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This debut from Donato Wharton is the lost soundtrack to the works ofAsimov, where each track tells of a different character in a newsituation, like the various stages and chapters of "I, Robot." Storieslike these must be trapped in Wharton's head, but my imagination ranwild to create chapters of my own. I found the record to be more of alove tale, where computers and devices feel, for the first time, realemotions, and try to move through life with this new knowledge, only tofind how crippling these newfound and deeply wondered about feelingsare. The facts — that Wharton comes from Cardiff through Stuttgart andspends his time composing music for theater works — all have voices inhis brand of electronic music. All these experiences are present andaccounted for when the sounds plays through the speakers. It's theemotions and feelings that are created that make this truly unique, andon TrabantenWharton uses classic sounds to compose songs that raise genuine imagesand memories. "Built to Fail" starts this vision off right: the trackis all awkward rhythms formed by the splicing of tracks to create astumbling effect. There's hope, like the whole thing will get on itsfeet and walk like it manages to at the end, but ultimately it willfall apart again. It has to, because any effort of this kind willultimately due to the weight and pressure of it all. "Silvester" beepsand clicks like a pining love, like a machine falls in love with thevoice that travels on its wires. "Is That While Yr Still on Earth" iseavesdropping on multiple lines: the first hint that these dreams canturn dark, destroying what creates or feels them equally. And so thestory progresses, track after track, as the wires try to own andpossess more that they can call their own, only to find out in the endthat they can't really own anything. Depressing, sure, but it's still amarvel. Just when I think this whole digital revolution is a crock andthat the whole thing should just implode upon itself, I hear a CD likethis one. The real crock is this: the promise of technology producingall these frank and amazing artists purely by the mass availability ofsampling and recording technologies for anyone to use on their Mac orPC. There still must be artistry of some sort, some originality orunique voice that demands this technology to truly be heard, andWharton definitely has that in spades.
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After unveiling their unique brand of instrumental heaviness on lastyear's untitled EP, Pelican nudge things one step further with this,their first full-length release. Australasia is that fictional landmass which, along with the Americas and Great Britain, comprises theempire of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984. Pelican create a similar topography of impending dystopia with the dark, crushing riffs of their Australasia. Pelican unashamedly summon the spirits of Black Sabbath, Master of Puppets-eraMetallica and The Melvins, creating a six track album of surprisingdynamism and complexity. Every track uses the same simple sonicpalette: heroic minor-key riffing interwoven with layers of crunchy,expansive rhythm guitar. Their long-form compositions take each themethrough several dramatic tempo changes, allowing them the chance torevisit certain key themes and gain momentum with each repetition.Pelican are instrumentalists of the highest order; their guitarsymphonies are so incredibly lyrical that vocals would be animposition. Comparisons to post-rockers Explosions in the Sky might beappropriate, but Pelican aren't interested in delayed gratification.They cut out all of the chamber-ensemble warm-up and dive in headfirst,barreling forward on their own intense propulsion. "Nightendday"imagines a sky filled with smokestacks and searchlights, a brutaldictatorial regime where the only escape is to rock as fully and ashard as possible, breaking through the barbed-wired borders of tyranny."Angel Tears" is absolutely stunning, a sweeping, cinematic dirgeimbued with a driving rhythm section that keeps threatening to upenditself, but miraculously manages to stay on track. Track five, which ispurposely left untitled, is the album's sole respite: an hauntinglybeautiful symphony of interlacing acoustic guitars with subtlesynthesizer flourishes. It's Pelican's answer to the heavy metal powerballad. The album ends on a high note, with the monolithic 11-minutetitle track, full of fuzzy, cyclical riffage so massive, at highvolumes on headphones it threatens to deepen the fissure of my brain.Calling this "stoner metal" would be a disservice to the precision andaccuracy with which the foursome deploy their arsenal. Australasia is a substantial album, but it nonetheless leaves me with a desire to hear more.
