Barrelling forward with releases, John Hughes' Hefty Records has boldly issued a series of stellar limited edition 12" singles.

From Morr Music inGermany comes a wonderful offering of many of their fine artists. Don'tlet the title fool you, there's nothing to do with the former Smithslead singer on here. In the last few years, the electronic instrumentalrock hybrid scene in Germany has grown exponentially from what once wasonly a handful of acts who used to share loads of members. Collectedhere are some of the more prominent groups like The Notwist, Arovane,Lali Puna, Flowchart and the Tied & Tickled Trio. Disc one featuresfourteen new and exclusive cuts while disc two features fourteenincestuous remixes of many of the first disc's artists trading mixeswith others. Solvent remixes Kevin & Paul, Schneider TM remixesMicha Archer & Ms John Soda, while Kandis and the Tied &Tickled Trio remix each other. This provides a great introduction toMorr, which appears to be sort of taking off where Kitty-Yo decided toleave off when they pursued trashy cash cow kitch like Peaches andGonzales. Kudos to Morr for keeping the artwork alive.

In an almostanti-post-kraut movement, Ladomat (who gave us the compilation 'L'ageD'or' earlier this year) has unleashed a two-disc compilation of theirown, showcasing their artists like Sand 11, Egoexpress and CommercialBreakup. Flying in the face of the instrumental movements (like theMorr comp exposed), these groups are clearly pop-minded. The groupssing (frequently in English) and bring a jovial bounce and step totheir brand of futurism without going completely off the deep end intosomething that would wear thin after the novelty is gone. Germans canrock as they proved earlier this year, now they're telling the worldthat Germans can smile and make fun artistic music without beingstereotypically overly serious stiffs or churning out disposablecartoon techno.

The disc starts off verypromising. The rhythms are sexy and the music is rich in texture.Driving beats set the disc in motion from the start, but all of the funsoon begins to fade. What spoils the disc for me is when a guestvocalist either raps or sings. The rap is never interesting enough tohold my attention and the lyrics are rather embarassing to listen to.It's almost as if Red Snapper use vocals as a crutch for songs theyfeel need a better lead instrument, but when they keep them out, theintensity of the music grows to epic proportions. Going forward on thedisc, Red Snapper do however make some choices to keep other tracksinstrumental. A very nice option for tracks like the album closer,"They're Hanging Me Tonight," a wonderful play of overprocessed drums,guitars crying backwards and drone-like string samples.

From Tonschacht inCologne, Germany comes this heavy slate, cleverly disguised as a 7"single. I honestly don't think I own a 7" record pressed this thick.Anyhow the three tracks which compose this single bring together bothHrvatski's technical expertise of precision electro-meddling and afondness for outside sources laying down constant voices to be carriedthrough with each composition. Keith Fullerton-Whitman makes songs andsomething like this is a tease to his fans out there waiting foranother full-lengther from the boy. Look for a remix project due outsometime in January. The single's limited to 500 numbered copies buthas seemingly had an easy time making the distribution outside ofGermany.

With every new song thatcomes from this team of people named Jess out in Ohio, my interestgrows. Jessica Bailiff and Jesse Edwards have been collaborating ontracks following last year's full-length from Bailiff on Kranky, 'Hourof the Trace.' The result has been quite expansive for only a handfulof tunes - Bailiff has almost come out of hiding behind the guitardistortion for singles and compilation appearances, but on this single,more electronic space is being explored. Both sides of this limited 10"single average around ten minutes, each being two songs which flow intoeach other without distinct traditional breaks. Looking at the titles,the impression I get is that this release might actually be tributal innature, "Maybe Tomorrow" on the first side is a spacious interplay ofechoed voice, guitar wash and drum machine, "Amethyst Depression" isn'ta Coil tribute but is instrumental, beat-less, pretty and sweet. Sidetwo opens with a looping guitar riff which could have easily beenlifted off of the first godspeed record. "Rene?" is the first time Ithink I've heard Jesse sing himself and the song is rounded out with adrum machine sounding loop which eerily doesn't sound like it's loopingcorrectly. Rounding out the end of the side is "Your Sounds MakePatterns in My Eyes (for SOTL)," which is undoubtedly a nod to Stars ofthe Lid. Unfortunately it's all too short and the gorgeous soundscapeof that gem lasts around two minutes. If we saw the two expand on this,make it a full 20 minutes long and include it on the next JessicaBailiff full-lengther, that release is bound to become a classic.

