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05 March 2010

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Albums and Singles

This CD/DVD set of Henry Jacobs'work has a lot to offer for anyone who decides to crack it openand spend a few hours exploring. The CD does amarvelous job of illustrating the breadth and variety of Jacobs' soundart, contained in 39 digestible little nuggets while the included DVD is also a fantastichistorical artifact, collecting all three episodes of a surrealtelevision show assembled in a free-associative manner.

Important

Henry Jacobs was part of an explosively creative confluence of artistsand cultural pioneers that also included Ken Nordine, Alan Watts, LennyBruce and Allen Ginsburg, among others. This was San Francisco of the1950s and '60s, and Henry Jacobs was an avid sound recordist and musicalimproviser, and was in a unique position to document this scene. Jacobsalso hosted several radio shows, curated a number of experimentallabels releasing musique concrete records, and expanded his archive ofhis own sound art, field recordings, ethnic music loops and bizarrecomedy skits. This CD is drawn partially from Henry Jacobs' pastreleases (some of which have resurfaced on the Locust Music label), butlargely from a considerable stash of reel-to-reel tapes and 45sdiscovered hidden beneath a Mill Valley house a few years ago. The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs CDis a 54-minute journey through Jacobs' archive, selected and edited byJack Dangers, who is reportedly a big Henry Jacobs fan. This fantasticarchival package from Important Records also includes a DVD containingall three episodes of The Fine Art of Goofing Off, an experimental animated program that aired on San Francisco public television in 1972.

The CD serves two purposes, it seems. The first is for people who havenever heard the work of Henry Jacobs. The disc is brilliantlysequenced and never boring, cycling through a kaleidescopic array ofsound bites that are alternately funny, charmingly nostalgic, bizarre,psychedelic or inexplicable. From the odd verbal tennis of Jacobs andKen "Word Jazz" Nordine on tracks like "Cigarette Yoga," to asoft-spoken public radio DJ introducing the listening audience to the"new sounds of musique concrete," to the spooky psychedelic brainshivers of "Telephone Therapy," or the numerous excerpted bits of thewacky "Laughing String" sketch, listeners unfamiliar with Jacobs' workare in for a treat. Unlike more familiar works of tape collage fromthis period, Jacobs in unconcerned with formalism or overworking hissources too much. Instead, he seems to favor a more free-form approach,with an ear tuned towards less academic pursuits, and a musicalsensibility that seems to have been informed by exotica and cartoonsoundtracks, the radio landscape and early television. Because Jacobsexperienced the tail end of the beatnik movement, which quicklytransformed into proto-psychedelia, many of the sketches feel dated,satirizing then-current beatnik, mod and hipster cliches. That's alsopart of what makes the album feel charmingly analog and retro, notunlike the experience of listening to classic Firesign Theatre LPs, andoften just as hilarious.

The second purpose this CD serves is for Henry Jacobs enthusiasts,who will delight in hearing never-before-released recordings from thesame time period of his best work. Though this CD unquestionably fillsa void for new material from Jacobs, it also creates a lot ofquestions. Like, for instance, what happened to the rest of thematerial in that reportedly huge archive of tapes and LPs? Though itsgreat to hear this record, and the editing and sequencing arewonderful, I can't help but be really curious about what was left onthe cutting room floor. I suppose what we as listeners get from The Wide Weird Worldis not truly archival, but rather a highly subjective trip throughJacobs' discarded tape library. And while this doesn't reflectnegatively in any way on the people who put this collection together,I'd really like to hear the rest of the material, too. Releases likethis make me wish that the full, unexpurgated tapes will one day bereleased; I'd imagine that the entire library could fit on a couple ofDVDs, using the MP3 format.

