Imagine you're stranded on a rooftop in the middle of a city with cloudy skies above and nowhere to go. Cars buzz past on their way to nowhere in particular and as the day slowly passes, their exhaust fumes fill the air. Time goes by but you know it's an illusion. The world is moving but you're still waiting, watching. This is the feeling imparted by this follow up to Symptoms' rather more varied and up beat self titled debut.
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- Alberto De Campo - Imaon
- Phoenecia - Non-Specific Acoustic Stimulation
- Atau Tanaka & Eric Wenger - Bondage
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Not equally glorified with the current avant-garde stamp yet, Staubgoldspreads a sympathetically unobtrusive "home made for home listening"attitude without wasting energy on label conformity.If individualism is their goal, they're on the way.
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- Gunter Adler & Felix Kubin - Kiebitzreihe I
- Reuber - Ruhig Blut B
- Sack feat. Joseph Suchy - Urlauber
...And the winner for the WORST album covers of the year goes to,.... QUANGO! Who have also came close to winning for most pointless compilations but were beat out by Mille-Plateaux, whose Clicks + Cuts volume 746 is a 23-CD compilation of bald Europeans exchanging emails.
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The most noticable musical difference is about four seconds missingfrom the opening chopped up sampling bit, but those sounds do getrepeated over a few cycles however,... Enough of the nitpicking!
The recordings contained were completed in 1990, pulled from over twoyears of studio work, which is quite noticable. Back then, electronicmusicians didn't have anywhere near as much software, Coil had to domuch of this by hand. This is observed right from the opening secondswhere a cut-up mishmosh of samples were tossed into a bucket and tapedback together. Over the course of an hour, the group pummels thelistener with whacked-out stereo separation, mind-bending low-endfrequencies and ghostly voices which move in three dimensions aroundthe room -without- the aid of a 5-point surround system! It'sgenre-defying, electronic based with dabbles of jazz, techno, withflamenco guitars and orchestral arrangements. Guests on this recordinclude vocal contributions from Little Annie Anxiety Bandez, MarcAlmond and Rose McDowell, as well as Charles Hayward on drums, and MikeMcEvoy's trippy 'ecstatic keyboards' on "The Snow". While songs like"Windowpane" and "Love's Secret Domain" are instantaneously catchyfavorites, tracks like "Further Back and Faster" are so amazingly aheadof their time in terms of sound and structure. The multiple layers,samples and sections must have taken many late nights in the studio,the result is a mindfuck which has taken many listens to truly get.People accuse this record of being a techno record, but in actuality,"The Snow" is really the only fast-paced techno dancefloor anthem, andnot a bad one indeed with incredible playing, sampling and subliminalvocal manipulations. The record is multi-climactic, and builds a coupletimes before the end, with the calm and disturbing "Titan Arch"featuring Marc Almond's guest vocals over a chilly throb, "Chaostrophy"where an orchestra fights for center stage with a barrage of whitenoise, the explosive flamenco guitars of "Lorca Not Orca" into thefinale, the title track, snaking lines from William Blake and RoyOrbison.
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Little Annie, aka Annie Anxiety Bandez, is best known to me for her neurotic stream of conscious performance on "Thing's Happen" from Coil's 1991 masterpiece Love's Secret Domain. But, her extended discography stretches back to the mid '80s with several solo singles and albums including collaborations with Penny Rimbaud of Crass, On-U Sound, The Wolfgang Press, Current 93 and COH. She also paints (see cover) and participates in poetry readings in the NYC area. This 3 track disc pairs her words and voice with Joseph Budenholzer of Backworld and one Larry 'Super Model' T.
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It's simply amazing to me some bands can be solely instrumental — which, to a certain extent, limits them — but still sound original, and capture a beauty that few bands, instrumental or otherwise, can even approach. Pullman's last release, "Turnstiles and Junkpiles," was a beautiful pass at acoustic guitar arrangements for this quartet, with no other instrumentation like percussion or keyboards present. The songs were stunning in their beauty and collaboration: a real triumph for these four musicians from such diverse backgrounds. This time around, Tim Barnes joins the core group of Doug McCombs, Bundy K. Brown, Chris Brokaw, and Curtis Harvey, which means there are drums on a lot of tracks, and a general nod towards more atmospheric explorations.
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Niko's overall approach reminds me of electro pioneer Frank Tovey (FadGadget) in the way he uses his gear for maximum effort without gettinglost in technical questions. His sampling attitude, especially on theopening track "Teeth Of Eris," brings Broad Broadcasting Bureau in mindand the more or less analog sounding drones on "Limbo In C Major" andthe nearly 12 minute "Flooding Aura" the likes of Steve Roach. But NikoSkorpio (featuring the Mad Jackal Orchestra) has a sound of his own anda caring hand for details; the artwork is well done, avoiding expensiveefforts and proving there might be a way to use CD-Rs for independentproductions without going cheap.
Not an desperate attempt for uniqueness, but an original one well worth trying
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- available at http://nikoskorpio.net/chambermoosick
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- UK Girls (Physical)
- Human (Calexico recording)
- Utopia (Daniel Miller remix)
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The music is not a far departure from our newest new-new wave ofelectronica. The beats are steady and consistent, the kick and bassdeep and rattling, without disorienting breaks or expectedjunglist-tweaked cymbals. The vocals are what really stand out here:male and female singers who are, without a doubt, singing. No radiostatic effects, no drone. It's like Section 25 or early Wake backed bythe women of ESG or 52nd Street. The sexual overtones are presentthroughout, more or less suggestive with the use of heavy breathing andwhispered vocals that become part of the orchestra and dragged out withthe constant use of vocoders. On the track, "Invisible", deep inhalingand exhaling open the song, rattling speakers as if he'sblowing in your ear. The last exhale is dragged out deep into the mixas the beat kicks in, returning later as the end trails of verses, likea Jesus and Mary Chain wash. The track reaches a pregnant pause halfway through, teasing with a kick in time before returning at half thespeed, with deep and breathy vocals. The effect is like continuing tofuck after stopping to catch your breath.
Another great track is their first single, "Emerge", which is available for download from their website: www.fischerspooner.com."Emerge" would probably more closely document their style and be aproper comparison to the remainder of the albums contents (save the sadand looming "Tone Poem" and the cover of Wire's "The 15th") and couldsafely be the bands statement of purpose: "sounds good, looks good,feels good too".(Emerge was remixed by Adult, and is available on the "Emerge Remixed"12" also on Gigolo.)
Their live performance has been described as rather over the top —morea rock opera and less a static "stand behind the equipment" electronicshow. Check the site for more info. Different and addictive, nostalgicand new, Fischerspooner is highly recommended.
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