According to a coupleparagraphs' worth fcof nonsense in the liner notes, "The Wolves'Hollow" is some kind of concept album involving wolves from outerspace. I honestly couldn't see the connection with the wolves, exceptfor samples of wolves howling, snarling, or squealing every now andthen.
It's a strange listen. All the beats are mutated beyond descriptioninto clicks, snicks, slurps, and a very familiar boing that I suspectwas plucked from the old Nintendo game Metroid (another featuredelement in the liner notes). Beautiful melodies weave in out of nowhereand leave just as suddenly -- just as Marumari gets a groove going, itfades out, comes back, reverses itself, speeds up, disappears entirelyinto the layers of background noise. Towards the end of the album therough-and-tumble, loping beats fade into hums and drones, strangemumbles and burbles. I don't mean for it to sound like I'm describingMouse on Mars, though the same feeling is there at times; there aremore straight-ahead rock-on moments and less goofy-fun analogtwiddling, on the whole.
Sometimes electronic music is so unintelligible or inhuman that evenspeculating about its motivation is pointless. Despite this album'stendency to wander in strange directions and sometimes get flat-outweird, I never lost the feeling that someone was behind it all, happily(if inexpertly) pushing buttons and twirling knobs. Confusing, maybe,but Marumari brings a brand of playfulness to his music I've yet tocome across anywhere else. He's not cheeky or smart-assed like ?-Ziq orAphex Twin, or gleefully juvenile and iconoclastic like Kid606 or V/VM.Instead, it's the wide-eyed, naive, incomprehensible joy of (I suppose)alien cyborg puppies.

My loyalties are somewhattoward the album, with my pathetic excuse for the album being how oftenare we (AMC/Eitzel fans) going to have an AMC tribute album come downthe track? One could take the view that something is better thannothing. However, that sort of argument grows sour very quickly. Wouldyou rather have the shoddy film "Man On The Moon" or would you ratherhave no Andy Kaufman biopic at all? This kind of question irks me whenit comes to entertainment; I'm guessing that a real answer is hard tofind.
That said, for anyone who has yet to pick the album up yet...uh...let'sjust say that maybe you should put it on the back burner for now.Hearing the first chords of the opening song "What Holds The WorldTogether" done by Ida was in itself one of the best music experiencesthis year, priming me for an album in which almost every single songsounds the same. For the most part the songs are played and arranged"as is"--no interesting and/or notable departures that usually make thetedious genre of tribute albums bearable. These are hard words towrite; I can barely play music myself and applaud the kind of effortthat goes into a project such as this, but some of these musiciansalmost make AMC out to be a parody that so many tried to peg the bandas, a sad, mopey bedsit band incapable of rocking or doing anythingrequiring more than emotion.
But in his defense, Paul Austin cops to so much in the liner notes: "Arecord aiming to represent the whole sonic scope of AMC would includenot only songs of love and hope so heart-wrenching your knees mightbuckle; it would include also a dose of flailing dissonance, a dollopof honky tonk pun tossing, and the occasional flat out rocker. This,unapologetically, is not that record." Um, then what is it? A showcaseof 12 very talented musicians basically covering AMC and not doing itwith very much variety? I'm sure we're all tired of the music mediapigeonholing AMC and Eitzel as nothing but dour, sad miserablists.Maybe I'm going out on a limb, but it's the hope and beauty that all oftheir music gives out that make me listen to their music, not what somepeople believe to be their token "oh isn't the world just unrepentantlyshitty" attitude.
But, I suppose, a sub-par AMC tribute album is better than no AMCtribute album at all...and much of this music is quite pretty andsoothing to listen to on a cold Northern Ohio night when there's awinter weather advisory, no less. But taking into account that I am alazy git who applauds the fact that it was put together at all, itcould have been better.

