Stars of the Lid make the finest drone-rock around, and everyone knows it. I remember hearing them for the first time and turning to a friend and saying "Who needs drugs when you can listen to music like this?"

Upon experiencing them live and then hearing "Gravitational Pull vs. the Desire for an Aquatic Life" a few years ago, SotL redefined for me the aesthetic of 'ambient' music and just how beautiful it can be. Now Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride (and others, including previous collaborator painter Jon McCafferty and film artist Luke Savisky) return with 124 more minutes of sleepy soliloquy.

And the gybe! side projects continue to grow in number. It's almost as though they're becoming more of a commune of musicians, a collective whose parts are ever-changing and ever-growing. This release features a lot of the same components and dynamics we've come to expect from gybe! and Silver Mt. Zion: field recordings, strings, chiming guitars, loud-soft variations, solid drumming.

Although this release came out first in 1999 through Origin in Sweden, it has only been picked up by Apollo (an R&S sub-label) earlier this year. Graham Lewis (Wire/Dome/He Said) and Andreas Karperyd (Omala) have teamed up again, but not as He Said Omala this time. While I have been a Wire fan for nearly two decades, the Graham Lewis material can always be hit or miss, yet when he's paired up with a good collaborator, the results can be incredible. Fortunately, the collection of ten songs deftly combines the strengths of the Karperyd's undeniably hypnotic electronics and the super sexy voice of Lewis.

LPD's frontman has delivered his solo release for 2001 rather late, butthe wait (if you consider it a wait as the volume of material from LPDand related projects exceeds everyone else) was worth it. 'Caste' is aone-track CD with a multitude of songs or 'movements'. The phasesevolve over the course of 18+ minutes from pulsating drum machine andvocal plays, creepy ambient horrorscapes, cut-up samples and distortednoises, familiar Ka-Spellian anthemic calliope music, and theoccasional playful keyboard ditty. Various points seem to either harkback to the more sound-based (as opposed to song-based) LPD or paytribute to Neu!, Residents, and the more experimental Pink Floyd era.Thankfully, there isn't a weak link in the chain: unlike many of thesolo Ka-Spel discs, this one is absent of the occurance of anerve-grating piece which goes on way too long. I haven't counted theamount of movements in the disc yet, but it's safe to say that ifthere's anything on here you're not getting into, just wait a coupleminutes and it'll all shift gears again.

 

samples:

• 3:00-4:00
• 30:30-31:30
• 49:30-18:30

Anita Lane first came to music circa the late '70s via the Nick Cave-led posse The Birthday Party and later as a founding member of his solo band The Bad Seeds. Since the mid-'80s she has recorded some singles and the solo album Dirty Pearl and has collaborated with Die Haut, Bad Seed Mick Harvey, Barry Adamson, Einstüzende Neubauten and Gudrun Gut. In particular, Harvey is her longtime musical guru and is once again responsible for production and much of the instrumentation for this 10 song album.

Part of the Elephant 6 collective (Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia TremorControl, etc.), Beulah craft clever pop with intelligent lyrics thatbite and chew at the witty edges, all with less spacey dreamscapes thantheir brethren. After releasing two albums on as many labels, Beulahwere set to make their "major label debut" with this, their thirdrecord. Then the label, Capricorn, went away in the Unigram merger. AndBeulah were left out of the deal. Some former employees of Capricornformed Velocette Records — also the current home to Jack Logan, VicChesnutt, and Jucifer — and now they are releasing "The Coast Is NeverClear." And it's worth the wait. The album is different enough fromBeulah of "When Your Heartstrings Break" to be considered artisticgrowth, but enough of the same to please any Beulah fan. The productionseems a little smoother and clearer, and the mix more well-rounded, butthe songs contain that great full-fledged pop sound and the ironiclyrics you've always loved. On "A Good Man Is Easy To Kill," MilesKurosky's lyrics reach their finest hour, as he sings about the fearsof love and the beatification of the desired: "Give up give up yourlove/I promise it's not gonna kill ya" and "And when they cut out yourlung you said we could all breathe easy." The imagery is what'simportant, as anyone can sing songs about the trials and tribulationsof love. It takes the special ability to paint the picture for you soyou can see it for yourself to make the grade. There are a few minordisappointments. "Hello Resolven," though short, has all of the charmof a Beck b-side, which, given some of his a-sides, can't ever bepretty. And in some places it seems almost as though these songs wereintended for a major label debut by an indie artist: water down theirtrademark sound so that the average listener can stomach it. Overall,though, a strong release from these architects of fine pop music.