Putting concerns like this aside, Wide Weird World is a greatset, and a great value as well. The TV programs on the included DVD were produced by Henry Jacobs,animator Bob McClay and producer Chris Koch. Strange audio cues ofvarious interviews and spoken-word bits set different primitiveanimations into motion, using a stream-of-consciousness editing styleto meditate, albeit very abstractly, on the subject of leisure andleisurely activities. Stop-motion claymation, experimental filmtechniques, Terry Gilliam-style cutouts, subliminal imagejuxtapositions and psychedelic animations complement an eclecticsoundtrack of music, jarring sound effects, and a series of narratorsruminating on leisure, delivering anecdotes and reading from funny"social engineering" pamphlets. It's undeniably reminiscent of earlyepisodes of Sesame Street in its attempt to marry the surreal andpsychedelic to family-friendly, educational programming. However, ittakes this concept several steps further out than Sesame Street or mosttelevision shows ever would or could, making it a very interestingshort-lived exploration of the more esoteric potentialities of themedium. I also have a feeling that the guys in Boards of Canada wouldreally cream their pants over these programs, as they share the oddlynostalgic patina and whimsicality of the '70s public educational filmworks that the duo adores so much.

samples:

05 March 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Although the members of XXL insist that the project be considered a new band, and not a one-offcollaboration, I can't help but suspect that this might be the onlytime XXL will be heard from. This brief album, though strong musically, feelslike the product of a specific place and time, inexorably tied to thefortnight of drinking, reveling and recording during which it wasproduced.

Important

When James Stewart and Carolee McElroy make music together, they arecalled Xiu Xiu. When Fabrizio Palumbo, Marco Schiavo, Paolo Dellapianaand Roberto Clemente make music together, they are called Larsen. Whenall six of these musicians get together, they are known as XXL.

When a collaborative album between Xiu Xiu and Larsen was firstannounced, I thought it sounded like a very strange idea. I was a fanof both bands, but they existed in completely different mentalcategories for me. For me, Xiu Xiu represents a chillingly damageddistillation of emo and goth taken to its logical conclusion:aggravated, percussive, gamelan primitivism with the painfully emotive,embarassingly close-to-the-bone vocals of Jamie Stewart erupting fromits wounded, distorted core. Xiu Xiu is prickly and repellant, andoften laughably overwrought, but for those who cared to look closer,the music was frequently capable of a delicate human beauty andsincerity rarely glimpsed in underground music. In stark contrast,Larsen represented all that was shadowy and European, a band nowinfamous for the story of the way in which they recruited M. Gira toproduce their debut album. Larsen is made up of technically proficient,accomplished musicians with a conversant musical vocabulary,assimilating the history of Italian instrumental rock from Morricone toGoblin, adding a sense of gloom and bombast borrowed from Swans and MyBloody Valentine, and gluing it all together with a dynamic sense ofgroup amalgamation that recalls the best work of Tortoise. How in theworld could these two bands, so entirely different in their respectiveapproaches, ever see eye-to-eye long enough to record a coherent album?

Ciautistico answers that question, featuring ninecompositions that connect the dots between the XX and the L sides ofthe equation, highlighting the common ground that was always there, andcreating unique new alloys out of seemingly irreconcilable differences.The weird thing about Ciautistico is that it sounds almostexactly how I might have expected a collaboration between Xiu Xiu andLarsen to sound, if I'd actually thought about it instead of gettingcaught up in what a bizarre idea it was. Imagine if those sparserpassages in many Xiu Xiu songs—the ones where only the odd gamelancrash, xylophone note or errant tortured whisper can be heard in themidst of awkward silence—were suddenly filled in with lush guitars,melodic keyboards and precise drumming. That's what XXL sounds like.Imagine if one of the meatier Larsen songs suddenly had anall-too-human presence at its center, a raging man-child intent onspilling his guts in the most straightforwardly cryptic way possible.That's what XXL sounds like. Imagine if all of this emotive intensityand compositional pomp were broken up with moments of unexpectedlevity, or a cover of an Adam and the Ants song. That's also what XXLsounds like.