Matmos, Lesser, Kit Clayton, Slicker, Designer, Cex, Hrvatski, Kid 606 and 21 other artists have all exported tracks for this 2xCD release from the German label Klangkrieg. The collection is a fine offering of tunes and will no doubt serve as both a great introduction to some of these noteworthy acts and for current fans an opportunity to collect more songs from the groups.

The uprise andinternational recognition in the last decade of music scenes in placeslike Chicago, San Francisco and Berlin has all been due to a multitudeof factors. I attest their success to seemingly fearless efforts madeby small startup record labels, releasing as much music as they can,with bands integrating as much as possible. I know from my own personalexperience living in Boston that things are tough here despite the fewexamples of some excellent bands. So few groups actually pay attentionto each other, as everybody seems to want to be stars on their own andmake it big somewhere else. With that in mind, big fuckingcongratulations go out to Rick Webb of Archenemy for compiling thiscollection: 20 tracks from Boston and Boston-friendly artists. In theyears I have personally known and worked with Webb, we have had greatmusic discussions, each of us respecting each other's musical knowledgeand taste very much. "Know Your Enemy" features Neptune, Mistle Thrush,Freezepop and many other acts you've never heard of, who have neverheard of me either however. Whether it's the serene electronica wash ofIntelevision or the J-Pop of Freezepop, the 80s retro-trashy tune fromThe Mourning After, the punchy aggressive distorted homemade metalllicsounds of Neptune, or the embarassing cover tune of "To Love Somebody"by The Boy Joys, the heart-felt delivery is genuine all around. Thepackaging is such a stunning reflective multi-fold digipack that itcan't be scanned properly on a scanner, the production varies due tothe multi-genred experience, but it flows quite nicely and I'll standby Rick even if I'm not crazy about all of these bands! Other pastefforts from Boston labels have had a mix almost too homogenous for itto be taken seriously outside of the area: something like this—cleverlypackaged and not presented as a "Boston thing"—works perfectly.

The eponymous thirdfull-lengther from Kreidler is almost a futuristic nod to theinnovators of 70s Kraut Rock. The disc is nearly all instrumental, savetwo tracks with vocal contributions from artful indie clown Momus andArgeninian pop star Leo Garcia (not to be confused with the Dominicanbaseball player, professor, Wyoming politician, classical guitarist, orSalsa dance instructor). The quartet is down to a trio since theirbassist departed as his side project, To Rococo Rot become more of amain outlet. The bass lines are beefier than ever however, and whetherthe songs are serene throbbing electronic easy listening gems like"Bewitched", a Can-like vocal tunes as "Mnemorex" or a Kraftwerkianhook-based ditty like "Do It", the production is slick and inviting.Kreidler's tunes are pretty damned catchy and their generally jovialfeel suggests these Germans are undoubtedly having fun. Put yourlaptops down and start having fun.

samples:

• Mnemorex (with Momus)
• Do It
• Beauties

With almost no down timefrom cross-continental touring and releasing albums as Panacea andDisorder, Matthis Mootz has released this scarcely limited mini-LP onAnt-Zen. Limited to 680 copies, "Kopyright Liberation" is built fromsources from the now legendary Kopyright Liberation Front, a.k.a. theKLF. While this 40-minute mini-LP is rather tributal in nature—withtrack titles "Trancentral," "Ru Con," and "Reefer Spin,"—a scatteringof micro elements have been recycled in an entirely new surrounding.The record strays from the more minimalistic tendencies of the firsttwo m² [pronounced and sometimes listed as Squaremeter]releases (three if you consider Brasilia). Mootz weaves an intricatetapestry of low end rumblings, NASA beeps, clicks for measure and tempomarks, and speech samples with spacious effects. For a man known in thedrum and bass world for his lengthy intros, some of these songs cantake up to six minutes before every individual element introduced beginto play with each other. This could possibly be my favorite Squaremeterrelease to date.

