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Kicking off with the previously unreleased track "Good Man", Christian Fennesz treats us to a taste of what's to come: warm, earthy textures in the digital whirrs and purrs, handled with his usual careful composition. This is followed by the four pieces from the out-of-print "Instrument" 12", released by MEGO in 1995.
Created using guitar-based sounds, these early tracks are marked by unusual juxtapositions of mood—switching from swift, controlled grittiness to bassy, dreamy, brittle washes. Among the tracks culled from various other compilations is "Menthol" from Mille Plateaux's 'Clicks and Cuts Vol. 2', which is slightly uninspiring, standand glitchy fare. This, however, is the only low point on 'Field Recordings'. Other standouts include "Surf" from the Ash International compilation 'Decay' with its epic walls of sound and Fennesz's remix of a Stephan Mathieu and Ekkehard Ehlers track from their collaboration 'Heroin'. Those hungry for a follow-up to Fennesz's acclaimed 2001 album 'Endless Summer' will have to wait a bit longer, but in the mean time, this compilation serves as an excellent appetizer.
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The stuttering jagged rhythms of the buzzing guitars set up a hypnotic rhythm and then suddenly, the first screams of a totally abstracted rage come from the new Isis disc's opening track, "The Beginning and the End". Straight off, an impressive start. One of the recent spate of signings to Ipecac Records, Isis have been around for a while, though not in as high-profile a setting. Instead they've been building a fanbase slowly.
Their sound is often described as heavy metal ambient, which can be summed up like this: vocals = heavy metal, instruments = post-rock ambience. Instrumentally, they're pretty straightforward: guitar, bass, drums and a few synth-y noises every now and again, and on top, a raging voice bellowing almost unintelligible lyrics. The combination works really well, better than one would maybe expect, with the intense emotion behind the vocals brought into a sharp contrast by the head-nodding rock. The liner notes themselves have a few of the lyrics transcribed, although it's not word for word, and the packaging is very well done, if a bit plain. Although the intensity of the delivery of the vocals conveys a sense of conviction behind their intent, the lyrics themselves and the very unintelligible quality of them gives them a cold feeling, with the steady washing of the guitars and drums' pounding behind them, make the record's title seem less pretentious and more like just a descriptive term. Because of the vocals, ISIS will no doubt be tossed off as just heavy metal, but there's a depth to the music—vocals included—that goes beyond common aggro-"ooh I'm angry at daddy" metal. It's good, and it has it's moments of space-rock-ness that I think would appeal to more than a few brainwashed readers (especially the almost-vocal-less "Weight", if you're particularly turned off by the vocals).
 
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It is no surprise that Halon is receiving props and comparisons to Trans Am. Their sound is very much a combination of electronic beeps/synthesizer glory and rock aggression. Slowing it down here and there, Halon let the groove settle in, and even throw in the odd field vocal for good measure or sing a bit. Their sense of humor is also firmly in check, like on the aptly titled "Conan Main Title".
Their debut release, 'Assault on Tower 61' is the makings of a great band at its genesis. Matthew Taplinger and Rob Levally in particular, two-thirds of the band, show themselves to be extremely talented individuals, playing whatever is needed (guitar/synth/laptop or drums/sequencer) from one track to the next to get the sound just right. I'm not discounting bass player Jed Robertson, though, as it's his low end that holds most tracks together. Tracks vary in sound, though not wildly, as the album progresses, from the eerie keyboard pulse and steady rhythm of "Power Plant", to the angry Black Sabbath wail of "Ver Magnuson", to the mild interlude or frenetic dissolution of shorter tracks like "Big Sky" and "Word to the Wise". Not surprisingly, the recording quality also varies, which seems to be a conscious and planned thing with Halon, where with others it just depends on where they recorded. Even if it is accidental for Halon, it adds an interesting dimension to their already diverse sound. 'Assault' is everything you want in a debut release: a fresh sound, good songs, and a feeling like there's so much more room to grow. It won't be long until Halon won't be compared to other bands, but other bands will have to be compared to them
 
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Who needs Japanese editions when bonus tracks end up surfacing on singles anyhow, right? In an interview this year, Alan Sparhawk described one of their more cheery, poppier sounding tunes, "Canada," as being all about death, materialism and Heaven. "You can't take that stuff to Canada" is the repeated line in the song, and Canada is up north for most people in the USA,...