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The electronic and live instrumentation mixing duo of Adrian Corker andPaul Conboy have recently been writing the next Bomb the Bass albumwith Tim Simenon. Ahead of that, Corker/Conboy's Radiant Idiotis a dark obsession with minor chords that transforms their music intoa beautiful new creature with a life all its own. Their sophomore setis a true renovation of their formerly derivative sound with intriguingadditions and finer melodies. The electronics are more an atmospherictouch than an active participant, and with new instruments joining thegroup's repertoire, the possibilities are endless. Shutters anddelicate guitar open the record, and soon hefty live drums and a lowmuddy bass join in, and the guitar and the song go all filthy energy. Afull-on freak-out ensues, reminding me vaguely of the new direction ofPele, and suddenly I'm eager for more. There's a drive, an urgencypresent, on these songs that may have been there before, but never thisovert, and it's a breath of fresh air. The music is still so structuredand controlled in its fluidity, like every move is planned, but I coulddefinitely tell that these two were taking chances this time around.The slow groove of "Portland Grove Am" is simply lovely and comforting,with a simple repeated melody and layered stringed instruments overtop.Interesting guest contributions rear their heads here and there, likeIan Dixon's pulse-quickening trumpet work on "Get 1 Over." Changingrhythms also bring a freshness: a shuffle here and a dirge there with alittle bit of a groove in between creates a great make-out record, withshifts in tempo bringing peaks and valleys in the action. Strangely,the only track that didn't do anything for me is the title track, alsothe longest at just over eight minutes. It moves like a symphony,gracefully sliding in and out of different phases, but it reallydoesn't get where it feels like it's going. Still, the generalexperience of the album is a pleasing one, and a real evolution fromtheir previous efforts.
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The most recent in an avalanche of new music taking a crack at resurrecting the dreamy, shoegazer pop of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Ride, Pluramon's Dreams Top Rock only distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack by not being quite as predictable. It helps that Marcus Schmickler has recruited Julee Cruise—the serene, childlike chanteuse of so many David Lynch soundtracks—to contribute vocals to the album. Julee's last album, the dreadful The Art of Being a Girl, was such a wasted opportunity that it's a pleasure to hear her placed in the hands of a producer who can wield her peculiar vocal talents properly.Karaoke Kalk
Schmickler has obviously schooled himself on Julee's best work, as tracks like "Flageolea" reproduce the languid jazz and lush pop sensibility of her classic Floating Into the Night album, which was produced by Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. Schmickler comes from a background of post-techno Powerbook composition, so much of Dreams Top Rock's sonic complexity derives from the careful overlay of laptop-treated instruments, aligned to created a densely packed architecture of guitar noise, feedback and subtle digitalia. Many of the tracks float by on pacific washes of beatific guitar noise, noise that seems at once unstructured and complexly detailed. Pluramon's overuse of stereo effects and multi-tracking can seem at times like a parlor trick, and an unoriginal one at that, but the richly nuanced storm of hazy psychedelic fuzz was enough to keep me engaged for the album's entire length. The album also has its share of good songwriting, especially "Time For a Lie," which appears twice on the album in radically different mixes. "It's a beautiful time for a lie," Cruise repeats, her voice wistfully lilting at the end of every line, each breathy refrain sending out a comet trail of echoes and reverberations which accumulate over the length of the song, like Phil Spector's wall of sound as envisioned by Loveless-era Kevin Shields. The lovely "Noise Academy" creates a complicated symphony of mutated and reprocessed vocals and instruments that radiates along with the druggy, minor-key guitar melodies. Marcus Schmickler's exacting, overly clinical, and obsessive reenactment of his obvious influences may the album's weakest aspect, but paradoxically, it's also the same inspiration that keeps the album afloat on a distorted cushion of nebulous fragility. 
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Young Liars, released this past summer, was an intoxicating shotof dark, precise sound; at once both deeply passionate and eerilychilly, the product of a gospel choral that had lost its way andpreferred to creep out unsuspecting subway riders rather than bask inany holy warmth. While that EP showcased a few densely packed tracks,their new LP finds that intensity strung across a larger canvas,changing the shape and color into something that asks for more patienceand observation. "The Wrong Way" is a charmer, thudding along withsoupy bass and percussion as baritone and alto saxophones bleat andsupport the vocal harmonies of the three members, which sound like asnapping ragtime chorus, full bodied and drawling. Though the musicalfoundation is simple and loopy, it serves as a perfect background forthe expressive vocals that rise and fall with bursts of energy, beggingfor the pews to raise their hands and chime in. "Ambulance" eschews anykind of pretense that Tunde Adebimpe's vocals are not the core of thisband's power, dropping the fuzzy noise collages for an acapellaexcursion. Adebimpe's breathy triplets on the song's chorus of "I /will be / your / ac / ci / dent / if you / will be / my am / bu /lance," caress every syllable, giving them each proper considerationbefore spilling them out in his smooth baritone. Unfortunately, theslower tracks, like "Don't Love You," lack the amorphous, ephemeralquality that made "Blind" from their past EP such a spooky, alluringlisten. Where before a lurch was arresting, visceral, here they areclumsy and cautious. "Poppy" suffers from a relatively banal guitarriff that comprises the bulk of the track. While this is hardly enoughto invalidate any interest in Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes,it is indicative that the group finds themselves searching for the nextstep, the next mode for their sound. "Bomb Yourself" finds thosebrilliant harmonies sprawling across a bass heavy, dub-inflected bed,capturing a deep groove. The raw quality of TV on the Radio's energy,and their recklessly experimental tendencies make listening to everynook and cranny of their tinkered sound interesting, and hints at evenmore dramatic pieces in the future.