samples:

• Kopyright Liberation
• Transcentral
• Ru Con

This is what all variousartists compilations should be like: 70+ minutes of nothing but solid,exclusive tracks reasonably priced at $12 post paid. "Docking Sequence"is the fifteenth release and first compilation from Portland, OR basedlabel BSI Records. The cd (and double LP which features 4 extra tracks)brings forth just about every flavor of (mostly) instrumental, moderndub imaginable - digital/analog, programmed/live, hip hop, noise,ambient, experimental, whatever - from peoples, places and studiosworldwide. Names that will likely draw you in are Muslimgauze, TheRootsman, Twilight Circus and DJ Spooky, but the playing field isevened out by the full roster. Black Faction brings the Afghan front toManchester with mellow Middle Eastern backgrounds and smooth beats.Sweeping strings and bird calls permeate a brief but stunning untitledMuslimgauze track. He-Man growls ragga styled vocals over string samplestabs and snare rhythm on "Killer". Phase Selector Sound lay down anindelibly deep ambient bass groove with "Sky Cup". Sound Secretion's"Perpetual Next..." is an onslaught of scratching, cut-up rap samplesand massive beats. Drifting female sighs are the perfect touch toJ-Boogie's laid back "Gemini Dub". Alpha & Omega conjure up KingTubby with generous helpings of melodica in "Wicked Man Drop". TwilightCircus present an even deeper mix of "Depth Charge" from the recent"Dub Voyage" album. Raz Mesinai's (aka Badawi) "Excerpt from TheUnspeakable" is a tense stringed nightmare. Onry & Oldominion's"Jezebelian" begins and ends with a hilarious list of shout outs and asuper smooth sample and double MC flow sandwiched in-between. Otaku's"Patterns.." slices and dices with serious drum 'n bass fills. And lastand least, the oh so over hyped DJ Spooky wraps things up with a ratherdrab dub collage. Altogether "Docking Sequence" is a crossbred success.As much as I'm looking forward to a 2nd volume, I need to do some catchup on many of these bands back catalogs first.

samples:

• Muslimgauze - untitled
• Sound Secretion - Perpetual Next
• Onry & Oldominion - Jezebelian
• Phase Selector Sound - Sky Cup

After a year full of unpronounceable non sequiturs masquerading as album titles, Boards of Canada bring us the most aptly named release in ages. "In a Beautiful Place out in the Country" is exactly where Mark Eoin and Mike Sandison intend to take you with this new EP, and they succeed admirably.

The band that has wowedcollectors and critics alike has compiled their first 7" singlereleases onto one charming compact disc. The disc collects theirrecordings which stem back to about 1998 but omits the tracks whichappeared on this year's earlier CD EP release, "A Fading Summer." Italso adds a couple new, previously unreleased songs. The Clientele isone of my favorite new groups to emerge in the last couple years. Theirmusic has a heavy feel of 60s indie-pop. The sound is melodic with abasic usage of drums, guitar and bass. Primitive home studio electronicgear gives a sort of charm that translates well to their original vinylreleases. Subject matters revolving around rain, darkness and love,clearly displaying the group can only be English, almost dreaming of aday when they could have easily filled the opening slot on a mid-60s UKtour of Gerry and the Pacemakers. With songs as sugar sweet as "(I WantYou) More Than Ever" and "Saturday," prolonged listens may result indental work. The instrumental competancy of the group is something thatis witnessable in their live performances, while the members can beobserved with playing unobtrusive melodies using the entire fretboardsof the stringed instruments. Bass lines are melodic and gentle, asJames isn't copping out by playing root notes of chords while thedrummer has an undeniably talented balance of control and subtledelicacy. Charming ballads and blissful love songs are not a bad thingif they're done with sincerity, and I think the group are doing a finejob of mastering the art.

