- Nate Smith
- Albums and Singles
The liner notes make it a point to note that thesounds have not been altered or processed after recording: "What youhear is exactly what the audience heard." That's only partially true,as listening to this disc in your bedroom is going to have a muchdifferent effect than it probably had on the audience in the chapel.That being said, the pieces on the disc are all texturally rich, warmthough electronic, and each evolves slowly and resolutely over time outof drones, noise, tape hiss, and the reverberations of the chapel. Ofthe five pieces, the first, "Figure 2.01," is the most hauntinglybeautiful. A low drone builds slowly over the 17 minute piece (mostlikely from Hudak), underneath wind-like washes of sounds that echo thestorm outside. Eventually the washes give way to static and the popsand clicks of Lescalleet's tape machine. "Figure 2.04" is anotherhighlight: a low moan permeates underneath bell-like tape loops untilboth are buried under escalating noise and hiss. Lescalleet workswithin an analog medium, manipulating and amplifying tape noise and thesounds of the chapel itself in real time on reel-to-reel tape. It'snice to see someone utilizing the reel-to-reel; even though it might bea clumsy and awkward tool by today's standards, it's a uniqueinstrument with a long historical track record and in live performanceis much more interesting to watch than the glow of the apple from apowerbook. Though the static and noise that Lescalleet creates wouldn'tbe very interesting without the backing of Hudak's tones and drones,the fact that you can hear Lescalleet working his instrument on the CDmakes this disc a step above most live recordings. Still, it's apparentthat no listen to this disc can duplicate hearing it live in thechapel.
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- Rob Devlin
- Albums and Singles
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- Jessica Tibbits
- Albums and Singles
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- Jessica Tibbits
- Albums and Singles
Cross his previous work, the pop-gospel of Spiritualized, and notparticularly strong songwriting, and you get this, their debut album.The Slowdive factor is evident with the pretty male and female vocalharmonies and dirgy guitar. It's an admirable effort, and by no meansan unpleasant record, but unfortunately, something just isn't clickinghere. The general lack of charisma despite the obvious skilledmusicianship of Savill and Hewson smacks of some of the more mediocre'90s Brit pop bands. In terms of production, 'Last Night' is aknockout: undeniably dynamic and very well assembled, but it couldbenefit from the talents of a seasoned songwriter to balance everythingout.
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
Austere is the word that immediately comes to mind whenlistening to these ten very sleepy, very subdued songs. Mildly jazzykeys, guitar, bass, strings and winds just barely blanket the spaces inand around Burello's unassuming, almost spoken word vocals (all inEnglish, best I can tell). It's all very casual, very quiet, very slow,very relaxed and, in some way I can't quite adequately explain, veryFrench. And 36 and 1/2 minutes later it's time for bed. There's not toomuch in the way of memorable melodies or lyrics really, just brieflyused or underdeveloped phrases. They're all pretty but too often theycome and go with frustrating ease, such as the way "An Itch" begins tobuild a promising groove then aborts it less than a minute later or thegorgeous piano refrain of "The Whimps" is best used in conclusion. Ohwell. C'est la Vie!
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- Nate Smith
- Albums and Singles
This secondalbum by Eric Melzer on Ronnie Martin of Joy Electric's Plastiq Musiqlabel (home also to Soviet and Travelogue) embraces every tired andworn-out element of electro and new wave. The vocals are vocoded onevery single track, except for the self-titled intro, in which analogbleeps and tones swirl around a monologue depicting Norway Squared as afuturistic plastics factory. "The future is closer than we think, andNorway Squared is there to lead the way." That is, if leading the waytowards the future is programming uninteresting drumbeats and blandsynth melodies. The vocals and lyrics seem intentionally jokey, butjust because something is slightly ironic doesn't excuse its badness:"My synthesizer talks to me, my synthesizer told me to free, then itsaid 'you can't synthesize love'" Melzer lists over 60 of his 'recentinfluences,' including both "bad synth pop," which makes sense, and"anyone trying something new for a change," which doesn't. Noticeablyabsent from the list is the Cure, whose "Let's Go To Bed" Melzer bitesnearly note for note as the chorus of "It's Only Pop." Additionally,the opening of "From One Ballad To Another" sounds so much like CyndiLauper's "Time After Time" that I initially thought it was a sample.The lesson to learn from Norway Squared is that just because you ownmodular synths doesn't mean you can write a good song. It isuninspired, unoriginal synth drivel like this that gives the wholeelectro revival a bad name. -
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
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- Carsten S.
