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A growing number of new bands are embracing the characteristics and conventions of heavy metal in their quest for tense, dramatic post-rock instrumentalism. Pelican are a new instrumental group from Chicago, and this untitled EP on Hydra Head is their first release. The EP is quite promising, filled to the brim with big, crunchy heroic power chords and melodic riffs. The sound is not far from bands such as Explosions in the Sky or The Fucking Champs, but without all of the slow-burn atmospheric filler.Hydra Head
Even in the midst of their fuzzed-out doom metal noisiness, they are controlled and precise players, comparable to Godspeed You Black Emperor when they drop that boring ambient crawl and decide to rock out. The liner notes include a kind of manifesto thing about playing at high volumes, so I made sure to crank the volume to eleven when listening. The first track, "Mammoth" is an apt introduction, with a dark and compelling melody that repeats as layers of feedback-heavy guitars and rumbling bass are added. Pelican strongly push the treble and the sub in their music. Things heat up with the second track, "Pulse," where the powerful, propulsive rhythm section shines in this heavy-as-hell, riff-based metal song with a gargantuan sound. I don't know why track three is called "Forecast for Today," because it should be called "Victory March." It's a classically heroic slab of deep, epic metal, like the Master of Puppets-era Metallica everybody secretly still loves. This is an amazing track. In fact, each song on this four-track EP seems to up the intensity from the last. Pelican must have rolled a big fatty before recording the last track, the 13-minute "The Woods," their take on the stoner rock haziness of Kyuss and Sleep. Guiding the listener through several nebulous tempo and chord changes signalled by squealing feedback and rumbling bass, this track meanders around for a while before settling on a loud, noisy tribute to the god of war. The track ends with a cavernous sturm und drang, and all of the instruments fall out of sync and fade into oblivion. This EP is an excellent first release that manages to have the impact of a full-length album and I can't wait to hear what's next for Pelican.
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When worlds collide, and cultures butt up against each other, theresult is not always confused or destructive. Natacha Atlas lives up toher name, born in Brussels of Egyptian and Moroccan decent, she spenther formative years skipping through Europe, the Middle East, and theUnited States, a journey that clearly left its mark on her life andmusic. Something Dangerousis a gently schizophrenic album, mixing the influences of UK dance,hip-hop, R&B, traditional Arabic, and Hindi pop to create afascinating amalgam. Atlas enlists a number of guest vocalists to duetwith who bring even more color to the music. "Janamaan" features Atlasin a Bollywood-style trading with a male vocalist against a glitchytechno backbeat. Her voice is powerful, full of depth and body thatenraptures as it climbs and descends her words, whether in her lyricalArabic or English. "Eye of the Duck" is a funky, reggae number withNatacha's sampled cooing and Arabic interplay flanking the distinctiveJamaican delivery and flow. "It's when we touch (ooh) / It's when wekiss (ooh)." Sure, it's not too complex, but that's the beauty. It's aperfect club track, simple, sexy, and superb. "Simple Heart" findsNatacha in a duet with Sinead O'Connor, whose contribution is nothingspecial. The track would have worked fine as a solo piece, as Atlas'vocals are attention-demanding while O'Connor's role in the song isrelegated to the background. "Who's My Baby" achieves an almost totalelectronic soundscape that sounds akin to Kylie Minogue, with a snakybass line that pulses around Niara Scarlett's English sung vocals. Onher last solo album, Ayeshteni, Atlas covered Screamin' JayHawkins' "I Put a Spell on You," and here she continues her homage toAmerican rhythm and blues with a slick cover of James Brown's "It's aMan's Man's Man's World." It's all her, on her own, delicately swayingthrough the English lyrics with ease, occasionally slipping into a lineof Arabic complete with vibrato and melisma that's as smooth as silk. Something Dangerousis a kaleidoscopic cross-cultural trip that brings the beauty of Atlas'traditional Arabic loves with the fresh sounds of the West in acreative and harmonious way. -
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Hot on the heels of this year's full-length release, One Bedroom, The Sea and Cake continue to indulge in their newfound electronic revelry with this seven-track EP. Glass,which clocks in at just over 37 minutes, is comprised of four non-albumtracks and three remixes of songs from the album. Versions One and Twoof "To the Author" carry the synth melodies one step further thansimilarly constructed tracks on One Bedroom. The tempo isnoticably quicker than the usual Sea and Cake fare, and buzzing,spacious keyboards (which sound much like those used recently on theirplayful cover of David Bowie's "Sound and Vision") provide an excellentcompliment to the processed guitars and Sam Prekop's bouncy vocals."Traditional Wax Coin" goes in a slightly different direction with achilled-out—even minimal—jazz infusion. "An Echo In," which is closestin style to their latest album, has nice melody and instrumentation,but ultimately suffers from flat, lukewarm vocals. The remixes are doneby kindred indie spirits Stereolab and Broadcast (the latter of whomThe Sea and Cake toured with in 2000), and Detroit technohead CarlCraig. Stereoab's "Tea and Cake" remix of "Hotel Tell" strips theoriginal down to a lush, exotic lullabye, while Broadcast lend"Interiors" a heavy dose of their own tripped-out, psychedelia withloads of reverb and shards of synths. Craig's reworking of "Hotel Tell"turns the original into an ass-shakin', bass-thumping dancefloor cut,which is bound to ellicit either a chuckle or a shudder from longtimefans of the band.