samples:

• (I Want You) More Than Ever
• Saturday
• Reflections After Jane (All the Dust and Glass)

The latest release fromStaalplaat's prolific Mort aux Vaches series comes to us from theGerman drone outfit Troum. Much like their previous incarnation MaerorTri, Troum are masters of the slow progression, be it in terms ofintensity, volume, style, or all three, as in the case of this release.Sen, which consists of one hour-long track, begins quietly withdelicate reverberations and soft metallic ringing: sonic architectureso subtle that one might not even notice the gradual accumulation ofthe duo's trademark sound. Troum's skill as artists in field of dronestruly lies in their ability to craft them with such beauty. All toofrequently are we besieged with power electronics artists who employthis technique in ways that are either overwhelming or boring. Bylayering dones with wistful electronic spirals, Troum lends them anundeniable prettiness. It isn't until twenty-five minutes into Sen thatthese almost gossamer soundscapes give way to the throb of atranslucent beat, which in turn melts into rhythmic patches ofdistortion as the album takes on creepier, harsher textures. Thesetwists and turns are, however, not ungraceful in the slightest, butdissolve into one another with fluid ease. Finally, stripping down to asolitary, nearly inaudible echo, Sen fades to an end just as gently asit began.

samples:

• Excerpt 1: 24:33-25:37
• Excerpt 2: 41:49-42:53
• Excerpt 3: 57:45-58:45

The transition has indeed been made from the hip yet relatively obsure Chain Reaction label in Germany to the international powerhouse known as Matador for this, the third full-lengther from Andrew Pekler, a.k.a. Sad Rockets. While the output may be labeled as a medium-paced modern dub hybrid, the inputs are almost completely organic, reminiscent more of the older school masters than many electronic contemporaries.

Jan St. Werner (of Mouse On Mars) and Markus Popp (of Oval) have cooked up a third offering of glitchy, cryptic ambience for us, this time without all the rhetoric about music as software and digital revolutions in musical composition.

 

Richard Dorfmeisterteamed up with Rupert Huber for a fine selection of loungey trip-hopworthy of prancing around with bell-bottoms in. Sure, something likethis can sit very well along with Kruder & Dorfmeister projectslike Peace Orchestra, but the difference in this one is more emphasison a deeper soul. Female vocals are introduced in the form of samplesto give it a little more human and less mechanical spirituality thanthe typical white German electro dubtacular sound. If it were 1992,this would be labelled as "chill out room music." Serene andgalactical, this would provide a great soundtrack to lying in your roomwith your friend or lover, staring up at the glowing stars stuck to theceiling. Illegal substances optional of course.

samples:

• Orozco
• Doris Dub
• Ocean Beat

Fucking incredible! JackDangers has a clever way of teasing his fans. Once an album has soakedinto the culture, imitators spring up and fade away, only shortly afterpeople stop listening to his album, unexpectedly something pops out ofnowhere that reminds us all how incredible he really is. "EccentricObjects" is no exception. The record comes as a 12" single withflexi-disc, orderable through Sputnik7.com only, all four tracks on the12 are some of his finest stuff, bringing in the crashing breakbeats,organic sounds, thunderous effects and driving basslines that are sodamn signature Jack Dangers material. This is the stuff many peopledream of while sitting in their rooms, watching mind-numbing televisionshows and getting fat on cheese. "Hey wouldn't it be great to do musiclike this...?" Little do they know it's been happening for many manyyears. The strength of these tracks stand well completely on their own,while making any fan salivate just thinking of a future full-lengther.For a limited time, a flexi-disc with two bonus soundscapes isincluded. The ever entertaining "Peristaltic Wave" and "My Shorty" usecollected sound samples from strange archives of the 50s and 60s. Getthis while you still can, while these songs may be compiled onto afuture release, the versions will probably be altered while theflexi-disc tracks will probably never resurface.

samples:

• Fragments
• Behemoth
• Structures
• Peristaltic Wave