After a four-year hiatus,Mego favorites General Magic return with Rechenkoenig, a brilliantfollow-up to their debut album, Frantz. Ramon Bauer and Andreas Pieper,who comprise General Magic, have a reputation of steering clear of theconventions to which minimal electronic music is often prone. Thetracks on Rechenkoenig are brief in length, and juxtaposed with suchsonic abruptness that the listener is kept constantly on edge, withoutpossibility of repetition-induced boredom. In fact, 'minimal' isprobably the adjective furthest from my mind upon hearing the fragmentsof frantically paced beats, often heavily distorted, scattered amongstdigital twittering, crackling, and outright onslaughts of noise.samples:
This was originallyreleased as two separate EPs: "Lassie House" being a 10" limited to 250copies through Slaalplaat in 1995; and "Jumble Massive" being an LPlimited to 296 copies through Soleilmoon in 1996. Now, though, they aretogether and released, unlimited, through Cacciocavallo. The materialseems to fit together on one release nicely, with no major differenceinsound between the two EPs. "Lassie House," to some degree, has a moreslapstick humor feel to it, though both conjure rememberence of 18's UKgameshows and sitcoms, as well as children's programs and circus tunes.Vicki Bennett is very clever with how she collages her clips andsamples together, but I feel perhaps that this work centers less onbeing "humourous," per sae, and more and merely being nonsensical. Thetracksare, as one EP's title suggests, a massive jumble of cut up, repeated,morphed, and fucked sound clips from god-knows-where. A favouritehightlight is the last track, which acts as a mock self-help tape,helping "people like us" to cope with such things as sewing machinesand anticipating bowel movements: you need only chant, "Come on, poo!Come on, poo! Poooo, coming! Poooo, coming!" These EPs were nicelyworked fortheir time, but, to be honest, Vicki has since outdone herself withreleases such as the Hate People Like Us remix album and herbrilliant new (but not newest!) release, Thermos Explorer.
German Bernd Friedmannspent all of the 1990's recording and performing electronic music inmany styles under many names, including: Some More Crime, Drome,Nonplace Urban Field, Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players andFlanger. The aptly titled "Con Ritmo" ("With Rhythm") is the solo debutunder his slyly altered given name and is allegedly performed live byThe Disposable Rhythm Section as detailed by the tongue in cheekinsert. Friedmann's playful sense of humor extends well beyond namesand liner notes though ... his music is a mysterious mix of genreblurring sound from unknown sources. Jazz is essentially the languagebut it's spoken in soothing and spacious ambient, electronic, latin,dub and fusion tongues. Latino rhythms and busy bass lines drive thetracks with flourishes of percussive fills, an abundance of prettyvibes and keys, meandering electric guitar notes and pluckings, somehorns and the slightest traces of electronic tinkering. You're neverquite sure what is 'played' and what is sampled, what's electronic andwhat's 'real'. Does it matter? No, it doesn't. The sound and feel issincere and evocative. Some notes on a couple oddities: "Platin Tundra"is a gorgeous dub-jazz journey with a beautiful deep bass swell midwaythrough and the 11+ minute "Das Wesen aus der Milchstrasse" ("TheNature of the Milky Way") features Friedmann's Flanger partner AtomHeart on an extensive Moog solo over electro-bass blips and latin polyrhythms. Fun stuff start to finish! Now to get everything else byFriedmann. A new much delayed album possibly titled "Long Fucking Time"is due out early 2001 on his Nonplace label.
While I'm not claiming tobe an expert in Jazz by any remote means, I highly recommend starting aSun Ra collection with two stellar albums from the mid-60s recentlyremastered and reissued by ESP. Originally recorded in 1965 and 1966,these discs were highly influential to ushering-in new movements inexperimental jazz, soul and funk. Musically there was no true soloistof Sun Ra's Arkestra. This contradicted other popular jazzcontemporaries as the Arkestra as a collective was the focal point atthe center, a fiery mass of color and sound. Decadent and chaotic, withSun Ra 'arkestrating' from beyhind the keyboards and piano, theArkestra was indeed an orchestra consisting of brass, woodwinds,strings, flute and various percussion. 
On a thematic plane, the heliocentric spiritualism was contemporary tothe various programs by the US and Russian governments as earthlingslooks to space as the next conquest. Take into consideration civilrights movements, tie everything together musically and the ground waslaid for George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic afronauts, who werevoyaging with the Mothership for decades to come. Other influences havestretched to include brainwashed groups Meat Beat Manifesto (who shareda bill with Sun Ra's Arkestra in 1996), Nurse with Wound (who I'm surehave sampled 'Nebulae' on Volume 1 in Thunder Perfect Mind) and Coil(who has long been planning a release titled "Sex with Sun Ra.") I'msure there's more planes of existence I haven't even realized withthese discs or the rest of Sun Ra's music, but for now it's a start.Herman Poole 'Sonny' Blount (A.K.A. Sun Ra) died in May of 1993, buthis Arkestra carries on playing in various locations around the US.
