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![cover image](/common/images/covers/krank134.jpg)
Initially, it isn't clear what Foote and company are up to on their latest record. The opening song, "Harmo," is a wheezing stretch of noise that never quite gels or finds a groove. It is held together in only the most abstract way: there are no strong rhythms, identifiable lyrics, or particularly notable sonic events, nor is there a particularly strong melody to which one might latch. Honey Owens' voice merely slides in and out of intelligibility behind an orchestra of harmonica, vocal harmonies, guitar, bubbling bass, and other various electronic refuse. It develops a tangible tension, but release never comes. After listening to the album once, however, "Harmo's" place is clear: it is the sound of Nudge warming up and preparing to blow minds. Over the next 35 minutes and six songs the band fuses together dub, rocksteady, drum 'n' bass, psychedelic rock, jazz, and various forms of electronic pop and dance music. The result is a dark, almost brooding album packed full of strong songs, memorable melodies, and an enormous (somewhat sexy) low end. Through it all Nudge sound cool and relaxed, as if these peculiar blends all came to them quite naturally. I imagine the opposite is true, however. As Good As Gone shows some improvisational color, but the album's deliberate pace and sober tenor suggest that Nudge worked very hard to make this recipe sound as good as it does.
After "Harmo" shakes and buzzes away, "Two Hands" begins with a sudden rubbery bass line and a ruffled rhythm section that lends the song an uneven or unsure quality, at least at first. Strands of guitar hum to life and, shortly, Honey Owens sings a lilting tune that matches the music's lazy gait perfectly. It also generates some forward motion. Once she begins singing the song takes off in a multitude of ways. Paul Dickow's unmistakable rhythmic signature pops up almost simultaneously and is matched by both Owen's screeching guitar work and a never-ending cascade of effects, synthesizers, and instrumental variations. To top it all off, Foote inserts some muted, highly processed trumpet into the mix, tacking a distinctly jazzy tone onto the end of an already complex and luxuriant song. That hint of jazz haunts the rest of the record, sometimes showing up obviously and sometimes only vaguely. This is partly due to Nudge emphasizing continuity and development over repetition and partly due to the album's ambiguous use of otherwise familiar styles.
Aside from the repeating bass lines that anchor nearly every track on the album, loops seem to have disappeared from the band's vocabulary altogether. The drums, guitars, and synthesizers featured throughout the record grow and shrink in unexpected ways instead of simply repeating. Nevertheless, strong grooves play a big role throughout As Good As Gone, whether they are subtle or distinctly felt. On "Tito," rocksteady rhythms and unusual synthetic worms of melody produce a weightless or directionless effect, distorting time instead of keeping it. This makes the whole thing sound like a happy and drunken stroll outside a dance hall. As it turns out, the upbeat keyboard skanking, along with the pitch bending and shuffled effects, marks the brightest and happiest point on As Good As Gone. Nudge's staggered beats and confused melodies are at their most playful here. Once it ends everything goes very, very dark, like the album's artwork.
The howling dog on the cover reminds me of the slow and mournful atmosphere found on "Burns Blue" and "Dawn Comes Light." The former is a churning song with a somber bass melody and slithering vocal effects. The airy keyboards and rumbling, cymbal-heavy rhythm generate an isolated mood and further develop the jazz themes only hinted at in the previous songs. The latter is a dreamy, somewhat barren piece populated by bouts of silence and splashes of guitar strumming. It brings to mind the closing song on Infinity Padlock, but this time around the band's dynamic shift isn't nearly as surprising. The quiet guitars and near-whispered vocals eventually give way to a wave of distortion and surging, pseudo-melodious strings, which contrast the previous five songs in a relieving and natural fashion.
The ideas first tested on Infinity Padlock have matured fully by the end of this album. Nudge no longer sound as though they are forcing developments or seeking their voice. Everything has its place, even if that place is chaotic and disheveled. On As Good As Gone, the band sounds completely in control with each member performing at the height of their abilities.
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![cover image](/brain/images/sakata_chikamorachi-friendly_pants.jpg)
In a classic episode of Seinfeld, the battle of the sexes reaches a tipping point when Jerry lets it be known to an associate of Elaine's boyfriend that he believes her relationship with the saxophonist to be "hot and heavy," which in turns leads to the jazz virtuoso to unveil a new song titled "Hot and Heavy" and doing the unspeakable act he has once refused to do. Yet even a sitcom can display the powerful emotions of jazz, especially with the emotive tenors of the saxophone. Whether Akira Sakata is involved in a hot and heavy relationship is only known to those closest to him but there is no denying that those pangs are ever-present on Friendly Pants, Sakata's first U.S. release in 20 years.
