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Further into the Angelika Koehlermann riddle, here is a release thatsurprised me by actually not being that bad. It's not really that good,either. However, I'm surprised that a release like this made it onto alabel that seems proud of its unbroken record of pure, unadulteratedsilly crap. B.O.S. is an Austrian trio whose sound is informed both byKrautrock and by current German lap-pop like The Notwist and Lali Puna.B.O.S.' songs use the classic Can formula: a dark, insistent bassrhythm that repeats ad infinitum, to which is added instrumental andpercussion overdubs, trance-inducing vocals, and galaxy of spaceyeffects. B.O.S. alternately use simple guitar chords, trumpet,clarinet, harp, toy percussion and burbling electronics to round outtheir kosmische music. None of these instruments are played with muchskill or virtuosity, but that's really not the point, is it? They havequite a knack for writing a pop hook, as well, even if you can't reallydecipher what the vocalist is singing. As a first release, O-Land showsa lot of promise. There's nothing terribly inventive about a song like"Bring Back," but it does have a passable atmosphere and a rathercatchy melody that make for an engaging listen. Unlike Ted Minsky andBoulder dDash, this album does not have me sprinting for the ejectbutton. Will the Angelika Koehlermann riddle ever be solved? I thinkAngelika herself sums it up best when she says "[My friend Gerhard]stopping swimming after an accident. He's finally like sinking to thebottom of his lonely life. I also try to get home in a way. I had ahouse some times ago, but one day, I went there, and the house haddisappeared." There is absolutely nothing I can add to that statement. Read More
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Ted Minsky is actually Anne Grabow. Why has Anne Grabow chosen such a masculine moniker? Who is Anne Grabow? Who, for that matter, is Angelika Koehlermann? That's like asking who Betty Crocker is. Someone. Anyone. No one. And in the end, does it matter? What evidence can we glean from the press release? Nothing important, it seems, except that Ted Minsky is described alternately as a "young costume designer" and as a "super-architect" leading us "to the borders of pop music." This is pure hyperbole, I'm afraid.Angelika Koehlermann
Ms. Minsky/Grabow's musical travesty Madame Le Ted sounds something like a lobotomized Bjork recording songs onto a faulty four-track in a public bathroom stall. The dimly realized melodies and poorly mixed vocals are covered up with a bland palette of factory-preset distortion effects. The vocals are of the world-weary chanteuse, I-can't-be-bothered-to-actually-sing style. The lyrics are in a confounding combination of German, Spanish, and English. What shall we call this hybrid? Gerspanglish? Spangermlish? How about "annoying"? It's like a series of idiosyncratic in-jokes that nobody actually gets, not even Minsky herself. Songs with names like "Who Will Hold My Boobs?" promise humor and irony, but deliver only detached weirdness. Ted Minsky has an obsession with her own bodily self-image, which is explicated in the song "Proportional." This plays like a musical version of the comic strip Cathy. The desire to turn this music off is nearly irresistible. I think I'm going to give in.
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The further I investigate, the more Angelika Koehlermann seems to be a fictional character. According to the press release, she is a girl from Paris who, on a whim, took a train to Koln and met a guy who suggested that they "make an electronic music label." She decided to try her hand at playing "guitar tracks for Japanese young people."Angelika Koehlermann
Ms. Koehlermann's strange biography ends with a passage so beautifully absurd, I am forced to quote it here in its entirety:
- "There is no end to this story, because the only possible end was for her to die, but she preferred not to. There is no end to this record because the only possible one would have been to remove it and everybody wanted to listen to it before."
I am rendered speechless by this Zen paradox masquerading as a press release. What IS the sound of one hand clapping? Whatever that might sound like, I'm sure it's not anything like Boulder dDash's unfortunate new AK release, Alien Folk Trash. Unfortunately, this album cannot live up to its wacky title. I'm afraid this is yet another exercise in banal, low-fidelity electro-pop noodling. Boulder dDash is Jean-Baptiste Hanak, one half of the French group dDamage. Yeah, I know, I've never heard of dDamage either. The music is made of up uncredited samples and loops from other artists, with extremely annoying drum machine and Casio keyboard stuff on top. It's like Wesley Willis producing a Beck album on inhalants. The thing that really puzzles me about this music is that I can't figure out what audience Jean-Baptiste has in mind for this execrable album. I have a feeling that even his close friends won't listen to this CD all the way through. It's far too painful. They'll probably just be like: "Yeah, Jean-Baptiste, the album is great. I especially like the first ten seconds of track one." As a totally unnecessary and unwanted bonus, the Alien Folk Trash CD also comes with a whole extra full-length album The Dark Side of Boulder dDash in MP3 format. This may be the most unwelcome gift I have ever received. 