Known in English-speaking countries as 'Fantastic Planet,' the sountrack from this highly acclaimed cult-classic cartoon film from 1973 is finally available. For any fan of the film, this is a -must have- as the music is spectacularly anthemic and seemingly timeless. As I was browsing aorund the Twisted Village here in Cambridge, I saw the recently arrive disc sitting on the counter, priced up and ready to hit the shelves. My jaw dropped and I had to walk away with it. Minutes later in Other Music, the crew found it fit for in-store play and I was in heaven.
Every once in a while, arecord comes along that seems to perfectly sum up everything that'sright about a particular type of music at that moment, as well asoffering a glimpse of where the genre might be headed. Closer Colder isone of those records. Following on a back-catalogue of a mere two EPs,this debut album from David Kosten's Faultline project is anoutstanding and accomplished hybrid of dub-heavy beats, distortedelectronic rhythms, ethereal voices, found sounds, and unique liveinstrumentation including xylophone, trumpet, strings and more. Everytrack deserves time in the spotlight, but in the interest of space,I'll try to focus on a few highlights, like the title track that soundslike This Mortal Coil as remixed by Mick Harris and directed by DavidLynch (it features a nice vocal snippet of Dennis Hopper from BlueVelvet); or the juxtaposition of quirky melody and perky beats withdeath threats left on Kosten's answering machine by a vocalist herejected on the track "Control"; or the floating ambience of theuntitled hidden track that closes the set; or - ah, hell, they're allso good, just get the damn thing! Closer Colder was originally releasedin the UK nearly a year ago on Leaf, it's now available in the USAthrough Thirsty Ear.
A precursor to the nextfull-length Techno Animal (to be released by Matador worldwide) takesthe form of a collaborative 12" with rapper Dalek. "Megaton" is theTechno Animal contribution - an aggressive dark one. It's somethingwe're expecting from Techno Animal for a while and this track doesindeed deliver. Side 1 is rounded out by "Classical Homicide" -originally a Dalek song, re-treated by Techno Animal with a beefed upsense of sinister, combined with piercing sound effects. Side 2features the original "Classical Homicide," by Dalek, which is somewhatapocalyptic, dark and distorted already. The beats are fine and thesound changes, like a storm building up, calming down and then crashingthrough your house, leaving all your possessions in a scattered pilesof rubble. The second track, Dalek's altered take of Techno Animal's"Megaton" adds rap and starts off as a seemingly calmer, quieterversion musically, it's not before too long when the beats comepounding in, loud and abrasive, before hushing down for the end.
Voidstar's 2nd and 3rd CDreleases are live performances from these New Hampsters liveperformances in the cultural mecca known as Lowell, MA. "Folded Time 1:Ambiagramaphone" was recorded at a performance at RRRecords andfeatures 18 tracks of improvisational-sounding noise mishmosh. Theremay be a certain order to the chaos however, as the pulses and noiseeffects change and develop through each track. In addition to this,each track features one element carried over from the prevoius track.The noises are cool, the music isn't stale but the vocal work is quiteunsettling. I can't make up my mind if it's necessary or I justflat-out hate it. Thankfully it's low enough in the mix that it almostdoesn't matter. While the group definitely has some influences in thebeat department, some of the repetitious loops echo of StevenStapleton's production work on Legendary Pink Dots' "Malachai."
"Folded Time 2" is subtitled, 'Spiritual Music for ExistentialDeviants,' and is mainly pulled from a live performance at radiostation WJUL, a month after the RRRecords performance. The sounds arerelatively the same yet more samples, including silly turntablescratching are abused in cotributing to a more constructional sound.The creepy vocals once again are extremely irritating and repetitious.I'm finding it hard to resist all temptations to hit stop on the disc.The disc is rounded out by a second-half which contains songs eitherreworked by the group or remixed by friends like Ukuphambana and ZipperSpy. While the second half is much more attentive to organized chaosthan the first part of this disc, I'm not thinking this is somethingI'll be pulling from the shelves to listen to very often.
My introduction to (theband known as) Donna Regina comes from a track which appeared on aHeavenly Voices compilation a number of years ago. Years later, I'm(somewhat) past my ethereal siren-mania days, so I may have beenslightly hesitant to listen to a disc like this. 'A Quiet Week In theHouse' came to me almost too highly recommended, so I decided to giveit the benefit of the doubt. Luckily I was not disappointed. Havingmuch more fully developed their style in the years since theirappearance on the compilation, the members of Donna Regina emerge withan album which is a giant step away from the monotony which permeatesthe music of many of the other Heavenly Voices bands. 'A Quiet Week'blends understated electronic beats with eerie, twangy guitar work(frankensushi, anyone?), and the sweet, dreamy melodies are lent anexoticism via Regina Janssen's accented vocals. Despite its pop-drivenovertones, the album is pervaded by a moodiness that comes across ascool and swanky as opposed to melancholic. In brief: delicately groovyand subtly catchy.