As any fan of Xiu Xiu must necessarily be, I am a bit of amasochist. However, for those who don't usually wish to subjectthemselves to Xiu Xiu's willfully difficult music, Ciautisticomay be an easy entry into James Stewart's world. A song like theopening track "Paw Paw" radiates with all of the usual pain anddelicacy of a Xiu Xiu track, but the members of Larsen help to flesh itout and turn it into an eminently listenable rock song, unlocking thehidden pop hook that lies at the heart of many of Xiu Xiu's bestcompositions. After listening to this, go back and listen to "Suha" or"Support Our Troops" and see if it doesn't suddenly make a lot moresense. "Minne Mouseistic" is something else completely, a sparse trackwith creepy drones, disembodied sound effects and random snatches ofmelody, none of which ever coalesce into a real song, just a bunch offragments left to litter the album like crumpled up poems littering thebottom of a dusty old drawer. Ditto for "Ciao Ciautistico," adeliciously resonant techno beat decorated with gamelan chimes thatdisappears before it can go anywhere, and is all the more enticing forits frustrating brevity. "(Pokey I'm Your) Gnocchi" highlights an areaof mutual interest between XX and L—namely, the fact that they bothare big fans of M. Gira and Swans, and it shows here more than anywhereelse on the album. "Distorted Duck" sounds like a typical Larsencomposition until halfway through, when a digital mallard quacks,fragmenting the track into something wholly other, music that is atonce majestic and ridiculous. XXL's cover of Adam and the Ants'excellent "Prince Charming" is truly something to behold, J.S. and theband capturing the essential absurdity of the original, but slicingthrough to discover something vicious and pathetic at its center.

Foran album recorded so quickly, under such ephemeral circumstances, Ciautistico contains a surprising amount of ideas and innovation, and each band seems stronger and more versatile because of its existence.

samples:

28 February 2010

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Albums and Singles

I have long had a theory that cold and miserable climates produce the best art and music, but the Canadian underground (aside from Skinny Puppy) has never played a serious role in my record collection. Nevertheless, there is a small but flourishing scene of people there making appropriately hostile and abrasive music, and this debut release from the fledgling Prairie Fire Tapes label is an ear-shredding first step towards making the rest of the world notice it.

Prairie Fire Tapes

The two artists on this split cassette both traffic in post-Merzbow white noise sculpting, but they somehow manage to sound wildly different. Chris Jacques’ White Dog project fills the first side with “Samsara,” which sounds like a slow-motion earthquake. The piece is built upon a deep subterranean rumble, but Jacques slowly engulfs the low roar with wave after wave of static. The washes are quite muted though, creating an atmosphere of barely stifled turbulence. It is a restrained piece, but an effective one, though it seems like some of its power may have been lost in the transition from performance to cassette. I expect that when it is experienced at an appropriate volume in a live setting, the shuddering low end would be a transcendently engulfing and innard-rattling force.

The second half of this 32-minute tape belongs to Cole Peters' Gomeisa, a performance that the tape’s description promises to be “as subtle as a car bombing at a pre-school.” While perhaps unnecessarily colorful, it is an apt characterization. “Blood Letting” begins with a thick electronic buzz, before quickly imploding into a deafening roar of harsh static chaos periodically punctuated by squawks of piercing feedback. This won’t be unfamiliar territory to anyone that has heard Venereology, but it is impressively, viscerally violent. Peters harnesses the brutal cascade quite skillfully throughout, pausing periodically for brief teasing oases of calm amidst the menacing maelstrom of ugliness. While seemingly a small thing, it is precisely such an understanding of dynamics that separates vibrant noise works from boring ones. "Blood Letting" is not one of the boring ones.

As far as noise tapes go, this is quite a satisfying one. Neither White Dog nor Gomeisa stray very far from already heavily covered stylistic ground, but both artists set about their work in a very focused and bluntly powerful way. Trends come and go, but sheer crushing force will always be able to find a receptive audience somehow. Heaviness has an undeniable and timeless appeal.

(Note- despite my best remastering efforts, the mp3 samples below sound much murkier than the actual tape.)

Samples:

White Dog- Samsara (excerpt one)
White Dog – Samsara (excerpt two)
Gomeisa – Blood Letting

28 February 2010

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Albums and Singles

The late Fela Kuti was such a larger-than-life cultural supernova that it is very easy to forget that a host of other excellent Afrobeat bands spawned in his wake. Of course, the comparative obscurity cloaking the rest of that scene was also not helped by the fact that virtually none of Nigeria’s other hot bands from that period ever had their albums released outside of their native country (or even reissued once the boom had ended). On this, the fourth installment of Soundway’s Nigeria Special series, indefatigable curator Miles Claret sets out to redress that injustice (and assemble another great album in the process).

