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Breaking beer bottles and initiating fights may be the best thing to dowhile listening to these destructive twenty minutes. Sloppy guitars andthe best use of a saxophone in such an energy-driven band propel thismusic into the realm of motorcycles, leather, and (strangely) girls inthose cute skirts that were popular during the 18's. Throw in a bit ofhumor and a taste for the obscene and what emerges is this brazen riotof sleaze. "The Nasty Show" is exactly what it sounds like: ahip-shaking melody is accentuated by a kick-ass sax lead before thevocalist decides that it's time to let his wavy voice puncture the airwith a slew of female background vocalists. The only downside to thefirst track is that the vocals are... well... a bit funny. At firstthis turned me off and then after a couple listens the humor and cheeseof it all just sank in somehow. "I want to fucking die for you / I wantto die fucking you / Fucking the day away / Why don't you come over andplay?" might look stupid on paper and certainly it sounds cheesey whenrecorded, but after awhile the raunch settles in nicely and there'snothing left to do but dance like a crazy drunk. Pink Grease is,without a doubt, indebted to some bands flying out of the past, buttheir combo of keyboard sounds, sax, guitars, and drums somehowelevates itself over the influences it draws from and leaves only the fun elements squarely in place. The helter-skelter vocals of "Susie" and the overall shakey ground that all of All Over Yourests upon keeps things interesting. Wearing a leather jacket may berequired for listening to this album, though. And switchblades must becarried in every man's pocket. Girls: wear those short skirts andfluffy sweaters and dance around as if you had no idea that any boymight wonder what's under your clothes. Pink Grease have written anasty little EP of near total expenditure; sexual, heavy, andhilarious.
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Basil Kirchin released two landmark works of musique concrête in the early 1970's entitled Worlds Within Worlds,then disappeared from the face of the earth. I've never heard theseearly classics as they've remained hopelessly out of print for thirtyyears, even as such music luminaries as Drew Daniel (of Matmos and TheSoft Pink Truth) gushed that Kirchin's works were "immersive, dark andmagical." Trunk Records does the next best thing to a re-issue with Quantum, a previously unreleased full-length album recorded during the same time period as the pieces on Worlds Within Worlds.Kirchin's peculiar genius lies in his effortless juxtapositions andmutations of sampled environments, free jazz skronk, unexpected vocalsamples and subtle electronic harmonies. Quantum is a uniquelyenthralling journey through microtonal events - creating rich, deeplycaptivating ecosystems of sound. The power of Quantum holds up next to classic concrete works such as Tod Dockstader's Apocalypse and Roger Doyle's Rapid Eye Movements."Part One" begins with field recordings of squawking geese togetherwith the lovely melodic swells of a synthesized organ. The voice of awoman, possibly Kirchin's wife, intones in a breathy, rapturouswhisper: "No one can find me or see my face, but I am there. You waitand see. Something special will come from me." The geese return, butthey have been slowed down and mutated, dripping like ghostly treacleas the quartet of avant-jazz improvisers take prominence. It is herethat Kirchin unveils his affinity for time-stretching - slowing downsound sources to highlight spectral microcosms that lie unpotentiatedon the surface of environmental sounds. This was certainly an importantforerunner to the object-sampling strategies of Matmos, who use newertechnologies to underscore the same kind of audio minutiae. ThoughKirchin seems to consider his quartet of improvisers as just anothersound event to be amplified, faded, mutated and re-assembled, theplaying itself is fantastic - fiery, dynamic and emotive. There are noalbum credits, but research reveals the skeletal guitar improvisationsto be the work of Derek Bailey, and the other players should berecognizable to British improv enthusiasts. "Part Two" uses the samesound sources as the first, but adds incredibly disarming audio samplesof autistic children. Their primitive, pre-verbal ululations hold astrange magic in this context. Part of the fascination of Quantumis discovering just how similar the bleats of a tenor sax are to themutterings of geese, how a vibraphone and a guitar can have a strangedialogue against a backdrop of a human voice, pitched and distorted tosound like the roar of a lion. Quantum creates an innovativeenvironment in which the mind is freed to make surprising connections,building its own neural pathways to navigate this dark, undiscoveredworld of quantum changes.
