03 December 2016

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Albums and Singles

"A brand new collaborative work from Mica Levi (aka Micachu) and Oliver Coates. "Remain Calm" showcases both musicians’ background in classical composition as well as their restless impulse to blur the boundaries between contemporary genres, from grime to techno to drone. There’s something very specifically British about the compositions, the soundtrack to a supermarket car park on a rainy weekday afternoon, whilst ghosts of pirate radio flicker in and out of earshot from passing cars. Shades of Iannis Xenakis, Aphex Twin, Burial and Scott Walker’s film music are suggested in certain passages, but the sum of its parts are a very singular soundworld and a stunning piece of work."

-via Experimedia

More information can be found here.

27 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

There is a distinctly lo-fi theme that runs through Colin Blanton's (ant'lrd) newest release. The three lengthy pieces are all nicely covered in a light haze of noise and distortion, but it never fully obscures the beautiful melodies and motorized rhythms that lurk beneath that scratchy, decaying surface. Instead, that element of dirt and grime enhances what it covers, resulting in an album that wonderfully blends the raw with the delicate.

Whited Sepulchre Records

The first moments of "Hood" were immediately captivating to me via low tuned drum machines and pleasant melodies underscoring the restrained surging feedback.There is a clear edge of dissonance throughout its nearly 11 minute duration, but the simple melodic progression is the focal point.Blanton continues to add new elements to the mix, fleshing it out in depth and complexity.The final transition is into a massive wall of humming distortion that makes for a fitting, chaotic deconstruction of what all preceded it.

"Kasuisai" is at first similar, leading in with the noisy hum of a guitar amplifier and a low fi beat box clattering away.Blanton sculpts the noise and feedback into abstract, yet clearly structured shapes as he slowly brings in more conventional guitar sounds, again acting as a great melodic counterpoint to the static.What almost resembles an organ appears as well, generating a rapid melody that is repetitive but hypnotizing.As before, the piece eventually transitions into an expanse of metallic scraping and rattling dissonance, echoing away in a lo-fi universe.

The low rumbling of a guitar amplifier also becomes an ambient expanse to open the lengthy "Msdass".However, the overall sound of the nearly 20 minute piece is different compared to what preceded it on the first side.Shimmering, warm layers of static and distortion are cast out, chaotic but not loud or ugly.Instead it becomes a multitude of sweeping, inviting waves of sound.While at times overt guitar-like tones glide through the misty mix, it never becomes the primary focus.

Blanton uses the extra time to build the composition more slowly, layering in more and more noisy elements.It becomes an almost fully sustained wall of noise, but not a harsh one, that continues to be warm and inviting, even as the conventional structure seems to fall apart.As the piece moves on, the overall sound becomes one that is more skewed towards the low end of the frequency spectrum.On the whole, the song is less about the obscured melodies from before and is instead a sustained cloud of drowsy, somnolent noise that lulls far more than it roars.

The lo-fi sheen that covers Sleep Drive may serve to blanket and blur the melodies that Blanton creates, but his natural ability of restraint is a significant asset, keeping the harsher moments dialed back enough to never overshadow the more conventional melodic passages.But both elements are essential, because that gauzy fog that surrounds the entire records creates a captivating narcotic haze that makes this an extremely memorable, inviting record that is just obtuse enough to sound unique, without drifting into pure formlessness.

samples:

• Hood
• Kasuisai
• Msdass

 

27 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

One important lesson that I have learned over the years is that promising-sounding collaborations between experimental music artists are almost always disappointing, as the resultant releases tend to be half-baked edits and reworkings of improvised jams that occurred when all the musicians involved happened to be in the same town for a day.  Consequently, it was a delight to discover that this trio of Aidan Baker,  Andrea Belfi, and Erik Skodvin feel like the exact opposite of that. While this second full-length for Miasmah was admittedly improvised over the course of a couple days in Berlin, Palace is the work of a band with both strong vision and razor-sharp focus. Of the three artists involved, Palace is most similar to Skodvin's solo aesthetic, but these deliciously tension-filled and slow-burning reveries easily transcend the sum of their parts.

