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From the moment the slick snares and electro-tinged melodies on "Blind"sputtered from my stereo, I knew I was going to dig 'Iron City.' JeffMcIlwain, whose productions have appeared on labels like Isophlux andU-Cover, presents this fourth album of groovy IDM under the Lusine ICLmoniker, and makes me wonder why I've ignored him for so long. A sharedrelease between partners Hymen Records and Mad Monkey Records, "IronCity" ranges from funky post-electro workouts to Mille-Plateaux styledexperiments. Examples of the former include the video-game inspired"Tonic" and the aforementioned "Blind." "Bent" is a 4/4 head-nodderwith spacey dub effects that seem ripped off of an Force Inccompilation. This one would easily have fit on Force Lab's recentAlgorithm mix CD. I'd love to hear more of his work in this style. Themore abstract tracks like "Invisible" and the seemingly endless "TheFast Lane" are easily skipped over, but the hip-hop influenced"Perpetual" and "Scheming" redeem the CD and show McIlwain'sflexibility and range. While he's not about to be the next Timbaland orSwizz Beatz, that's pretty irrelevant to most IDM listeners who haven'tbought a commercial rap release since they were in junior high. Attimes, Lusine ICL can be a bit repetitive, but he manages to introduceenough new elements as tracks progress to stave off boredom. Unlessyou're some kind of improv fanatic, I doubt you'll have trouble findingsomething here to suit your listening needs.
samples:
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Sure it came out about a year and a half ago, but I just got my hands on it and felt like sharing. Tommy Guerrero was a full-time professional skateboarder, one who'd competed and skated with the best. He formed his own San Francisco-based skateboard company, Real Skateboards, several years back, and also gained notice as an talented musician in his own right with his debut release "Loose Grooves & Bastard Blues" in 1998.Function 8
Also from San Francisco, Gadget gained respect as a skilled DJ and beat composer, forming the Function 8 record and multimedia company/collective in 1995. Together, these two San Francisco natives pay homage to the city they love on "Hoy Yen Ass'n," a funky collection of songs featuring the guitar and bass stylings of Guerrero with the beat mastering and record scratching of Gadget. It's like Jet Black Crayon without live drums and with only one bass (both are also in JBC, who are STILL recording their much-anticipated debut album). It's funky, well-composed, and a kick in the pants. The record works best when it's just Gadget sampling vocals and composing beats with Guerrero making time on the bass. Guest vocalists John Gold. and Selavie aren't bad, but the songs before and after their appearances are far superior. These songs just get the body moving in all the right ways. 'RF Interference' is a soul-searching, organ and bass driven jazz influenced groove; 'Out the Village,' the following track, is shout-outs, hand claps, and funk bass. You can definitely sense the influences. It's a disparate work, but one that works on every plane it reaches for. Check it out.
 
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Whoa. I have to admit I've been extremely disappointed with Ant-Zen asof late, considering they've pretty much become a label completelydifferent from the one that released the first 75 or so releases. Somecertain recent successes have led me to simply drop my notion of theAnt-Zen that was and accept the Ant-Zen that is. Rob(u)rang's debut EPhelps me do this easily. My first impressions of this disc were a bunchof retarded and/or broken robots covering Muslimgauze - and no, that'snot an insult - at all! Since Rob(u)rang comes from the collectiveknown as Silk Saw (at least I think he does - maybe I'm wrong, but I'llmake that assumption anyway) this disc is imbued with a certainplayfulness throughout, never taking itself too seriously and havingfun in the process. It's also the first recorded material that OlivierMoreau (Imminent [Starvation]) has participated on since hiscollaboration with Synapscape - and that's a plus if you ask me. Thefirst track, 'Silly Dance,' sets the stage for what's to come: weird,poly-/arhythmic spurts of beats and melody that have an almost tribalfeel to them. More retarded-robot action follows and culminates in thelongest and noisiest track 'Banks.' A definite pleasant surprise for meand one that has more or less redeemed my faith in Stefan Alt and gang.Where's the new Imminent album, Mr. Moreau!?
samples:
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The Pastels, Kevin Shields, Appendix Out, sounds like a greatcompilation, right? As Sofandi warned us, don't get overexcited. Asidefrom one standout track from Japanese popsters Nagisa Ni Te, thiscompilation is at best, mediocre. Geographic is a Glaswegan sub-labelof Domino run by Stephen McRobbie of the Pastels. Together with theassistance of the Japanese label Trattoria, this compilation cametogether, aiming for the simpler, more pleasant side of indie pop,attempting to both pose as an aedequate introduction to each label andtoss in a number of friends in addition. The downfall of this attemptis that at 17 tracks, it's trying to be a bit too many things. Even bythe halfway point, (the terribly revolting track from former Jesus andMary Chain members under their new guise, Sister Vanilla, featuringWilliam Reid's wife on vocals) listening becomes incredibly laborious.Following that, a number of similarly half-assed attempts at song-likesketchwork almost blend in with each other. Songs like Pedro's "Amber"and Barbara Morgenstern's "Kleiner Ausschnitt" have pretty potential,but seem rather unfinished. Songs like the one from Empress are simplydull and too repetitious to even listen to entirely through. Thislethargic trend continues on nearly all of the songs until theanticlimactic finish of "Outro," by Kevin Shields, which could easilybe the reason he hasn't recorded a full-length record since 'Loveless'.If this disc was popping in the stores at the price of a Darla comp, Iwould probably recommend it more, but for even the biggest JAMC or MBVfans, save your pennies.
