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Kid 606 wasn't far from the truth when he claimed that "Matmos are the A-Team of electronica" — the new full-length album is a triumph for this San Franciscan duo. Their fourth album follows along the progression taken with 'The West,' moving even further away from random technological fuckery on their first two to create a cohesive, conceptual, organized result.
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Emptylight and Hed Nod/Hushush gather 15 exclusive 'dark hop' cuts for this 75 minute compilation. Artists include several names I was already familiar with - Mick Harris, Ocosi, Su8m3rg3d, NOS, Dijislov and Not Breathing - and others that are new to me: The Dustmite, Zero ID, Shinitaika, Olivier Moreau, Silk Saw, I-drik, Montagnn, Larvae, Turn and Alien Radio Station. Most all of them do relatively the same thing, here at least, with beefy Scorn styled head nodders.
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The debut album of ex-Blue Airplanes member Hazel Winter is a blues-tinged, distortion-wracked set of ruminations on bad times and uncomfortable intentions. Winter's voice shifts from cracked whisper to murderous wail, evoking Portishead's Beth Gibbons and PJ Harvey. Coincidentally, perhaps, Put Away the Sharp Knives features the contributions of Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley and Harvey producer and collaborator John Parish.
It's been nearly threeyears since the last full-length album from the Michigan-based Windy& Carl, but the duo have hardly been inactive in the meantime.Along with the album released in 1999 as 5 Way Mirror with GregGasiorowski and various performances including every year's Terrastock,the couple have also been operating their own Stormy Records musicstore full-time. Thankfully a new album manages to surface capturingtheir signature sound of drifting guitar effects, drones and occasionallow-volume mix vocalizations from Windy. I'm almost left wonderingwhere the missing album is as their evolution from 1998's 'Depths' isan incredible leap. 'Consciousness' begins simply with a beautifulswirling glistening guitar melody from the opener "The Sun." The albumcontinues on with a mesmerising "Balance," a sligthly altered versionof "Trembling" which appeared first on 'Brain in The Wire Disc A.'Here, the almost indescribable shaking hum combined with warmundertones conjures images in my mind of traveling on a train throughautumn foliage with the sun strongly blaring in my eyes. I'm nearlyfloored by the almost real string sounds both in that song and thealbum closer, "Resolution", that once again I regret not being intoillegal substances! The rest of the songs show an impressive display ofspace and composition, molding the sound into a serene daze, buildingthem up and then letting them fade at the perfect time. Songs like "TheLlama's Dream" are almost too gorgeous for words to even describe, withan intense wash of sound blanketing the warm bass tune driving the songforward. 'Consciousness' might be one of those albums which could beused as ambience for many low-intensity activities, but the duo'smastery of subtleties results in a blissful experience from listeningat loud volumes in dark rooms.
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The second release in V/Vm's highly limited color-coded distressed-audio series has arrived as an orange/black splattered platter. Stockport's finest has delivered a top-notch selection of intense beefy noise cuts based on rawkus dancefloor anthems, with all due respects paid to Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers.
Colin Potter works as astudio engineer at IC Studios in Preston, UK and is probably best knownfor his work with Nurse With Wound and Current 93. "And Then" is hisfirst solo CD with 5 tracks cleverly titled "before", "...", "next","and", "finally". The disc itself reveals the full message: "before itwas inside, ... but now it is outside, next will come examination, andall will be revealed, finally however nothing is certain, and then?"Drones and curious percussive sounds dominate and are panned across thestereo field. "before" and "next", 11 and 20 minutes long respectively,feature contemplative ambient/noise drone work on par with NWW's"Soliloquy for Lilith". The former opens with a wind swept barrage thenmoves into a deep surging presence while the latter remains relativelyquiet but churns with mechanical undercurrents. "..." begins with abouncy spring like sound which is soon overwhelmed with drab beats andlater dressed up a bit with twinkly bell tones and a preset effectswash I've heard far too many times prior to this. This track strikes meas brutish, amateur and just plain out of place. "and" is a clankymilitary march that slowly builds into a cacophonous climax andrelease. "finally" returns to ambiance with natural environment soundsand a constant surge underneath later giving way to strange metallicwire pings and pluckings. It's really a shame that the tedious 15minutes of "..." are a permanent fixture of this otherwise fine disc.Hooray for the skip button! Potter will likely be involved with theslew of upcoming NWW and c93 releases due out later this year.
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Ce groupe associé avecle collectif fameux québecois godspeed you black emperor! formula undisque des sons divers et rhythmes exotiques. Oh, to hell with a Frenchreview, as the sound on this release hits on a more global level. Thetitle, which translates as "Sedative in frequencies and grooves" prettyaptly describes the album's atmosphere. Although only a short thirtyminutes, the three songs on the album seem to coast effortlesslybetween cantering basslines and minimal electronic interludes. >Fromthe beginning of "De cercle en cercle..." you are bombarded with whatseems to be a simple jumping bassline and drum beat on which shards ofguitar feedback, electronic glitches, and metallic drones are laid. Itseems that these guys love their dichotomies, becuase they effortlesslyfly from this form of noise-pop to beatless ambient atmospheres andexperimental noise. They seem to take this formula and run with it,applying it to their second song, "éfférant/afférant" and then steppingback to view the album from a macroscopic level and ending it with"micro sillons," a four-minute noise work that slowly fades the albumout into sonic oblivion. While the formula can be a little boring attimes, the result is an album that shifts between various moods andatmospheres that produces cerebral visions of diverse grandeur.
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Troum are a Bremen, Germany based duo formerly of the 'ambient-industrial' band Maeror Tri. Tjukurrpa is their third full length CD, follow-up to a Mort Aux Vaches and first on member Stefan Knappe's Transgredient Records. It is also the first in a trilogy under the name (meaning "dreamtime"), this one concentrating on 'harmonies' and the next two on 'drones' and 'pulsations'. And that is Troum's objective: to put the listener into a dream-like state of unconscious exploration.
While the lightning andthunder originate at the same time, we see the flash first — it'sbright and immediately grabs our attention, from the intensity we canmake a good guess as to the thunder's magnitude. This EP preceeds alarge milestone in Matmos' musical career and the flash is indeed quiteintense. Following last year's tour with dates in Europe and shows inthe USA with the Rachel's, Matmos soon are forking over an incrediblealbum cleverly based on and constructed from uncountable sounds ofvarious surgical gear and practices. The "California Rhinoplasty" EPintroduces us to a stunning 10 minute 'cut' from the album in itsoriginal form and then follows it up with an honorable cover tune ofCoil's "Disco Hospital" and two remixes of the title cut. Not only willthe following full-lengther "A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure" betheir first release on Matador worldwide, but they're currently in NewYork finishing up the production on an album from a young relativelyunknown up-and-coming female singer from Iceland who goes by only onename (hint: her name almost rhymes with New Yörk). The original versionon this EP grooves pleasurably with a flawless, clean precision, whilethe remixes could almost be given completely different names due totheir bold retoolings of the original. Get this thing now before Matmosput everybody else out of business.
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