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The real tragedy of the obligatory Fahey reference accompanying everysort of instrumental guitar music criticism these days is that in acase like this, when a namedrop is relevant, even downright essential,one feels like chump or a short-cutter for following through with it.With this debut disc, Harris Newman joins label-mate SteffenBasho-Junghans as the second new guitar graduate to successfully minethe Takoma catalog and produce something that is as fresh as it isbackward-looking. The first third of Non-sequiturs had me thinking Ihad slipped The Best of John Fahey into the changer by mistake. Newmanattacks Fahey's windswept blues and teetering, fingerpicked flourisheswith a tenacity and a passion that keeps the songs from falling intodull repetition. The melancholia-meets-agitation vibe present in muchof Fahey's music is at work in Newman's melodic sense and his play oftension and release; songs like "Sometimes a Bad Attitude is All itTakes" and "The Bullheaded Stranger" match Fahey's early works both intheir ambitious structure and their quasi-absurd titles. Non-sequiturswould not be such a pleasing listen, though, if Newman had not lentthem his unique touch. The guitarist's activity in the Montreal avantscene has no doubt inspired some of the disc's more surprising moments,most notably those featuring percussion from Godspeed member BruceCawdron. Cawdron's playing proves versatile, blending with theshuffling blues early on the disc and providing more abstractaccompaniment via pandeiro, bodhran, and exquisitely played bowedcymbals as Newman's playing gets more spacious. The guitar bottoms outon "God is in the Details," gathering a skeletal, glacier-paced bluesfrom groaning lap-steel plucking atop ghostly cymbal drones. Thepercussion is considerably detached in the mix for the length ofNon-sequiturs giving a surreal quality to certain sections, primarilythose in which Newman introduces improvisation or a kind of raga-styleabandon into his playing. This effect is most impressive on the disc's15-minute climax, "Forest for the Trees." The track features Newmandrifting uncomfortably over three somber chords as the drums bump andshake, back and forth against his nervous timing; as his playingdecays, the percussion ascends in a clatter of protest. The imageconjured is one of an anxious guitar player, playing to the creakingsounds in his room at night. One quality often lacking among thefollowers of Fahey (of which Newman is one of the most loyal) is theability to transcend technical mastery and create truly soulful,evocative music. Non-sequiturs confirms Harris Newman an exception tothis majority.
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John Bischoff is one of the best-known Bay-area electronic composers.For decades he has been producing electronic and computer-based music,and his newest release on 23five collects recent (1999-2002) worksusing the Max/MSP language. My limited knowledge prohibits me fromunderstanding how this software allows a fuller realization of thetheory Bischoff says links all seven pieces on Aperture."Reflective intention" describes a situation in which sound structureis determined "not only through the predetermined elements which gointo a piece, but also through the active process of listening to themusic as it happens and responding accordingly." I cannot untangle allof Bischoff's heady liner notes; also, I cannot see how his "reflectiveintention" could not just as easily be called improvisation. I amcomfortable to call this improvised computer music, and fine music atthat. The variety of compositional structure alone makes Aperture apleasant listen. The opening "Piano 7hz" features thick, chiming soundfragments spread sluggishly across intermittent clinks and low rumbles,at a lazy, decaying interval with pacing that recalls Morton Feldman.Earlier tracks like "Immaterial States" and "Graviton" are arrangedaround a latticework of extended sounds that evolve from low-levelmachine chugs to piercing whines, impressive in their ability to evokemovement or suggest visual correspondents without defining the natureor origin of the individual sounds. All six tracks on Aperturewere recorded in real-time, producing a temptation, in the listener, togrant the most complex works a precedence relating to the assumedintensity or struggle of their birth. One of the most enjoyable pieceshere, however, is probably the most simple. "Sealed Cantus" is acollaborative track created from two sound sources, the recorded soundof a water fountain sculpture by Kenneth Atchley and Bischoff'smanipulation of static. The arresting density of the resulting track istreated to a subtle structuring, leading the rapt listener toward thepiece's harrowing finale. Aperture's title track, one of thefour recordings from 2002, provides neat closure to a disc that is bothchallenging and remarkable in its potential for repeated listening andaccessibility as a cohesive statement. "Aperture" condenses much of theideas represented in the previous six tracks into a simplerise-and-fall movement, emphasizing the collective statement made bythese essentially "separate" works, and the seductive aura ofBischoff's music as a whole.
