- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
Germany's EchoBeach present the 7th chapter of their "King Size Dub" compilation with11 cuts, over half of which are remixes. Most of these tracks have thesame sort of digital sheen and rhythms that betray the analogue dub ofthe '70s, which I usually prefer, but I don't think that's what they'regoing for here. The subtitle advises 'file under logical dubgression'so they're obviously looking to push the parameters of dub. There's abalance of styles from classic to modern day dabblings in house andtechno. Submission and Pre Fade Listening both utilize Tikiman, myfavorite contemporary dub vocalist. The former, elegantly remixed bysometime Orb member Thomas Fehlman, features my man at the mostanimated I've ever heard him while in the latter he casually goes withthe flow of a thick, nine minute plus techno pulse. Sounds From TheGround work in the the warmth of reggae brass for hire Crispy Horns.Rockers Hifi, State of Emergency and Seeed rock more of a classic bassgroove, Seeed especially so with horns, organ, sonic vortex, 3 piecevocal and way down low end. The remaining tracks by Earl 16,Walkner.Möstl, Tosca, Dubblestandard, Waveform (a far too obviousBeastie Boys sample!) and G-Corp range from good to dull, none that Ihave to skip but none as snappy as the aforementioned. My generallydismissive attitude towards modern dub has been altered quite a bit.
samples:
- Pre Fade Listening - Mr. Medicine Man
- Seeed - Kings and Queens
- Submission - Millenium
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
Unlike their 2000 debut "Inthe Garden of Wild Stars" which featured some traditional arrangementsand excerpts of Alfred Lord Tennyson and W. B. Yates, "Devil" isentirely composed by Bates/Trench. But the poet laureate spirit remainsstrong in Bates precious words and delivery. I often find the music andmix of his projects, especially this one, an annoying obstacle betweenhis wondrous voice and myself. Here it's bothersome with headphones butwithout it works just fine. The ten songs are a pretty, sort ofmystical and medieval folk with acoustic guitars, unidentified drones,flute and tambourine, often drenched in reverb. "Glistening Praise" andthe title track are the lengthiest, the latter over 10 minutes, andthey veer off into valleys of instrumental atmospherics. Near the end"The Hand of Glory" disrupts everything, unfortunately, with a blast ofelectrified guitar noise. But the final track "Plea" placates my ownplea by showcasing only the vocal. At first I didn't think this albumcompared to my favorite Bates work, such as "Dance of Hours" and the"Murder Ballads" and "Chamber Music" series, but it continues to growon me.
samples:
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
Hampson's soundsignature is unmistakable, although he's recently shifted the focus ofhis source material from guitar noise to environmental recordings anddeeper electroacoustic influences. 'Hysteresis' opens with a bigechoing clunk. Meticulously deployed gurgles, ringings and rustles allcompliment each other, looming violently, rising to crescendos andfading eerily. It's a much faster evolving track than his latter"Firmament" installments and makes the compilation essential!
Inventor of the tri-phonic turntable Janek Schaefer has recently beencollaborating with Robert in Comae, and his opening track shifts down agear from his dense "Above Buildings" album for Fat Cat. 'LithosphericShifts' slowly fades in with a rumble like muffled motors buried inconcrete, and soon the concrete starts to crack. Christophe Charles is a French sound artist living in Tokyo who helpedMarkus Popp make Oval's "Dok". His 'Undirected Float' seems very warmand womblike after the spikier soundscapes of the Londoners. Voices aremuffled by the protective blood and fat of dreamlike ambience. Similarsounds appear to those on his Yoshihiro Hanno remix, so maybe this is akind of companion piece? Former Ultra Vivid Scene lynchpin Kurt Ralske closes the disc withperhaps the easiest going track, a beautiful sunrise tide of smoothwaves of processed singing and guitar washing in and out that's a niceway to drift away. Nam June Paik collaborator Stephen Vitiello's 'Salty Lemonade forFalling Water' might be considered literally womblike, includingrecordings of his daughter's prenatal vital signs, but it's perhaps themost disorientating recording here. Oddly dislocated traffic noise andmachine clatter merge into a nightmarish grey drone sliced by bottletop twisting tones, but then again maybe that's what it sounds like insome wombs? These recordings were made at the Whitney Museum in the oldWorld Trade Center, which adds an unintended grim twist to the title ofthe compilation - a floating foundation on which the Imperial Hotelstood was given by it's architect as the reason it didn't topple in a1922 earthquake. The compiler's intention was to use this as a metaphorfor 'decompartmentalisation of genre' in music and sound art. Thisseems to be a slightly pretentious, but educational, way of saying thatthey made an effort to put together a compilation that hangs togetherwell!