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Aaron Funk is a musical sadist, and a prolific one. His predilectionfor relentless, uncompromising breakbeats has gained his main musicaloutlet Venetian Snares a lot of cred among fans of power electronics,drum n' bass and hardcore industrial. Dubbed "drill n' bass" by peoplewho like to name things, Venetian Snares' sound palate is not all thatfar from his electronic contemporaries Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.What Funk brings to the table that is original is a sense of sleazy,dark menace. All of his numerous albums thus far have a persistentlyviolent atmosphere, with sneaky attacks of extreme, head-poundingrhythms. He is a "trickster" of sorts, beginning a track with gentleambience or light jazz before suddenly shocking the listener with acacophony of stuttering, pulsating drum programming and bizarredialogue samples involving child murder, rape and cannibalism. Releasedearlier this year, Winter in the Belly of a Snake follows in this tradition, but is somewhat of a departure from the tried-and-true Snares formula perfected on 2001's Doll Doll Doll.There is an increased emphasis on structured songs on this outing, andwith it comes the unexpected use of melody as the backbone for histypically schizophrenic beats. I am not altogether convinced that thisapproach really makes sense for Venetian Snares, but there are someworthy songs here. The disc opens with "Dad," a rather unconvincing odeto Funk's father that is overwhelmed by the drum programming and neverreally finds its footing. "Stairs Song" begins with a spookyhorror-soundtrack keyboard melody that eventually evolves into afull-blown splatter of distorted beats. There are some shorter,transitional synth tracks scattered throughout the album that attemptto add to the atmosphere of menace, but are basically pointless filler."Suffocate" finds a clipped, trebly beat and works in a surprisingsample of an angelic female singer, before mutating into a dark digitaldub song. Funk increases the internal drama of these songs byoccasionally interrupting the beat for queasy ambient interludes, whichleave the listener wondering when they will be attacked again by thesadistic rhythms. The album's most bizarre track is a cover of Danzig's"She," which sounds pretty much the same as the original. If Funk istrying to be funny with this odd choice of cover songs, he succeeds. Ifhe's actually trying to be serious, he fails. "Sink Snow Angel" beginswith a string melody reminiscent of the Kronos Quartet's theme to Requiem for a Dreambut quickly turns into a nightmare of Atari-on-amphetamine digitalinsanity. The disc ends with its longest track, "Icosikaipent", wherecold, phased metallic drum explosions keep threatening to turn intosomething interesting, but end up going nowhere. Winter is not a spectacular release for Aaron Funk, instead it's just another minor blip in his impressive discography.
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This CD is a treasure trove, mother lode, holy grail and the missinglink in the fossil record of electronic music. Kurenniemi'sachievements in the design of revolutionary instruments stand apartboth in the technical aspects and in how they introduced radically newways of making music. The recordings on this CD show just how far aheadof his time he was. It includes his own musical creations, somepromotional material for the instruments he tried to sell, someexperiments and a couple of collaborations. The breadth of the materialis so big, from sequenced Bach through tape collage to improvised tapeand feedback noise performance, that I can only mention a few. Theopening two tracks are crucial for Pan Sonic fans. They feature hisElectronic Quartet (Sähkökvartetti), a device with four instruments inone, and a huge, outrageously 90s sound. (If you doubt that Kurenniemiwas responsible for the Pan Sonic sound, try a little web research.)Kurenniemi's psychedelic tape collage, "Hana," is beautifully ugly anddream-like while the more academic sounding "Preludi" is a piercingmechanical composition in mutating repeating phrases and freeglissandi. "Virsi," another collage piece, shows off the composer'srather Finnish taste for the absurd as well as for the abstract,combining electronic sounds, various samples of voices, movies andmusic with tape effects, a long soaring multi-tone glissando, awonderful plaintive deep feedback solo. Among all the dazzlinginvention and sophistication throughout the CD it's the earliestrecording that I love the most. Inspired by the massive turbines of apower plant, "On-Off" is a live recording of Kurenniemi's manipulatingall the equipment at Helsinki University's Electronic Music Studio atonce. It's all noise with a whirring, throbbing texture, wild feedback,ripping slashes of sound and massive dynamics all with an evocativetight acoustic ambience. This absolutely brilliant recording could wellbe the prototype of modern improvised noise art performance.