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Greg Dulli is no stranger to death, as his albums have included songstinged with mortality. In recent years, however, he seemed to becooling off and enjoying life a bit more. He was working on materialfor a new album when he got the word that his good friend Ted Demme haddied of heart failure while playing at a charity basketball event earlyin 2002. Suddenly the album Dulli was working on had no meaning for himanymore, and he turned again to the familiar material of his past. Theman with the notorious party lifestyle began penning new material, andthe result is the death party record Blackberry Belle.The classic Dulli sound is back for the most part, with full sex rompand pomp, but every song has a twisted edge where it deals with loss onsome level or another. Dulli is starting to see the dangers of thenightlife he so casually sidled up next to at the bar, as the openinglines of the record show: "Black out the windows, it's party time/Youknow how I love stormy weather, so let's all play suicide." TheTwilight Singers of today are a tight group, with loud guitars, chorusvocals, and a smoky groove that ties it all together. Samples are now agreater part of the vocabulary, as well, from the crowd cheers on"Feathers" to the European phone ring sample that is the backbone of"Esta Noche." Several guests also punctuate Dulli's world of fun orgloom, from Petra Haden to Mark Lanegan. This album belongs to Dulli,though, as his first true work after the Afghan Whigs' demise. He walksthe walk, and he's always talked the talk, and for the first time heseems in the right place with it all. It's all or nothing on everytrack, and the focus shifts easily from narrator to voyeur for whateverbrings across the meaning more. One of his bands is gone, and the otherhe's burned down only to rebuild stronger than it was before. There maybe life in the old boy yet.
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No doubt partially influenced by Benjamin Gibbard's work in the Postal Service, Transatlanticismshows off a denser, darker, and here and there more electronic DeathCab for Cutie than ever before. That's just the start of the changes,however, as their fourth album feels like a complete renovation oftheir familiar emo-tinged sound. Gibbard's voice is almostunrecognizable for most of the opening cut "The New Year" until,towards the end, his familiar whine breaks through. Then out of thepower of that track, the lamb emerges on "Lightness," and it's clearthat DCFC have an agenda: to prove that they can evolve. They've done afine job of it. Gone is the youthful idealism and the struggle of thoseviews; replacing it is an existentialism and an acceptance of some ofthe wrongs that everyone knows exist but are afraid to say. There arecracks in the veneer that need exposing, from the mundane matter offinding photos of an old love in the glove compartment to recognizing afling for what it is and letting it go. The record bounces around fromthought to thought as though these were all memories and thoughts thatshould have been left behind. DCFC faces it head on, bravely moldingtheir sound around these schizophrenic thoughts. Chris Walla'sproduction work also takes a leap forward, with the songs soundingclearer and crisper all around, and Gibbard's voice has never soundedso pure. There is a new power, a new clarity, and a new attack in theband that doesn't sound forced as it did on certain songs on The Photo Album,and there are no awkward moments. Even when things are slowed down orcalmer in delivery there is an energy crackling beneath the surface,waiting to surge. It's not always a smooth and easy ride for DCFC'slatest, but it's still a nice trip all the way down.
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It only takes a few, short moments to ruin an entire record completely. Why must obscene jazz samples (i.e., elevator sounds) be used in conjunction with beat and bass heavy arrangements? Those overly-vibrant, obnoxious, and sickeningly bright bass pops combined with dynamically static horn parts lead only to decay. The decay is obviously contagious as it tends to infect the rest of the album.
Ashfelt begin with what sounds like it will be an intriguing mix of dance-worthy rhythms, futuristic melodies, and all manner of vocal samples and found-sound noise bursts. After eighteen minutes of listening, the inconstant and disorienting style changes become annoying and the palette of sounds that seemed so rich intially becomes stale and rots away. Then there are those jazz-wanna-be-samples-of-death that literally send me over the edge. It kills the entire album just as it was starting to pick itself up from its little fall. If the middle tracks that contain the disease-ridden tracks are killed off and the secolnd half of the album is listened to by itself, then everything seems quite wonderful and even promising! Ashfelt takes the best parts of the first half of the album and rearrange and rethink them on the second half; the result is more diverse, more focused, and less annoying. It's as if the band suddenly became more confident in their skills and realized that they didn't have to jump back and forth between styles to keep things nice and interesting. The melodies in the second half are more virile, the beats cut across the sound-spectrum like a swiftly and skillfully wielded knife, and the amorphous sound collages gain a level of intrigue not present before. Cut out the junk in the middle and Fat Space Acid doesn't sound half bad. Perhaps the next release will see this duo become more confident (and critical) and thus more exciting.
