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Released just a few months after the rigid 10th, Nobukazu Takemura's newest is an adventure in minimalism that is as restorative as a long vacation taken after going too long without a break. Too often have I heard sound collages that seem to go nowhere; they simply run about in circles covering the same old ground for the duration of fifteen or twenty minutes or more. Thankfully, Assembler/Assembler 2 is about as predictable as a piano falling out of a building.
Each track is a creature in and of itself, suitable for individual release, and captivating both sonically and melodically. Despite the obvious connection to noise music and modern compositions, this album is full of gorgeous melodic tones and hidden harmonies stretched across almost subconscious space. "Conical Flask" gets things off the ground smoothly with a series of skipping tones that all fit together perfectly and form an abstract and rolling melody that jumps from one ear to another. "USINE" and "Ligne à haute tension" are more disturbing and grinding. They're not completely barrages of sound, but the impression they leave with me is the image of two chainsaws being rammed into eachother or perhaps the sight of heavy artillery exploding far in the distance. In either case, they work well next to the more haunting and accessible songs. "Kino-ear" is a favorite of mine and it definitely feels like the centerpiece of the album, it seems to have the most gravity and it is also the longest track. Throughout its nearly fourteen minute duration "Kino-ear" shifts from subtle glass-like ringing and aqueous gurglings to guitar meanderings. Sometimes the movement from one sound to the next isn't so polar and sometimes the changes happen abruptly, but they never happen annoyingly. The sounds don't necessarily always blend together perfectly but they do form a coherent whole: the sudden shift from guitar sounds to car horns to the audible splash of feet in puddles somehow makes sense. Each composition is like a short film viewed through LSD-tinted eyes. It's not that the music is all that "trippy," it's the thematic qualities and the total individuality of every track that ends up producing a disorienting but cohesive hallucinogenic trip. 
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Success in the music business, as honorable as it is fleeting, grants acertain immunity which allows artists a level of creative freedom. Suchliberties would be considered risky if indulged in by an unknown, butthe same measures taken by an established act with a good sales trackand a verbose publicist will often be viewed favorably. Groups likeRadiohead and Autechre fit that profile. However, the man behindUniform does not. His 2001 album for Mute Irony Isunder the 2nd Gen moniker achieved, at least, a dignified level ofmedia praise, being well-reviewed by both respectable and disgustingpublications alike. Its noisy, filthy style of hip hop found champions(and collaborators) in peers like Dälek and Techno Animal.Unfortunately, I doubt that either of those acts would have much lovefor his debut release as Uniform. Released on the growingpost-industrial record label Ad Noiseam, Not A Word lacks thesubstance of the 2nd Gen project. Nearly devoid of actual content, thealbum sounds much more like a collection of segues and interludes thana full-length album. This sixteen track disc could have beencomfortably reduced to a less pretentious, more concise EP, if eventhat. I'd offer more information and opinion about this release, but,in fairness, it doesn't deserve it. With any luck, Flicknives, the upcoming 2nd Gen follow-up album to be released on Quatermass, will prove to be a far more worthwhile listen.
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This collection is a curious combination of old and new. Gaburo, born1926 was trained as a composer in the old school and is clearlyinfluenced by pre-WW2 aesthetics and techniques but the music herecombines this with free-wheeling new-world invention in the age ofCage. The oldest of these five pieces from 1956 is a string quartetthat, while clearly comptetent, has more tutonic romanticism (in adecidedly Schoenberg style) than I prefer. Antiphony III and IV,dating from 62 and 67 respectively, both combine live musicians withelectronic music on tape, both set miniature poems by Virginia Hommel,and both aim to create a continuum between the sounds of the singersand instruments and the electronic sounds. The continuum was achievedby composing the pieces as a whole and orchestrating them withmusicians, recordings of the musicians, processed sounds from thoserecordings and synthetic sounds similar to all these. The result isconvincing and at times approaches the lyricism of Nono and Berio'selectro-acoustic music. But underlying it all is still clearlySchoenberg—Antiphony IV for tape and 16 voices being destinctlyreminicent of the choral work of the father of serialism. But there isalso a hint of Ligeti's Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures inthe more outlandish vocal techniques used. In these two pieces I findthat the combination of the old, in the formal and ensemble aspects,with the new, in the electronic and sound manipulation, actually worksvery well. They seem anchored in a familliar tradition while providingcompelling innovative personal expression. Mouth-Piece: Sextet for Solo Trumpet(1970) on the other hand is hideous. It is an excercise in extendedtechnique that would have been better left either to an improviser orto a composer who genuinely loves the trumpet. And that leaves The Flow of (u)a radically minimalistic piece for three voices all singing the samenote continuously using the "u" phoneme (i.e. "oo") for 23 minutes. Itis quintessential drone music that bears comparison to that of PhilNiblock. But while most drone music normally uses occasional changes tothe component tones this piece uses just the minutest continualvariation of pitch and tone color. The fact that this is sung by humanvoices is crucial to the success of the piece since the changing beatsand colors arise form the singers continually working to match pitchwith each other and to perfect their "u" sound. Extreme in itssimplicity it works in they way all good drone music works: bycaptivating attention and drawing one into facination with the minutedetail of the sound.