- Main - Hysterersis
- Stephen Vitiello - Salty Lemonade for Falling Water
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- Rob Devlin
- Albums and Singles
Isaac Hayes'soundtrack for "Shaft," Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly," and, morerecently, even David Holmes' soundtracks for "Ocean's Eleven" and "OutOf Sight" were fairly independent from the film, even though thesoundtracks did contain snippets of dialogue from the film interspersedthroughout. A great soundtrack doesn't need the film in front of you tobe an enjoyable experience. Piero Piccioni, "Italian soundtrackmaestro" according to the back of the CD, scored many films in thesixties and seventies, many of which never had a soundtrack releaseduntil years later. "Puppet On A Chain" is such a soundtrack, seeing thelight of day finally in 2001. Having not seen the whole film—the boatchase is legendary, but the rest is utterly forgettable—I must saylistening to the soundtrack did nothing for me. Especially since themajority of the tracks have the same part played again and again: thesame bassline, Hammond organ chords, and phat drum beat, withoccasional augmentation with guitar, horns, or both. The man who playedwith Ennio Morricone on "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" has realscoring talent, mind you, but I have no real interest in seeing thisfilm after hearing the soundtrack, even though I'm quite certain thatit would work much better with the film than on its own. But, asseventies film soundtracks go, this fits the mold: most tracks areunder two and a half minutes, the track titles are named after whichscene in the movie they are used ("Night Club," "Chase," and"Mystery/The Discotheque," for example), and, as is pointed out in "I'mGonna Git You Sucka," the hero does have his theme music, as thisrelease plays out repeatedly. As I said, I don't think it stands on itsown, but it probably fits the film just fine.
samples:
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
Ocosi is Paul Molyneux with former member Simon Smerdon (aka Mothboy)also present on the title track of this limited edition of 100 CD-Rsfrom Manifold. Divided up into 7 tracks totaling 44 minutes, "Guided"is exactly how I like this sort of music: gritty, dark and aggressive.The beats are raw, the bass is booming, the drift is eerie, the pace isslow and everything just jells the way it should. Though the rhythmsare like locked grooves there are occasional staggers, change ups andbreaks to help keep it all interesting. Except maybe "Go Away" whichlanguishes in a cymbal like loop. The tense, near 15 minute finale "AtEnds" is perhaps the most intriguing, strangely enough considering it'ssimply a slowly revolving industrial soundscape devoid of beats.
For this 62-minute disc, Ocosi team up with 'dark ambient soundscape'artist Horchata (Mike Palace) and leave the production up to him for acleaner, more digital take on the sound. And, ultimately, a much morelaid back and boring sound. The 11 tracks are comprised of the usualbeats, bass and backing recipe, but are really lacking in grit and thusflavor. The sounds are pretty dull, the programming rather drab and theatmospheres more faint than they are dark. And 3 tracks are far toolong at 7 to 9 minutes apiece. In this batch "Transfiguration" is likethe cookie that somehow got all of the chocolate chips. It hasglimmering metallic bells, a funky groove, a pretty melody viaHorchata's own arp-01 midi file generating software and impressiveinterplay between bass/beats and backdrop. At least I can savor thatone. A second volume of Horchata / Ocosi is planned, also via Zero 1Media.
NOS is Swiss duo Giuseppe Di Benedetto and Jean-Claude Codoni and thisis their self titled debut for Economy Records, a sub division ofManifold. Nine tracks make up 53 minutes of murkiness. And I don't meanthat as a compliment. The mix is awful. Every sound is consumed by abass heavy, atmospheric gunk. That, combined with the wimpy anddownright dull rhythm programming, makes for music with very littleedge. "Unknown" starts off promising but doesn't know where to go fromthere. "Ultimatum" tries to get nasty but ends up being a big mess ofpercussion. Yuck. Forget this one. -
- Ocosi - Scrape
- Horchata/Ocosi - Transfiguration
- Nos - Unknown
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
samples:
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
samples:
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
samples:
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- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
samples:
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- Maurice Underwood
- Albums and Singles
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Ashfordaisyak doesn't quite jibe as well in my opinion. The startingtrack 'Refugees' has all the usual clichés; distorted, delayed,clanking, walkie talkie vocals and screams pitch shifting into theupper registers - all told a rather pale Whitehouse imitation althoughthe tune is somewhat redeemed by the inclusion of cheesy electro-styledrums in the middle. The other two tracks don't fare much better - 'I'mPregnant' sounds to me like early sampler and tape loop experiments andthe final track 'Where do Balloons Go When They Die' has a 'pots andpans industrial' feel - lots of tinny metal clanking and ominousvocals. A good effort and some potential here, it just needs refining.
All told, the disc is worth the price for the Arc tracks especially forfans of the aforementioned C93, 23 Skidoo or even earlier, instrumentalCoil. Here's hoping we see more from both of these artists. -(Menschenfeind Productions - http://www.menschenfeind.com)
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