The first release from this Archieuthis Rex side-project, Trithemius drops much of the metal trappings and instead focuses on synthetic beats and bleak, mangled electronics resulting in an inhuman and aggressive piece of modernized industrial.
No stranger to ambient music, Kerry Leimer has been active since the late 1970s, creating his own synthetic compositions when the genre was in its infancy. Permissions is, in part, a collaborative work with Taylor Deupree (who produced the album and added to some of the tracks. The resulting album is a long form album that both conjures the early days of electronic music, but in a distinctly modern framework.
On these ten original songs Monti renders the dramatic political history and culture of Italy into animal characters. Sounding passionate, sarcastic, unhinged, and ahead of her time, she uses the stinging words of Italian anti-Fascist writer and persecuted homosexual Aldo Braibant, framed in mysterious found sounds and synthesizer by Alvin Curran - here combining for the first time with Steve Lacy on soprano sax.
This is one of the latest in Mode Records long-running and expansive John Cage series and is one of a myriad of releases that are coinciding with his 100th birthday. The three pieces are all from the same late period in Cage’s composing career (indeed Thirteen is his last ever composition) and reflect an artist that was continuing to challenge himself, the musicians he worked with and listeners with new ideas on music and listening. The ensemble Essential Music took up this challenge and have created a stunning set of interpretations of these underrated pieces.
These three albums document a historical tour of Japan by John Cage in 1962. Accompanied by David Tudor, they join a number of similarly minded Japanese composers and artists in presenting a fascinating program of Cage’s own music and compositions along with Japanese and other international composers. The result is not so much a culture clash as an allying of forces against tradition. Yet, it seems a little cynical to me to promote these releases as John Cage releases when in fact they offer up a wealth of non-Cage compositions and performances (Tudor seems to be more central to the tour than Cage even!). Be that as it may, these are a powerful collection of recordings of an almost mythic tour.
The third release from Canada’s Tangiers is the kind of recordtailor-made for vinyl. A thick shroud of cigarette smoke and lo-ficackle emanates from the records twelve tracks here. My sense is that thelabel “garage-rock” has been slapped all over it, but that doesn’tentirely get it.
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Laetitia Sadier is one of the most distinctive voices in all of popular music. Two years after The Trip, her first album under her own name, and a deliberate step away from Stereolab, comes Silencio. With Moog, oscillators, krautrock and bossa nova rhythms, Tim Gane on guitar, and Sadier's confident, alluring voice, this is familiar and beloved territory.
Lescalleet has been expertly mangling old and decrepit electronics for years, but the past few months have been especially productive with these two high profile releases and a recent tour. His work has consistently inhabited that gray world between noise and avant garde electronics, placed somewhere between harsh brutality and beard-stroking experimentalism. These new works, both solo and with Aaron Dilloway, continue this, making serious art with some occasionally not so serious undercurrents.
Like many bands, Dreamscape came about as an antecedent to the oblique, often challenging pop of The Cure and The Smiths, and tried to make a name in the then-nascent shoegaze scene. With only one single and one 12" EP in their discography, they have been barely a historical footnote, if that. This disc compiles that EP, an unreleased second EP, and a single incomplete track. Looking back, their sound may not be entirely unique, but it makes for a great combination, and is performed with such earnestness and passion that transcends time and labels.
On first blush, it's tempting to characterize Ascent as, for all intents, a brand new Comets on Fire record, or more specifically, as Ben Chasny fronting a Comets jam session. All the Comets guys are backing Chasny here, and the album was recorded live in the studio, like a true collaborative effort. But on further listening, it becomes clear that Ascent is Chasny's baby.
Holy Other has been more or less in constant rotation for me since 2010's perfect We Over single, which makes it kind of surprising that the mysterious Manchester producer is just now getting around to releasing an actual full-length album.  I was a little worried that his very narrow aesthetic (drugged, deteriorated, slow-motion sex music?) would make a longer release drag a bit, but my fears were mostly unfounded. While I do not think the comparatively dark and minimal Held quite hits the heights of some of Holy Other's categorically stellar earlier work, it is still pretty damn good and likely to play an indirect role in many pregnancies.
Camera is a young trio which has been stamped with the approval of veterans Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius. With Radiate they expand the abandon and spontaneity of their live performance which have been dubbed "Krautrock Guerilla."
