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Thule Musik has been responsible for the fledgling releases of some of the rising stars of the Icelandic music scene. Múm's popularity has exploded over the past year and Trabant was recently profiled in the New York Times. Both these bands are represented on this double CD compilation (each with their remix of another artist's track, plus an original track remixed by someone else), but '42 More Things to do in Zero Gravity' attempts to showcase a wide variety of electronic artists. Some names might ring a bell to those who follow the musical goings-on of Reykjavik and beyond, and others seem to be surfacing for the first time.
Billing itself as "an Icelandic Ambient Compilation," Uni:form, in conjunction with Thule, definitely adopts a broad definition of "ambient." The vast majority of tracks on '42 More Things' are more structured than such aforementioned nomenclature might imply, but the general presence of electronic chill-out background soundscapes (somewhere in between Warp's 'Artificial Intelligence' compilations and the atmospheric side of the Morr Music roster) is right on the mark.
Ilo, Thor, Ruxpin, and Biogen will likely be familiar to the more seasoned aficionados of Icelandic music as a result of their remix work for both Múm and Sigur Rós. Ilo's track "Tif" is among the more striking of the contributions: a trip hop-infused tapestry of distorted voices, guitar, piano and seductive beats. The fluffy but listenable "Flying," the angelic and moody "First Contact," and the drum 'n' bass-inspired "Above Sea Level" are Ruxpin's three pieces. These tracks, while exhibiting an impressive range overall, individually don't seem really go anywhere. They do succeed, however, in melding well with the relaxed vibe of the compilation as a whole. Biogen's "Hi-Fi FM" is quirky and up-tempo, while "Afloat" sounds like a digital sea spray overlaid with glistening mellow synths. "I Don't Have a Clue" by Thor is perhaps the closest to being truly ambient with its beatless lilt, along with the Trabant's track "Superman," remixed here by Worm is Green. Other noteworthy contributions come from the lesser-known Krilli (represented here by two excellent songs, one of which beautifully recalls some of the instrumental work on David Bowie's 'Low'), Rhythm of Snow's Autechre-esque "Getting Closer to an Unknown Goal," and Múm's twitchy Kanada remix.
Overall, '42 More Things' doesn't have much that will completely bowl its listeners over with either profundity or innovation, but as a whole, it provides for extremely pleasant and meditative listening.
samples:
- Ilo - Tif
- Krilli - 52cd 4kg
- Biogen - Hifi FM
- Ruxpin - Above Sea Level
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It's hard to believe two years have passed since the incredible first 2xCD compilation from Morr Music surfaced (Putting the Morr Back in Morrissey). Two years later, a number of the bands featured have released marvelous albums on the Berlin-based Morr. This year's 2xCD collection of digital lullabies features a few acts who have become usual suspects from the Morr roster of champions as well as a handful of new faces: one disc of cover tunes, the other with all new material. Allegedly the story goes like this: Creation Records is dead and buried, Thomas Morr tried but failed to obtain the rights to reissue Slowdive's back catalogue, but that didn't stop him from successfully curating a fantastic collection of Slowdive cover tunes by a number of popular Morr artists and friends.
Perhaps I'm a little biased going into this record, as Slowdive was one of my favorite bands during their time, and I can't remember the last Morr release I didn't enjoy, but all of the versions are tasteful, with a personal twist, and never forced. Disc one opens with the sparse version of "Alison" by Future 3 and ends with the breathtakingly shimmering version of "Machine Gun" by Múm. Some of the more heady (nearly-)instrumental tracks have been tackled by appropriate Morr acts like Limp and Manual while contributions from Lali Puna, Ms. John Soda, Styrofoam and Ulrich Schnauss will have you singing these songs in your sleep. If I had only one gripe, it would be the request that ISAN stick to instrumental music, otherwise, I can't imagine a more appropriate group of people to reinterpret some of the most beautiful music released in the early part of the 1990s. Disc two features another sparsely arranged track from newbie Future 3 as well as an original song from the peculiarly titled act Ms. John Soda (which features Micha Acher of Notwist/Tied and Tickled Trio and Stefanie Böhm) which make me anxious to hear full-length albums from each of these. In addition, brand new contributions from Ulrich Schnauss, Limp, ISAN, Manual and Hermann & Kleine will please anybody who's fallen in love with this label as much as I. Okay, I can stop gushing now...