Soundway

Of course, a completely Fela-free Afrobeat compilation would be both impossible and undesirable, so this album appropriately kicks off with the single version of his “Who’re You?” from 1971. While a different incarnation appears on Fela’s London Scene, this is the first ever reissue of the original 45 version. It is far from my favorite Fela track, but it is a rare and somewhat seminal one and has the added important distinction of being under nine minutes long. That relative brevity was an early casualty in Kuti’s career, as his brilliance was always tempered by a tendency towards wildly bloated, self-indulgent vamps that were often two (or even three) times as long.

Thankfully, none of the artists included embraced that trait (aside from perhaps Eric Showboy Akaeze). That said, tightly structured songs were clearly still pretty anathema to the whole Afrobeat aesthetic—all of the tracks here are essentially built upon a single complex, polyrhythmic groove with intermittent soloing. The vocals (while spirited) are largely inconsequential to the success of the songs, as it is the groove that is king. From this perspective, the album’s clear highlight is “Mind Your Business” by Saxon Lee and The Shadows International, who exhibit a cool restraint lacking in many of their peers. The components of the song are pretty skeletal, but the simple organ figure and minimal beat flow beautifully and insistently. Lee and his band get just about everything else right too, as the organ and brass solos are great throughout. The following track (by Bongos Ikwue and The Groovies) is also pretty spectacular, as its funky guitars and exuberant lurching drums provide an infectious bed for the song’s catchy call-and-response vocals. The percussion gets quite wild and adventurous at times too.

Of course, no compilation is flawless and Nigeria Afrobeat Special is no exception. There are a handful of songs that are over-cluttered or a bit heavy-handed with the drums and brass arrangements, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Aside from the two standouts mentioned above (which occur early on), the album only grows stronger as it progresses (bolstered by excellent work by Segun Bucknor’s Revolution and Fela’s chief rival, Orlando Julius). The successes are largely the bands that realized that there was no way to better Fela (and his inimitable drummer Tony Allen) at their own game and that their best bet was to bring something new to the table. That “something new” varies a lot here, as these bands all strove to find ingenious solutions to the same problem. The Afrobeat formula is twisted in many interesting ways here, ranging from “more song-like” to “swaggeringly jazzy” to simply “just more laid back.” That variety certainly enhances the album’s listenability. Nigeria Afrobeat Special succeeds admirably in its objective of providing a much-needed overview of an especially vibrant and fertile stage in African music evolution, but it is (equally importantly) a strong album scattered with a handful of should-be classics. (This album is also available as a triple-LP, featuring five bonus tracks not covered here)

Samples:

Saxon Lee and The Shadows International – Mind Your Business
Bongos Ikwue and The Groovies – Otachikpopo
Segun Bucknor’s Revolution- Gbomojo

28 February 2010

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Albums and Singles

20 years ago I got my first taste of Meat Beat Manifesto in the form of Armed Audio Warfare. In the early 1990s, I knew DJs and collectors who had some of the early Sweatbox singles, but for most of my friends the Meat Beat odyssey began with this disc that served as the group's sort-of debut album. The history behind Armed Audio Warfare's release and subsequent reissues is full of mishaps and misspellings, track-listing gaffs and questions about what might have been. Now, 20 years later, I'm going back over the MBM discography to remember why it worked so well for me back in the day, and how it holds up now.

Sweatbox (EU) / WaxTrax! (US) / Mute (reissue) / Run (remastered reissue)

Armed Audio Warfare starts with a stomper in "Genocide" that never felt too out of place in any good industrial dance DJ set circa 1990. It is a menacing, straight ahead rhythm, nearly frantic shouted vocals and a noisy gated hook that's catchy but far from melodic. If "Genocide" is a little funkier than the work of Meat Beat's US label mates at the time, it still manages to groove in that stiff way that most WaxTrax! records grooved. But hidden within that four-on-the-floor stop are hints of something else—a backbeat, a kind of swing that the album picks up in "Repulsion" and gives itself over to completely by the time "Reanimator" rolls around.