- Albums and Singles
It adds another shade of grey to the widefields of independent produced music - leaving no clue if the intensionis to connect these styles or if this is just the result due to theinfluences and likes of those involved. The accompanying info saysTausendschoen's music is rooted in the agreement that everything has anopposite which should be realized, and their music is "music for thecentre of your brain". Some sharp contrasts pointing out the oppositeswould have been welcome to keep the interested listener listening.However, late at night it is a lot more appealing than during daytimedue to the lengthy ambient structures and the general drifting mood.The nicely handpacked and limited bonus CDR (200 copies with additionalgraphic data 3" disc) shows the current state of this project. I guessthe main work are paintings, some of them can be seen atwww.t000schoen.de. If you feel like obtaining it
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
- Posset - Vernix
- Gommorrah - Darwin's Evil Lotion
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- Jonathan Dean
- Albums and Singles
Adult, Peaches,Fischerspooner and many other lesser known acts graced the stage, andafter the rubble cleared, we were left with only this compilation.The disc starts off on a killer note, with Fischerspooner's inspiredcover of Wire's "The 15th". It's hard not to love the infectious synthmelancholy of this gloomy pop song. The rest of the artists on the compyearn to reach the heights of this first track, with varying success.Memoryboy's "(There is No) Electricity" is a surprisingly powerfulpastiche of dark OMD-style electro. Morplay's "Check Your Pulse" is myfavorite track by far, a hilarious and ingenious Afrika Bambataa-styleelectro rap anthem. It sounds like the bastard child of Jonzun Crew andTechnotronic. Soviet turns in a very passable plagiarism of DephecheMode that shouldn't be enjoyable, but is. Robbie D. deserves somepraise for the Coil-style audio perversion of his track "Lotion." Therest of the artists engage in increasingly less and less interestingjuxtapositions of the same familiar clichés that make all EBM andDarkwave bands sound unlistenable and retarded. However, on the whole,this is an excellent compilation that successfully documents this scenein all of its inconsistent glory.
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- Fischerspooner - The 15th
- Memoryboy - (There Is No) Electricity
- Morplay - Check Your Pulse
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- Rob Devlin
- Albums and Singles
The end result comes out sounding like thesoundtrack to Gran Turismo mixed with cutscene music from NYPD Blue andthe keyboard demo on Casio keyboards, and set in the backdrop of"Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." That's right: pretty uninspired,mostly keyboard-created drivel. And that's not to say it's withouthope. There are tracks on here that are passable, and they mostlyinvolve lush keyboards with samples, and clever changes in the middle.Most of this music, however, is just modern electronic mastery appliedto classic Detroit techno—Dykehouse hails from Kalamazoo—which makes itsound incredibly obsolete as well as repetitive. And when somethingcomes across that is genuinely stunning ("Humid Easel Hockey," forinstance), it only lasts long enough to get you addicted to thatstuttering beat and pretty keyboards, then it fades away. EvenParadinas himself, whose involvement is often both a blessing and acurse, offers a non-commital description of dykehouse on the Planet Muwebsite ("it was pretty good" and "so it's like Moodyman meetsAutechre, however awful that sounds" are the high points). There isextreme potential here. The high points on this CD blow the rest of itout of the water. I found myself wishing that the rest of the CD hadthe same sound of the fantastic triple-shot of "Hockey," "The Patina ofAccumulation," and "Kalamazoo." Sadly, that's the best it offers. Thenit disintegrates under the weight of a limited palette and lack offresh ideas. I'd like to hear more, perhaps downloading the MP3 albumhe has on the Planet Mu website. But this release left me as uninspiredas it sounds like Mike was making it.
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