Maybe it makes more sense to him, but it's still an enjoyable tune with a catchy hook and very loud guitars. An alternative version of Low's album closer, "Shots and Ladders" rounds out the single. This version starts off intimately, with the vocals very close and personal and the music completely void of the lengthy reverberations which characterize the album version. However, Low's further adventures of trying to be noise artists just makes me shiver. The spooky keyboard sample is so grotesquely out of place that my face squints as I try to bear the whole tune. Numerous multi-tracked acoustic guitars grace their version of Pink Floyd's "Fearless," which, surprisingly for Low stays quite true to the original, adding only the female vocals of Mim and leaving out the Rogers and Hammerstein chant at the end. This is probably the best reason to buy this single and it isn't even on the 7" version!
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The hilarious packaging for this release would have us believe they're a clean-cut, fun-loving rock'n'roll band getting into scrapes and solving mysteries Scooby Doo-style. They're actually experimental improvisers who've made a successful crack at differentiating their record from the hundreds of others which opt for a dour, minimalist presentation.
Consisting of Icelandic superstar Heimir Bjorgulfsson, of Stillupsteypa ("He's usually got the best girlfriends"), sound artist Guy Amitai ("a great addition to the club because he's a master of disguises and costumes"), MIMEO member Gert-Jan Prins ("goes to a special science camp every summer"), and guitar improviser Dan Armstrong ("I suppose that I am the one that usually gets us into trouble"), The Vacuum Boys are surely the team to clear Amsterdam's Staalplaat shop of the hauntings caused by the Carl Michael Von Hausswolff spirit communication LPs in the racks. The Vacuum Boys sound isn't exactly rock'n'roll, but it might just be on the edge of post-rock. They're perhaps a more improv, and less serious, version of Austria's superb Radian, arranging glitch, earth-hum and white noise sounds, as well as guitar, keyboards and drums, into tracks that are abstract, but warm and friendly too. The sense of humour in the booklet is reflected so well in the music that it'd be mean to call the Vacuum Boys concept gimmicky. It's definitely a lot of fun, at least for fans of hair-raising musical experiments; maybe the girls in Amsterdam cafes will be slightly harder to impress.
 
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Peaches has a little secret. She doesn't want you to know that deep, down inside, she's not a filthy slut, but a respectable Canadian-born music teacher living in Berlin. However, in the three years and three incarnations of this release, she has gone from what seemed, at first, to be a campy underground joke to an internationally-renowned dirty post-disco diva.
The third version of this release is a North American edition by XL Recordings. It includes the entire first EP, which was later expanded to the full-length Kitty-Yo release, plus a second bonus disc of six tracks and two versions of the "Set it Off" music video. The success of Peaches hasn't come without a noticable amount of backlash, from both the nerdy serious electronic music fans and a group of uptight women who feel she might be "objectifying" her body. Consider this, however: not only did she create her own persona and control her own image, but she created all the music on her debut (with the exception a couple additional drum programs here and there). Furthermore, her music is undeniably catchy, and more fun than any German laptop "artist". From the boob-bouncing, only radio-friendly song "Lovertits," to the raunchy guitar licks of "Rock Show," there is never a point where the original album gets old, even now, two years later. The bonus disc includes her cover of Berlin's "Sex," and Jeans Team's "Keine Melodien," along with Kid 606's mash-up remix of "Fuck the Pain Away." While the jaded side of me wants to advise you to wait until next year's fourth release of this disc, a 4xCD retrospective, but the honest side says that if you don't own this yet, the time is now to get the cheapest and most complete version.