Sampled and looped grooves were nothing new in 1990, but something about the way that Meat Beat Manifesto gleefully re-sourced and abused sounds from a hodgepodge of pop culture sources was unique. The Bomb Squad's production on Public Enemy's 1988 record It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back took sampling on a hip hop record to places where it hadn't gone before; The Dust Brothers produced a sampladelic masterpiece for the Beastie Boys with Paul's Boutique and Pop Will Eat Itself were mining cartoons, commercials, and funk 45's for This is the Day... This is the Hour... This is This! in 1989. Even as MBM's contemporaries were turning the sampler into an instrument of unparalleled flexibility, Armed Audio Warfare anticipated the capabilities of the sampler and the engineer in the studio to twist, distort, and recycle not only sounds but also ideas on a record. This was the hip hop aesthetic in the hands of true collage artists—a strange and infectious combination of experimental technique and self-aware groove.

One of the things that I find most striking about Armed Audio Warfare so many years after its original release is the amount of dissonance and noise that carries on across the record. This no-doubt helped to ingratiate the album with fans of heavier dance music at the time, but most of these tracks are even too abrasive to actually work in a club. Still, each song's hook is essentially a break beat, and therein lies one of the great mysteries to how a record like this ever came to be. It sounds at times like dance music for people who aren't at all interested in actually dancing, or like sound collage for people who aren't at all interested in the fussy world of academic listening. The album features record scratches, Flavor Flav samples, absurd vocal loops, self-referential shout-outs, and the kind of clever connective tissue that later Meat Beat records would use to make albums flow as something more than just collections of singles.

I never picked up the Mute or :/Run reissues as I always just preferred my original WaxTrax! CD and 12", warts and all. In 1990, I wasn't quite ready for Armed Audio Warfare—not ready to understand how or why it worked anyway—I just knew that I liked it. It was a record well ahead of its time, and now in the wake of digital hardcore, breakcore, and mashup culture, it seems like a clear starting point for a revolution.

Samples:

28 February 2010

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Albums and Singles

Looking back, it has only been a bit over a year since the Greyfield Shrines LP, my first exposure to these guys, yet in that year I’ve heard as significant amount of development and change in their work. While that release was reminiscent of the intentionally minimalist drone of Sunn O))), subsequent work has brought in greater elements of noise, electronic music, and post-punk alternative. This LP is perhaps the ultimate culmination of that, being released by no less than four labels and featuring guest appearances from members of Bloodyminded, Nachtmystium, Yakuza, and Velnias.

At War with False Noise/Basses Frequences/Bloodlust!/Small Doses

The change and evolution of their sound is immediate once "Inverted Ruins" launches. The carefully controlled feedback of Andre Foisy’s bass guitar and the simple echoed stabs of Terence Hannum’s synths could be on any of their releases, but the addition of live drums from Velnias member Andrew Scherer and the distant, disgusted vocals of Bloodyminded’s Mark Solotroff push the sound closer towards rock territory, while synthesizer drones and digital noise pull it in the opposite direction. The song slogs along at the pace of stoner rock, but there’s far more noise experimentation going on for it to drift into caveman riff-heavy Sabbath territory.

The long "Procession of Ancestral Brutalism" embraces the squall of black metal, but with a distinct sound and structure that contradicts the genre’s infatuation with muffled flatulent production and cookie monster vocals. Aided by Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd on vocals and guitar, it’s not surprising that it conjures images of black metal, but the complex layering of guitars over Hannum’s almost prog-rock synth lines and Scherer’s freak out drumming, all with a cavalcade of vocal parts sounding like Mayhem and Can battling it out with neither side dominating the other.

The closing "The Columnless Arcade" features the same line-up, with the addition of Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont on saxophone. The screamed tortured vocals and rapid staccato guitar also give a metallic sheen to the proceedings, but there is a greater aridness to the track, a bit more light let in. Shades of the post-punk guitar sound that appeared on the recent 7" split with Harpoon are here as well, giving a purer tone and color than other artists are usually able to muster.

Between these longer pieces linger a few shorter, more sparse instrumental bits that are no less captivating. The sustained organ and insect saxophone of "Between Barrows" have a meditative quality that fits well between the louder, more boisterous tracks. Similarly, "Antediluvian Territory," which sits as the penultimate track, is a sparse duet of organ and guitar, which soars and rings on with a melancholy beauty that calls to mind, at least in mood, some of the best moments of the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds for some reason.