 

samples:

• Hello Resolven
• A Good Man Is Easy To Kill
• Gene Autry

No matter how much they kick and scream, sometimes you just have to ripthat acoustic guitar out of the hands of the sissies. Maybe that's whatAstralwerks and Source were thinking when piecing together the 'remix'album of Norway's answer to black metal. I have to admit I'm a littlejaded about the concept of remix albums, and while it's rare I evenlike an entire remix disc, I can safely say I enjoy this one far morethan the originals. Nine songs (three of them twice) have been pluckedfrom the group's 'Quiet is the New Loud' album and have beentransformed by collaborations, remakes, rearrangements and remixes.Most of the time, the songs actually sound more 'complete', withadditional instruments added in cases like David Whittaker's stringarrangement enhanced version of "Toxic Girl", Riton's remix of "TheGirl Back Then" or Andy Votel's remix of "Winning a Battle, Losing theWar". Evil Tordievel does a punchy brass-heavy cover of "LeaningAgainst the Wall" while Alfie goes bass, percussion and distortedguitar overboard with their cover of "Failure." Ladytron skillfullyleave their muddy analogue synth sounds and chunky beats all over theirremix of "Little Kids". The most impressive contribution, hands down,would have to be the virtuoso sampling and playground antics of FourTet's "The Weight of My Words" (so good that an instrumental versionwas included). Fans shouldn't worry, however, as through all of thesealterations, however, the overall sense of sensitive new-age whiteguy-ness prevails. Thankfully this time around, the coupling musicisn't nearly as sappy.

 

samples:

• The Weight of My Words (Four Tet remix)
• Winning a Battle, Losing the War (Andy Votel remix)
• Little Kids (Ladytron remix)

They say timing is everything. Sometimes the timing is too eerie forwords. This is the debut album from explosions in the sky, if you don'tcount their self-released CD put out a few years ago (judging fromtheir comments about it on their website, they'd prefer not to countit, either). The album's full title is "those who tell the truth shalldie, those who tell the truth shall live forever," and the artwork isjust plain frightening. The cover has an angel emitting rays out of itshands towards a plane in the sky, while the heads and rifles ofsoldiers march underneath. Inside, a drawing of the plane isaccompanied by the caption "this plane will crash tomorrow." Another ofthe angel alone says "help us stay alive." It's funny how some eventswill make you question/believe in clairvoyance, or just examinesimilarities in a whole new light. Does any of this apply to the musicinside? A lot, apparently. explosions in the sky create epic guitarrock instrumentals much in the vein of Mogwai or the harder moments ofgybe!, and this release is like the soundtrack of foreboding doom. It'san amazing record, capable of destroying the will of even the strongestbeing. I am personally dumbfounded at how stirring it all is. Thismusic moves from moments of extreme quiet to moments of pureannihilating walls of guitar without warning. My pulse races justwriting about it now. The opening track, "greet death," breaks you withits crushing noise until the harmonic guitar line turns it intosomething much more beautiful and frightening. And there's a bit ofclairvoyance in the songs, too: on "have you passed through thisnight?" a man delivers a monologue where he says "Who's doing this?Who's killing us? Robbing us of life and light. Mocking us with thesight of what we might have known." It's horribly affecting. All inall, and eerie (now) qualities aside, this release is greatinstrumental rock music from four guys from Austin, TX. Music mattersagain. Buy this CD.