Miasmah

Given Erik Skodvin's degree of involvement, it goes without saying that Palace is a very "Miasmah"-sounding album, though he personally tends to weave his shadowy and cinematic soundworlds with a much lighter touch than some of the label's other artists.  In fact, the brilliance of this album lies in the incredible extreme to which all three participants take that lightness of touch, as the trio manages to conjure up a menacing series of gathering storms in such hushed and minimal fashion that a single picked note feels like a splash of color and a kick drum feels like a seismic event.  That is not to say that there is not much happening–quite the contrary, in fact.  Rather, B/B/S/ make  a gloriously simmering stew of bowed cymbals, hollow-sounding tom accents, creaking strings, brushed snares, strangled harmonics, and hovering oscillations.  On the album's arguable centerpiece ("Butcher Note"), for example, the central motif is just an unpredictably quavering oscillation and a three-note loop of plucked strings.  Gradually, however, Skodvin"s ghostly swells of guitar moans and shimmers harmonically build the piece into a considerable more complex and evocative affair as Belfi's drums skitter and clatter in all the right places.  For his part, Baker adds a visceral edge with some wonderfully gnarled bow work without ever veering into bombast.  There are also some crackling low-end electronic textures triggered by the drums, which is yet another nice (and subtle) touch.

For the most part, the rest of Palace sticks very closely to that template, which is fine by me, as it proves to be a surprisingly fertile ground and the smallest variations make a significant difference.  On another one of the album’s highlights, "Navel Oil," Belfi’s rapidly brushed cymbals sound almost like ominously shuffling maracas, while Baker simply maintains a steady one-note throb beneath Skodvin’s languorous and hazy Ebow solo.  Eventually, Skodvin builds up to playing actual notes, but they are so processed that it sounds like his solo is fighting to emerge from underwater. I especially appreciated that scrapes and string noises played just as prominent a part as the actual notes. Elsewhere, "Linber" boasts a rare clean guitar theme, but it is processed to give an illusion of a sickly, slightly out-of-tune afterimage.  Later, the trio allow themselves to open up a bit for the comparatively explosive "LA Mom," which is basically a wild drum solo beautifully embellished with roiling, swooping, and chirping guitar noise. Amusingly, it is followed by a piece ("Solo") that is literally a drum solo, but a rather welcome one, as Andrea Belfi comes very close to stealing the show all over the album.  I actually went back and investigated the band’s excellent 2013 debut (Brick Mask) and found that it is primarily Belfi’s evolution as drummer that spearheaded the trio’s impressive transformation into what they are now.  Skodvin and Baker are just as great and unconventional as ever, but it is largely Belfi’s departure from structured rock grooves that pushes Palace to a higher plane than its predecessor.

While there are a couple of aspects of Palace that could arguably be perceived as flaws, it still feels like an absolute monster of an album and a huge creative leap forward from where I am sitting.  One possible critique is that it errs a little bit on the overwhelming side as a double album and the inclusion of a drum solo normally screams "filler." That is not the case here, as I would be very hard-pressed to name any song that deserves the ax.  Rather, it just means that there is a lot to absorb and that it will be a pleasure to do so.  In fact, I am only just recently beginning to appreciate the glory of the epic closer "Combuh."  A more apt critique is that Palace is considerably less muscular than the more conventionally "rock" Brick Mask, but I think Belfi's quieter and more restrained playing is perversely even more explosive than it was before.  Granted, he was unquestionably louder back then, but the unpredictably organic and seething interplay with Skodvin and Baker here is considerably more compelling dynamically.  To my ears, Palace is a quite a staggering performance from to start to finish.  This album totally blindsided me, as I went in expecting some interesting improv and was instead gobsmacked by a volcanic tour de force of unresolved tension.

