There are a few prerequisites to enjoying Dan Bern's music: you mustenjoy at least new folk music, great harmonies, and quirky lyrics.Fresh after his departure from Sony's Work label, Bern returns onMessenger Records with this, his fourth album.

There are some soundtracks that stand on their own.

Do you think Mick Harris, aka Scorn, ever regrets supporting all theguys that try to make music that sounds a hell of a lot like his? The'dark hop' category - beats, bass and deep ambient atmospheres - isfull of imitators and occasional innovators. Here's three more discs toadd to the pile.

Yes, more Anthony Rother. This one is not as good as Little Computer People, but it's still good.

Initial disclaimer: I'm not really a big fan of electro music (i.e. Drexciya, Bunker, Adult, etc. .. not the EBM stylings of Metropolis Records). Most of it just really bores me, and the "gimmicks" that seem to be found often within them (oldschool/retro sounds, vocoder vox, etc.) never really grab me. UNLESS, however, we're talking about Anthony Rother, the mastermind behind Little Computer People (and Psi Performer, and maybe some others).

The majority of NYC duo 310's catalog has been released by the UK'sLeaf label, part of the Post Everything collective, but this disc isthe debut from Manifold sub label Desolat Recordings.

New York-based composer David Shea is an exemplar of the old clichethat necessity is the mother of invention.

Arc starts things off with 2 tracks recorded live in Toronto - reallywell done, slithery tribal stuff a'la 'Culling'- era 23 Skidoo.

Australian David Thrussell first emerged in 1991 as Snog in the worldof techno pop, and has since released well-reputed albums under thenames Black Lung and Soma.

Though the V/Vm Test Records press release states this is the solodebut from classically trained Polish musician Jacek Toszek, I can'thelp but wonder if this is just one of the V/Vm lads hiding behind yetanother moniker.

Comae was one of my ten favourite CD's of 2001...

Bless Ba-Da-Ben Goldberg's sweet heart for keeping the magic going... Publishing a +200 page book with a various artist compilation CD doesn't happen easily, overnight, nor is it probably financially rewarding. Thankfully he's got the support of a number of great writers and wonderful musicians which I'm sure make the realization of the project worth it. The writings in the fifth book (I can't call these magazine issues), as Ben describes, is lacking a thematic tie. The music, however (recorded especially for the compilation) is somewhat of a tribute to Raymond Scott's classic, 'Soothing Sounds for Baby' LP without doing any cover versions or reinterpretations of the original.

While this Mego release from O'Rourke may go completely off in theother direction of his concurrent "Insignificance" in that it's a"Powerbook" disc, the compositions which make up the three title tracksvary themselves...

Subtitled "Inside the Dream Syndicate II", this is the second CD in thetrio documenting a stash of Cale's old sixties tapes unearthed byviolinist Tony Conrad.

I don't want to sound sexist, but there is something sort of endearingabout a short, horny Canadian chick with an afro and hairy armpits inskin-tight clothing prancing around and singing about her sexuality.

The Fall continue to tour a disturbing experimental past life and pack pristine venues with enthusiastic dripping venom, shambolic contempt and twisted wry amusement. "We are the new Fall," the lads hesitantly proclaim on the up an' at 'em opener, as Smith harrangues anyone who'll listen that they'd better look up! Who knows whether they'll stick it long enough to become an old Fall? The drummer's already shuffled off. For now Fall fans can ruminate on the twenty-third (at least 18% studio non-compilation) album proper from Mark E Smith and whoever else can put up with his bad Spanish accent impressions. Ditching the band that made the mostly excellent pro-tooled belter "The Unutterable", Smith has marsalled his ever expendable bedraggled combo to belt out a raw rocking set.

