It has been several years since the last Windy & Carl album, but thankfully they are back and just as reliably excellent as ever.  Maybe even more so, as several of these songs easily stand with the duo's finest work.  Some long-term fans may be a little disappointed that they don't indulge their song-like or epic-length tendencies much this time around, but I doubt it: We Will Always Be largely sticks to what they do best  (beautifully glacial and glistening guitar) and does it warmly and purposefully.

It seems like most (if not all) of the better ambient artists have moved onto other things in recent years, but Auburn Lull guitarist Jason Kolb and Danish producer Jonas Monk (Manual) have done their best to pick up the torch left behind by bands like Stars of the Lid.  Then again, perhaps this is just sort of an inadvertent time capsule of an earlier era, as Monk and Kolb's trans-Atlantic collaboration has been painstakingly unfolding since 2005.  In any case, the duo have done a fine job filling that languorous void (even if I was not terribly concerned about that particular void remaining open).

I had a very hard time understanding the disproportionate amount of excitement surrounding last year's Pass Me By and We Stay Together EPs, but I have since come around a bit: there are definitely a couple of areas in which Stott truly excels.  In many respects, Luxury Problems essentially picks up exactly where those releases left off, but there is one massive curve-ball: the addition of vocalist Alison Skidmore.  That particular innovation turns out to be a mixed success, but overall the highlights are both more impressive and more frequent this time around.

This was easily one of the most striking and visceral albums that I encountered last year, but it has somehow remained mostly under the radar.  Cold Pin is the end-product of a two-year labor of love, as Keszler leads an excellent ensemble in a very unique collaboration with a huge string installation that he built in a large dome in Boston (the Cyclorama).  It's an amazing and unusual performance, but the installation itself could probably have a very successful career as a solo artist: few things sound better than giant strings being scraped at by small motors in a cavernous room with great acoustics.

Heralding another spurt of activity, this legendary duo has reissued a pair of two long out of print albums from the late 1990s with two added discs of unreleased material. I’ve always found the two previously released albums, When Pornography is No Longer Enough and The Victim as Beauty, amongst the most unhinged and violent power electronics recordings ever, and they’ve lost none of their De Sadeian intensity since release.

Thiswhole album is relaxing and feels warm through every listen. If theidea of being on an island or on a beach isn't appealing, then imaginesitting on a dock and fishing somewhere with nobody around—only thesound of crickets or the call of different birds all throughout theday—the water would pass slowly by and even the most pressing matterswould slip away with it.

I'mnot sure why it took me so long to discover Múm: the records havealways been available and they've toured through these partsand received rave reviews and comparisons to lots of music that Ilike, so it would seem natural that I'd have picked up a couple of Múmrecords by now, but not so.

After a full year off from touring and releasing new music, A Place to Bury Strangers are still going strong with their balance of sharp hooks and sonic firepower. Much like the Jesus and Mary Chain's significant leap in fidelity from Psychocandy to Darklands, this five-song EP will likely generate more discussion about its production and mixing choices than its well-constructed tunes.

I didn't know quite what to expect from a new Esplendor Geométrico album, aside from a lot of relentlessly repeating percussion loops.  However, I did know that I didn't expect Desarrollos Geométricos to be nearly as distorted and brutal as it is, as their last few studio albums have been comparatively clean and less-hostile.  In many respects, this surprise return to the fury of their youth is pretty striking and invigorating, but this Spanish duo still has yet to shake some of their more fundamental and recurring flaws.

If you own any records from The Faint, Ladytron, Fisherspooner, I am Spoonbender, Adult, or G.D. Luxxe, owning no Fad Gadget albums is completely unacceptable. Mute began releasing Fad Gadget (their first signing in fact) back in 1979, and over the course of four full-length albums, Frank Tovey managed to firmly establish electronic music as a new form of punk, combining abrasive synths, punchy drum machines, the occasional vibrophone or other organic instruments, and clever lyrics.

