As if Low haven'treleased enough music this year, Tugbot releases this single of threenew songs in the UK this week. "Dinosaur Act" carries the title with asong the group has been performing around the country recently, soon totouch down in Europe. Most definitely the most muscular track on thedisc (others might say 'the strongest') the song jumps in louder andmore distorted than what the Low sound is used to possessing, but oncethe vocals begin and song develops, it's clearly nobody else."Overhead," the middle child is by no means a mediocre track, butclearly rests between the strength of the other two. It's a thunderousLow track where it seems as if the glorious vocal harmony has beenyanked from its original music, and dropped in a sea of sounds echoingand building off each other. "Don't Carry it All" ends the disc withone of those Low tunes you can't believe a young group came up with - asong which could easily be destined to become a rock and roll standardfor years to come. Once the disc ends however, I can't get this damnedsong out of my head for the rest of the day. Small but powerful, thisis one of my fave singles of the year.samples:
It's a neat concept, a 3"CD featuring nearly three hours of music compressed in MP3 format. Thevarious artists featured here include Christoph De Babalon, KimCascone, Oval / Frank Metzger and Pimmon. Throw the disc into thecomputer (since most people reading this are probably most listening tomusic on their computers these days) and use the web page interface tonavigate to listen to each track,... The music has been compressed atvarious frequencies, all of which, (according to the notes) maintainthe original CD sound quality. Perhaps with this type ofcomputer-generated electronic minimal music this is correct, but itwould be interesting to compare sounds on a big stereo withuncompressed music in a CD format. Another neat concept with this isthe interface in which you can play these tracks: nearly every artist'sname has a hyperlink to their home page while the tracks they providewill begin playing when clicked on. The downside is that after eachtrack you have to go back and click something new. There's no option tomake a continuous play (unless you simply load all the songs into yourmp3 player directly from your computer). Portability with this releaseis of course completely shot, but think of it this way: music can befun to explore again! Remember the days of buying records, bringingthem home and throwing them on - you had to be there to enjoy themusic, so you were provided a big lyric sheet, loads of big pictures,etc... While cassettes were the portable media, CDs pretty much killedthe magic of vinyl for most consumers. I hope this is the beginning ofa series, one which may feature more diverse acts than chin-scratchingemail checking laptop fuckers. For more information, check out 
It's been nearly a yearsince the first issue of this, I Am Spoonbender's second CD. The vinyledition of this extended-play single comes in a 3-sided 2x12" set. Boththat and the first-edition CD are limited to numbers under 1,000. Now,Vancouver-based Mint Records brings us these 6 tracks to keep ourbreath sparkling fresh. I've become truly addicted to this CD. Theproduction brilliantly combines toyful electronic and driving rocksounds into a heavenly rhythmic mishmosh. Clever melodies and lyricsare all too remeniscent of a time in the 80s when pop music was createdfor the sake of making something sound good, long before wanky guitarsolos, macho vocals and tired chord progressions took over. A surprisegem on the disc is a parody of Berlin's "The Metro" where the singerbellows "Where do all the words go?" Pop is good, pop is fun, and thisis the real sugar - there's no saccharin here, baby.
The wait is over, the NEWfull-lengther from Kid 606 gets released from Mille-Plateaux in Germanythis week to thousands of waiting fans. So it's not the onlyfull-length new release from Kid this year, so what! On this disc, Kidprobes into deep rhythms, microdissecting sounds at shrillingfrequencies. Gone are the bombastic dubbastyle gabber techno noiseassault tunes on this album. Concept? Perhaps not, but conceptualindeed. Much like the Soccergirl E.P. release earlier this year, thefeeling on this record is love. Perhaps it's a statement on irony asthese songs sound more mechanical and less freestyle. Either way thesounds are charming and the beats change enough to make you wonder howon earth Mille Plateaux released this gem!