Keven Blectum and Blevin Blectum, a pair of freaky San Francisco art school-type chicks, have made some of the most queasy lo-fi breakbeats since Coil's Scatology. This CD collects two of their early EPs, "Snauses and Mallards" and "De Snaunted Haus." Blectum's scattered, fuzzy beats are a chorus of guttural rumbles, poops, farts, and dysenteric discharge - all messily orchestrated for maximum nausea. If you can keep yourself from laughing at the musical turds populating this bizarre album, you will start to notice sinister undercurrents afoot. The comic strip liner notes and some of the spoken word tracks begin to explain Blectum's anal fantasy land of sex-crazed, cannibalistic "snauses" and "mallards" - two complimentary lifeforms whose main functions are, apparently, to copulate and excrete out the evil, distorted songs herein. The first nine tracks are a random, misshapen assortment of various musical ideas - from distorted jungle to retro-futurist tomfoolery - none of which exist long enough to make any real impact. Beginning with track ten, Kevin and Blevin begin to unravel their terrifyingly absurd tale of a "snaunted haus" with dirty industrial beats, fragmented drum and bass, distorted voices, abstract noise, and even samples from Men at Work (on "Right Time, Right Place"). This is truly an original work; it's rather difficult to compare it to anything. However, listening to this CD repeatedly is a little like playing with your own diarrhea. I hope that these obviously talented women will decide to make a slightly more mature, less fecal album sometime soon.

 

samples:

• Anti-Duck-Tion
• Caravan Voyager
• Hotrodderdam

"Difficult" is a loaded word when used in electronic music reviews. In one context, it can be taken to mean the record is so far ahead of everything else out there that it needs numerous intense listening sessions to be understood and appreciated. On the other hand, it could simply mean that the record is an unfocussed, unlistenable and pretentious piece of crap. So when I tag these two new releases from Miami's Schematic label as being "difficult", which end of the spectrum am I referring to? Well, somewhere in between, but at least a little bit closer to the former than the latter.

Out now on Temporary Residence is the second full-length release fromXian Hawkins as Sybarite. Oddly enough, the Brooklyn-basedmulti-instrumentalist/producer/ composer has yet to finish and releasewhat he considers to be his official debut album. 'Placement Issues'collects 13 songs from various singles, compilation tracks and a coupleremixes that were limited in number, scarcely distributed, andcompletely impossible to find now. Through these single releases onStatic Caravan, Emanate, and Zealectronic, Hawkins gained the attentionof 4AD, who are scheduled to release Sybarite's debut, 'Nonument,'early on in 2002. It follows the 'Music for a Film' release, also onTemporary Residence, which was assembled as a score to the horrorb-movie, "Kill Me Tomorrow," yet the collection pulls form both earlierand later recordings. Hawkins' most high-profile gig was in the touringincarnate of Silver Apples, and listening to these recordings, it'sclear that his talents as a multi-instrumentalist were important infilling that role. Over the course of these recordings, the manskillfully delves into organic and synthetic electronics, bass, guitar,and various other odds and ends. Songs like "Otonomy" and the albumopener, "Engaged" never get too cliche or predictable, with chopped upacoustic guitar playing, distorted string samples and sharp beats. Thecombination of a lyrical bassline against unobtrusive guitar melodiesin other tracks like "Second Cities" create an attention-grabbingatomsphere that makes this disc hard to be a simple example of auralbackground, especially with the carefully positioned field recording ofa playground at the end. It's not so surprising that hiscomplex-yet-cool instrumental tunes have earned him the support of alabel who's roster includes Fridge and Kammerflimmer Kollektief.Listening to this disc back to back with the soundtrack, 'PlacementIssues' seems miles ahead, with a carefully calculated precision, muchlike the roster on Hefty excel in. My only issues with this collectionare in the rather deceptive gathering of the pieces: not only are therea couple songs missing here and there, but there's no accompanyingnotes nor are they placed in any observable order. [Perhaps that's justthe obsessive completist in me, manifesting itself onto a very youngcareer.] In the end, it's served its purpose as I'm now eager to hearhow he pieces together an album less fragmented and disjunct.

 

samples:

• Engaged
• Otonomy
• Incredible Magnetic Missive

Given enough time Jah Wobble will, hopefully, collaborate with just about everyone. Over the past few years he has successfully mixed his trademark, bedrock bass guitar styling with Laotian folk ("Molam Dub"), inventive saxophone ("Passage to Hades") and all out industrial rock ("The Damage Manual"), among others. Here he teams up with Temple of Sound, the duo of Neil Sparkes and Count Dubulah, both formerly of Transglobal Underground.