Any listener with a modicum of jazz knowledge will instantly recognize the influences that flow through Sakata's spit valve. Friendly Pants is a journey through late '60s and early '70s bop with a zeal rarely found in modern jazz, which tends to focus on experimentation, electronics, and jamming. The key to Sakata's frantic but organized eruptions are Gray and Corsano, who keep the urges to explode with Sakata in check. There are moments when the ecstasy is too great to combat, such as the energetic "In Case, Let's Go to Galaxy," but the orgy of fractured saxophone, machine gun snare rolls, and cymbal splashes are countered by Gray's poise.
For the few moments of unrestrained bombasity, there are far more focused movements to discover. "That Day of Rain" is a bebop delight, keeping the pace quick but the melody mellow. It's James Dean or Steve McQueen—always unflappable while the shitstorm rains down around them. "Un" is 12 minutes of cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon in a 1950s Greenwich. Sakata pays tribute to Kind of Blue with drawn out notes and a slow roll. The trio work as one, capturing the elegant strokes of jazz's heyday without completely abandoning new world charm.
It's a tender balancing act; one Sakata, Corsano, and Gray have mastered well through numerous collaborations and releases, but it all comes to glorious fruition within Friendly Pants. The idea that is has taken 20 years for Sakata's music to reach American shores once more is a sad thought but we can be glad that Friendly Pants will serve as a constant reminder that the best the jazz world has to offer will always find its way back home.
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![cover image](/brain/images/sandersonandspybeysetland.jpg)
"Watch" opens the album with dirge feedback-guitar, heavy crunching drums sounding like a lost, Psychocandy-era, Jesus And Mary Chain single. As the distorted guitars and buried vocals gather momentum, however, they suddenly stop a minute in, and unabashedly the track changes to a warped electronic soundscape. From here "Watch" quickly turns again, this time to a heavy No Wave sound of rapid drums and Sanderson’s free-jazz saxophone. The track ends by serging into a sparse drone with looped Vocal snippets, similar to Spybey’s later, more minimal output.
The five tracks on the album are almost meaningless guides, as the album stops and starts and changes pace and style so frequently it should either be indexed 20-30 times or released as a single 45-minute entity. There’s frenzied garage rock, bass heavy drones, cut-up samples, screeching jazz, and each movement provides no idea where the record will go next. It is strength of the album, however, as it is accomplished with great results making the listening experience akin to the mania of playing The Faust Tapes.
In interviews Spybey has frequently cited Can and Faust as inspirations but never has their influence been more explicit on a release than The Setland L.P. The heavy, repetitive drumming is dotted throughout the album; while the second track, "Power Cut," eventually veers into a heady, feedback dripping, cover of Faust’s "Sunshine Girl." No Wave and Free Jazz nods are found throughout and there are several lengthy menacing ambient pieces backed with radio samples, reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle’s "Ecoli."
The whole album has this warm feeling of being two friends’ condensed mixtape of a lengthy day’s jamming, experiments, and homages to the music they grew up listening to on cold, grey days in the North of England. The Steland L.P. is very raw, obviously recorded with minimal production in a home studio, but what is here transcends their recording limitations. At points the album can be frustrating, as a more catchy moment suddenly cuts out far too soon, but the vast amount of diverse and interesting sounds means there’s never a dull movement, and makes this an exciting and highly recommended listen.
The album is (unfortunately) only available as a digital download from Lens records, as either .mp3 or lossless .flac. Personally I would have liked a physical release, but ultimately it’s great this is available in any format. Let’s hope the follow up album Spybey has alluded to also sees the light of day.
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![](/brain/images/zilverhill-latent-active-descent.jpg)
Zilverhill consists of Australia’s Schuster and Sheffield’s Present Day Buna, a rather inscrutable pair. I could not unearth much information about them except that Schuster was involved in the early stages of the infamously heavy and frightening Dieter Müh. The conceptual foundations of this album are equally mysterious and murky: while I can certainly see how its abstract and often nightmarish atmosphere and strange echoing field recordings and voices could be inspired by a schizophrenic artist, the album also features an inexplicable fixation with Richard Nixon recordings (“Nixon’s portentous voice & actions are intuitively fractured, reappraised, and manipulated to form the spine of the pieces”). It is hard to reconcile how it all coherently ties together thematically, but thankfully the philosophic underpinnings are largely irrelevant to the appreciation of the music.
