- Howard Stelzer
- Albums and Singles
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
This was a transitive period for Gira and Jarboe's Swans, a natural progression from the previous "bunny" artwork themed albums (White Light From the Mouth of Infinity and Love Of Life) and a premonition of what was to come with the conclusive trilogy (Die Tür Ist Zu, Soundtracks For The Blind and Swans Are Dead). Many of TGA's songs delve into a darker and grittier sound but also maintain melody, mixed moods and brevity. "Celebrity Lifestyle" and "Mother/Father" flirt dangerously with mainstream rock & roll conventions while "Mind/Body/Light/Sound," "My Buried Child," and "Alcohol The Seed" throb with tantric mantras. Tenderness is a distinctive trait of "Blood Promise," "Warm," "Killing For Company," and "Mother's Milk," the last of which features an especially bittersweet vocal by Jarboe.
Lyrical themes follow Gira's ever-present obsessions with the eternally entangled dualities of life and death, love and hate, mind and body, man and God, etc. The title track embraces Stephen Hawking's theory of an omnivorous, universe destroying black hole—science's embodiment of God, perhaps. Near the end Gira invitingly sings "come on in and come inside" in harmony with the title and Jarboe's backing over a spiraling mass of percussion laden rock, perfectly evoking the very nature of said sucker.
To my ears the remastering improves overall clarity but is far from drastic and the bonus track, a bootleg quality live rendition of "I Am The Sun" pales in comparison to the version on Swans Are Dead. No matter. The Great Annihilator is what nearly all Swans albums were and remain to be: powerful, evocative and, ultimately for me, indispensable.
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
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- Rob Devlin
- Albums and Singles
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- Howard Stelzer
- Albums and Singles
Adam Bohman is part of the long-running UK ensemble Morphogenesis(which also includes Michael Prime, by the way) and has published twosolo CDs and countless cassettes since the early 1980s. Not confined toany one instrument or method, he has recorded pieces for preparedviolin, amplified objects, tape and spoken voice. His brother Jonathanhas, as far as I am aware, not been published before. www.rossbin.com -
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- Jon Whitney
- Albums and Singles
- Nate Smith
- Albums and Singles
- Nate Smith
- Albums and Singles
The pieces are all pretty varied, andwith the exception of the first piece, "It's Like...," an irritatingpastiche of American idiom and slang voiced by Mandy Morrison, they areall highly intriguing listens. Two of the pieces are based around thesounds of public transportation: "57A" layers sounds of a train and aconductor in Vienna, and "68th Street" layers turnstiles and subwaystation sounds from New York. In both of these pieces, Gal processesthe recordings just enough to make it apparent that he's manipulatingthem, without covering up the sounds themselves. An unintrusive highpitched drone pervades through "68th Street," giving it an eerienessthat might be familiar to some MTA riders. "Tong-hua Yie-shi" is theonly non-manipulated piece on the disc, a straight field recording thatGal made walking through a Taiwanese market. There are an incrediblenumber of stereos blaring in the market, but Gal's mic is sufficientlydirectional that as he walks, he picks up each song, from theBackstreet Boys to the strangest Taiwanese pop, with the clarity ofchanging the dial on a radio. The most interesting sounds on the disc,though, happen when Gal lets himself completely process the fieldrecordings until he renders them virtually unrecognizable. "Bee Bee" is"based on the humming of the Brooklyn Bridge." It's hard to tell whatthis means or what sounds he took from the bridge - passing cars,maybe? - but he creates a 15 minute ghostly, ambient crescendo thatexpands itself not unlike Ligeti's famous 'Requiem' from the movie 2001(It's interesting but probably unintentional that the two pieces basedin New York have such dark moods). "lv, nv" is the golden track on thedisc: "The sound of money and slot machines as acoustical ghosts of acasino in Las Vegas." The sounds of the casino are barely existent inthis piece, replaced by their own processed resonations. It's hard tobelieve that sounds this relaxing and pleasant can be created from thechaotic din of a gambling house. What really makes the disc as a wholesuch an incredible piece of work is that it's clear from the brief butinformative liner notes that Gal is excited by the naturally occurringworld of sound and music: "The personal discovery of music withinnature as well as within the routines of everyday life keepsfascinating me." His fascination can be infectious, and if you allowyourself to get caught up in Gal's world-as-music, the CD becomes anengaging series of small sonic journeys.