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FT is for Folktales, a series of three sets of three 3"CDs that Crouton has released over recent years, each disc devoted to asingle artist of electroacoustic, experimental electronic, or impovorientation. For a finale, this full-length disc finds Tietchens'remixing all three triptychs, producing nine individual tracks, each apredictably drastic reinterpretation of its source disc. While the "+"might suggest a thickening of each track into the kind of throbbing,gray industro-ambiance that made Tietchens' name the mark of quality ontoo many lost cassette comps from decades past, his approach here ismuch more subtractive, closer to the brutally minimal, ascetictechnique begun somewhere around the more recent Menge series.The new mixes reduce nearly every track to a widely-scattered array ofsound fragments, never slipping into glitch-like impressionism, ratherworking through a pensive, reserved process of manipulation, eachcompressed or bloated bit of sound dust given ample, isolated space.Tietchens seems intent on discovering (or creating), in each piece,those moments which stare blankly back from the disc's digital sheen,which appear absent of any relation to the whole yet arrive with acryptic, almost mocking air. The artist has always kept his dark, wilysense of humor in the background of his releases (often highlighted bya E.M. Cioran aphorism or two), and this disc is no exception. The jokehere, for me at least, is that Tietchens is, more than ever, toyingwith the idea of creating music where human touch has absolutely nosignificance. The punch line comes with the realization that Tietchensis remixing others' compositions, making his job necessarily harder. Each disc in the original Folktalesseries was conceptualized around the idea of narrative, with thevarious artists essentially telling stories through sound, makingTietchens accomplishment, though idiosyncratic itself, an effectiveerasure of the others' storytelling. His reconstructions could not bemore remote; I'm even wary of using an adjective like "cold" for fearof suggesting that anything atmospheric emerges. The minisculecrunches, warped thuds, and deadened hums that become windows into theoriginal recordings do allow for glimpses into the unique flowand sonorous quality of each, however Tietchens displays a tested skillfor introducing shards of melody or motion while almost simultaneouslyenacting their disappearance. It's as if wrapped up in each stuntedswell, each vestige of previous creator and previous completion, isevidence of a fundamental insubstantiality. The artist's talents aremost remarkable when applied to the coarse saxophone and violincompositions from Bhob Rainey and Dan Warburton. Tietchens is able toretain the distinctiveness of each instrument, even allowing for a fewmelodic intervals to take shape, but he completely rejects any of thepersonality that comes with such age-old devices, turning them on anangle that emphasizes only their existence as machines, simpleconveyances of empty sound. While on paper the artist's modus operandihas all the charm of a night spent sleeping on a board, rest assuredthat Tietchens does not let the potential for enjoyment slip throughthe cracks. He understands the audacity of his place within the littlecharade he's created and takes care to make the results more appealingthan FT+'s faux-laboratory chart cover would indicate. This ismerely Tietchens as E.M. Cioran's fatalistic hero, playing theinvisible hand of time, sweeping the folklore to the hens with a smileon his face.
- "Sweet Sonk" v. Bhob Rainey
- "20012002" v. Dan Warburton
- "Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires" v. Kevin Shea
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Ora was Andrew Chalk and Darren Tate with Jonathan Coleclough, Lol Coxhill, Colin Potter, and Daisuke Suzuki. Final, released in 2002, was to be this group's final album, but there were five pieces that never made it to that record because they had been lost; After Rainfall collects those five pieces and, with varying degrees of success, shuts the door on Ora.