 
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One cannot discuss a new Merzbow CD without mentioning how damn manyothers exist. No Merzbow CD can ever truly be "the new one", becausesome label is forever adding to the Merzbow publishing glut, newer onesarriving at a rate which confounds mere chronological hierarchy. It hasbecome so that the band name is like a brand name; one buys some moreMerzbow, rather than any specific album. Or one does not buy, which isincreasingly seeming like a fine idea. After all, it is not apparentthat Merzbow's Masami Akita actually has as many album-length ideas ashe does albums. Rather, he produces his sound until hismedia-determined time restraint runs out. I would be very surprised ifhe listens at all to what he produces these days, after or even duringthe process of recording, so satisfied he must be that he has filledanother 74 minutes with Merzbow.
Now, Mego is a label that I trust and respect. Not attached to anygenre or style, only a vague and loose allegiance to computer-createdmusic of some kind, I would expect them to demand more from Merzbow.That doesn't seem to be the case. On "A Taste of...", it sounds to meas if a couple of samples were looped for five minutes at a time, whilevarious filters were bloodlessly applied and removed. It's as if apattern, or perhaps an instruction booklet for some software, wasstrictly followed so that this specific result would emerge. There is atheme of Japanese cuisine presented in the artwork, but nothing withinthe music which resonates that theme. In fact, Japanese cuisine valuespresentation, freshness and detail, and this noise sounds as if no onemade it or was paying much attention to it or its ingredients at all.
I believe that noise can be musical—bands like Hijo Kaidan,Borbetomagus, Masonna, and especially CCCC, have produced works thathold up as albums which evidence some compositional thought andemotion, or even concentrated non-emotion. Pita has done so using acomputer; his "Get Out" is one of the most powerful computer-musicalbums that I can think of. Merzbow used to make albums that soundedwhole ("Antimonument", "Batz-Tau-Tai", "Material Action 2"), but sincethe 1990s has forfeited quality for quantity. If you've been wonderingwhy he is generally refered to as the "king" of Japanese noise music,you won't find out why by listening to "A Taste of...".
samples:
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"There Should Be an Entry Here" is The Pilot Ships hard to find 1997debut, now re-released on BlueSanct, who released their sophomoreeffort in 2000. Listening to it again now, it hasn't lost its impactfive years on. These songs, created by members of the Stars of the Lidand Monroe Mustang, have lives of their own, as the pallette and feelof each differs from the rest on the record. What grabs you on one songmay not be the driving force of the next track. And where traditionalinstruments drive the proceedings, there are moments of sampled fieldrecordings and ambient noise that fill as much space as the guitars andvocals of other tracks. Birds chirp, a screen door shuts, and thelyrics lament about another blow when the subject is 'already brokendown' ('A Song by Your Campfire'). Listening to it now, everythingseems to be about these people getting to know each other as theycreate, knowing their stops and starts, so they can make musictogether. It's not less coherent than their later release, but it's notas adventurous, which just shows how much this band has grown and cangrow still. The album's epic closer, 'Looked Over (No Fun Reprise)', isas tedious as ever, though, with a bizarre guitar and keyboard openingwith vocal treatments, but dismantling five minutes in. Then a low humor muffled city recording lasts for another thirteen minutes beforepiano and dripping water join with spooky vocals to raise the hairs onyour neck. Still an affecting release, and only serves to whet theappetite for new music from this horribly underrated ensemble.