All too often something will arrive in the post with next to no information, the CD will be home made and the music will sound horrible. Occasionally something shows up with nearly no information but it sounds great. EA are from Poland and the disc that arrived is indeed difficult to decipher titles or record label. Thankfully, a plop into the computer brings up the CDDB entry. Although the entries of the database can be completely wrong, I'm gonna trust it this time.
Finally released fromForce-Inc. is the promised second full-lengther from youngster TomasJirku. From the big fuck up on the front cover (the album is named"Requins" on the cover) I'm somewhat leery of this despite myappreciation for his first release, earlier this year on Alien8. On'Sequins,' Jirku walks a thin tightrope between blonky Euro laptopglitch dub and gay designer lounge beats. Although I would appreciatePole sounding as interesting as this, the sound treatment is relativelyflat, lacking a depth or soul I'm more fond of. The disc feels long andrather tiresome if it's providing foreground music, however it wouldfit quite well providing background to a social evening indoors. Therepetitiveness contained herein could very well cause hypnosis orinduce sleep while all alone. It's not advisable to listen to thiseither in the car or at work!
Coil may very well be oneof my favorite bands, but they do have a few problems with whatsomebody in the film industry would consider 'continuity.' Hence thelatest release. While this clearly is marked as Coil, 'ConstantShallowness' (along with 'Queens of the Circulating Library' and thelive CD that came along with 'Musick volume 2') it would probably bestbe noted as a release from Time Machines. The sound sources are kept toa bare minimum (making it minimal music?) while the structure mirrorsmovements of sound waves, other than form conceptual songs. 'ConstantShallowness' also falters in the continuity scheme of things by sharingthe same Eskaton catalogue number as 'Astral Disaster,' so am I beingpicky? Perhaps the music I'm most fond of I'll bitch about the most...The sounds here are much more varied than any previous release in thisvein, 6 songs (spanning 23 tracks) stretch the senses to wonderfulsonically high and low pitches, adding pulses and lyrics in spots.Noisy and abrasive in parts, this CD comes with the warning not tooperate heavy machinery while listening. Disregarding the warning, myfirst listen was inside the car. I'm still okay but people wanderingthe streets outside who could hear the stuff were perplexed. I hopethey're okay.
By comparing this to anyother Current 93 release would be pointless, the concept here is muchdifferent than nearly everything David Tibet has released so far in his20 year career. Count Eric Stenbock, a nineteenth-century suicidalmelancholy writer is honored here with a booklet featuring his prose,"Faust". Tibet spared us from his own vocalization of "Faust" howeverand provided us, the consumers with the choice to read it ourselves,silent or out loud, creating our own album. The accompaniment takes theform of one instrumental 36-minute track, and while it's not dull ordrab, it rarely changes. Almost entirely electronic, sparse and eerie,it is clear to me this is background ambience and should not be takenout of context. Out of context, many fans will be in for adisappointment. Over the last two years, Tibet's output has stayedintentionally consistent with each release ('Soft Black Stars,' 'I Havea Special Plan for This World,' and 'Sleep Has His House'). While everyrelease has impressed me to some extent, hopes of a Current 93 album tocompile all these concepts with new material in a variety of sorts willtruly be one of his finer and most regarded works to date.
I've reached the decision that Broadcast shine much brighter on their single and EP releases than their full-length albums. This year's The Sound Made By People has been overshadowed by the group's release of the four extended-play singles that have surrounded the release.
Possibly the mostoverlooked of the brainwashed artists, Ruby Falls have released theirsecond full-length CD. Collected from studio recordings which arenearly two years old now, this 12-song disc features the NYC-based rockquartet exploring more directions in songwriting, time signature andkey changes. I'm partial to "The Brave Ones" as it was given to memonths ago for release on the compilation set to appear in THE WIREmagazine. I hope that it represents the band well, as many people don'tseem to listen to much good rock music any more these days. Ruby Falls'melodies are charming and their lyrics are strong and poetic, the bandis tight and the playing is wonderful. Fans of Ida, Retsin and TaraJane O'Neil who don't have anything by Ruby Falls should damned well beashamed of themselves.