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Sorry to be the bearer of brutal truth yet again, but here goes: noiseis boring. No other known genre consists of nearly the number ofcompletely talentless assholes as noise does—not even metal! Full ofextreme tedium and seemingly unyielding emulation, the music's onlysalvation apparently comes in the form of the "originators" and the"permutators." Originators like Masami Akita (known best as Merzbow)planted the seeds and populated the genre. His own prolific outputyielded countless clones worldwide, all the while passing them bythrough revolution of medium and delivery systems as well as sound(recall the infamous car installation or the 18 CD rubber boxset).While far from innocent of releasing a significant number of unexcitingalbums over the years, Akita regularly ups the ante just enough to stayrelevant in a time where there are more useless players than ever. Satanstornade,his collaborative project with Mego artist and "permutator" RussellHaswell, is one of those releases that will keep him from fading intorelic status. Composed exclusively on two Powerbooks with unnamed,various software programs, this album celebrates the relativelyuntapped digital realm of noise. Recorded live to MiniDisc, these fourtracks show two men duking it out in anonymity, pummeling eardrums andsquealing electronically over the course of 48 viscious minutes. Thoughsonically similar, the compositions make for an interesting, albeitdifficult, listening experience. I strongly recommend giving the albuma nonstop listen to achieve the full effect. So while countlessjerkoffs continue in their attempts to recycle Music For Bondage Performance ad nauseum, Akita and Haswell successfully resuscitate the terminal patient known as noise with this blistering workout.
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Sorry to be the bearer of brutal truth yet again, but here goes: noiseis boring. No other known genre consists of nearly the number ofcompletely talentless assholes as noise does—not even metal! Full ofextreme tedium and seemingly unyielding emulation, the music's onlysalvation apparently comes in the form of the "originators" and the"permutators." Originators like Masami Akita (known best as Merzbow)planted the seeds and populated the genre. His own prolific outputyielded countless clones worldwide, all the while passing them bythrough revolution of medium and delivery systems as well as sound(recall the infamous car installation or the 18 CD rubber boxset).While far from innocent of releasing a significant number of unexcitingalbums over the years, Akita regularly ups the ante just enough to stayrelevant in a time where there are more useless players than ever. Satanstornade,his collaborative project with Mego artist and "permutator" RussellHaswell, is one of those releases that will keep him from fading intorelic status. Composed exclusively on two Powerbooks with unnamed,various software programs, this album celebrates the relativelyuntapped digital realm of noise. Recorded live to MiniDisc, these fourtracks show two men duking it out in anonymity, pummeling eardrums andsquealing electronically over the course of 48 viscious minutes. Thoughsonically similar, the compositions make for an interesting, albeitdifficult, listening experience. I strongly recommend giving the albuma nonstop listen to achieve the full effect. So while countlessjerkoffs continue in their attempts to recycle Music For Bondage Performance ad nauseum, Akita and Haswell successfully resuscitate the terminal patient known as noise with this blistering workout.
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It has never been more clear that David Tibet lives in a completely idiosyncratic sphere of his own. Perhaps this is true for everyone, but Tibet's world seems particularly out of step with current trends in music, culture and thought. There is something terribly admirable and beguiling about that. Hypnagogue beautifully proves that Current 93 is continuing in its tangential orbit, and exists solely as the outlet for Tibet's poetic musings on Christ, cats, children, dreams, piety, horror, death, dread, decay and apocalypse. You're not going to find any concessions to glitch-pop or retro-electro here.PanDurtro
This EP is designed to be a prologue to an upcoming full length, and it consists of nine tracks or "chapters" of a long poem called, appropriately, "Hypnagogue: A Dream Prologue." Like many of Current 93's recent works, it's impossible to rate this album based on the music alone, which is mostly incidental. The main focus is on the poetry, and if the listener is not willing to carefully absorb Tibet's linguistic imagery, the point of the music is lost. The musical accompaniment is minimal: Maja Elliott's impressionistic, Debussy-esque piano is the sole instrument. Her sad, skittering melodies serve to underscore Tibet's rhymeless, alliterative balladry. There are times when the piano brilliantly punctuates a passage, and others where its complex swirl of sound competes with Tibet's intense delivery. David Tibet is an impressive poet, his style remiscent of mystical and abstruse poets like T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and even Angus MacLise. The poesy is modern, but certainly not post-modern. There is no irony in Tibet's fatalistic prose, just a classic weaving of idiosyncratic metaphors that may or may not resonate, depending on the listener's willingness to listen and think about the complex symbolism. Like a true classical poet, Tibet even slips into Latin verse here and there. As a bonus, there is a web address on the inside cover where a PDF of the accompanying text can be downloaded, so that one can read along. From the topiary bunny on the cover to the obscure magical glyph at the front of the text, Current 93 and David Tibet defiantly resist any easy categorization. Though I fully expect that many people will find Hypnagogue hopelessly esoteric and even self-indulgent, I feel that it is a beatiful and unique work of art.