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Pop music has become associated recently with certain bands that loveto either impersonate early rock n' roll to no avail or slickeverything up in fancy production to make up for the horriblesongwriting. This delicate debut does neither and ends up inducing aneased state of mind. It also happens to include a second full albumwith each track mixed by the likes of Rafael Toral, Hrvatski, andChristoph Heemann. Every instrument and every little nuance takes itstime to develop and never raises its voice beyond a low murmur. Thelyrics are lighthearted, sometimes nonsensical, and always have atendency to pass in and out of the spotlight. There's a sense ofheartbreak here and there, especially on "Moon" and "I Don't Mind."Slightly treated guitars and pianos phase in and out of eachother andon the latter a small, gentle voice declares "I don't mind if I'm notby your side" as if it were a catharsis and a resignation. Sun has afantastic sense of space and their more laid back songs areparticularly excellent: there's always room to breathe and stretch outwithin the songs themselves and so every small detail stands out andsparkles as if it were the proud star of the show. The closing "It'sNot Real" is a blues-inspired mark that puts a pit right in the centerof my stomach. The impression is one of loneliness and a dying sense ofhope. I've often sat down outside at night with this playing and justzoned out completely; everything just slows down right along with themusic. The remix album is entirely different from the original. Themusic is still mostly low-key and some of the original elements areretained but there are noiser and more cavernous waves of sound used.Perhaps I'll go take a drive and remember all the places I used to hangout while listening to this, there's a sense of childhood throughoutthat makes me want to reminisce about a few things. Read More
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Tell the hippies come back and be crushed to dust! This is easily BardoPond's best album and maybe the most dazzling recording I've heard in adecade or so! Straight out of the flimsy artwork bereft plasticenvelope on its first wonderful spin even their previous run ofoutstanding vented trip-fuck drone-rockers hadn't quite prepared me forsuch fine honed intensity and sheer beauty. Bardo Pond have alwaysliked their psychedelic stew very heavy and deeply hypnotic. These sixsongs take a trip through beautiful cosmic mindfuck sex energy and outspinning around stars, dissolving into pure light. If you want headexpanding drone rock with mammoth slow guitar overkill, this is theplace to find it. I didn't think they'd ever be able to surpass theirprevious highpoint Set and Setting,but they have and then some. The recording is sharper but that doesn'tdetract from the heady riff brew, just fires it to harder glory. Whereonce they were sludgey they now burn clear and bright with no sops tovapid commerciality. Two guitars overdriven with effects trace patternson the sun. Isobel Sollenberger sings beguilingly of every man being astar which sounds trite on the screen but fits the music perfectly.There is a deceptive lull when one of the guys, probably bassist ClintTakeda, takes a mumbling stroll through "Walking Clouds" in a superiortake on the kind of psych-folk Flying Saucer Attack used to excel at.When the final swirling megablast of "Night of Frogs" atomizes solarrevolution time, it's obvious that Bardo Pond have penetrated so farbeyond the mundane now that there isn't any turning back. Just at thepoint of collapse, about to t(r)ip over into infinity, On the Ellipseis such a fitting title—this would be a great soundtrack to leaving theplanet, dropping out forever.Mogwai have proclaimed them theirfavourite band, but Bardo Pond are universes beyond. The word is thatthey're going to be touring Europe with Jackie-OMotherfucker and Threnody Ensemble in the Autumn. Maybe it'll be timeto hit the road and never come back. Read More
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Ex Models torment their instruments, creating sounds that can be lookedupon as pushing the equipment to its limits or just plain making ithurt so that it screams in pain and joy. They are the latest masters ofthe no wave sound, emerging from the New York underground only severalyears ago and already boasting a mature sound and a loyal following. Zoo Psychologyis their second full-length, and it shows growth over their debut asthe band grows comfortable in some ways but branches out in others.These musicians want to dismantle the song structure, abating therelentless verse-chorus arrangements to allow for more adventurous andimprovisational terrain. At the same time, there is an overalldismemberment of melody and time signatures. All throughout, thebrothers Motia intertwine the screams of the guitars with the shrieksof Shahin, who seems to enjoy pushing his vocal cords until they don'teven have the will to relent. It's not easy listening, and it's not aneasy listen, either. It's organized disorder, with a fine sense ofhumor and a generous helping of tongue-in-cheek, particularly on thesong titles ("Fuck to the Music," "Brand New Panties," and "HeyBoner"). In fact, its the sexual charge that gets these songs across,despite the almost disjointed nature of the music. It's not foreveryone, but the near funk of "Hott 4 Discourse" and the jackhammer"What is a Price" can appeal to most anyone who likes post punk eardamaging noise. A band that's this unafraid to push their limits can'tdo anything but improve, and it'll be a strange and pleasureable rideevery time.samples:
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When talking about the music of Kawabata Makoto or his band AcidMothers Temple, it's difficult to avoid the issue of quality control.Because there will always be someone anxious to publish every sonicutterence that Makoto commits to tape, and because Makoto appears toindulge anyone who asks him for an album, the ratio of albums to fullythought-out ideas is weighted heavily towards the former. "I'm HereStill Now" is another unnecessary addition to his inexplicably growingcatalog. It is a mediocre, nearly bootleg-quality quality audiencerecording of an improvised solo guitar and sarangi concert he gave inToulouse in 2002. As an improviser, Makoto can be great in a rockcontext; when he plays in Acid Mothers Temple or with improv/rock bandsMusica Transonic or Mainliner, he can wail like hell. But on thisrecording he seems confused, even bored. He begins with the tentativedrone of feedback through a delay effect. If you've ever been around aguitarist who plays with a rack delay for the first time, you've heardthese sounds before. After ten minutes of noodling without arrivinganywhere, he switches to a bowed sarangi through tons of reverb. I getthe feeling that reverb here is used as a cheap way to imply gravity,to cover up the uncompelling music with an emotionally-chargedtechnological shorthand. He attempts a few directions here, but doesnot commit to any of them. Unsurprisingly, he finishes by turning hisdigital delay effects back on and doing the first trick again, only fora longer amount of time. It succeeds in becoming a drone only bydefinition, though I get the feeling that Makoto was trying for sometranscendental bliss such that Phil Niblock and Keiji Haino achieve.What could it mean that, when listening to "I'm Here Still Now", I hearthe musician's effects more than I hear the music he's making? And whydid some editor not remove the audible digital clip at the 20-minutemark, the sound of audience members coughing and shifting in thierseats, or of glasses clinking? Perhaps there is such a rush to releasemore Makoto product that the merit of each individual album is notfully considered. - Read More
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Released just a few months after the rigid 10th, Nobukazu Takemura's newest is an adventure in minimalism that is as restorative as a long vacation taken after going too long without a break. Too often have I heard sound collages that seem to go nowhere; they simply run about in circles covering the same old ground for the duration of fifteen or twenty minutes or more. Thankfully, Assembler/Assembler 2 is about as predictable as a piano falling out of a building.
Each track is a creature in and of itself, suitable for individual release, and captivating both sonically and melodically. Despite the obvious connection to noise music and modern compositions, this album is full of gorgeous melodic tones and hidden harmonies stretched across almost subconscious space. "Conical Flask" gets things off the ground smoothly with a series of skipping tones that all fit together perfectly and form an abstract and rolling melody that jumps from one ear to another. "USINE" and "Ligne à haute tension" are more disturbing and grinding. They're not completely barrages of sound, but the impression they leave with me is the image of two chainsaws being rammed into eachother or perhaps the sight of heavy artillery exploding far in the distance. In either case, they work well next to the more haunting and accessible songs. "Kino-ear" is a favorite of mine and it definitely feels like the centerpiece of the album, it seems to have the most gravity and it is also the longest track. Throughout its nearly fourteen minute duration "Kino-ear" shifts from subtle glass-like ringing and aqueous gurglings to guitar meanderings. Sometimes the movement from one sound to the next isn't so polar and sometimes the changes happen abruptly, but they never happen annoyingly. The sounds don't necessarily always blend together perfectly but they do form a coherent whole: the sudden shift from guitar sounds to car horns to the audible splash of feet in puddles somehow makes sense. Each composition is like a short film viewed through LSD-tinted eyes. It's not that the music is all that "trippy," it's the thematic qualities and the total individuality of every track that ends up producing a disorienting but cohesive hallucinogenic trip. 