A perfect pairing, Every Hidden Color is Argentina's Federico Durand and the US' Nicholas Szczepanik, both relatively young purveyors of dreamlike ambient music. There are not really any surprises on this two track LP, which is a good thing: it is a carefully constructed work that mixes beautiful, formless tonal drift with rich melodies of subtle construction.
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The entirely instrumental group seems to have synthesized elements ofold 4AD records with that slow n'heavy Godspeed You Black Emperor! rockdirge. Even if the drums are played by an actual person (I don't knowif they are or not), they have that flat quality most peculiar to the1980s Cocteau Twins drum machine. The ghosts of Angelo Badalamentescores lurk in the reverb-soaked guitar and heavy Godspeed!-like dramatakes the form of one- or two-chord songs that meander over ten minutestretches for maximum "epic" effect. In fact, this band wears theirinfluences so opaquely that they go beyond being simply derivative, andcome out as... really quite nice. They add a noisy rock element attimes, riding that one chord until it grows louder and louder and feedsback over a steady, simple 4/4 beat. And even though gloomy gothicbombast hangs over all the tunes, it's never off-putting. "What a Long,Strange Journey" is a fine album... but please please tell me, what'sthe Grateful Dead got to do with it? Look for these at their website or email
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'62-56' was first to surface after that, materializing from Tigerbeat6in July. While it's billed as an Extended Play single, the disc haseleven tracks and totals over 45 minutes. What does separate it frommost album characteristics is the whole array of different styles Lanerchooses to let loose with, rather than limit himself to a coherenttheme. Here, Laner's unafraid to play with beautiful melodies,Kraftwerkian/Mousey punchy beat-friendly tracks, glitchy cutups andeven toy with the power of suggestion with the spoken vocals on thedisc's closer. There's even a rather interesting 15+ minute improvbetween Brad and other noteworthy local laptop owners Blectum fromBlechdom, Lesser and Kid 606 which would easily please anyexperimental-Stockhausen worshipping musique concrete fan.
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(new), on the other hand is Laner's contribution to Fällt's 'InvalidObjects' 3" CD series. If I've learned anything from Raster-Noton, it'sthat I never need to buy all the albums in a series ever again.Especially with 'Invalid Objects' where the series consists of 24releases, all priced over $10 here in the USA. Only 250 of each discwas pressed, however, and the series includes the usual gang of idiotslike Pita, Scanner, Kim Cascone, and Richard Chartier. This timearound, I only bought the three I cared about (this one, V/Vm andPimmon) instead of wasting my money on piles of crapola like the 20' to2000 disappointment. Laner's contribution consists of 14 one-minutelong tracks, ranging from low sub-frequencies, frighteningly loudabrasions, live drums, tone bursts, electronic twitters, playgroundrecordings and orchestral samples. It's entertaining and no lessendearing as his other releases, as with each track running right intoeach other, completing the whole more like one intricate 14-minute longtrack. At the end of the day, however, it's not something I'd pull forfrom the shelves frequently.
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Tigerbeat6 released "Greatest Hits" in October, but the cover andpromos were being passed around before September 11th. Unlike any otheralbum which bears the same name, this one features reconstructions by ahost of friends as opposed to collecting old, previously releasedthings. Perhaps it's quite appropriate the cover features a collapsingbuilding, as the "remixes" on this disc are completely reformed piecesfrom the bricks supplied by the Electric Company, himself. (Of course,the back should probably include the new building erected in itsplace.) In addition to the proverbial TB6 posse, re-erectors includePhthalo's Phthalocyanine, Tom Recchion, µ-Ziq, Geoff White and thenotoriously erect Leafcutter John. The erections [you were waiting forme to use that word] aren't a clever display of genre-straddling likethe conventional remix record, but do showcase the reinterpretivestyles of each artist. Like the broken record sounding Pimmon track,the acoustic guitar loops of Electric Company himself. Okay, so it'sreally just a remix album, but it's very nice to listen to.
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- Timeblind - around Rmx
- Pimmon - Knotenansammlung
- Frank Bretschneider - wednes3 Rmx
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- CockESP.com, Graeme's especially lazy this week
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- The entire CD-R can also be heard online via Fflint Central.