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If a keyboard cowboy steals your voice it might just serve your server right for trying to read and burn the last of the Mohicans. With one foul swoop Colin Newman proclaims punk rock meaningless and declares the joy of his latest bastard 'heavy metal dancefloor' bad vibing it up like there's no tomorrow. Those four negative horsemen Wire celebrate the art of stopping, which is where it's at - addictive repetitive mega-riffing retooled on hardrive and nailed down fast in paranoiac fits.Pink Flag
There is a lot of stopping but the big diginoise always starts up instantly, fleet of foot chasing rising temperatures. Three songs from this apocalyptic refraction of doomed cyber-slavery and secondhand information overload will have already battered your damaged drums long ago on the EP Read and Burn 01. Another trio burnt bright on the second 'close to creation cycle' six-song lowdown late last year, and the insanely catchy "Nice Streets Above," which is Send's only really upbeat tune, is lengthened a minute and seems to have gained more deep bass groove. This track was an early junkyard rifling in which Graham Lewis sampled and mangled a snatch of Colin Newman singing "Drill," but the mutation would be nigh on impossible to spot. Mutation is constantly hovering ghostlike behind many of the vicious scenes of Send. Cyclic evolution merges man and machine, catalogued obtusely in the closing pulsating monster "99.9" which might well be the most powerful track Wire have ever created, diving off sonar into unknown voids.
The longest track is heralded by the shortest, a rare vocal appearance for that funny ol'professor of noise Bruce Gilbert, whose voice is buried in incomprehensible swathes of distortion as "Half Eaten" bounces gamely by on a jagged big beat tip flashing vivid images of burning oil wells into the listening mindbrain. This ravaged track is a wartorn counterpoint to Lewis' internet reportage machine-metal ode to the liberation of oppressed ladies, "The Agfers of Kodack." They do not take kindly to religious extremism and build up inexorably to find it "Spent" with drills and emergency alarm bells blaring against quick fix. No that isn't Killing Joke, sir. Amongst the four totally new songs, "Mr Marx's Table" will be familar to anyone who crossed the line and came a long way for a short stay at a Wire gig last year, but they've sped it up and remuscled it with hardwired precision.
The weakest new one, and probably the weakest track on the album, is "Being Watched" which has slightly corny lyrics wherein some voyeur junkie protagonist wants Big Brother to spy on him in what is essentially a remake of "Take It" but sounds much more in tune with eighties Wire than any other featured track. Even if you'd like to give it up you'd never have the choice with a track of such ominous doom laden brilliance as "You Can't Leave Now" where a metaphorical restaurant is ransacked by Greedy as the Devil Dogs are set loose to deface him. The trap is sprung but there is a way out. All across the planet fires burn high as Wire fans blow up their computers in a ritual spew. Maybe guitars will be the instruments of the future after all? This album is so good it'd be worth annihilating 99.9 per cent of the human race to hear it, but luckily thanks to the arch kindness of the Newman you don't have to do that and if you buy it from posteverything.com they'll chuck in a bonus CD of Wire decimating Chicago last year. It's not hard to hear another unique event. Does that road ahead look quite uncertain? -
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The straight-ahead pop music on this German trio's self-titled secondrelease tends to be based on the instrumentation of bass, drums, guitarand vocals with a leaning towards some electronic augmentation.Although the presence of synthesizer can be fairly liberal at timeswith a hint of drum machine, there's no great risk of it being overusedas it always seems appropriate within the context. Their choices ofcertain chordal intervals paired with obvious guitar and synth patchesat times remind me of some of the more mainstream British bands of the80s, which is a good thing. "Untem im Strom" leads off the disc with achoppy, jangly guitar progression matched with vocals that sneaks inthe rhythm section on the upbeat to steadily drive the tune through itsmarked sections. Of the disc's ten tracks, the dance-pulsed, graduallyrocking "Tremble" would be the only one sung entirely in English withthe remainder mostly in the group's native tongue. The cadence of thevocal delivery for some numbers feels a bit awkward at first until themelody becomes the focal point and the music settles in around it. Thewhispy vocals, strummy acoustic guitar and plucked bass of "Hannover"is lead by a steady, puffy-snared drum machine while mild pianoflourishes and buzzing slide guitar trickle throughout. "Stop" thrashesalong to bursts of siren keyboards, pounding tom-toms and dirty basswhich shift from jagged to slick and back again within the span of itsseventy-five seconds. Go Plus' musicianship is solid and theirsongwriting style is fairly consistent from track to track with somefairly cool progressions and hooks. For the most part, these keyelements are underused but there are some worthwhile moments.
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