samples:
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Oh yeah. Ohhhhhh yeah. I have to admit that I feel really dirty afterlistening to this recording constructed by and for the usage of gaypornography. However, this has got to be one of my favorite albums thisyear. Released on a limited edition CD-R from Piehead, this disc is theseventh Piehead's limited series. It has got to be one of the mostthumpingly deep, pounding, and implicitly explicit recordings Iprobably own in my collection. Songs are interspersed with audiosnippits of various movies, with some parts even lifted from whatappears to be conversations between directors and actors. If the duowho is widely known as the "A-Team of Electronica" has floated yourboat before, the rip roaring guitar riff on tracks like "Fist Power" orthe chunky lyrical bassline of "Son, That's a Battle You're Going toLose" may not stop at only blowing your hair back. With low-cool pieceslike "Son,..." and "The Rose Bud Opens", the duo have easilyout-grooved Boards of Canada with a super-charged virile take on thepopularized style which makes the Scottish Warp superstars look likeeunuchs. Unfortunately by the time you read this review, however, allcopies will most likely be gone.
samples:
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Though his name has been placed firmly in the spotlight by a release onMEGO, Kevin Drumm has been plying his prepared guitar trade for someyears now, and has worked with many famous names, such as Jim O'Rourke,Christian Fennesz, Martin Tetreault, and Axel Doerner. My introductionto his music was the split 12" with Pita only last year, on Chicagolabel BOXmedia, and that juicy fragment made me keen to see how hewould respond to the ultimate form of Austrian patronage. The firsttrack opens with a few bleeps that could suggest everyday MEGO laptopmaterial, but soon moves to a constant, distorted analogue rasp: not atall a nod to the host label's stereotypical digital chaos.
An inspection of the liner notes reveals he's stayed with a traditionalarsenal of guitar, mics, tapes, pedals and an analogue synth. Despitehim admitting to some "computer assistance", Drumm's offering is verymuch in the tradition of old-school power electronics or Japanesenoise, with only a few obvious signs of computer work to give it a morerecent feel. A more contemporary comparison might be to Oren Ambarchi'smore extreme processed guitar output.
As always with MEGO releases the packaging is notable, this time goingin for some kind of black metal joke, with a gothic "KD" inscribed ingold on black. And they managed to scare me more than any 80's Venompublicity photo by tinting the CD gold, the sight of which produced abrief but morbid flashback to the mid-90's terrors of owning fadeddiscs printed by PDO. Ultimately this black-clad music is more BoydRice than Varg Vikernes, but that, of course, is no bad thing.
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Long before dictionaries included a musical description for the word'funk', a common definition was "to emit an offensive smell, to stink".Ironically, the most popular "funk" bands (Parliament, Ohio Players,Sly and the Family Stone, or James Brown) all had substantial recordingbudgets and crisp, clean production for the most part. The originatorsof funk (as a musical style) weren't that far off from the dictionary'sdefinition. The music was raw, produced on cheap equipment and foundits way to a number of 7" records in the late 1960s around the sametime as the flood of garage pop (see 'Nuggets' or 'Box of Trash'comps). While a number of NYC-based bands are jumping down thebandwagon of returning to garage pop ideals, NYC-based Soul FireRecords is heading down the road of original funk. Over the course ofthe last couple years, the label has been releasing a number of raw,yet powerful 7" singles in extremely limited quantities, which now arecompiled on these two collections.
At first listen, it's rather deceptive, as you wonder if some of thesesongs truly date back thirty years. The first volume starts off withSoul Fire's third 7", two brief songs of looped gritty hooks by CalypsoKing & the Soul Investigators. It continues with the pimpin' soundsof Speedometer who bring to the collection a fierce horn section,wakka-wakka guitars and killer percussion. It isn't until the songsfrom Lee Fields & the Explorers that we actually finally hear asinger/band leader. While he shouts "Baby, I ain't James Brown" on "I'mthe Man" I must point out he does indeed squeak out an occasional JamesBrown line like "Give it up, turn it loose" and "I got soul." The tempodrops down for the two slow-riding numbers from Third Point and picksup again for a virile ending from The Soul Command, clearly masteredfrom terrible recordings. Volume One ends with a special bonus - "FastFunk Instrumental" by the Supersonics and a collection of breakbeatsprimed for sampling purposes.