 

samples:

• Greet Death
• Have You Passed Through This Night
• Yasmin the Light

Like the last one this arrives as a double-CD and picks up where the last one left off. Once again, there's no rhyme nor reason to the order, as tracks are scattered rather randomly. While it's a good slice of what the group has been up to for the last ten years, and provides lots of pictures and bits and pieces on each song, I somehow feel this has way too much material readily available.

There's a coda to the last track on the first Eardrum disc 'Last Light'where the drums pick up speed and the sound shifts to a denser butrougher texture and although I enjoyed the album I was left wishingthey'd gone more in that direction. Now it seems they have. If you wantdeeply hypnotic heavy rhythm then the second Eardrum album is what youneed. Lou Ciccotelli might be best known as Laika's drummer, but hasalso played in God and Mass amongst others. In Eardrum he teams up withRichard Olatunde Baker to play African influenced drum patterns whichare then manipulated in the studio to make a finely wrought entrancingmusic that pushes beyond the limits of genre. Although they've beeninfluenced by such luminaries as Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Lee Perry andFela Kuti, I'm reminded more of Can's last great track 'Smoke', one ofHolger Czukay's 'ethnic forgeries'. This would have been a greatjumping off point for Can to head into the heart of darkness, butinstead they lightened up and got slicker and poppier as Czukay tookmore of a back seat. Eardrum play dark heartbeats all the way. Titleslike 'Sandblasted', 'Bone Room' and 'Darker Still' sum up these eerietwilight talking drum rumblings perfectly. Although 'Side Effects' iscertainly a multi-layered drum led album, Ciccotelli and Baker and theseven other musicians have employed a huge range of percussion anddrone instruments, and some atmospheric sax and whistles. It allcoalesces perfectly on the ominous 'Lightfell' as deep drones underpinthe shifting movement of the shadow flicker drums and snake charmingwhistles. 'Side Effects' would make a great soundtrack for a journey upa great river in a dense overgrown jungle to an unknown destination.This album is released by the Leaf label and if you go towww.posteverything.com where it's available by mail order, you canlisten to real audio excerpts.

 

Okay, first things first: I know there are going to be some folks sitting at home reading this and rolling their eyes at the idea of a 'Feminist band' and sighing, "Yeah, I'm all for womens' rights and everything but you know, their music is all the same... and well, it ain't always that great. And like, how many times do I have to listen to yet another bitchy band simulating Hole or Babes in Toyland?" so, for those people, I've got three words for you: fuck that shit.

Five films by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson have music featured on this compact collection. While over the last few weeks I have been listening to more soundtracks than ever, I've been finding that listening to them straight through (for many) can be quite repetitious. Themes frequently get repeated ad nauseam with jumbled up arrangements between instruments, scatterings of 1-minute tracks seem rather incomplete, and there's always a sense of something 'missing' — but that's just the nature of the beast. A collection like this, however provides a ton of well-developed music, carefully collected and organized, and sparks an interest in the works of both HÖH and Fridriksson.