In Matador's ongoingquest to bring electronic music to rock fans, they introduce the debutfull-length all new release from Pete Astor, the man who is The Wisdomof Harry. Although the full-lengther "Stars of Super 8" was releasedlast year through Faux-lux, the disc simply collected 7" singlespreviously released through vinyl-only labels including WurlitzerJukebox. With a few vintage drum machines and a host of studio gear,this album cleverly combines low-fi electronica with an indie popmindset. "Coney Island of Your Mind" was the first 7" release from thisdisc and creatively rounds out Astor's guitar work with sugar sweetelectronic percussion. The rest of the disc jumps from dreamlikeshoegazer-influenced bass riffs and slow tempo grooves with delays a laMassive Attack to instrumental b-movie indie film noir score, allresulting from an apparent solitude in a well-packed studio. This sortof autonomy results in an underlying theme of emptiness - a sound notterribly far from a Beck-esque formula crossed with a stark realitysimilar to walking home from a bus stop on a cold and rainy evening.Where it's at - I got two 909s and a microphone.
Thankfully, Oi! is not a trawl through a dubious underbelly of UK punk. It’s a two disc snapshot of recent Brazilian music from Amapa to Rio Grande Do Sul, Acre to Paraiba, mapping the places where indigenous forms meet dub, funk, psychedelia, and several other outer-national sub-genres. Of the 40 tracks I prefer those suggesting cool, dark alleys, mind warping neon surfboards, or vertigo-inducing rooftops, to others which feel like over-crowded hip-hop/carnival nether regions where “party” is a verb and Karl Pilkington dreams of quiet reverie during a hellish episode of An Idiot Abroad.
This is Vantzou's solo debut, but she should be familiar to many from her work as the visual half of Adam Wiltzie's The Dead Texan project.  That association was not a fluke, as Christina's musical aesthetic clearly shares a lot of quiet, slow-moving, and nuanced common ground with the Stars of the Lid milieu.  Such comparisons are pretty much inevitable in any discussion of No. 1, but Christina establishes her own voice by embracing impressionist classical music and a brighter, more pastoral mood.
I was very curious about what The Drift's latest album was going to sound like, as so much has changed since 2008's well-regarded Memory Drawings: Danny Paul Grody fell in love with steel-string acoustic guitars, stellar double-bassist Safa Shokrai left the band, and–most significantly–founding member Jeff Jacobs succumbed to cancer.  The band opted not to replace Jacobs, which left them with the very difficult puzzle of continuing without their primary melodic instrument.  The resultant album understandably loses all traces of their jazzier, more dub-inflected recent work (Jacobs played trumpet), but returns fairly successfully to The Drift's more straightforward post-rock roots...sometimes.
The second outing on compact disc for the anonymous minimalist Eleh compiles three out of print, vinyl-only releases. The eight pieces that make up the Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis have been tarted up for a digital release and they sound unbelievably good. While there is no new material included, these discs make for essential listening either for Eleh die hards or for those without turntables who have been wondering what all the fuss was about.
As a collaboration between two artists who are almost impossible to pin down by genre conventions, A Throne Without A King is at times a difficult album, often not resembling anything from either artist, but a different beast entirely. It may be difficult, but its worth the effort to fully absorb what’s there to be heard.
I first met Othon Mataragas in Austria at Donaufestival '07 (curated by David Tibet) where he was performing with Current 93. Since then, he has been on the soundtrack to the Bruce LaBruce film Otto; or Up With Dead People and then part of a live accompaniment to the Derek Jarman film The Angelic Conversation, orchestrated by Peter Christopherson. I've seen Othon contribute his pianist skills to Ron Athey's automatic writing performance in London (Gifts of the Spirits), and he is currently working on an collaboration with artist Franko B (Because of Love). His debut album, Digital Angel, focused on childhood nightmares of corporations taking over our identities and features a lovely rendition of Coil's "The Dreamer is Still Asleep," sung by David Tibet. His second album, Impermanence, is provocative, filled with torment that is presented in a profound yet light-hearted way. Othon's arrangements are gorgeous and timeless.
Der Blutharsch's sudden transition from militaristic industrial project to perverse psychedelic rock band was jarring and abrupt, and always a bit baffling. The albums since Time is Thee Enemy! have moved more and more into that direction, but often laden with a sense of identity confusion: the pieces never seemed to come together quite right for me. In this collaboration with Aluk Todolo, however, both embrace their hallucinogenic tendencies in unison, resulting in a brilliantly cohesive album that is equal parts krautrock, psychedelia, and dark experimentalism.
Long-time musical partners Anna Domino and Michael Delory take ten songs from the public domain and recreate them in their own image: the cool detachment of Domino's voice and non-traditional arrangements contrasting with narratives of treachery and murder. As they previously did in 1999 with their much-heralded album Songs from My Funeral.