Samples:

• Butcher Note
• Navel Oil
• LA Mom

 

21 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

Late last year, Rutger Zuyderveldt teamed up with violinist Anne Bakker for the brilliantly tense, nerve-jangling, and unique Deining EP.  Naturally, when I learned that Bakker had returned to the Machinefabriek fold for an even longer work, I had to hear it.  As it turns out, however, Crumble is absolutely nothing like its predecessor at all.  Part of that is certainly due to the additional presence of vocalist Edita Karkoschka, but (as with Deining) it is ultimately Zuyderveldt that pieces everything together in service of his vision.  That vision, in this case, is quite a bizarre one, quixotically cramming gorgeous neo-classicism, sultry vocals, spiritual-sounding reveries, and a whole lot of harsh noise into a single longform piece.  As a whole, it seems a bit maniacally over-ambitious and fragmented to me, but it definitely contains a handful of wonderful moments.

Machinefabriek

The opening of Crumble easily stands as one of the most baffling and wrong-footing introductions to an album that I have yet encountered.  For the first few minutes, a wonderfully fragile and lilting violin motif unfolds over a warm beautiful bed of flute-like drones.  Gradually, a dreamily cooing loop of Karkoschka's vocals fades in along with a rising tide of static and Crumble seems like it is on course to potentially be the single most beautiful piece in Machinefabriek's massive discography.  Unfortunately, the static continues to relentlessly swell and everything else soon disappears.  For the next several minutes, the piece is literally nothing but a static blizzard of white noise.  For a moment, I suspected that either my stereo had broken or that some problem had occurred when downloading the mp3, but there is just enough hint of form within the squall to convey that it is an entirely deliberate choice (rhythmic crackling, industrial buzzing, and snatches of distant field recordings).  Stranger still is the fact that the white noise begins to escalate in intensity and additionally throws in some howling wind noises, taking Crumble perilously close to Merzbow territory.  It seems like that phase of the piece goes on forever, but it is actually just five or six minutes (still more than enough to shake most casual listeners, I suspect).  For those of us still hanging around at the 11-minute mark, however, the roaring maelstrom abruptly subsides and a very different piece of music begins in earnest.

For the most part, Crumble's second half is a showcase for Karkoschka's singing, though it is often enigmatically cut up and looped.  It is the tone of the piece that is most mysterious, however, as it begins sounding like a rather languorous and pretty spiritual or traditional piece, as Karkoschka soulfully coos over a minimal backdrop of electronic drones and understated blossoms of violin.  As with the rest of Crumble, however, the bottom simply drops out at a certain point and I am dropped into a new motif that sounds like some kind of sexy avant-garde take on the blues: Karkoschka moans and twists her way around the phrase "never find me" while Zuyderveldt maintains an ominous throb and a wonderfully shifting rhythm of electronic pops, crackles, and sizzles.  Naturally, that quickly dissolves (or crumbles) into a neo-classical interlude of churning violins and the piece basically becomes a constantly shifting hall of mirrors where strange new motifs keep appearing and I never have any idea what any of it means or why it is happening.  Crumble is a lot like a deeply conceptual prog rock epic in many ways (it even briefly sounds like one at one point), as it has a complex structure and arc that I cannot wrap my head around and gives the illusion of saying something very profound and important.  Unfortunately, I do not think that there is any great riddle to solve or any bold vision lurking within Crumble's lyrics or compositional arc.  I would not necessarily describe it as "smoke and mirrors,' but it definitely feels an abstract collage of evocative, stand-alone vignettes that is optimistically presented as an arc.  Or possibly a concept album that was deconstructed and recontextualized to strip away all of its original meaning.