For their Warp Records debut, Antipop present a 7 track EP that's donespinning in less than 17 minutes. Warp may seem like a strange placefor an MC trio to be, but APC's hip hop is as electronic and forwardthinking as anything else on the label. NYC's Beans, Priest and Sayidfastidiously flow mile a minute rhymes, as always, and are as involvedin the sparse yet phat production as producer/engineer/arranger/mixerEarl Blaize. "Tuff Gong" gets right up in your face quick, Sayidletting you know within the minute that he "have the need to tell whatI see". "Splinter" is as close as you'll get to verse chorus verse butlike "Vector", it's a bit too laden with annoying synth notes. Moog andsynth lines help propel the instrumental future funk groove of"Dystopian Disco Force". In "39303," Priest testifies, "I write like aman who can't read / feelin' the need / to seize his mind of reason / Ispit treason / MCs in season / vets freezin' / I rap like there'snothin' left to believe in / clumsily uneven," seconds before his voiceis panned to one channel and digital gurgles fill the opposite one.Next, "Pit," disorients with 2 minutes worth of veering tones, off/onbeeps and ping pong ball percussion, then "Perpendicular" adds another2 minutes of tasty piano and atmosphere enhanced hip hop beats. Thisdisc is all over the place, much like an APC album, but it's all themore obvious in such a short time span. And unfortunately, I'd say only4 tracks are really necessary (but hey, it's only ~$7) so here'slooking forward to the debut album for Warp set to drop early nextyear. In the meantime, get "Tragic Epilogue" and "Shopping CartsCrashing" if'n you don't already have 'em.

 

samples:

• 39303
• Dystopian Disco Force
• Tuff Gong

The fourth full-length studio album from this English quartet is boththeir most vocal and most structured release to date, focusing moresoon songcraft and development than ever before. Fear not, however, asthere's still a large amount of improvisational influences and playfulfuckery on nearly everything, including sounds of the bathtub, cellularphones, and kitchen utensils alongside the intentionally mis-playedstandard rock instruments, classical and jazz wind instruments,strings, accordion, and numerous percussion tools. If there's one thingsmoking pot teaches you, it's how to become a craftsman (how to makethe best bong out of a melon, etc,...) and I have always consideredVolcano the Bear to be a crafty group of lads. Over the few releasesthey've had, it's clearly visible how the lot is increasinglyharnessing that craftmanship into a more organized, bridled chaos. Onceagain, the group recorded with Kev Reverb — once described as "a tenfoot tall cowboy with sunglasses, dressed all in black and possessing avoice like The Voice Of DOOM" — who runs an appropriately named'Memphis studios' out of Leicester, UK. The album contains punchdrunksurrealistic singalongs like the opener, "Hairy Queen" and parts of"Seeker" as well as lengthy drawn-out mostly instrumentaleverything-and-the-kitchen-sink pieces like the title track, withsuggestive hints of traveling minstrals in the album's closer, "I amthe Mould". If I could recommend any album to aquire and memorize onlyto bring to your school's art class only to play and sing along withand confuse the fuck out of those "artistes," this would be it. 'FiveHundred Boy Piano' is their second release for Steven Stapleton'sUnited Dairies label, and features artwork from each of the members aswell as Stapleton, himself.

 

samples:

• Seeker
• Five Hundred Boy Piano
• I am the Mould

#15 in the Fading Captain Series, this release from Airport 5 is thefirst LP Rob Pollard has recorded with Tobin Sprout since the latterleft Guided By Voices to focus on his solo career. Given those keypieces of information, one could probably form a pretty solidpreconception about the sound of this record and what they might findwhen listening to it. Let's face it: Pollard is one of those artiststhat you either love or despise. So those who don't Like any ofPollard's music with Guided By Voices or the plethora of other bandshe's in, skip right over this review. The other camp will be happy toknow that these two artists still make magic together, and it's in rareform all over this release. From the first track, "Burns Carpenter, ManOf Science," you're drawn in to that weird land where anything ispossible, at least lyrically speaking. And it's an amazing thing,considering that the music and words were recorded separately (possiblyeven written separately). Sprout is an amazingly talented musician,capable of playing all the components that make up your average bandstructure, and writing melodies that hold great hooks and fantastictwists and variations. And Pollard is just plain weird. Any man whowrites songs about bright paper werewolves or scientists creatingliquid forms of love has some issues to resolve. But together it makesfor fascinating music, as it has in the past. I'm glad theses twomusicians are working together again, because these initial results areproof that thos combination still works. I hope to hear more fromAirport 5 soon.