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- Set it Off (Tobi Neumann remix)
- Diddle My Skiddle
- AA XXX
 
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The Catheters craft hard, agressive, and at times completely merciless rock in the strongest traditions of the genre. Their sound is menacing and fast-paced, while vocalist, Brian Standeford sounds like he either wants his vocal cords to bleed, or your head to explode starting with your ears first.
Something seems to be a bit lost here. These songs sound incredibly rushed in creation, recording, and execution. There's no polish, which some might say is an admirable quality, though I'm not so sure. Like recent albums by other larger acts, it sounds like the band set up their instruments, microphones, amps, and boards at the same setting and recorded a whole album without changing any settings over the course of a few days. There's no variety. There's no change in the aesthetic, but, in a lot of cases on this release, there's really not much change of tempo or presentation. Everything sounds remarkably the same from one song to the next. It's the few changes that make the record worth it if only for a little while. "Clock on the Wall", the album's longest track, is also its most interesting listen, with a fine melody and mild turns, all with the driving force of a band with nothing to prove. "The Door Shuts Quickly" is also a slower tempo song, and not as much of a departure, but still not the same montonous pounding of the other tracks. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing is a variation in arrangement. The songs aren't bad, the band clearly has talent and the subject matter/lyrics/vocals are just as crushing as the music that backs it.
 
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I haven't listened to His Name Is Alive for about six or seven years, so I wasn't sure I had the right disc in my stereo when I pressed play and expected to hear the new album, 'Last Night.' The recent blitz of 4AD releases which all look thoroughly similar (computer-blurred images on a dark background digipak) didn't help my confusion, either. Instead of the dreamy His Name Is Alive indie pop I expected, what I got was a soulful, jazzy hybrid of funk and R&B with female vocals I did not recognize.
Apparently, His Name Is Alive is on a path to reinvent itself from record to record, the mark of a band which either gets bored with its sound or cannot execute the music with enough conviction to sustain it. The core of the band is now Lovetta Pippen (unrecognized soulful female vocals) and leader Warn Defever, a core lineup much like last year's 'Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth' (a problematic prophesy when considered with this release). I tried to listen generously, but by the third song I was confused and cringing. A song like "Crawlin'" makes me cringe specifically because the lyrics seem so intent on conveying the jazz and R&B and funk sound which the band is trying to appropriate but without following through in the actual music. As a result, the lyrics appear overstretched and threadbare, exposing their own inadequacies by trying to cover the music's shortcomings. The repetition of the line "You got a lot of crawlin' to do" in conjunction with the soupy bass and wanky guitar makes my stomach ache. Songs like "I Can See Myself in Her" and "" even make brave excursions into what sounds like urban pop. All this is too large a jump for me, from my more familiar His Name Is Alive reference point of 'Mouth by Mouth.' The last straw was when I realized that the songs I could tolerate were covers: The Equals's "Teardrops" and Ida's "Maybe." On the one hand, "I Been Good Up Till Now" is a stark contrast point on the album, notable only for its retreat from the funk and the jazz and its return to repetitive bedroom ambience. On the other hand, "Someday My Prince Will Come" is an interminable eleven-minute indulgence into faux-funk, replete with horns. The majority of 'Last Night' follows this latter formula, albeit with slightly more restraint and coolness, and I am just not sure that His Name Is Alive should apply for any patents for this reinvention.