Needless to say, Crumble is very much a flawed album in some very significant and fundamental ways.  The most immediately obvious one is Zuyderveldt's decision to quickly cast aside the heavenly opening motif for a prolonged wall of noise, which may have made somewhat more sense to me if that theme had reappeared later.  It does not.  As far as I can tell, nothing important ever makes more than one appearance, which is one of Crumble's many perplexing shortcomings as a composition.  If I can accept that it is just an experimental and kaleidoscopic fantasia, however, Crumble can be appreciated as an inspired and fitfully wonderful departure from Machinefabriek's comfort zone.  Even if it does not hold together, Crumble fires off one interesting idea after another once it gets rolling.  Also, there are number of truly great "set pieces" strewn throughout the piece that easily could have been the basis for shorter (and superior) stand-alone works (the opening violin theme, the dubwise rhythm of clicks and pops, and the very menacing sounding swoops that appear during the crescendo). I just wish I could know what Zuyderveldt was thinking when he decided to give Crumble the shape he did, as the foundation for a great album is definitely here, but it seems like everything was willfully taken in a very counterintuitive and contrary direction.  Ultimately, I have to reluctantly damn Crumble with the faint praise of "an interesting effort," but Zuydervelt at least deserves some admiration for conjuring up such a radical detour this deep into his career.

• Excerpt One
• Excerpt Two
• Excerpt Three

 

20 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

Following up her excellent album Gather & Release from earlier this year on Category of Manifestation, percussionist Sarah Hennies showcases her continually developing skills as both a composer and performer. Intentionally stretching the definition of what truly constitutes percussion at times, Everything Else is another distinctly different, yet no less amazing entry in her discography.

No Rent Records

The tape is made up of two side-long pieces, both of which differ notably in their composition as well as their construction and instrumentation."Falsetto" is the more conventionally percussive of the two works.The recurring element throughout is a series of ringing bells (intentionally procured second hand and in poor condition) that begin immediately and never seem to stop throughout.Subtle variations are there to be heard, both from intention and from the simple physicality of the lengthy performance.

Throughout this what sounds like other elements are brought in, either as direct inclusions or psycho-acoustic effects from the repetition. Bits of what could be digital interference or careful processing are noticeable, as is the more overt transition from the chiming bells into other, less obvious percussive instrumentation.Popping, crackling sounds and fluttering rhythmic elements all appear, alongside a hypnotic sense of repetition before ending in a less bell-heavy sound at the end.

The second piece, however, is Hennies using a more liberal definition of the word "percussion" by basing the work largely on (from what the photos in the tape would indicate) a rhythm track based around the sound of ripping notebook paper. Compared to the more focused and dense first half, "Everything Else" is looser and less focused.The approach is more of a free improvisation one, both given its structure and its unique approach to instrumentation.Beyond the tearing paper rhythm track, what may be a harmonica approximates a dying car horn as other non-specific found sounds are placed in the mix.It is overall chaotic and difficult sounding, and what almost resembles the sound of a bird call and a typewriter makes an appearance (or instrumentation that sound like such) with some passages resembling more traditional droning, tone-heavy electronic passages.

The title is intrinsic to the underlying concept of this release as well:using the description of percussion as "everything else" other than what is considered traditional instrumentation, it becomes defined by what it is not, drawing a parallel to queer identities and her own experiences as both a person and as a performer.While "Everything Else" is the more chaotic of the two, "Falsetto" is similarly unstructured, with Sarah Hennies not only intentionally stretching the definition of percussion, but also composition as well.There is form within this chaos, however, and what may have began as improvisations end up sounding like more composed endeavors, just solidifying her skill at composition as much as performing.

samples:

• Falsetto (Excerpt 1)
• Falsetto (Excerpt 2)
• Everything Else

 

20 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

As an ostensibly cultured person, I pay embarrassingly little attention to current activity in the modern classical and jazz scenes, which is likely a lingering remnant of my uncompromisingly punk/DIY-centric formative years.  For the most part, this has not backfired on me, but occasionally something absolutely amazing manages to pass by me totally unnoticed, such as Michael Gordon's staggering minimalist epic Timber (2011).  Thankfully, fate has conveniently intervened to give me a second chance to celebrate the joys of this singular percussive masterwork, as it has now surfaced yet again as a live album with a companion disc of remixes from a murderers' row of experimental luminaries like Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, Squarepusher, and Ikue Mori.  For the most part, the original piece proves extremely difficult to improve upon, but several of the remixers certainly make a compellingly valiant effort.