Touch seems to be seeking out guitarists who manage to make the guitarsound like it hasn't sounded before. It seems odd that the red appled'Suspension' digipack cover wasn't one of large Mego style large cardenvelopes, like the recent Touch releases from Fennesz and RafaelToral, because Oren Ambarchi approaches the guitar with as unique anear as either of them. Like Toral and Fennesz, there is almost alwaysan underlying melodic base to what at first appears abstract, althoughAmbarchi's music probably requires more attentive listening to discernthis. About halfway through the intermittent speaker shaking drones andpulses of the title track, it sounds like his guitar morphs into anunderwater merry go round music box before it fades out in a shimmeringglow of glitch-like sparkles. A former drummer who switched to guitarbecause no one else in Sydney, Australia was willing to make music withthe kind of experimental edge he sought, Oren Ambarchi has made abeautiful record that moves onwards and upwards from nis previous Touchrelease 'Insulation'. The odd thing about 'Insulation' was thatalthough it was an improvised work, it reminded me of KarlheinzStockhausen's meticulously composed 'Kontakte' more than any of thenumerous comparisons that have been chucked Ambarchi's way. Theseinclude Keith Rowe, Tod Dokstader, Main, Dean Roberts, James Plotkin,Pimmon, Pan Sonic, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Pierre Schaefer and evenBrian Eno. That's not to say that these comparisons are unwarranted, asif you like many of the artists in that list, you may well also likeAmbarchi's deeply submerged six string soundscapes. He's moved on from'Insulation' in that he allows a little more repetition into thepicture, and this and the ultra low bass tones he coaxes from hisguitar give a warm glow to his spacious improvised pulses and rhythms.I'm not quite as amazed as many reviewers that Ambarchi creates suchunusual thrumming textures from just one little old guitar with nolaptop processing or other such trickery, as I've seen just what KeithRowe can do with an untuned guitar lying flat in a sea of springs andscrap. However that does nothing to detract from the fact that Ambarchihas made astonishing progress in relatively short time. From the widesonic range of feedback tones on 'This Evening So Soon' to the distantmemory loop simulations that open 'Wednesday' to the electron magnifieddeep bass textures and pulses of 'Gene', 'Suspension' is yet more proofthat Touch is putting out some of the best recordings around these days.

 

samples:

• As Far As the Eye Can See
• Suspension
• Wednesday

I don't think I've ever had my finger truly on the Pulse of ElectronicMusic. Sure, I've picked up some classic releases over the years and Istill get a small, guilty charge out of being "in touch" with theElectronic Literati.
With this in mind, I've never been compelled to state labels like Warpare past their prime or certainly eclipsed by other outfits that dowhat they did, circa 1995, better. (Though sadly, evidence issupporting that more and more these days.) I'm still just as eager togive a new Warp signing a try, as I would a new Morr Music or 12K disc.
So, I didn't feel guilty picking up the Brothomstates CD "Claro." Myfirst impression? "Will we ever be free of the Autechre StylisticStigma?" Admittedly, Brothomstates pepper "Claro" with a lot of niceAutechreisms that I enjoyed wholeheartedly, in spite of myself. Takenin light with Autechre's last album, the disappointing "Confield" (inmy player for a grand total of 3 listens), "Claro" is the best Autechrealbum this year. The beats are funky in a stilted way, and run farcloser to 80s electro and quasi-Detroit Techno than recent Autechreworks. And Brothomstates know how to craft a melody; I'll be damned ifsome of this doesn't remind me of my favorite Kraftwerk album "Ralf& Florian." I found myself grooving along on the train, and that'snot a bad thing at all.
I know that without the hype and critical acclaim of the poppyexperimentalism of Autechre, there would be no Warp records issue of"Claro." It's a good album; which probably won't be reviewed in apositive light by The Wire or well received by music snobbies. But,like Chris Clark's recent "Clarence Park," it is a strong effort by anartist who clearly wears his influences on his sleeve. And I see littlewrong with that.
When I'm looking for pleasant sonic trailblazing, I'd turn to Fennesz's"Endless Summer" or the myriad excellent 12K releases. But when I'mhankering for the days when Warp was putting out "Electronic ListeningMusic," Brothomstates's "Claro" makes a nice late-night snack.

 

To be honest, I thought this was downright ridiculous when I first listened. Here's some über-macho viking descendent looking dude singing songs where he repeats the same line over and over and over again. But eventually the words start making less of an impact and the music becomes the main focus, not entirely unlike those 3-D images that were popular in shopping malls in the mid-80s.