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Tenney was the first composer to give a real workout to the computer composition techniques that would dominate the computer music scene from the 60s through to the 90s and that are still widely used today. He did this during two and a half years at Bell Telephone Labs beginning 1961 working closely with Max Mathews, the inventor of the MUSIC series of programming environments.
The first of the pieces realised there, Noise Study, is surprisingly satisfying today for such an early experiment. It has the qualities of ocean or distant aircraft noise as heard through a tunnel getting nearer and farther, more and then less dynamic and complex. Very nicely judged and executed, the piece stands up well in the context of today's experimental music. Noise Study was entirely human composed and translated into sound by the computer functioning as an automated instrument reading a programmed score. But Tenny quickly set about extending the computer's involvement into the compositional process giving it the job of selecting some details of the music using random functions. These techniques closely parallel some of Xenakis' work on stochastic music. While Tenney hasn't achieved the fame or, in my opinion, quite the artistic success of the other, he did manage to produce some remarkable results. By devising ever more elaborate algorithms to take more control of the composition Tenney was able to surprise even himself with the resulting music; Dialogue, Phases and Fabric for Ché being the examples given in this collection, based on stochastic algorithm control of parametric noise/tone generators. Phases is a tense, mostly quiet alien conversation—music of such otherness that its like listening to people talking in Finnish but a hundred fold more baffling. Fabric for Ché is much louder, faster and more dynamic, making heavier use of noise. It manages to achieve some of the power and anger that Xenakis would show later in his works on the UPIC. What is striking is that Tenney, a newcomer to these computer technquies (as were all back then), managed to maintain aesthetic control of the automata he created. While the design of the systems was extremely abstract and technical the music is real music with a coherent personality and by no means merely an intererting experimental result. Other pieces in the collection include a player piano piece that is too random for me; the relatively famous For Ann (rising), a perceptual study using synchronised rising glissandi that is not to my taste at all; and Collage #1 ("Blue Suede") a delightful early tape manipulation piece entirely based on Evis Presley's song about his shoes. Reverential to the king and fully digging the groove of the source material it is not at all post-modern sounding. 