 
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It's easy for pop musicians to get a complex about being taken seriously in the music world. We've been through the 80's fetishists attempt to reclaim pop music via forced kitsch, and we've seen would-be pop singers succumb to the trend du jour by lacing their otherwise straight-ahead songwriting with up-to-the-minute studio trickery that is bound to sound dated in a few years. Luckily, Sing-Sing are smarter than this. On "The Joy of Sing-Sing," they get down to the business of making pure, catchy pop music with a tried and tested set of sounds and production techniques that never get old if they are used in the right way. And they are here, as evidenced by the fact that I woke up this morning with their single "Feels Like Summer" repeating on infinite loop in my brain, and I didn't mind. While most of the press surrounding Sing-Sing seems intent on comparing this album to the two songwriters' previous body of work, and ultimately telling you what this album IS NOT (it is, after all the product of people who have been involved with other bands) I feel like it's more interesting to tell you what Sing-Sing IS! It's bitter-sweet lyrics about friends and lovers that falls nicely between the two unbearable extremes of chic lounge indifference and embarrassing heart-on-sleeve open-ness. You won't know what side of the bed singer Lisa O'Neil wakes up on, but she's also not so flippant towards her miniature tales of personal connections that you don't lose interest. And therein lies the allure of Sing-Sing. The looped beats and layered guitars are interesting enough to draw you in while delicate vocal harmonies allow you to take the songs with a grain of salt, or to pour your heart and soul into every crisply recorded breath. Sing-Sing is pop music for people who remember liking pop music at one point, and aren't afraid to like it again, but don't want to have to like it with their tongue always planted firmly in cheek. Sing-Sing write songs that take three minutes to move from point A to point C by way of B without drawing attention to the formula that makes them work, and are intelligent enough not to be seen as a guilty pleasure. This is the kind of album that will make you want to go to a show and (gasp) buy a t-shirt again. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut of listening to nothing but 'serious' music, and we all need a break now and then, and Sing-Sing has the perfect recipe. It's music you don't have to get involved in to enjoy, but it' that much richer if you do. Oh, and Emma from Lush is in it.
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Moonsanto's Fraud - Hell - Dope goes awry in the first minute and never gets back on track. It's a concept album, and right off the bat that means it has a lot more work to do to keep me from saying "oh, come on already." Don't get me wrong, there are some great concept albums where the result of a deeply rooted idea being fleshed out over the course of an album yields a result greater than the sum of the parts. This is not one of them. The story here is about "Professor Dr. Goodseed" and his ultimate pesticide, and well, I don't really have to finish that thought, because it all gets much more silly as it goes along. Is this supposed to be creepy or diabolical? If it is, it achieves that tone only in the way a Scooby-Doo villain does. The background noise is just that: relatively uninspiring electro-acoustic mishmash of instruments and digital blurbs. On its own, it wouldn't make an engaging record. What intensifies my frustration is the near constant voice-over that vaguely tells the story of Moonsanto, the Professor, and Mary Ann in a pitch-shifted and nearly cartoonish voice. It's like the Teletubbies trying to trip you out, and it's not working. There are a few worthwhile moments where the composition makes sense and is intriguing, but for the rest of the release Moonsanto is either assuming that being vague and faux-spooky will be enough for me to suspend my disbelief, or being ironic and tounge-in-cheek to cover up the utter lack of real content. Either way, Hushush is usually on point with odd music that a lot of other labels wouldn't touch, but with this one, they cast the net a little too far. Reel it in. samples:
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Picture the scene: Three hundred wide-eyed and crazy club kids from the Ukraine, desperate for a place to hold the mother of all parties, hi-jack a dormant soviet submarine and load it up with a massive sound system, a bar, and several cases of glowsticks. They descend into the icy waters and let the rumble begin. Meanwhile, Andrew Duke, a Canadian Naval sonar operator picks up a faint throb from the distant party sub as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. The gurgling beats are mangled by the time he receives them several thousand nautical miles away, but as he listens for signs of hostile intent, he begins to tap his foot, and the impetus for "Sprung" is born. He leaves the Navy with deep-sea sonar recordings in tow and buys a laptop where he begins to splice the faint, distressed beats and pulses with more audible scratches and pops and the Bip-Hop label is more than happy to release the results. I'm not sure if that's exactly how the recording of "Sprung" went down, but if you sit back with a copy of "Sprung," and a pair of headphones and picture that wayward sub and its crew of tripped-out dancing kids slowly descending through the darkness until the pressure squeezes the infinite beat into submission, you'll have the perfect soundtrack.
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