samples:
- Nagisa Ni Te - Me, On the Beach
- Appendix Out - The Language in Things
- Kevin Shields - Outro
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Chris Carter must have ears like no-one else. The fact that his last album (EAR 1) sounded nothing like its original source (1979's groundbreaking 'The Space Between') must attest to this. It just shows how important he actually was to Throbbing Gristle.
Many of the original TG songs he has 'remixed' often had a paralysing sense of claustrophobia that could have been down to the 8-track media, but more likely to the result of 4 intent people trying to find their way through listener's ear. Now Carter has removed the elements of three of them, and gives his original programming and synth tracks—which could have often stood on their own from their density and richness of sound—huge spaces to breathe. Dub-like drones of subsonic bass appear occasionally, robotic 4/4 rhythms become ludicrously complex polyrhythms, the whole album constantly exhales where the original songs hold or hyperventilate. 'Indisciplined' is the best example; the pounding, staccato rhythm of the original is melted and re-shaped into an Aphex-esque pulse-ridden aria.
I half-suspected while I listened to this that maybe Carter thought that some TG fans wouldn't be so keen on the project, so he's re-titled the songs—possibly as a comment on people's attitude's to TG, or just to remind us that he has a sense of humor too.
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For connoisseurs of uncommon music the Lactamese 10" series fromPortland based Beta-Lactam Ring Records has been quite a treat. Thedozen records, each limited to 500 copies, come on direct metalmastered audiophile vinyl so they sound as great as they look. 'GuessThe Birds' is the 8th installment and surely one of the mostanticipated. It's of an attractive dim gray vinyl and comes with a Dadameets Dali cover, big glossy inserts, signed art postcard and labelstickers. Dada meets Dali is probably a good way to describe VTB'smusic too. Track titles will give you some idea: "Urchins At the Harp","There In the House of the Moon", "Millipede for the Little Boy", "Allthe Paint I Can Breathe". The six tracks are relatively subdued andsomewhat sluggishly unfold. Sounds include ambient shuffling about,some odd vocalizations and intercom talk, snoring, electronics andplenty of blown, bowed, plucked and struck stuff. Arabic overtones arepresent on a few songs thanks to vocal wailing, contemplative droningand percussion pastiche. Yes, it's uncommon music alright, but it's farfrom difficult listening. In fact, it's rather pleasant and alwaysinteresting. Coming soon is 'The Mountains Among Us' LP, also fromBeta-Lactam.- Read More
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Damn that title! I keep reminiscing irrelevantly about the days ofRobert Smith's big hair for some reason, and gosh darn if the firstOcsid didn't beat 'em to it anyhow! Remember that dream you're alwayshaving where you're being fucked up the ass with a candle and thenGenesis P. Orridge walks in and pulls it out and licks off the shit andbuggers you with a twenty foot ceremonial dong whilst mincing baboonsare whistling tunes in the jungle and morbid angels sing death hymns tocharred homonculi? Well this CD might just be the perfect soundtrack!And if it's not then might I recommend you seek out the blue version ofV/Vm's 'Good Things'?Released by the appropriately titled Deafborn label, this Skalpell CDpursues harsh looped noise that owes a large debt to industrialpioneers, but shifts it all up a gear with modern computer edits. Thisis immense and as cutting as the bastard spawn of a sharp surgicalinstrument should be. Facts? Who needs 'em? OK, OK, its a couple ofSwiss fellas called Harry and Henry who are just trying to symbolisethe suffering and disease of the 'mentally over-evoluted human race'(as one does). The kind of thing you can hear down local bars nearwhere I live, but maybe not where you live so maybe you'll need tosurrender to the ebola mindscrape and the raging fires of stomachcancer encoded into this small chunk of aluminium. Skalpell areavailable for frozen microbe apocalyptic nightmares, deadings and farhiss shards. I daresay it could put a swell in the leather jodhpur ofBoyd Rice! Prolonged exposure to this noise may well encourage cancercell growth. - Read More
