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Kranky
I always like knowing that Mark Nelson is involved in a new album. Whether he's involved in Labradford, in a collaboration with another musician, or is writing music as Pan?American, Nelson's compositions always come as welcome, quiet, and warm embraces. Quiet City, his fourth Pan?American album, is a much different recording than 2003's The River Made No Sound
, but it maintains the calm and pacifying sound that has permeated all of Nelson's projects from the beginning. Alongside rainy pulses and misty keyboard flourishes are the seductive sounds of an upright bass, guitar, trumpet, and flugelhorn. Their presence in Nelson's writing only adds to the spaciousness of the songs; they never make the electronic peace too busy nor do they take away from rattle and wash of the near sub-conscious percussion. The entire record moves together like a creeping cloud, but there are standouts that can't go without mention. The 9-minute engagement that is "Wing" plays like a waterfall easing in slow motion towards an unending abyss. Its harmonious ring of low and subtle keyboards, tribal dub-rhythms, and erratic scratches and pops was intoxicating enough to keep me pressing the back button a few times before I was willing to move to the song. The folk-like "Inside Elevation" bares a fragile guitar that slow-steps in and out of a near-accordian complement and blends into the suprising and pleasing "Skylight." The opening is remiscient of deserts and folk-music to me, but the heart of the song is band-centered and has a certain nobility to its organization and melody. When I say band-centered I mean that there is a definite drummer, guitar, voice, and bass arrangement, but it is accompanied by what sounds like a full brass orchestra and Nelson's consistently supple electronics. Song after song is a relaxing and simple relief from the any and everything that is busy. While I expected this much from Nelson, what caught me off guard was how well-written every one of these songs are. The songs on here aren't just epic forays into estranged sound, they're pieces of melodic silk that breathe and twitch with a human likeness. A casual listen to a song like "Het Volk" will reveal exactly what I'm talking about. The poppy and child-like keyboard sounds grace along like a classical composition while the the flugelhorn plays like some slow jazz on a lamp-lit street corner. The combination is irresistable. This is the way that the electronic and acoustic combination should be done. After a while I wasn't even conscious of the fact that there were different elements being used. The product of their masterful fusing is greater than the parts being fused.
Matt Waldron's music as Irr. App. (Ext.) covers a spectrum from hallucinatory and intricate strings of sound that are broadcast from the universe of the wacky to found-sound recordings that share spaces with crunching glass, odd-ball vocal samples, and gorgeous guitar. Ozeanische Gef?le, however, comes as a complete surprise. Rooted in the experiments, philosophy, and beliefs of Wilhelm Reich, the term "ozeanische gef?le" translates, roughly, as "oceanic feelings." This term is wonderfully appropriate for the music Waldron has assembled on this recording. The self-titled and 42 minute opener is a consistently hypnotizing blend of bells, wooden drums (I think?), organs, submerged choirs, obscured hums, brushes, crickets, and solar flares. These references and images may seem fanciful, but one listen to the record will reveal that Waldron has somehow recorded life and placed it on a compact disc. Waldron's most exciting and captivating technique is his blending of completely opposite sounds into a whole. No matter how disparate Waldron's sound sources may be (horses trotting on brick roads, a poorly tuned ukulele, wooden boards crashing, rain drops and thunder, there are a ton of sounds I'm sure I'm missing), they sound entirely perfect together. The result is a strangely fascinating organism of living tissue, meterological events, and cosmic birth and death. The music isn't just fascinating though, it isn't just some exercise in academic sound collage. The sounds course and wind into eachother and make a heavenly soft bed out of the air. The combination of bells, buzzes, sonic burps, and resounding echoes is radiant and graceful and never fails to soothe or entertain. The second track, "The Demiurge's Presumption," carries over from the sonic dust of the first 40+ minutes and blows it up to the tune of expanding straws, static electricty, broken springs, and divine presence. There is a constant ring through the track that attempts to obscure the work of a stream of sounds that pulses steadily beneath it. On the whole, the final track is a much more dense affair than "Ozeanische Gef?le," but it is a fitting end to the quiet sanctuary that much of this album is. It fades away into silence as a stringed instrument is plucked randomly and softly out of existence. This silence lasts only a few moments before a strange collage of bird sounds, bubble-like distortion, and phased noises lap over and into themselves. As the music flows throughout this album, as it moves away from its center and produces newer sounds and more diversity, it becomes more and more addicting. Waldron is demonstrating another side of his musical personality that had been hidden from view for too long and the resulting musical tide is mind-blowing.
"Tras" opens the two-song single. At under four minutes, it's a perfectintroduction to the band as it's both rhythmically challenging andcatchy as all hell. The precise guitar riffs combined with a TVtheme-like keyboard ditty are a perfect fit for drums that areaggressive enough for a metal record, but, as the drums come equippedwith a super slick sound and an occasional shuffle, are way too cool tobe wasted on brainless hair tossing. "Fantasy" is almost a throwback tothe sampled staccato sounds of Ty Braxton's album with echoesreverberating in time with the rhythm. It's boldly almost completelyabsent of melody yet rich in beats, provided by drum machines, punchysamples, and live percussion. At the eight-minute mark when that 808kick comes in, any speaker in its path is in trouble.
Together with Tras, EP Ccould easily form a complete album. The repetition on the opener "B +T" is deceptively simple: it's pretty and layered with differentmotives, occasional breaks and samples, all which keep the song inperpetual motion. After the short drumless "UW" that could makeKraftwerk blush by its atmospheric twittering, the band comes back infull swing with "Hi/Lo," substituting a low end synth where a bassshould be. "Hi/Lo" may be slower than some of their other loud numbersbut it's no less grand, building in intensity gradually over the nearlyeight minutes, from a small pile of rubble to a mountainous beast.Finishing off the disc are the short "IPT-2" and "Tras 2," eachincorporating what seems like a bit of digital fuckery at first, withthe second one ending with the drummer trailing off on his own. It'shard to not admit that Battles are flirting with traditionally nerdyinstrumental alt-rock/post-whatever styles, and, as a number of groupsthat each member was in before Battles, they are admittedly crafty. Thetrick to the craft is making something interesting enough for the bandto play and attractive enough for the audiences to enjoy it, and withthat, mark my words, Battles are something to watch.
Some of my favorite releases of the last year or so come from the US indie hip-hop contender, Mush. Their recent find, a Japanese import called Neutrino, is being sent out with a sticker comparing the release to DJ Krush, claiming that Krush isn't the only player in Japan's instrumental hip-hop scene. That may be true, but Krush is still a few moves ahead of the rest of the pack if Neutrino's eponymous release is any indication.