This time last year I thought these guys were doing something different in the field of drone metal, which has continued to be an overly cluttered genre, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that difference was. While I have been concerned at their prolificness over the past year, their output has never been superfluous or unnecessary. Territories stands as the full realization of the tapes, EPs, and split 7" singles that the band has issued in this time, perfectly encapsulating their dark, dystopian sound with the ideal balance of pure heaviness and pensive drone. Topping this one will be tough, but I’m thinking they will be able to do it in time.

samples:

28 February 2010

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Albums and Singles

The announcement of Yellow Swans' dissolution last spring was a very disappointing one for many, as the duo were very firmly entrenched as one of the leading lights of the North American noise scene. Their final album together makes for a strong end to an impressive career, yet it displays a degree of evolution that is unexpected for a band at the end of their life. The band has certainly come a long way from their more unrestrained roots, but it seems like that trajectory may have continued still further if allowed. Obviously, vanishing in style with enticing hints of still more unrealized potential to come is an admirable feat of showmanship, but it is also a frustrating one.

Type

Going Places commences in a very promising way, with the blackened, crackling ambience of “Foiled.” The piece is built upon a simple, murkily haunting melodic figure that likely emanates from a treated guitar, but it is buffeted with a volcanic cascade of dense white noise, strangled feedback, and rumbling. It sounds simultaneously massive and ruined, like a Brian Eno song that is being devoured by a swarm of metallic insects while a fire blazes out of control. Such a thing is not completely without precedent, as it treads similar territory to Tim Hecker or Peter Rehberg, but it is pulled off extremely well.

The lengthier piece that follows (“Opt Out”) remains in a similar, but more muted, vein. The subdued white noise still makes it sound like the somber droning is emerging from an inferno, but the sound expands a bit with subtle psychedelic elements like echoing shudders and scraps and something that approximates a gentle kalimba. The washes of static and mangled guitars cohere into a hypnotically rippling pulse for much of the piece’s build up, but that subtle rhythm is gradually buried beneath a dense white noise avalanche as it glacially culminates. Notably, the music never sounds harsh, despite the fact that violently unmusical noises are occurring fairly constantly. This is largely due to the album’s production, which is heavily compressed. While this certainly sacrifices some definition and edginess, it ultimately proves to have been a very good idea, giving the album a shadowy, drugged atmosphere that is easy to get enveloped in.

Of course, that homogenizing fogginess also means the songs all blur together a bit. While that does not necessarily mean that the rest of the album yields diminishing returns, it does feel more like one very long, subtly evolving piece than six unique, differentiated works. There are minor variations, of course, but the distant, slow-moving drones and the patina of artfully constrained electronic noise chaos remain both constant and central. The duo departs from the formula slightly with some vocal howls in the more cathartic closer (“Going Places”), but more textural range would have been a welcome addition to the album. Going Places is a very formidable, listenable, and thematically coherent swansong, but I suspect Peter Swanson and Gabriel Mindel may have called it quits before quite reaching their peak.

Samples:

28 February 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

A Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn is the first record from Kyle that I have really loved. Built in part from songs featured on his 2009 album, Fervency, Dunn's latest adds a second disc of all new songs, which fit together perfectly and emphasize his unique approach to orchestral ambience and soundtrack music. Where I heard apprehension and hesitation in his music before, I now hear more confidence and a greater willingness to experiment.

Low Point

I can't listen to Kyle's music without thinking about Stars of the Lid. And for the same reasons I am reminded of Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, and even Richard D. James. As such, Mr. Dunn's vocabulary is probably familiar to anyone who has heard any of those musicians. He combines violins, guitars, and other strings to paint long, gossamer tones, utilizes low frequency vibrations to generate weight, and creates forward movement with concise and appealing melodies and harmonies. On the other hand, Kyle's work can be easily distinguished from that of his influences. He is less physical than Stars of the Lid, more bombastic than Pärt, and more complex than Aphex Twin, but sober where Eno was often psychedelic. So while his technique is derived from familiar sources, his music is far from being counterfeit. Of course, two years ago I couldn't say the same thing about Dunn's music. Fragments & Compositions of... was a good record, but it was hyper-focused to the point of being narrow. I could hear where his music was coming from, but I couldn't see its destination. I guess the title goes a little way in explaining why the record sounds so incomplete, but that fragmentary quality also keeps me from hearing Kyle Bobby Dunn over the sound of his mentors.