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Let's get this out of the way right now - the music of Gregg Gillis'salter ego "Girl Talk" is a direct descendant of the idea begun withKid606's 'Attitude' compilation - violently cut-up and processedhip-hop songs and top 40 hits, a digital blender of blatant copyrightinfringement. Now that I've made that comparison, I'm going to try andnot mention Kid606 again, and instead focus on the positive. In lessthan forty minutes, the ten tracks on this disc disembowel everythingfrom Destiny's Child to the New Kids on the Block to Cyndi Lauper tothe Price Is Right theme, and the result is admittedly, pretty damnfunny - for instance, splicing Joan Osborne together with some hip hoptrack that I'm not hip enough to recognize, to create "What if God was/ One that don't give a fuck?" or "All the prophets / Gave me headbehind the wheel" and other adolescently clever reconstructions. Gillisis at his best when he lets the humor overrule the desire to simplymake noise, and he's got that humor in spades. Since most of the tracksare rooted in overprocessed sound, listening to the entire disc can geta littile grating, and at the worst, a little boring; one of thereasons 'Attitude' was so damn good was because it had a strong theme(N.W.A worship/destruction), the 14 artists each had a differentapproach, and, most importantly, it was short and sweet. (Technically,I'm not mentioning Kid606 here...oops i just did). But even if the discis a little long, Gillis mans his laptop (or whatever) fairly well, andthere are a few really worthwhile moments - like "Jumpin[g]," a3-minute "de-mix" of Destiny's Child that (I'm really sorry) echoesKid606's "Straight Outta Compton." And the first track, "Let's StartThis Party Right," is pretty hilarious in it's opening sample (which Iwon't give away, but check out the clip below). - Read More
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For their third release, this Montreal-based quartet continue to boldlytry and walk the seldom-attempted line between improvisational noiseand instrumental jam band antics. There's a good reason why this lineis seldom attempted. Their noise skills aren't quite up to anything ofinteresting note yet while the backing the bassist and drummer providerarely, if ever, stray from the monotonous one-bar melodies repeated adnauseam. It's almost as if I'm listening to a high school band beforethey split in half, with the rhythm section forming a funk outfit andthe guitarists heading off to art school. Maybe I'm being a bit harshhere, and in fact I wouldn't run screaming from the ice cream shoppe ifit was playing on their speakers, but there is a strong need for adominant focal point: a lead instrument. Even a rhythmic vocalist orfeverent trumpet could move this album from the "interesting" categoryto actually being enjoyable. More than that, the melodies really need abit of a forward motion so it doesn't feel like I'm in a running carwhose tires are spinning in place. They're onto something, however. Thedrones, found sounds and tape recordings build decent atmospherics butpost-production audio editing and digital manipulations aren't verycompelling. The energy levels are high but too much repetition resignsthis album to being sonic wallpaper for a mindless aerobicise sessionor fixing dinner in a hurry to. Chop chop, click click glitch, gottarun! - - Rompere l'Indifference de l'Inexitable Avant Que l'On Vienne Rompere le Sommeil de l'Inanime
- Partially Sabotaged Distraction
- Erreur; Errance; Interdits de par Leurs Nouvelles Possibilites
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Denali reportedly formed after the decision of singer Maura Davis notto pursue an education in opera. She had some songs she'd been workingon, it seems, and she came to her brother, bass player Keeley Davis, tohelp her flesh them out. And flesh them out he did; and with drummerJohnathan Fuller and guitar player Cam Dinunzio, the foursome becameDenali, a name derived from the Athapascan word for Mt. McKinley, notthe GMC truck. The band has so enamored audiences and musicians alike,and for their debut they were joined by Alan Weatherhead on theengineering side, and Mark Linkous on producing two tracks (both fromSparklehorse). The results are worthy of praise for a debut record.Opera's loss is rock's gain, as Maura Davis' vocals are empassioned,soaring, like an indie rock Bjork, while she pains away on Rhodes pianoor guitar. The band certainly knows how to use samples well, as theeeriest qualities on the album are created around them ('Relief' and'Function'). It's where the band rocks out that the sound truly comestogether. On 'Gunner,' Maura's voice takes on a near Jeff Buckleyquality, as the band produces soaring, glorious music below her. It isthe apex of the release, and it is her voice that drives these songs,but the band is not to be discounted. The elder Davis adds capablebacking vocals on most tracks, too, and his bass combined with Fuller'sdrums make for a rousing, driving rhythm section. There isn't a badtrack here, and not one below the three-and-a-half minute mark. Davis'lyrics prove just as haunting as her voice: on 'Function' she wails'Something strange is coming'; and on 'Gunner' she's going to 'get youbefore you get me.' It's horrbily affecting music, and with Denali on awest coast tour in June, I look forward to seeing how it translateslive. I'll have to settle for the CD until then, and I suggest you do,too. - Read More