 

samples:

• Burns Carpenter, Man Of Science
• Subatomic Rain
• Tomorrow You May Rise

The prolific, multi-instrumental and continually tasteful O'Rourke'slatest release appears to be following in the direction of last year's"Halfway To A Threeway" EP but with a slightly rougher edge. Althoughthe seven well-crafted tunes on "Insignificance" vary musically,drawing on 60's garage rock, 70's AM radio, a touch of tropicalia andalt-country with some damn fine pickin', they uphold the fundamentalsof a great pop record. Song topics seem to be about frustration andself-degradation with "It's All Downhill From Here", depravity on thedark "Get A Room" and the weight of triviality on the title track.Tongue-in-cheek titles such as "Memory Lame" and "Life Goes Off"further augment the unique lyrical content. The musicianship is nothingshort of complete. O'Rourke's choice guitar, bass, piano, Wurlitzer andvibraphone performances are consummated by a group of fine musiciansincluding Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, great simultaneous drumming on sometracks by Glenn Kotche and Tim Barnes , bassist Darin Gray, pedal steelfrom Ken Champion and cornet and sax from Chicago jazzers Rob Mazurekand Ken Vandermark. The disc's order of tunes flows nicely from startto finish, ending in a glitch frenzy, which may be the bridge to thelaptop oriented, soon-to-be-released "And I'm Happy..." disc. As with1999's "Eureka", you shouldn't have too much trouble spotting thisdisc's artwork on the wall of your local vendor.

 

I'll be the first to say I'm not that big of a fan of Venetian Snares.He seems to be praised and lauded from every corner of the earth as agreat innovator and musician, but most of his stuff bores the crap outof me. For the most part, he seems to be "experimental forexperimentality's sake," with a sort of anti-rhythmic edict and anI-must-change-time-signatures-every-twelve-seconds attitude. That getsreally annoying, in my opinion, and it's probably the biggest problemwith this latest album, but nonetheless I like it quite a bit.
That's right, I like the album quite a bit. The atmosphere and samplesreally work well (not to mention the *awesome* Trevor Brown artwork) -"we be friends with a child killer..." but of course the mainattraction is the percussion. Which is the best part of the album aswell as the worst part of the album. Like on the last track, "All theChildren Are Dead"... that is insane percussion. And I mean *insane*.
But then, as on the first track, "Pygmalion," the percussion can holdso much potential and then fall completely utterly flat. Crazy awesomebuildup, as if everything were going to explode right in your bigstupid face, and then - it stops - and doesn't start again. What aGODDAMNED let-down. And these same kind of moments occur throughout thealbum... points where you THINK you should hear a break, or a drum, orsomething - but no! Aaron Funk is experimental! He is not drum'n'bass -this is not dance music! Yeah, whatever. Go have sex with Kid 606.

 

samples:

• Pygmalion
• Dollmaker
• All the Children are Dead

I wish I could properly credit whoever once said, "Talking about musicis like dancing about architecture." To Rococo Rot have assembled acollection of music about architecture that, could very quite easily bedanced to. The group return to the core trio for this unique release,out now on the German Staubgold label. The disc features twelve new,unnamed three-minute tracks which provided the sound for anarchitectural exhibit earlier this year. The music is meant torepresent the building of the same name, which consists of twelveequally sized single units, efficiently designed for both living andworking space. (Gosh those Germans sure do love their crafty designs.)While the group consciously chose to work within the 3-minute frameworkfor each track, the tracks are far from identical. Everybody gets thesame amount of space but can do whatever they want within that space,essentially. While it may not be considered a bonafide, typical fullTRR release, many of the songs are quite clearly TRR, using a healthyvariety of electronic beats, organic bass and guitar, and warm synths.The songs vary from mid-tempo multi-instrument interplays to beat-lesssoftware-based aural wallpaper. While it may have been designed for amore chin-scratching artsy acceptance, it's a great listen in,ironically enough, the home office.

 

samples:

• 4
• 7
• 11

Two years in the making, Michael Gira (SWANS, The Angels of Light) andDan Matz (Windsor for the Derby, The Birdwatcher) casually created andrecorded a dozen songs together in the relaxed setting of Matz's homes.Both men are simply credited with various instruments and vocals (plusengineering by Matz) and generally alternate lead vocals track to tracksave for a lone instrumental. The instrumentation is actually quiteextensive, approaching the ornate fleshing out of an Angels album:acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, organ, piano, synth,drums/percussion, drum machine, harmonica, banjo, a few samples andsome guitar by James Plotkin and background vocals by Anna Neighbor. Ifyou're coming to this disc via Gira and/or Matz's other endeavors, youwon't be surprised but will probably be as pleased with the results asI am. These are 'simple', spontaneous 'pop' songs as affected byAmericana as they are the avant-garde. And the pair's voices, poetryand basic song writing skills and styles complement one another well.The sound and feel is mostly slow and subdued, the mood in varyingdegrees of what I like to call 'uplifting melancholy'. Brief commentson a handful of tracks: "Pacing the Locks" beautifully mourns thepassing of time, "Is/Was" becomes soaked in shimmering synth bath andbell tones, "Lines" is pretty pop steeped in blue grass roots, "BrownEyes" and "Waiting Beside Viragio" are sparse, seemingly solo lovesongs, "Forcing Mary" will nod your head with driving guitar stabs and"Sunflower" is the peculiar instrumental, a droning hum with sprinklesof piano, guitar and whistling. Though I'm not (yet) as taken with"What We Did" start to finish as I am The Angels of Light's "NewMother" and "How I Loved You", I'm still more than happy with what theydid. Gira is currently on tour with The Angels of Light in NorthAmerica through mid December.

 

samples:

• Forcing Mary
• Lines
• Pacing the Locks

Finally... Ant-Zen has returned to form. Or, I should say Cold MeatIndustry by proxy of Ant-Zen, since Azure Skies is a new projectcombining both males (or just one? I'm not too sure) of Sanctum andboth Durling brothers of Mental Destruction, two CMI mainstays.
This disc is almost like a renaissance for .. er .. "rhythmic noise" (Iloathe that term, but I'm at a lack for better words). It was ratherunexpected on my part, but it pulls no punches and places Ant-Zen backon the roadmap it was beginning to explore with the early rhythmicnoise releases... it reminds me of one album in particular, ImminentStarvation's "Nord," a classic album. But it goes beyond that.
Sprinkled throughout the album are achingly beautiful structure andmelodies (no doubt written by the Sanctum member[s]), which add untoldamounts of character and replay value to a genre like this. The harsh,drilling beats in "Crater" are offset by a warm, calming melody ...which is literally a breath of fresh air. "Bring Nothing Back" isobviously influenced by Jan Carkelev's (Sanctum) sideproject ParcaPace, which was a 18-minute masterpiece of beats, chants, and violins -they're all here, but the beats are made even better by the Durlingbrothers. Brilliant.
Though, the album does get a tad bit repetitious at points... but doesit ever go so far as to be boring? Nah. You also should stay away fromthis release if you're expecting dance music - it has beats, but thisis mood music. The album is beautifully packaged in a jewel case withwarm, cool tones throughout and a picture of - what else? - beautifulazure skies gracing the cover. For anyone who felt betrayed withAnt-Zen's recent releases (PAL's "Release".. *cough*), this album is areturn to form and a must-have.

 

samples:

• Bring Nothing Back
• Collapse
• Crater

A few months after Earache released a 2-disc retrospective ("In AllLanguages"), Godflesh is back on a new label (Music For Nations/KochRecords) with a record of all-new material, a new band member(ex-Swans, ex-Prong Ted Parsons, who did live drums on the "Songs ofLove and Hate" tour is now a full time 'member') and anotherprogression in sound. While in 1999 Broadrick and co. moved to a more'electronic' dub-ish sound, with heavy use of drum machines and somesynth-work on their album "Us & Them", this new record sees themgoing back to the mostly guitar-based work they did early in theircareer. I don't know how hard it was to make this record for the band,but it is worth mentioning that bassist G.C. Green left Godflesh soonafter the release of this record. The main difference between thisrecord and the early stuff is Parsons' drumming, which gives "Hymns" amore open, spacious feel than say, the claustrophobic "Streetcleaner".Which is not to say that this is light record in any way -- if that'syour worry, don't sweat it, when the Black Sabbath-like "Voidhead" andit's outro/bridge of "why am I such a void?" or the absolutely crushing"Antihuman" crawls out of your speakers, there can be no doubt thatthis album is still heavier than almost anything else you heard thisyear. Broadrick has really made good progress vocally, and variety inhis vocals is a high point of this disc; many of the tracks have clean(but unintelligible) vocals. While guitar pyrotechnics was never whatGodflesh was primarily about, if you're a fan of heavy guitar, you'llget your money's worth on this disc.

 

Chris and Cosey - like their only real peers, Coil - are a band whose ideas have been mercilessly pruned from a succession of increasingly astounding albums by all sorts of different folk, whose tenacious influence is similar to the ghost in 'The Haunting of Hill House' - barely seen, but profoundly felt.