The atmosphere is a strange mix of synthetic rhythm and environmental grandeur; "Gnome Culture" is a strange crunch of musical crystals sparking in and out of the perceptible realm. The cascading rolls of sound play throughout the background and collide with a heavier churning, creating a pulsing and lively but anxiety-filled tension that simply floats away and dies. "Darkness" is, on the other hand, a mostly environmental piece composed of water drops, a cat's meow, and the rolling about of some kind of metal object. This is Ora at their best: the most simple of elements are combined in a satisfying meditation on sound painting. Clearly this is an old hut in the middle of a rainforest that is inhabited by a monk and his cat, both of whom find serenity in the sounds that creak and slither by their home. "Attribution To Memory" is amazing for the same reasons; the calls of summer birds herald the coming of a thunder storm. Wooden boards rattle and creek and the water splashes down on stone pathways, clear and pristine bells echo through the clouds, the line between natural music and composed music becomes blurred, and Ora proves that melody is everywhere. It's unfortunate that every piece on this album is not like "Darkness" or "Attribution To Memory." The synthetic sounds used on the other three tracks sound pale in comparison to the peace that is reached in the organization of natural sound. What this record has done, though, is make me want to go find more Ora to listen to. "Attribution To Memory" is, by itself, reason enough to find this record. It's a shame that Ora will no longer be making music; After Rainfall is a record that makes me want more and the only way I can find more is by looking backwards and digging for those limited releases and ultra-rare productions. 
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The artwork says it all here, as those unfamiliar with Vocokesh cantell right away what's inside: an obsession with psychedelic guitarrock and a twisting of genres. That it is as strange as it is but stillmakes an impact is truly an accomplishment, in my opinion, because ithas the ability to estrange people at its very core. With no vocals tospeak of, and a decided lack of structure here and there, some wouldlose interest even though the quality of the playing is of the highestcaliber. This is something not foreign to Vocokesh's mad scientistRichard Franecki considering his experiences in F/i, and this fourthalbum from his subsequent project is their most expansive, mostglorious, and finest yet. The album is a bit of a tribute to some ofFranecki's favorite cult films from Michaelangelo Antonioni andAlejandro Jodorowsky, with Vocokesh composing music that could havebeen used as the soundtrack. Even the tracks not ear-marked for thispurpose have a cinematic quality, though, where you can imagine theaction going on while the song is being played. Loud processed guitarsthat wail and screech meet with synthesizers and other electronics plusheavy drumming to produce a wall of sound that could destroy entirecities. The album comes in like a lamb, though, with the title track'sgentle acoustic strumming meeting with some distorted guitar and synthsin an almost flamenco style and a bit of minor key. But then thefifteen-minute crushing blow begins, and "Love Theme From El Topo"struts across the headphones. Loud feedback, dirty solos, kickdrum-heavy rhythms and delay make a delicious smorgasbord, even thoughit never leaves a given area, seeming to meander in the same space. Nomatter: it's still gorgeous, like a composition written by Miles Davisand performed by Hendrix on guitar. It's got that swing, baby, but Iwouldn't turn it up too loud cause the ears'll bleed. That's theblueprint, and though the melodies and chords change, there ain't a lotof variation. I still loved every minute of it, and I'm more than surethat any lover of experimental psych rock will, too.
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This rapturous disc is the result of a live improvisation conducted under an aqueduct in Zürich, a 40-foot-tall acoustic space that perfectly matches Momentan's simulation of poised ebb and flow. Not standard microsound fair, of minimal movement or painfully obsessive blip-bending, the piece ingests each members' contribution, Korber's threadbare guitar scratch, Müller's increasingly spartan percussive manipulations, and Steinbrüchel's grainy drone cycles, lifting all in an undulant, misty passage across the broad hollow, action that plays perfectly on the disc's punning title.
The piece seems obsessed with "momentum," full of sweeping static washs and low-level machine hums that arrive quickly and pointedly as if to establish motion, but are consistently buffered by contrastive elements more indicative of detail, or a particular "moment" staking its claim within the sinuous whole. Sections of Müller's inventive hitting and surface-testing frequently occupy both ends at once, coalescing into strands of rhythmic interference that are quick to fold under the weight (or lightness) of each stroke. Often Korber or Steinbrüchel will introduce thunderous or ominous sounds via processed feedback or laptop, as if only to watch the colored noise fade into the pale complexion of its surroundings. The level of communication between players that allows this pause-less dialogue to proceed is astounding. Any back-and-forth that appears in "momentan live" (the 30-min. improv session is accompanied by 3 remixes, one by each contributor) occurs underneath the opaque surface of the piece, and a dominant "voice" never comes to the front. The fluidity and graceful progression will recall Müller's recent solo work and Poire_Z's + record, but the real heroes of Momentan are Steinbrüchel and Korber. The young guitarist is a master of beautifully tempered feedback tones and frail note clusters that run nicely alongside the former's synthetic drones and microscopic click-tracks. Their combination allows for the