The recent work of forty something Swedish artist/composer CM Von Hausswolff fits in nicely with that of the modern minimalists (such as ?, Noto, Goem, Kim Cascone), all of whom have contributed to the Raster Music 'clear' series thus far. "Str?m" (German for "Flow") presents a constant, cyclic electric hum as a single 48 minute track. This band of energy inconspicuously wavers here and there and picks up fields of static debris and minor blips, but for the most part stays true to the course of a minimized power hum. So what are we to make of this? My personal responses to the piece have been polar opposite and of a more physiological than emotional nature. When I listen with head phones it makes me anxious while without is very calming. Something I noticed when using a disc man and head phones is that when you press 'pause' the sudden disappearance of the sound leaves a strange void in the ear drums that's simultaneously somewhat painful and somewhat pleasurable. The longer you listen to the hum before pausing, the more drastic the effect. That has become the primary focus of my time with this disc: experimenting with various ways of listening to find out the effects on my brain. I don't know if that's what Hausswolff intended but, well ... who cares? I just hope I haven't re-programmed my neurons too much ...

 

samples:

• Ström

Working the World Serpent website for the last few years, I've become more exposed to a more darker side of the spectrum than just Current 93, Coil and NWW. It's not often that I find something that I'm terribly crazy about other than those few plus the various related entities that are intertwined, but for the last couple releases from Ozymandias, I have been captivated.

Skinny Puppy/Download founding member cEvin Key (Kevin Crompton)returns with his 2nd solo outing for Metropolis Records. It seemed tome that much of the first one, 1998's "Music for Cats", was unfinishedleftovers from other projects. This album may very well be the same butit also feels fully realized as a project unto its own. Key plays justabout everything - electronics, drums, guitar, bass, etc. - andcollaborates with many: Justin Bennett (guitar, Professional MurderMusic), K. Tokoi (saxophone), Omar Torres and Kent Clelland of NativeInstruments, Bill Van Rooy (bass), Phil Western (synths,Download/Plateau), Ken Marshall (electronics, Download), all of TheLegendary Pink Dots and recently reunited Puppy compatriot Ogre, amongothers. The shadowy influence of Jamaica is cast over parts of thealbum, from the artwork to the electro dub strains, most notably in theganja haze groove of "Horopter", to the radio banter in "Klora".Saxophone riffs add an unexpectedly welcome flair to "Tatayama". "15thShade" and "A Certain Stuuckey" are likely a precursor of things tocome from the Tear Garden (Key + LPD). Both feature Edward Ka-Spel'scalm and collected, detailed spoken story telling, the former over anaddictive bass line and guitar meandering and the latter over afragmented soup of bass, synth and beats. "Frozen Sky" gives one SPflashbacks - pretty synth sequences, "Process"-era heavy duty guitarchords, vocoded vocals - and, again, is probably a precursor of futurework. The remaining tracks are mostly jittery electronic jams of therecent Download/Plateau mindset. The more Key works with a variety ofothers, the more varied and interesting the results ...

 

samples:

• 15th Shade
• Frozen Sky
• Horopter

Does Glasgow have all of the best bands in the world? In recent years,that Scottish city has given us Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, ArabStrap, the delgados, and of course, the classic Del Amitri. Sorry, Ihad to. Most of the best bands come out of Glasgow, though, and here'sanother to add to your list. Aereogramme is a brilliant fuzz rock bandwho, gladly, sound nothing like any of theie Glaswegian counterparts.This is truly a unique sound, driven by a unique songwriter, Craig B,formerly of Ganger, another great Glaswegian band. Electronic hums,buzzes, hard drum hits, squelching guitars and angry sentiments giveway to rather lush passages with Hum-like glory and a very capablevoice on top, something I'm sure Craig didn't get a chance to showcasein Ganger. And there's a great sonic variety, too. Piano joins the mix,acoustic guitar, swelling keyboards and strings. And grounding it allis a profound sense of melodies that can rouse your soul from sleep orslap it senseless. This US release, on Matador, also features threetracks from their White Paw EP, released in the UK, but not here.Because the music is so good, you are willing to forgive some of theoff-kilter or awkward moments, like the death metal shrieking on"Zionist Timing." It's great fun, but wholly unnecessary. And we loveit anyway. That's the power of Aereogramme: they'll lead you to thewater, make you drink, tell you it's piss, you'll spit it out, andeveryone will laugh. It's a good time, and it's great music. Check itout.

 

samples:

• Hatred
• The Question is Complete
• Zionist Timing