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- Michael Patrick Brady
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I wonder what kind of shoes that members of A Northern Chorus wear. Ifeel confident in assuming that they are familiar with every nook andcranny of their footwear, from the wrinkles that ring their toes to thestrains in the laces. I say this because I take Spirit Flagsto be the product of some very attentive, and very detailed shoegazers;a deeply immersing listen that sweeps across you like a warm blanket.The album begins with the twinkling, lullaby melody of "Song and I,"and as the music slowly fades closer to the fore, the dreamy vocalharmonies reveal themselves hovering through the instruments, blendingthemselves perfectly, neither standing out nor going unnoticed butgiving the song an amazing buoyancy. The songs on Spirit Flagsare excursions in texture and depth, the shortest track falling justshort of the four-minute mark. Rarely does it seem that any track hasoverstayed its welcome, as the melodies and harmonies frequently expandand evolve into other forms amidst the guitar wash and plaintivecontributions of flute and violin. On "Let the Parrots Speak forThemselves" and "Take Your Canvas Elsewhere," the reedy lead vocals attimes evoke Dean Wareham, while often taking on a full-bodied tenor oftheir own. "Mombassa" is a somewhat darker track, mixing a spookyreverb with sampled sound bites of fire and brimstone preachersbellowing (seemingly at each other, but it's just the way the samplesare overlaid) about God knows what, something about not believing inthe resurrection. It makes for a rather effective mood piece, with thefervor and intensity of the speakers contrasting with the tentative,ethereal musical background like a splash of cold water in a warm bed."I Dreamt the World had Ended" continues where "Mombassa" began, withdark lyrics about the sky exploding and choking fire being enveloped ina less than menacing arrangement. It doesn't seem at all dissonant orout of place, however. It is, after all, just a dream. For the mostpart, A Northern Chorus inhabits a limited range of tempo, and whilesome dynamics in that respect might have added more power to some oftheir songs, clearly they were aiming for a more subdued attack. Thatsubtlety can be just as powerful as displayed in a brief break on'Eilan Donan," with the music suddenly disappearing as ghostlike vocalsintone, "We'll be right on your heels." In that short moment, it isimmensely affecting. Spirit Flags slowly seeps along, at timesbeautiful and comforting. Whatever kind of shoes A Northern Choruswears, they must be very interesting.
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The concept of live music accompanying moving pictures is as old ascinema itself; pianists and organists often providing the soundtrack tothe images that danced on the screens in darkened movie houses. Inrecent years, some musicians have renewed the interest in silent filmsof the day by performing their modern compositions along as an updatedsoundtrack. For J. Swinscoe and his Cinematic Orchestra, such a task issecond nature, given the nature of the group's original concept thattheir name validates. Man With A Movie Camerais their current soundtrack to Russian film maker Dziga Vertov's 1929classic of the same name. As a variant of the title also appeared as atrack on last year's Every Day, the Cinematics would be themost likely candidates for such a project. The band recorded the disc'sseventeen tracks live in the studio with the augmentation of a stringtrio and percussionist for a more cohesive performance. Man With A Movie Camera is comprised of renamed workings of selections from Every Dayin which the live strings replace sampled ones, some new compositions,interludes and a few covers. "The Awakening of a Woman" is easilyidentifiable as last year's "Burn Out" from its slit-drum percussionintro and melodic strings progressions. The live performance andinstrumentation give this track a more organic feel in comparison tothe original recording. The newer "Odessa" and "The Magician" aredelicate piano pieces performed by Jon Ellis with a classical touchthat would probably sound all the more beautiful with the accompanyingvisuals for which they were intended. "Work It!" is best know by theaforementioned title track. Its mechanical feel of plucked strings andhaunting soprano saxophone intro are very powerful in the liveperformance setting. The busy latin-jazz groove of "Reel Life" isperformed almost note perfect from the remix "Evolution II" by thegroup's turntablist, Patrick Carpenter. Swinscoe and company again paytriubute to Lester Bowie and the Art Ensemble of Chicago with theirrenditions of the group's "Theme De Yoyo," "Theme Reprise" and "YoyoWaltz" which manage to capture a playful energy in a funky environment.A DVD of the group in performance accompanying the original Man With A Movie Camera film is due out this week, at which point this already great soundtrack should become part of a more powerful medium.