samples:
- JD & the Evil's Dynamite Band - Haaa-Sheesh
- Lee Fields & the Explorers - I'm the Man
Volume two continues with seven more singles (14 tracks) and opens withthe flute and funk marriage by Bama & The Family. Lee Fields (whowas previously quoted as saying how he wasn't James Brown) pays a clearhomage to "Funky Drummer" with "Ain't it Funky Now" while theWhitefield Brothers play tribute to Funkadelic's "Super Stupid" with"In the Raw." The two songs from the Detroit Sex Machines adds a littlemore soul to the voice of the front man (and I swear this has got to bemastered from a slightly off-centered 45). There's no bonus beats onthis volume but the poorly-cut masters are enough to provide a mildamount of home-grown amusement. Unfortunately now, I'm hooked andcompelled to start buying their 7" single releases. Damnit!
samples:
- Bama & the Family - Don't Think... Do
- The Whitefield Brothers - In the Raw
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Lately, it seems as if the music of Jean-Luc Guionnet is everywhere.Though he has been active for many years, there seems to be a flood ofpublished Guionnet work recently. However, unlike other equallyprolific artists, Guionnet appears to have a diverse area of musicalinterest, backed up by solid ideas. Past albums have featured largegroup improvisation (with Hub/Bub), composed tape music (on the GroundFault label), field recordings (with his trio Afflux), and metallicsound-sculpture installation ("Synapses", on Selektion). His two latestCDs, it should come as no surprise, are very different from one anotherand are both worthwhile.
Pheromone is the trio of Guionnet, here playing metal, wood, contactmicrophones and some instruments I've never heard of (chifelia anyone?)with Eric Cordier on his usual hurdy-gurdy and Pascal Battus onprepared (he says "surrounded") guitar. The music was improvised liveto cassette on one day in May of 1998, and this CD retains the limiteddynamic range and compression inherent in that medium. This is a goodthing. The tape is saturated in such a way that the individualingredients are pretty much indistinguishable, especially during thebusiest sections. I happen to enjoy the sound of overloaded tape, sothere were many breathtaking passages for me. At one point in the firsttrack, something that sounds like a grunting beast wrestled withmetallic percussion under a blanket of smudge and feedback...wonderful! As electro-acoustic improv albums go, this one has grit anda fierceness that one does not encounter very often. My only complaintis that 'Disparture' might actually be too much of a good thing; at 72minutes long, I don't believe that the material has been sculpted intoan album. Perhaps a good way to listen to this would be intwenty-minute chunks, because I found myself craving some shape andclosure after about 40 minutes.
Another animal entirely is "Metro Pre Saint Gervais", recorded andperformed in the Paris train station of the same name. Englishviolinist Warburton (also a writer for the Wire and Signal to Noise)and the omnipresent Guionnet (here on alto sax) wandered around thetrain station with their instruments for an evening while Eric La Casaactively recorded the interactions between the duo and the station. Intruth, the subway station itself makes this a quartet, since itspeculiar gestures determine the nature of the sounds generated within.On this album, it can be heard interjecting bits of people'sconversation, as well as its own strange acoustics, implacable bellsand clangs, incidental noises and (of course) the occasional train insuch a way that it is playing exactly as much as the "players" are. Onetone seems to reoccur, echoing through the space as a sort of chorus tounite the piece's several sections. This odd tone is subtely quoted inWarburton and Guionnet's playing, which La Casa uses to underlineserendipitous moments (like when an escalator drone matches thesaxophone's pitch, or footsteps suggest a subtle rhythm, etc) intotense and concise compositions. La Casa is very concsious of the stereofield, as demonstrated in his pitting of violin against saxophone inopposing speakers, gradually pulled into the center just as a trainarrives to obliterate the moment. Both instumentalists play into theirenvironment, blending with and accentuating aspects of the foundacoustic space, rather than simply overlaying improv onto environmentalnoises, which would have been obvious and boring. There is a danger inthis kind of sound work that the subject matter might be so opaque thatit overshadows the music, but this trio seems to be aware of that. Theyhave created a pure listening experience, in which the elements add upto a complete and thoughtful whole.
