This rapturous disc is the result of a live improvisation conducted under an aqueduct in Zürich, a 40-foot-tall acoustic space that perfectly matches Momentan's simulation of poised ebb and flow. Not standard microsound fair, of minimal movement or painfully obsessive blip-bending, the piece ingests each members' contribution, Korber's threadbare guitar scratch, Müller's increasingly spartan percussive manipulations, and Steinbrüchel's grainy drone cycles, lifting all in an undulant, misty passage across the broad hollow, action that plays perfectly on the disc's punning title.
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Concept albums in general are a bit troublesome. Like "Music from and inspired by the motion picture," they are sometimes not at all relatable to the subject at hand, and often they get overshadowed by some lofty sense of purpose that ultimately falls flat. When I saw the roster on Seasons, I was willing to ignore the fact that the compilation was a concept album just to hear new work from these bands. So, I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find that the music does, in fact, have a fine correlation with the concept, making this the best theme-based compilation I have ever heard.
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Adam Pierce has evolved Mice Parade from its humble beginnings to a full-fledged accomplished live ensemble, a feat especially impressive given his other dealings in HiM, touring with M√∫m, and running Bubble Core. After the success and bombast of that experience, Pierce went back home and recorded another album mostly by himself, but he felt the need to incorporate his experiences on the road and some of his friends from other projects, culminating in the fantastic new work of Obrigado Saudade.
This release should arrive with a grain of sadness for, in January, Reynols disbanded after ten years of tireless activity. The prolific Argentine group spent the majority of this time in relative obscurity, forging ahead with large ambitions and an unflinching devotion to idiosyncratic craft that inevitably left them well-situated within the pantheon of frayed roots-rockers, brash experimenters, and psychedelic casualties. Their willingness to experiment with the most eccentric of concepts always made Reynols seem extra special, even among the small crop of similarly broad-minded collectives.
The Chicago Underground (whose members vary in number on their various releases) uses the malleable forms of jazz and electronic music to explore sounds and thoughts that could only be captured in the vistas of these boundless styles. Slon is an experiment in forms and styles, exploring the brassy expressionism of both genres to deliver a stirring display of meaning and intent through their inspired tones.
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- Kim HiorthøyWait
- Fe-mailJacob's Leketøy
- Andreas MelandEplesky
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samples:
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Meerk is, if the bizarre pseudonym didn't give it away, one of the founders of Providence's Fort Thunder collective as well as a member of the most firmly-entrenched of FT musical incarnations, Forcefield. Those discouraged by the willfully obtuse nature of that group's recorded efforts could do worse than rough up this dirty gem, Puffy's first non-cassette release and one that plays off Forcefield's talents for lo-fi squelch-tronica in welcome fashion. Meerk (aka Matt Brinkman) shoulders the arsenal of bleeps, blats, and digital farts that made Roggaboggas such a throbbing fun time, but he adds a backbone of rhythmic chug and swirling, claustrophobic phase-out, owing as much to the psychedelic skronk aesthetic of early Boredoms as to the cassette noise underground.