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Success in the music business, as honorable as it is fleeting, grants acertain immunity which allows artists a level of creative freedom. Suchliberties would be considered risky if indulged in by an unknown, butthe same measures taken by an established act with a good sales trackand a verbose publicist will often be viewed favorably. Groups likeRadiohead and Autechre fit that profile. However, the man behindUniform does not. His 2001 album for Mute Irony Isunder the 2nd Gen moniker achieved, at least, a dignified level ofmedia praise, being well-reviewed by both respectable and disgustingpublications alike. Its noisy, filthy style of hip hop found champions(and collaborators) in peers like Dälek and Techno Animal.Unfortunately, I doubt that either of those acts would have much lovefor his debut release as Uniform. Released on the growingpost-industrial record label Ad Noiseam, Not A Word lacks thesubstance of the 2nd Gen project. Nearly devoid of actual content, thealbum sounds much more like a collection of segues and interludes thana full-length album. This sixteen track disc could have beencomfortably reduced to a less pretentious, more concise EP, if eventhat. I'd offer more information and opinion about this release, but,in fairness, it doesn't deserve it. With any luck, Flicknives, the upcoming 2nd Gen follow-up album to be released on Quatermass, will prove to be a far more worthwhile listen. Read More
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This collection is a curious combination of old and new. Gaburo, born1926 was trained as a composer in the old school and is clearlyinfluenced by pre-WW2 aesthetics and techniques but the music herecombines this with free-wheeling new-world invention in the age ofCage. The oldest of these five pieces from 1956 is a string quartetthat, while clearly comptetent, has more tutonic romanticism (in adecidedly Schoenberg style) than I prefer. Antiphony III and IV,dating from 62 and 67 respectively, both combine live musicians withelectronic music on tape, both set miniature poems by Virginia Hommel,and both aim to create a continuum between the sounds of the singersand instruments and the electronic sounds. The continuum was achievedby composing the pieces as a whole and orchestrating them withmusicians, recordings of the musicians, processed sounds from thoserecordings and synthetic sounds similar to all these. The result isconvincing and at times approaches the lyricism of Nono and Berio'selectro-acoustic music. But underlying it all is still clearlySchoenberg—Antiphony IV for tape and 16 voices being destinctlyreminicent of the choral work of the father of serialism. But there isalso a hint of Ligeti's Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures inthe more outlandish vocal techniques used. In these two pieces I findthat the combination of the old, in the formal and ensemble aspects,with the new, in the electronic and sound manipulation, actually worksvery well. They seem anchored in a familliar tradition while providingcompelling innovative personal expression. Mouth-Piece: Sextet for Solo Trumpet(1970) on the other hand is hideous. It is an excercise in extendedtechnique that would have been better left either to an improviser orto a composer who genuinely loves the trumpet. And that leaves The Flow of (u)a radically minimalistic piece for three voices all singing the samenote continuously using the "u" phoneme (i.e. "oo") for 23 minutes. Itis quintessential drone music that bears comparison to that of PhilNiblock. But while most drone music normally uses occasional changes tothe component tones this piece uses just the minutest continualvariation of pitch and tone color. The fact that this is sung by humanvoices is crucial to the success of the piece since the changing beatsand colors arise form the singers continually working to match pitchwith each other and to perfect their "u" sound. Extreme in itssimplicity it works in they way all good drone music works: bycaptivating attention and drawing one into facination with the minutedetail of the sound. Read More
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Tenney was the first composer to give a real workout to the computer composition techniques that would dominate the computer music scene from the 60s through to the 90s and that are still widely used today. He did this during two and a half years at Bell Telephone Labs beginning 1961 working closely with Max Mathews, the inventor of the MUSIC series of programming environments.
The first of the pieces realised there, Noise Study, is surprisingly satisfying today for such an early experiment. It has the qualities of ocean or distant aircraft noise as heard through a tunnel getting nearer and farther, more and then less dynamic and complex. Very nicely judged and executed, the piece stands up well in the context of today's experimental music. Noise Study was entirely human composed and translated into sound by the computer functioning as an automated instrument reading a programmed score. But Tenny quickly set about extending the computer's involvement into the compositional process giving it the job of selecting some details of the music using random functions. These techniques closely parallel some of Xenakis' work on stochastic music. While Tenney hasn't achieved the fame or, in my opinion, quite the artistic success of the other, he did manage to produce some remarkable results. By devising ever more elaborate algorithms to take more control of the composition Tenney was able to surprise even himself with the resulting music; Dialogue, Phases and Fabric for Ché being the examples given in this collection, based on stochastic algorithm control of parametric noise/tone generators. Phases is a tense, mostly quiet alien conversation—music of such otherness that its like listening to people talking in Finnish but a hundred fold more baffling. Fabric for Ché is much louder, faster and more dynamic, making heavier use of noise. It manages to achieve some of the power and anger that Xenakis would show later in his works on the UPIC. What is striking is that Tenney, a newcomer to these computer technquies (as were all back then), managed to maintain aesthetic control of the automata he created. While the design of the systems was extremely abstract and technical the music is real music with a coherent personality and by no means merely an intererting experimental result. Other pieces in the collection include a player piano piece that is too random for me; the relatively famous For Ann (rising), a perceptual study using synchronised rising glissandi that is not to my taste at all; and Collage #1 ("Blue Suede") a delightful early tape manipulation piece entirely based on Evis Presley's song about his shoes. Reverential to the king and fully digging the groove of the source material it is not at all post-modern sounding. 
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