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This side project of Neurosis has been releasing some of the bestexperimental music since their first album, 'Silver Blood Transmission'in 1995. This one has been several years in the making, and is"dedicated to and inspired by... and originally produced by insects"according to the insert.Disc One opens with the 2-minute "High Mobility", as a slow bass line is permeated with a shrill swirl of echoing bugs.Track 2, "Adaptability" sounds like an ant's aural perspective whenthousands of its brethren are hastily running around. These tracksremind me of what Mark Spybey puts out on Hafted Maul without theparticular toy which dominates each song. Unlike a lot of experimentalacts you can hear and follow what is going on. Nothing irritates memore than when you listen to a 10-minute track where you have to leaninto the speaker because it's turned all the way up and you 're notsure if you can hear anything. There is definitely something going onhere, like track 4 'Small Size' which starts off with an undulatingrushing flutter that runs throughout the entire track. Layered on topand underneath of that are beating hearts and steel cords being drugacross plastic grating. If you like layered music this is for you. Attimes during track 5, 'metamorphosis', I am reminded of the feel I getfrom Nurse With Wounds 'Swan Song' from 'A missing Sense'. That rushingback and forth of the same drone, though not nearly as intense in thisform. Only coming in at 33 minutes and 28 seconds isn't a whole lot ofmaterial, but it is a double CD. Disc two is all one track, clocking inat 34 minutes and 25 seconds which is odd, considering they are meantto be played together. I notice some of the same sounds in the firstfew minutes, but it is also a much more intense display. The same humcomes in and out through the whole track and there may even be a chorusof shrieking madness. There is no general song structure or percussionhere, just sounds, which appeals to many. I like listening to this discat work real loud and confusing everyone around me. They don't knowwhat they are hearing.
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This very nice (and nicely packed) compilation is a selection of 14exclusive tracks, new or previously unreleased from the Genesungswerklabel and their allies out of Germany, Dortmund. In addition, there isa cut-up version of the entire CD by Segment, available for download atwww.genesungswerk.de/compilation. Unconventionalism is the connectionhere between the diversity of styles, described as 'Weird noises, nicemelodies, obscure data snippets...' by Genesungswerk themselves. Mostof the artists have contributed calm and moody electronic music, some alittle more dub influenced ([multer], krill.minima, Basalt or KonradBayer) while others have a more soundtrack-ish approach, likeKallabris, Teamforest, Syncliar, Resonator and N (the guitarist frommulter who submits a guitar-only piece far removed from recognizableguitar sounds). The opening and finishing Tracks by Pale Asle Pettersonand P. Myles Bryson are fine examples in a more experimental vein,while the contributions from Segment (the label head himself), FrancoBaresi and Karten Frankreich consist of a few deranged Dada Pop tunes.All of which are very suitable sounds for late night listening.
samples:
- Franco Baresi - Hallo
- Krill Minima - Goldschmerlde
- Multer - Myosin
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Melancholy, deliberate-sounding rock is making headway as artistsbecome less concerned with the trickery or nuances of the genre andmore concerned about the substance at all costs. Most try to find theirniche, which establishes them while limiting them as they run out ofsteam on future releases. Athens, GA-based Clairvoyants show no signsof this behavior, making a solid debut on "Your New Boundaries" ofminimal, haunting rock music by Brian Dunn. Most songs start with asolo guitar line, add instruments, then settle into their pocket, thenDunn sings. And he sings of loss, ghosts, memories, and Japanese paperactors. Not new subjects, nor really a new way of coveying them, but itmatters little as the record is a solid piece of work throughout. Thequotable lyric is the first on the record ('That city fucked youup/like everybody does/it does to everyone' on 'To Reassure'), butelsewhere, Dunn's affectations sound very British. His voice is low intone and delivery, but occasionally it soars in his range, showing acontrol and beauty few possess. The band is tightly wound around Dunn,producing sounds and effects that serve these songs with absolutededication. On 'Yes, I Waited a Year...', the band waits an eternitybefore entering, but when they do there are subtle strings, and asimple trumpet line that make it the slow dance song of the year. Andon 'The Hungry Ghosts' the music is almost playful, inviting. There areeven an untitled bonus track, for those who wanted more after the titletrack finally ends. It's a soothing, capable release that doesn'tinduce hibernation. And that, in itself, is quite an accomplishment formusic this mellow and concentrated.
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