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
In fact Silas fits in so well that I end up wondering whetherthe sci-fi writer story could be a cover for yet another Jones and/orWilliams noise entity even though they assure me that this is not so.Just take for instance the opening child's toy chime, out of time synthsquelches and closing door slam of 'View from a Room' which could allquite easily be deployed the same way by Pendro. Named in remembranceof a 1975 tube disaster, 'Moorgate' revolves around a wondrously densenoise drone of the kind so loved by Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer,shuffling like steam train shunting. 'Warlock Hill' has a brighterfeel, with an uplifing rising keyboard line and pleasant little goodtrip pings. Even though the title 'Setting the Clinch' is pure FflintCentral, this track moves to a simple dancebeat with distant echoingghost traces of early Non. Much of "Lilliput", especially thedecelerating backwards voices and percussion of the title track, has afading photograph feel, like a partial shadow of half glimpsed memoryof something too shocking to bring to full consciousness. 'Lilliput'itself could actually be 'Setting the Clinch' played in reverse throughsome dirty effects. This is perhaps the spookiest Fflint Centralrelease I've heard. The 'Garden of Pale Children' is a nightmarish walkthrough the dimly lit tangled limbs of tortured miscreants singingtheir unfortunate spirit songs and is a track Coil would be proud of.'Chamber 7 Vat 3' closes the door to Silas' disturbing world with ahorrific rotting futuremachine belch which I could imagine working verywell as background music to the tense scene in 'Aliens' where theydiscover the alien hive. If you are yet to dip your toes into the fetidpool of the FFlinty Ones then this and 'The Oxide Heresies' of Pendroboth make good starters that should leave you wanting to hear more.
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
These two mixes of the title song to afilm about a small Alabama community are very much in a retro VinceClarke / Erasure mould. I'm much more taken with the reoccurring themesof the emotive instrumentals that Vienna based composer Gammon providesfor the bulk of this half hour soundtrack to a 22 minute filmconcerning everyday life in a quiet quilting community presumablybereft of hard ass power electronics performances. This lilting suitebubbles along in a way which ought to appeal to fans of the lightermore dancefloor orientated beat driven side which those fluffy suited'gay music' troubadours Coil displayed on tunes like "Protection" andthe themes from 'gay film maker' Derek Jarman's "Blue". Much of themelody comes from what I think is a harmonica, but it sounds more likemelodica in the context of Gammon's beats. Even though the closingbackbone mix of Khan's "Stitches" opens up a bass synth rhythm thatinitially sounds like something Wir might've discarded as too obviousin the early nineties, the vocals are just too 'gay' for even someBrain reviewers. Played over this bass line, Kid Congo Powers' briefslide guitar fills also begin to bizarrely recall shapes that nighthave loomed on a Wir "First Letter" out-take, although this track ismuch more linear and mundane. I'd be curious to hear more from Gammon,especially if he was exploring more experimental avenues. In timehonoured Brain tradition I'm left thinking that perhaps this elegantbut less than essential music would sound more poignant in the contextof the film? And hopefully Eigentone are selling it for less than fullprice, as five instrumental variations on a theme and two versions ofthe same track don't really add up to a full album.
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- Rob Devlin
- Albums and Singles
Founding guitarist Paul Sinclair left the group in1996, after their first major tour, and four shows into their touropening for Swervedriver, bassist Steve Peruzzi disappeared. Undaunted,the band continued, and with the return of Sinclair recorded this,their third proper LP. The return of Sinclair has truly rejuvenated theband, as "Sound" is the most cohesive and striking release Sianspherichas ever put to tape. True, if you don't much like space rock, fuzzyguitar, vocals you can hardly hear, lots of delay, or Sianspheric,chances are this release will not floor you. But if you have even amild like of any of those things, this release is definitely for you.Gorgeous melodies abound, like on "To Myself" and"Childrenrunningthroughovergrowntallgrass," and most songs on therecord take what seems like an inordinately long time to reach an apex.Once the track climaxes, though, it's worth it. Sianspheric are alsothe first candidate for my new phrase, "pulling a Mogwai," where on"Tous Les Soirs" ("all the nights") everything starts off quietlyenough before punishing your ears for daring to listen. In fact, thequiet pretty moments are almost in abundance here, more so than on anyother Sianspheric release. It's easy for bands to attempt this soundand fail miserably. Happily, Sianspheric's success in the pastculminates in this roster and album. Another fine release from a bandthat could have imploded but stuck it out.
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