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"Dear Mr. P (Label Boss),
"Picked up the new Aesop Rock album on a trip to the local record storeon Tuesday. Interesting cover: lurid and hurt at the same time—itreminds me of the label in a lot of ways. The production is nice andvaried, too: simple fist-pumping and sparse beats in places, buzzingsynths and ringing metal in others. Neato, if maybe a bit too clever atthe expense of the beats at times.
"About halfway through, you make it known that some people have beentalking shit about you and your labelmates for not endlessly relivingthe glory of 1994. Thinking back on my opinion of rap in 1994 (too muchSnoop, too many guns, couldn't relate), I can't say that yours has beena change for the worse. Your response, though, that you've been doingyour thing for ten years now and that the shit-talkers are beneath yournotice, raises a question: Why do you have to hijack a track onsomebody else's album to dress down these `nobodies'?
"I'm all for personal meaning in rap, but beef is tedious, and sixminutes and change of beef IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEBODY ELSE'S ALBUM (haveI mentioned that that parts bothers me?) is a sour note in an otherwisepretty good slab of music. Gunning for clowns, after all, is just so1994, and that's not where you're at, right?
"Don't let the turkeys get you down."
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Mulholland has changed the name of his musical project from the relatively nifty Mount Vernon Arts Lab to the decidedly more turgid Mount Vernon Astral Temple, which should come as no surprise considering his new home on Threshold House. The Moon Musick Boys seem to have precipitated this sudden name change, and have also exerted an influence the new musical direction. For this album, Mount Vernon Aquatic Synagogue abandon the charming retro-futurist trappings that informed previous releases, which sounded a lot like BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Well, apparently Mulholland has decided to drop the Joe Meek posturing and get serious. Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
The new sound involves overblown prog synthesizers arpeggiating into the stratosphere, with sheets of heavy distortion and gale-force winds. Long story short, he's gone completely Kraut. Along with the new sound comes some annoying conceptual posturing. The daft liner notes by Mark Pilkington of Fortean Times drone on about silly time portals and then claim that the rituals done to create these pieces were "chronological terrorism." Huh? Wasn't this "Musick Cures Time" thing already done on Coil's Time Machines? How much of Coil's act is Mulholland planning to borrow? Was it a car or a cat I saw? All of this palindromic ponderousness comes to naught in the end, as the pieces on Musick That Destroys Itself are not the same forward as backward. I know this for a fact. I ripped the tracks to wave files and reversed them. Oh, and the "musick" doesn't destroy itself. If it did, I wouldn't have been able to buy the album.
So, all of this useless conceptual baggage aside, I have no complaint with the music. Both pieces are very similar, although the second track is infinitely more galactic. The synthesizers sound like the wet dream of that keyboard-playing midget from Hawkwind. Big, hefty slabs of Stonehenge siroccos sweep across a barren lunar landscape, with explosions of analogue spraying out into the stars. There is a certain cyclical logic to the structuring of the tracks, much in the same mold as Tangerine Dream's early sidelong compositions. While not perfectly palindromic, I must admit that there is a certain Rorscharch blob symmetry to the tracks. The first pressing also comes with a bonus CD of a live performance, possibly recorded at the Megalithomania! event last year. It's very tasty indeed. While I feel a certain nostalgia for the earlier sound, the new Mount Vernon Android Testicles is certainly a lot of fun as well. Let's hope that for future albums, Drew Mulholland will find some more convincing theoretical garbage to justify his music. Dogma in my hymn: I am God. This review is not a palindrome.