Cantaloupe

"Timber" is a wryly prosaic title for this piece, as it was composed specifically and solely for the simantra, which is an obscure Eastern Orthodox percussive instrument.  In reality, however, the simantra is literally just a common 2x4" piece of wood.  More specifically, "Timber" is composed for six such pieces of wood, each cut to a different length in order to provide a different pitch.  Amusingly, the sheer simplicity and mundanity of that instrumentation is illustrated in an NPR video of Mantra Percussion performing the piece at a Lowe’s hardware store to an audience of mildly curious shoppers and employees.

While the original piece was separated into five movements and clocks in at just under an hour, the live version here (not recorded at a hardware store, sadly) is presented as just a single uninterrupted piece.  Admittedly, six boards and some mallets do not offer a hell of a lot in the way of melodic possibility (Gordon is a composer, not a magician), but the piece nonetheless reminds me favorably of Steve Reich's similarly percussive and pulsing Music for 18 Musicians, albeit with the harmonic and melodic components replaced entirely with waves of waxing and waning hollow wooden textures.  There are some quieter interludes, but the piece is primarily just an elegantly simple and hypnotically pulsing motif shifting through endless dynamic variations.

Unsurprisingly, that brilliantly hyper-minimal theme presented all of the aspiring remix artists with quite a comically limited palette to exploit.  As a result, many of the remixes sound quite similar to one another, as even the most inventive and distinctive artists had a difficult time finding unique ways to reinvent the material.  Naturally, I was most interested in hearing how Fennesz and Tim Hecker dealt with the puzzle, which turns out to be "somewhat similarly," though Hecker admittedly bolsters his busier and more tense textural and rhythmic transformations with some bass throb while Fennesz opts for some densely mind-warping drones.  While he still sticks largely to the script, Fennesz winds up being one of the more adventurous re-shapers, injecting some bizarrely Lynch-ian (if understated) noir-jazz touches into his piece.  Perversely, however, it is largely the artists that I am not obsessive about that completely steal the show, most specifically Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never, and HPRIZM of Anti-Pop Consortium.  To their credit, all three artists find a way to radically change the tone of the piece into something uniquely their own:  Squarepusher with an uncharacteristically understated and melancholy guitar motif, OTP with an uncharacteristically understated and dreamlike piano motif, and HPRIZM with a darkly sexy post-industrial groove.  Elsewhere, Ikue Mori succeeds by simply embracing the aesthetic more completely and intuitively than anyone else, warping "Timber" into a deeper and more hallucinatory piece without tampering at all with its fundamental spirit.

Of course, it is still Gordon's hugely complex and ambitious original that most inspires awe here, but there is certainly something to be said for condensing its essence into a more easily digestible dose.  In fact, that has long been a sticking point for me with Gordon's original pieces (he more frequently interprets the work of others in his role as one of the artistic directors of Bang on a Can): he is certainly prone to flashes of genius, but his work can sometimes be so radical and uncompromising that I have a hard time making it through an entire piece (the most striking example being his brutally out-of-tune score for Decasia). That said, Timber Remixed is quite listenable and absorbing for an entirely percussion-based album.  As enjoyable as the main course is, however, it is primarily the much shorter reworkings that will keep me coming back to the album again and again.  I certainly do not love all of them, but the original material is more than strong enough to sustain twelve variations from some of the greatest talents in experimental music and it is a delight to hear so many musicians I admire trying their hand at something outside their well-worn comfort zones.

• Oneohtrix Point Never, "Timber"
• Ikue Mori, "Timber"
• Squarepusher, "Timber"

 

 

19 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

"Demdike Stare return with their first album since 2012’s Elemental, a feral, loose-limbed and angular rave odyssey wrecking Dancehall and Jungle templates via found sounds, Ambient and exotic spaces.