On A Young Person's Guide Kyle pulls the curtain away, breaks free, and lets his creativity run loose. His music is still slow and laconic, but he's injected it with more movement and variety than before. Far from producing anything like pure drone, Dunn's music sways and dances with the reverberations of horns and strings, as well as processed audio. He includes piano this time around and fills his audio space with a low-end frequency so deep it can shake a room (at the right volume). He also toys with strange harmonies from time to time, blending tones so that they warp and fall into dissonance. A field recording pops up here, treated distortion there, and from beginning to end Dunn moves in unsuspected ways. "The Nightjar" is an especially surprising piece. Dunn populates the song with little eruptions of noise, which sound like a cross between a horn and one of Tangerine Dream's synthesizers. It is a very quiet, but conspicuous flow of sound hums behind these eruptions, resonating like a bell or a water bowl. The effect is far more surreal than anything on the rest of the record and it stands out to me as one of the better songs on either disc. At its conclusion he inserts a little sample, presumably taken from a conversation or an argument. The effect is unsettling and unexpected: it completes the song and the album perfectly, adding yet another little nuance to an already excellent and diverse record. It leaves me thinking of how different A Young Person's Guide is from Dunn's past work and it also compels me to start the album again.

I should mention, however, that some of these songs come from the same time frame out of which Fragments & Compositions was put together. I have no way of knowing which songs come from which time period, but this says a lot about how important a few surprises and sequencing can be to a record. A Young Person's Guide isn't just better than Fragments & Compositions, it's leaps and bounds beyond it.

samples:

27 February 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The death of Jack Rose in December brought a premature end to a career that was just getting started. His last album covers nearly every aspect of his repertoire, from ragtime to country-blues to his signature long-form guitar ragas. While it should not be taken as a last testament, Luck in the Valley contains the stylistic and expressive breadth that defined Rose's life as an artist.

Thrill Jockey

Even in a genre filled with iconoclasts and loners, Rose stood out as an individual. Received wisdom would have solo guitar music be a ponderous, mostly technical exercise for hermetic aesthetes. Rose studiously avoided that cliché. In fact, he toyed with those expectations throughout his career. The title of his 2008 live album, I Do Play Rock and Roll, is an inversion of Fred McDowell’s rallying cry for blues fundamentalism. Rose never fit in completely with the traditionalists or the avant-garde. He often switched between the two modes, often more than once within the course of a single song, as in the title track off Luck in the Valley. It starts off slowly in a minor key, the perfect intro for somber ragas that defined Rose’s earlier albums. Instead, he transforms the piece into a jubilant, quick-footed blues piece. The switch feels unforced, like a card trick played among friends.

For all his technical ability, Rose’s playing often had a raucous, unkempt manner. This reflects the music’s origins in the barns, brothels, and gambling dens of the early 20th century. Though Rose played mostly in concert halls and art galleries, his music still kept roots in folk dance and early popular music. Three out the ten songs in Luck in the Valley are covers, and they are among the album’s highlights. The closing track, “West Coast Blues” by Blind Blake, demonstrates Rose’s knack for breathing life into older material. The rapid fire riffing between guitar and banjo resembles a bar-room hustle more than a pious reconstruction. Rose’s talent for old time music isn’t confined to covers, his original material can be just as direct. “Lick Mountain Ramble,” a rollicking bluegrass piece, possesses an exhilarating joyousness that stands apart from any art-music pretention.

Luck in the Valley is a solo album in loosest sense of the term. Rose is joined by a multitude of other musicians, including Glenn Jones as well as the Black Twig Pickers, a bluegrass band from rural Virginia, who collaborated extensively with Rose on his last albums. These players are more than just sidemen. The accompaniment plays as much of a role in Rose’s compositions as the guitar does, as with the sweet rush of fiddle on “Lick Mountain Ramble” or the hollow twang of the banjo in “Moon in the Gutter.”

