. It often results in a comp which is of friends and buddies and doesn't hold together nicely as a unit. Meyer, on the other hand, being the head of a label I adore, is an interesting pick, as with his picks, he might choose a bunch of stuff he likes but wouldn't find a place for on his label.Fabric
It is a proverbial (nearly) continuous mix with the definitions of the songs mildly unclear, and a lot sound like they could come close to appearing on a Total compilation, with smooth rhythms and deep sounds, but a number of acts threw me a welcomed curve ball. "Oldschool, Baby," by WestBam and Nena are the first of these curve balls, as I've never cared much for WestBam and I'm scratching my head wondering if this is the same "99 LuftBalloons" chick. (But that's more of a curiosity than much else.) After it's over, the theme returns to the staccato beats of Richard Davis through his "In the Air" track. Through more languid beats and a couple break downs the collection moves like a train passing through different landscapes and countries, maintaining a constant motion without stopping. It seems that on journeys like this, certain familiar things seem to make their presence known, like the sequencing 303 on "Killerteppich" by Robag Wruhme and Wighnomy Brothers, and the sprinkling of Kompakt acts like Superpitcher and Magnet. (Get your cameras ready.) All bets are off, however, when the train makes a second round througvh Thomas Schaeben. The track "Really Real," done with Geiger Ft Schad Privat. The beat changes completely, as the previous track fades out, this fades in and Germans funk out completely to a story about a friend addicted to accident black spots. Words of the steering wheel and cold steel makes me think it's a tribute to the book or film Crash and/or "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal. The cowbell and bass are enough to make me want to seek out more from this Schaeben guy. What follows are more tracks that follow in a funk-influenced style, with more authentic sounding drums and vibrant basslines, and the disc doesn't return to the deep techno sounds that populated the opening. If these compilation albums are here to serve as an introduction to some unfamiliar acts, the prices should be far lower. At a used price, I'd say a mix like this is well worth it, but I am jaded enough to think they're not much more than a fancy packaged sampler.
- WestBam and Nena - Oldschool, Baby (Piano Mix)
- Villalobos - Easy Lee
- Thomas Schaeben and Geiger Ft Schad Privat - Really Real
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Ten tracks of soulful, sophisticated synthpop by a Canadian trio withthe cleverly unassuming name of Junior Boys might well be exactly whatthe world needs now. Recent attempts at reviving the urbane electropopof Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys and The Human League—by Erlend Øye, ThePostal Service, and even The Human League themselves—have beenhalfhearted and largely uninspired. In their painstaking efforts torecreate the sparkling synthetic tones, drum machine rhythms anddetached vocal style of 80's new wave, they seem to have completelyforgotten about the qualities of innovation, creativity and originalitywhich were the original watchwords of the new wave. Luckily, JuniorBoys have not repeated these mistakes. Understanding the importance ofthe word "new" in the term "new wave," their Birthday and High Come DownEPs were beautifully crafted works of startling freshness, merging theromantic, cultivated elegance of David Sylvian's Japan with the jiggy,imaginative beat constructions of Timbaland. Now comes theirfull-length album on KIN Records, combining both EPs and adding a fewnew tracks. Pop music hasn't sounded this inventive and accomplishedsince New Order released Power, Corruption and Lies. I'm notexaggerating; I've had this record on constant rotation since Ireceived it, and it continues to reveal new charms and ingeniousdimensions with each listen. As I write this, I'm listening to "HighCome Down," a stuttering, off-kilter beat with staccato bass hits andhigh-end synth flutters. Jeremy Greenspan wraps his soulful,androgynous voice around a sad, fragile lyric that recalls the finestby Marc Almond or Dave Gahan. Junior Boys appreciate the value ofsilence and space, and they keep their songs refreshingly unadorned byextraneous composition, analogous perhaps to European MicroHouseartists but without the same annoyingly rigorous asceticism. There aresubtle sonic flourishes that seep into the music almost subliminally -a rattling dub echo or a synthesized chorus that underscores eachbreathy vocal refrain. Of the ten tracks on Last Exit, abouthalf are pure pop genius, and the others aren't too shabby either."Under the Sun" is a song that I keep returning to, a hypnoticseven-minute synthscape with one line repeated like a mantra: "You'rethe sweet one/The sweet one under the sun." This is repeated,trance-like, over a dark, Moroder-esque disco groove that slowlyunfolds to reveal a bright vista of clouds and sun. Junior Boys havecreated an impressive debut album that goes on my shelf right next to Violator, Dare, and Architecture and Morality.
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