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This is a terrific reissue of pieces Spiegel created at Bell Laboratories between 1974-77 when computers were as big as fridge-freezers. Included with her landmark 1980 LP are 15 superb additions, including the entire Appalachian Grove series and "Kepler's Harmony of the Worlds," her contribution to the golden record launched aboard the Voyager spacecraft.
Paul Dickow has reinvented himself. His newest release as Strategy is a huge surprise and an even bigger statement. It comes out left field on the fledgling Peak Oil label four years after the last Strategy full-length. A series of 12" records released in the last year by Under the Spire, Endless Flight, and 100% Silk are its closest brethren, but none of them sound anything like this. Paul’s rhythms are bolder and his melodies sharper this time around. Lyrics are featured prominently throughout and the atmospherics that once defined his sound have been toned down in favor of tighter instrumental performances and punchier songs. Coming along with the new sound is a gaggle of new collaborators, including Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard), members of the Evolutionary Jass Band, and Scott Ryser of Units.
Her first solo full length in over six years, this album leans more into Bailiff's electric guitar and lush atmospherics rather than the more stripped down folk sound. It has a distinctly current sound, but in a way that triggers memories of the best of early 1990s alternative rock, which was a formative time in my musical development. That’s not to say that Bailiff's more folk inclinations are gone, however: the hushed, spectral voice and the slow, acoustic lead "Your Ghost is Not Enough" calls to mind the earlier, more folk heavy work, even with its transition into a more electrified conclusion.
If the term spastic ever needed an audio equivalent, Survival Tricks would easily fit the bill. While it is rooted in an improvised rock context, bits of jazz, noise, and techno fly around like shards of broken glass in an album that is as equally abrasive as it is spectacular.
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