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The concept of live music accompanying moving pictures is as old ascinema itself; pianists and organists often providing the soundtrack tothe images that danced on the screens in darkened movie houses. Inrecent years, some musicians have renewed the interest in silent filmsof the day by performing their modern compositions along as an updatedsoundtrack. For J. Swinscoe and his Cinematic Orchestra, such a task issecond nature, given the nature of the group's original concept thattheir name validates. Man With A Movie Camerais their current soundtrack to Russian film maker Dziga Vertov's 1929classic of the same name. As a variant of the title also appeared as atrack on last year's Every Day, the Cinematics would be themost likely candidates for such a project. The band recorded the disc'sseventeen tracks live in the studio with the augmentation of a stringtrio and percussionist for a more cohesive performance. Man With A Movie Camera is comprised of renamed workings of selections from Every Dayin which the live strings replace sampled ones, some new compositions,interludes and a few covers. "The Awakening of a Woman" is easilyidentifiable as last year's "Burn Out" from its slit-drum percussionintro and melodic strings progressions. The live performance andinstrumentation give this track a more organic feel in comparison tothe original recording. The newer "Odessa" and "The Magician" aredelicate piano pieces performed by Jon Ellis with a classical touchthat would probably sound all the more beautiful with the accompanyingvisuals for which they were intended. "Work It!" is best know by theaforementioned title track. Its mechanical feel of plucked strings andhaunting soprano saxophone intro are very powerful in the liveperformance setting. The busy latin-jazz groove of "Reel Life" isperformed almost note perfect from the remix "Evolution II" by thegroup's turntablist, Patrick Carpenter. Swinscoe and company again paytriubute to Lester Bowie and the Art Ensemble of Chicago with theirrenditions of the group's "Theme De Yoyo," "Theme Reprise" and "YoyoWaltz" which manage to capture a playful energy in a funky environment.A DVD of the group in performance accompanying the original Man With A Movie Camera film is due out this week, at which point this already great soundtrack should become part of a more powerful medium.
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Tape's album Operamight be coming on the heels of the latest craze that pits guitarplucking and mouse clicking against each other in a sonic cage match ofsorts, but it is nevertheless a fine example of the way that digitaland acoustic instruments can work together seamlessly.The songs are made up of a variety of recorded instruments from guitarand horminca to melodica and accordian—instruments whose timbres arefaithfully maintained rather than spliced into a trillion fragmentedbits. The digital post-processing here serves to add a layer of grit tothe otherwise folky melodies that carry most of the songs, and tointerject the alien sounds that balance out the compositions. "ReturnTo Ship" is indicative of the album's tone, and begins with rumblinglow-end noise that builds through some droning instruments into aguitar passage that loops to serve the spinal cord for an organicorganism composed of off-kilter static and atonal whines. What makes Operawork is the solid foundation of simple melodies that allow themusicians room to experiment with the details. Simple tines andglockenspiel phrases serve as the familiar, while swarms of processedbits and bytes fade into and out of the mix providing an exotic spicethat keeps the songs from ever sounding simplistic. Many of the songscould almost be sweet if it weren't for the warbling effected dronesand flittering digitalia that run throughout. In the end, Operaabandons sentimentality in exchange for a strange tension that works toelevate the laptop noodling and the instrument playing to somethingelse entirely.
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Raw honesty and incredible musicianship happens to make this white boywanna shake his ass. Guitars, horns, organ, and the most groovtasticdrums I've heard in a long time work together to drop one giant bomb ofgrimy funk. Sure, I've heard this sort of thing before and lets faceit: this is the same kind of funk made during funk's heyday and it's ahard formula to change without totally spoiling that thing that makesfunk so great. But Sugarman Three pull it off perfectly. Wah-wah pedalsplaster the walls, organs jive and moan and dear me do they wail, andthen there's drumming. I can't say enough about the team of Rudy Albinand Ernesto Abreu. Throughout the album they effortlessly createrhythms that pulse, flow, and force me to sway, tap my foot, or evenget up out of my chair and dance the best I possibly can. Even therather down-tempo "Modern Jive" has a groove to it that simply cannotbe refused. "Funky So-and-So" is the veritable big-bang that startsthis bad-boy off on the good foot and paves the way for the bad thing.Contained herein is a percussion breakdown made of pure sweet sugar,just as the title implies."Shot Down" puts some serious tension in my stomach and gets my bloodflowing, most of the time I want to scream right along with Lee Fieldsand it's hard to contain the excitement. (I feel bad for people thathave to ride in my car with me when I listen to this.) The tension isreal and the funk is hot.This is a lightning-fast record at just over fourty-one minutes longand I think I've had it on repeat for about ten plays now. Excuse me,but after listening to this I have the urge to go out and find myself alady-friend to get down with, I'm feelin' a bit frisky.