Excellent as the collaborative tracks are, there is still ample space on Luck in the Valley for Rose to display his talent for solo arrangements. The opening track, “Blues for Percy Danforth,” comes closest to a true raga out of any of Rose’s compositions. He lays down fluid, buzzing lines on the lap steel guitar to the accompaniment of jaw-harp, bleating harmonica, and subtle tambora droning. The tempo gradually swells, brassy tones undulating like the sun reflected in some derelict harbor. More than any formal connection with raga, “Blues for Percy Danforth” retains the forceful serenity of North Indian music. “Tree in the Valley” possesses a stark beauty as well, but with the passionate vigor more naturalistic than it is holy. Over the course of six minutes, Rose plays dizzying flamenco-like guitar riffs that twist and turn like the gnarled branches of some weather-beaten oak.

Rose was no prodigy. He took up finger-style guitar in his late 20s and practiced for years before bringing his music to the public. The resulting completeness of style along with Rose’s traditional repertoire often hid the restless innovation in his music. His rejection of twelve string guitar, the instrument that he built his reputation on, is just one instance of the artistic chances he took. It is vain to speculate on what Rose could have accomplished had he lived longer, but if Luck in the Valley is any indication, he kept his talent and vision to the very end.

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27 February 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

With a slew of vinyl releases in their backcatalog, this is the first digital release for the enigmatic ultra-minimalist electronic project, formed to pay tribute to the titans of drone such as La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, and Charlemagne Palestine. Their approach definitely demonstrates their lineage, but it is never derivative or stale. The result is a beautifully sparse tapestry of analog electronics, which is both enhanced and slightly hindered by the purely digital medium.

Touch

The long opening track "Heleneleh" is intentionally simple droning electronic hum, pitched near the 60hz hum of a guitar amplifier to resemble one sitting far off in another room. The rise in pitch approximately three minutes in is a drastic one, given how intentionally static the track is. The tones eventually join each other in harmony before being met with a third, almost ringing bell type tone. Towards the end a resonant, almost orchestral texture arrives, the various pitches existing together and generating independent harmonics, all with the familiar warmth of an analog synthesizer.

The short "Linear to Circular/Vertical Axis" is a veritable beehive of activity after the frozen layers of the previous track, consisting of reversed surges of tone with significant underlying variation. There is a crunchy lo-fi digital rust to the sound that makes it stand out compared to the purity of the other longer pieces. "Circle One: Summer Transcience" takes a much different approach, beginning immediately with a high frequency tinnitus ring that stays present for the entire duration, but is presented at a restrained volume that keeps it from becoming too disturbing or irritating. An ultra low frequency sub-bass enters, eventually oscillating rapidly. It’s an intentional study in extreme sound variation, the high frequency is psychologically effective, the low end is far more physical.

"Observation Wheel" meshes almost bird-like chirps and swelling low frequency drone with rhythmic stabs of white noise. There is a subtle variation throughout, but it has a warm ambient quality, with the slowly undulating low end sound slowly pulsating like a boat in the ocean. The closing "Rotational Change for Windmill" keeps a chirping electronic tone through the first half that is repetitive enough to encroach on annoying, but never crosses the threshold. Even at low volume, a combination of ultra and sub-sonic tones and abrasive tones can be heard, almost like an old Whitehouse album being played from a few doors down.

When I say enhanced and hindered by being on CD, I think the format does wonders for the purity of sound: Eleh is known for low volume pure tones that are presented here with pristine clarity. However, the digital purity doesn’t give the disc an overly clinical or sterile sound at all, there is still the analog warmth of the source material that shines through. On vinyl though, the interaction between the imperfections of the medium and the Spartan tones would give a unique listening experience each time. So it is neither a plus nor a minus fully, it is simply a difference.

Eleh’s first foray into the digital realm is one that doesn’t hinder the warm analog glow of the sound in the slightest, and allows instead a full pure transmission of their simple, yet inviting electronic drone. Minimalist in the classic sense of the world, it is the kind of album that demands full attention, played in a setting without any distraction or intrusion. Under those conditions, it is a perfectly engrossing hour of beauty.

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