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The tenth release in Konkurrent's In the Fishtank series sees the horn section of jazzy post-rockers Jaga Jazzist paired up with fellow Norwegians Motorpsycho. This Fishtankdiffers slightly from others past in that the bands had a significantlyinvolved relationship before the session was even proposed. Bandmembers have floated freely between the two acts, and both were set toplay a festival together in Holland at the time Konkurrentpropositioned them for collaboration. Such previous involvement,combined with an unprecedented amount of rehearsal time has resulted inthe first Fishtank with a fully integrated and time-craftedsound. The rough edges and obtuse proportions that made previouscollaborations sometimes fun, and more often forgettable, are missinghere. The Jaga horns lend a spacious fragility to Motorpsycho's burly,often blues-laden psych, but in a thoroughly accommodating fashion.True, the latter had been heading towards looser, kraut-ier pastures asof late, but with a horn section now on equal footing, Motorpsychofreely indulge in their Neu!-ish tendencies. Fears that anotherjazz-infected Fishtank might go the way of wankery (see therecent Sonic Youth + I.C.P + The Ex collaboration) can be dismissed, asnothing short of careful, studied fusion is achieved here. Fusion isthe only name for tracks like "Doffen Ah Um," with a groove seductiveenough to justify the title's Mingus reference. The bulk of this Fishtank,however, offers a less-boisterous blend with the most successful tracksserving as bookends on the disc. "Bombay Brassiere" and the 20-minutecloser "Tristano," showcase Motorpsycho's talent for dense, drivingpsych, made crystalline by a layering of horn and flute lines thatbring both tracks to dazzling crescendos, bursting with temperedimprovisation. Other portions of the disc are less appealing, such asthe stiff, white-boy funk put to a version of the Art Ensemble ofChicago classic "Theme de Yoyo." On "Pills, Powders and Passion Plays,"Motorpsycho's Bent Saether contributes his musty, damaged vocals, whichmay sound fine over that band's acid-headed rock, but make a PhilCollins tune of this slow jam.This disc has plenty of moments sure to please fans of both bands,though newcomers could do better with either of the Jaga Jazzist fulllengths on Ninja Tune.
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It all begins with a tinny, toy piano melody that seems to indicatethat we're entering some old, dusty dollhouse in someone's forgottenattic, populated by the porcelain dolls that are strewn through theliner artwork, who alternate between innocently angelic and eerilydemonic, with cracks in their glass and cloudy eyed glares that warnagainst entering this collage of splintered personality. Holding courtin this house are Brian Viglione and Amanda Palmer, the Dresden Dolls,whose name simultaneously conjures up tempting Weimar cabaret decadenceand the ensuing fiery disaster. Decked out in stark white makeup andburlesque couture they are a visually arresting band, but they areanything but window dressing. The Dolls have already made lastingimpressions on legions of audiences who have experienced theirformidable live show. Even without a full length, they play to sold outcrowds that most developing bands would kill for. The Dolls honed theirskills on stage and when it came time to make the leap to record theydid it on their own terms and on their own label, no less. On stage,the pair are mesmerizing, Palmer's face wrapping around every word andgiving them a liveliness held aloft by Viglione's booming retorts.Beneath the foundation and consignment shop assemblage lies a viciouscombination of talent, ideas, and dramatic flair that imbues The Dresden Dollswith a rising tension that ultimately grasps a hold of a satisfyingdenouement. The Dolls break open with the incindeary "Girl Anachronism"which revels in its doom and gloom stomp, Palmer's piano serving aspercussion as much as Viglione's drums. The song cuts deeply as Palmerspits out the chronicle of someone just out of phase with reality,haunted by instability and just screaming to make you understand whatshe's going through. On "Missed Me," Palmer plays the part of acoquettish little girl turned femme fatale with remarkable presence andpoise. She paints a deeply vivid portrait of the ill-informed dalliancewith her dark, manipulative side seeping out in every batted eyelashand cooing come on to the mister who should have known better. Herpiano unfurls a seductive tango melody that pops like swinging hips ina slinky, alluring strut. With the fury comes sighing introspection andself-examination, and tracks like "The Perfect Fit" delve into thepsyche that emits the frenetic static electric energy that buzzes offthe band. "Bad Habit" is tantamount to a mission statement, roaringthat "sappy songs about sex and cheating / bland accounts of two loversmeeting / make me want to give mankind a beating." The Dolls' Brechtiantheatrics don't hem them in, however. They excel at dark, moody sliversof song but at the core is still an irresistible knack at writingcompelling music and the words to back it up. "The Jeep Song," forexample, is a comparatively straightforward song about the anguish ofbeing reminded of a lost lover, with clever lyrics and positivelybright backup "ba da ba ba" singing. On the album's closer "Truce,"Palmer plaintively declares, "I am the ground zero." Listening to The Dresden Dollsit's easy to interpret that lyric in a way she most likely did notintend it. Through the craft and style exuded by this album, it feelsas if she and Viglione are destined to be the epicenter of a shock thatwill rattle the musically entrenched; to serve as a black leathergloved slap to the face, challenging the willing to step up and attemptto surmount their devastating fusion of thoughtful conception andflawless execution.
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