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"This is some heavy metalloid music," declared Edgar Breau as he lookedout from the roof of the Lloyd D. Jackson Shopping Center one day in1975. "It's a song about the future, where unless you have a metalbody, they aren't gonna let you walk the streets. No kidding." To thepassing, most likely confused consumers that milled about below them,Simply Saucer must have seemed as if they had truly come from someparanoid, metallic future. In reality, they were a bunch of guys fromHamilton, Ontario who had Funhouse and White Light / White Heatscorched into their brains, plus a prescient affinity for dirty guitarsand electronic manipulations. Over the course of their brief existence,Simply Saucer put out only one release, 1978's "She's a Dog" b/w "I CanChange My Mind" 45. That is, until 1989 saw the first issue of the Cyborgs RevisitedLP, a compilation that combined the songs from their mall performancewith six never before heard studio tracks (engineered by fellowCanadians Daniel and Robert Lanois, who went on to produce PeterGabriel, Bob Dylan, and U2.) Cyborgs only saw the Simply Saucercult grow, and for good reason. Now, Sonic Unyon rescues this lostclassic from out of print oblivion, as well as adding seven unreleaseddemos plus the "She's a Dog" single. The result is a comprehensivetestament to the brilliance of Simply Saucer's blend of vicious guitarslop and experimentation with analog electronics. Songs like "InstantPleasure" and "Electro Rock" begin as simple odes of teenage crushesand idle imagination before disintegrating into maelstroms of freneticguitar. The noisy, angular indulgence becomes draws even closer toabstraction when sine waves and synthesizers float in, creating a murkyatmosphere that's equal parts temper tantrum and icy stare. The garagestandard of the sexually frustrated teen, a la the Stooges "No Fun"takes on a less than innocent tone with Simply Saucer. "I'm cyanideover you," moans Breau on "Nazi Apocalypse," and later on the new demo"Little Sally," he menacingly bursts open on a rival, "I wanna killthat other guy / I'll punch him right between the eyes." "Mole Machine"is an instrumental assault whose bleats of sharp, metallic noise wouldnot sound out of place on a Sonic Youth record. The climax of Cyborgs Revisitedcomes with "Illegal Bodies," the song Breau described as heavymetalloid music. It is a live ten-minute epic that careens aboutBreau's ranting and raving about the future of cyborgs before eruptinginto a free form solo section that is positively mind bending. Theseven songs that make up the newly released demos were recorded afterthe departure of Ping Romany's electronics, and are far less maddenedthan the previous tracks. They do, however, retain the attitude andcharm, and make for an excellent addendum to Cyborgs. The"She's a Dog" single, while good for completeness, falls far short ofthe bulk of Simply Saucers material, serving as the last gasp of a bandthat had already begun to call it a night. It's a minor stumble on anotherwise solid career-spanning document. Cyborgs Revisited is the aural equivalent of a paranoid delusion, a psychotic episode that clutches tightly until it shakes itself apart.
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A few weeks backs, I reviewed Pole's 45/45EP, the first in Stefan Betke's new trinity of releases, and myskepticism was thinly veiled. The addition of percussion andtraditional instrumentation to the once purist minimal dub style thathe helped pioneer left a question on my tongue: Would Pole still berelevant if he sounded like everyone else? Like many influentialmusicians before him, Pole may have released his best work already, andis progressing into the next phase of his career: where grumpy musicgeeks criticize every new release using as many hackneyed clichephrases as possible. More often than not, those music geeks make validpoints and the introduction of spoken word / rap has sealed Betke'sfate in the music press. The hip hop flavored "Slow Motion" featuresFat Jon over a head-nodding groove that will please backpackers andokayplayers, but will undoubtedly alienate those hoping for more of hisglitchy dub. Fortunately, the instrumental version offers some reliefand bears more of a resemblance to his earlier work, despite theprominent drum loop. In an act of self-indulgent excess, the disccloses with an acapella version that you can alternatively play overthe older Pole songs that you'd rather hear. In the midst of all thisis "I Can't Hear," a woefully bad hybrid of Pole's new fuller soundwith John Zorn styled saxophone flatulence. Ultimately, all of thesequasi-intelligent vocals and paint-by-numbers beats presented here setsthe mood for what promises to be a letdown of a new full-length album.I haven't had the heart to disappoint myself fully by listening to theadvance copy of the CD that I've had now for weeks.
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