Wonderland plays the full breadth of the duo’s wide open aesthetic, taking their Testpressing series of dancefloor lashes - issued on 12” between 2013-2015 - as the diving board for an innovative, reverie-like album forming a parallel dancefloor narrative where the spirits of mid ‘90s jungle and digital dancehall are made plasmic, malleable, and syncretised with industrial and ambient techno sound design.

Rooted in record collecting and the art of DJing, and in line with Demdike’s atypical style and pattern, Wonderland veers across styles and temporalities, forming wormholes between Hardstyle and submerged jungle in the curtain-raiser, "Curzon," and going in like Slimzee slicing up grime dubs with jungle in the crackden atmosphere of "Animal Style," whereas the eleven-minute "Hardnoise" catches them at full stretch, tumbling from head-rinsing noise to a dank, sublow techno mission framed by unsettling ambience somewhere between Prurient’s Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement episodes and a mutant variant of classic Exotica, before coughing you up someplace else.

At the album’s epicentre, "FullEdge (eMpty-40 Mix)" obliterates distinctions between dancehall and techno as you’ve never heard, an edit that re-laces their formerly mutually exclusive ligature in a belly-tightening and brilliantly messed-up new mutation, before "Sourcer" prangs out like a cyborg calibrating itself to ragga jungle arrhythmia, and the psychoacoustic nose drip of "Fridge Challenge" dissipates into the ‘static thizz of "Overstaying" at the LP’s perimeter, like some DJ Sprinkles cut paused at mid-flow and delayed, re-shaped into a tense burner.

It’s probably the most enjoyable and loose-limbed hour of music in their catalogue, or that you’ll likely hear in these weird, angst-ridden times."

-via Boomkat

19 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

ETERNAL BEYOND is a collaborative project set up by brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka MY CAT IS AN ALIEN (MCIAA) and JOËLLE VINCIARELLI (Talweg, La Morte Young).

All began in Spring 2015, when outsider instantaneous composers MCIAA traced a new magic triangle on a map between their hometown Torino, their current "Alien Zone" secret base in Western Alps, and the mysterious area over Nice’s hills known as Le Village Nègre.  Not far from there, in the small and private recording studio of French underground queen Joëlle Vinciarelli, MCIAA recorded and produced a long session of instantaneous compositions where the duo’s otherwordly sounds and Roberto’s eerie wordless vocals melted with Vinciarelli’s unique, underwordly voice. An antique upright piano soundboard, self-made wooden string instruments, modified electronic devices, an old pendulum clock mechanism, bells and an old trumpet were played during the 4-day recording session. The result, purposely bypassing the present, builds a bridge between the archaic and the future, leading the way to what can only be defined as a groundbreaking ETERNAL BEYOND.

Releases November 30, 2016

More information can be found here.

19 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

As foretaste of My Cat Is An Alien’s 20th anniversary in winter 2017, their new LP "RE-SI-STEN-ZA!" well represents the summa of the duo's music activity, from their early space toys-era to the latest self-made electronics and string instruments outputs. Featuring two of the duo's longest compositions, the album reaches 18 minutes of NEW ALIEN MUSIC, that My Cat Is An Alien claim to be "the complete communion between Alpha and Omega." How to "resist?"

Instantaneous compositions performed, recorded and mixed by My Cat Is An Alien in their secret Alien Zone HQs in Western Alps.

Releases November 30, 2016

More information can be found here.

19 November 2016

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Albums and Singles

Rashad Becker's new full length album, Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II is a newly developed continuation and exploration of work since his highly-acclaimed first volume.

Incorporating more instrumental-sounding components, the record moves through both fluid and dissonant sounds which take on different structural and sculptural challenges through carefully-layered compositions. Following Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. I, the new album expands in various elements, distorted and warped, focusing in on the tension and energy of synthesized sounds that appear to exist hauntingly physical.

Known for his unrivaled attention to sonic detail across his work, Becker’s unique techniques and expressive manipulations of sound are laid bare in an exhilarating new form, stylistically distinctive and uncompromising.

The album is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, featuring artwork by Bill Kouligas.

More information can be found here.