darkly expressive sheen that coats this work, full of intricate, fleeting gradations. The three remixes are equally successful, if more single-minded pieces. Korber introduces a surprising amount of rhythm, his process more additive and loop-based than the others', crafting a bottom-heavy gem of post-technoid atmospherics. Steinbrüchel's is less engaging, a minimal reconstruction consisting of one deep, droning waveform that sounds directly pulled from Korber's feedback and layered with digital crickets and crackling fire. Müller's mix is the most sympathetic to the original, combining the churning pulses and short loops of Korber's take, with the Steinbrüchel's textural achievements to produce a highly differentiated piece that shares "momentan live"'s preoccupation with issues of drift and stasis. While not a landmark recording, the disc stands as a welcome addition to the catalogs of three artists at the top of their respective games. - 
- Korber/Müller/Steinbrüchelmomentan live (03:00-04:00)
- Korber/Müller/Steinbrüchelmomentan live (10:00-11:00)
- Müllerdef. rmx
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There are several disappointing things about the new Lycia album:mainly the fact that it is also their last album together, as the banddisbanded before finalizing the release. Also, it's a bit short — dueto the band implosion, too, I suppose — even though most songs areright around the five-minute mark. At nine tracks, there just seems tobe something lacking as a defining end statement for this passionateand powerful band that no doubt influenced many, including those atSilber Records, who have been so moved by Lycia that they refer to themas mentors. However, beyond the effects the end of the band had ontheir final recordings, these songs are what many have come to expectfrom this group since their first album in 1989. In fact, Empty Spacemarks a bit of a return to their birth, with original member John Fairrejoining the fold for some drum programming and the whole soundreturning to their post-punk roots. With the old, though, there's alsoa renewed love for pop structure about these songs, like Lycia wasstriving to find a perfect mix of their different albums over theyears. Instrumental tracks make up about half of the record, as well,and though it's entirely possible that they were always meant to bethat way, it still feels like vocals could sit right on top of them.Standard industrial and goth-type effects and sound qualities spill outof the speakers on every track; Mike VanPortfleet has his vocals buriedin the mix for the most part, and Tara Vanflower's otherworldly vocalscharm and disarm as ever. There are some amazing melodies on thisrecord, with an overwhelming feeling of foreboding doom. While it'sunpolished and each song has at least a two second pregap it's stillenough for this to rank up there as one of their finer works, and giventhat the album was supposed to be released four years ago, it's goodthat the songs are making their way out there to true fans now. It's ashame that there'll be no more after this from Lycia, but it's atremendous reminder of how easy it was for them to move their audience.
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The artists have, thankfully, chosen cover art and title which testifyto these performances occurring at locations on the surface of theEarth, the Southern U.S. no less, instead of in some forgotten fissureof the planet's crust or from the edge of an astral plane, far, far inthe distance as the music would suggest. The 10" contains two sidelongselections from stops along a small duo tour in 2001. Gross, whoalongside Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey has helped put the Boston improvscene on the map, commissioned Tonne's exploratory vocal talents forthe tour, following a single, fruitful collaboration earlier that year.The reeds-man's impulsiveness does not disappoint, as his increasinglybizarre, limit-crossing assault on sax and clarinet finds a perfectcounterpart in his companion's strained pipes. Much of Gross' playingfocuses on a baffling expansion of the sounds and textures available toa particular instrument. His blowing reaches squealing pitches thatbelong to the ambiance of the motorway or factory space, his lowwarbles and grating trills enough to transform every hair on the bodyinto a lightning rod. Most impressive, though, are his extended boutsof pushing note-less air through the saxophone, creating completelyalien whistles, scrapes, and dry rustles. In short, his is eye-popping,head-rushing, and blood-quickening music that must be heard to bebelieved. Tonne's contribution is equally arresting. The vocalist'sattunement to the nuance and textured rise-and-fall of Gross' playingis remarkable, her voice rising to match the most challenging pitchesor inhuman bits of vibrato. The tendency to mistake one musician forthe other is a risk even after hearing the record several times, aphenomenon that fills the listening experience with frequent moments ofutter disbelief. Tonne builds gliding, theremin-like tones, archingmasterfully into frightening high-pitched shrieks and lowly half-moanswith clear precedent in artists like Diamanda Galas or the venerablePatty Waters. Her most unique talent, however, is the incorporation offoreign syllabic utterances, a kind of glossolalian scat spread acrossGross' varied landscape with enough restraint to keep it wondrouslyeffective. The vocal style brings a subtle degree of future-primitivismto the pieces, recalling the free-calligraphy techniques used by manyAbstract Expressionist painters. My only complaint is that this releasewas not expanded to 12" or full length CD; both pieces fade out withthe wish that at least the room ambiance or a bit of Gross' clappingair-holes might continue long enough to inspire Tonne to swoop backinto song. I can only hope that the duo was pleased enough with theseinitial excursions to take more, soon.
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