The sonic content of Latent-Active-Descent is a surreal collage of shifting drones, hypnotically repetitive rhythms, blurred electronics, and disembodied voices. Sometimes it is relatively gentle, such as the sleepy marimba of “Sixteen Provinces,” but (more often than not) it can get quite harsh (as in “The Eternal Day Is Done,” which is reminiscent of some of Severed Heads' early tape loop experiments). However, the songs invariably writhe and seethe with all kinds of panning and surging sampled mindfuckery regardless of the basic material that each piece is built upon. The only time the duo fall flat is with the recurrent howls of agony throughout “Unceasing,” which is heavy-handed to an almost Lætherstrip-ian degree.
While its slow-burning and fever dreamlike nature requires a few listens to fully appreciate, Latent-Active-Descent is definitely an inspired and enjoyable effort. Though the material is very firmly rooted in the ‘80s industrial/noise underground aesthetic, it does not sound dated or regressive at all. Rather, it sounds like a great lost recording from that era (but with the clarity and density of more modern recording technology). This is some eerie, unusual, and otherworldly work.
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![cover image](/brain/images/vladislav_delay-tummaa.jpg)
The disc opens with the slow elongated reverberations of “Melankolia,” which layers distant thumping rhythms and erratic scatter-shot digital beats with spacious electronic textures. The string pluck sounds and jazzy club piano music sit above the dissonant electronic stuff in a stark contrast. “Kuula (Kiitos)” buries the organic sounds amongst a significant amount of processing, collage type sounds are intertwined with isolated, sporadic rhythms and the occasional bit of overt, sparse ambience.
“Mustelmia” and “Toive” both stand out as being more percussion focused pieces. The former is based on rhythms that sound as if they were played deep under water along with some faux didgeridoo textures. The entire piece feels like a pseudo-ethnic track, even with the wet pitch-bent drums and spaced out passages. “Toive” has more of a marching cadence to the drums, recorded far off in the distance. The track as a whole has this feeling of distance, with muffled moaning sounds and instrumentation that seems just out of reach, with only clarinet and echoed keyboards to actually be the sounds in focus.
As the disc begins to draw to its inevitable conclusion, the sounds become even more abstract and experimental. “Tummaa” is a dramatic piece that focuses even more on the abstract textures that characterized the earlier Vadislav Delay releases, dynamically being much more loud and boisterous than the other more subtle tracks. A crystalline synth and arctic ambience balance out the loudness with a sense of delicate isolation. The closing “Tunnelivisio” is the most chaotic moment here, with harsher synth leads and garbled saxophone. The delayed, clattering percussion adds to the dissonance, which for all its chaos still has a warm, inviting quality to it.
The shift towards including more of Ripatti’s jazz background has been a smooth one here, as there doesn’t seem to be any unnecessary force needed to blend the organic with the digital. Tummaa is an album that sounds like no one else, and its dark, yet inviting introverted nature ensures that multiple listenings are required to get the full complex beauty of what is here.
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![](/brain/images/susanna_and_the_magical_orchestra-3.jpg)
Susanna has written and performed some stunning music over the years, and the one thing that always made her so special was the unique vulnerability and intensity that she always brought to the material (original and otherwise). Consequently, it is difficult to understand why she takes such a cool and detached stance on 3. I suspect this new aesthetic might result in more mainstream appeal (particularly the first single, “Palpatine’s Dream”), but a lot of the tracks sound like a muted and subtly electronic approximation of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (admittedly an objectively decent album) albeit lacking McLachlan’s warmth or skill at writing memorable hooks.
Notably, this album is made up almost entirely of original songs, as many of Susanna’s past highlights have been covers (Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” springs immediately to mind). That said, the two covers that are included hearken most strongly back to the more disturbing Susanna of old: a sparse, bleak, and unsettling piano performance of Roy Harper’s “Another Day” and a weirdly lurching, dystopian, and robotic take on Rush’s “Subdivisions.” Of course, she has written some memorably torchy/noirish originals in the past as well, but her new songs take a very conspicuous step away from that darkness. There are several songs that flirt with catching fire, such as “Guiding Star,” “Someday,” and “Game,” but unabashedly toothless, poppy choruses invariably sabotage them.
There is very little edge or bite to 3. For the most part, Morten Qvenild does an admirable job with the music (resembling Gary Numan on horse tranquilizers yet in a good way), but it is usually too understated to compensate for the cool shallowness of the vocals (they’ve certainly achieved elegance, but it was a Pyrrhic victory). With the exception of the rather charming electro pop of “Palpatine’s Dream,” the duo’s dabblings in slick pop music are a bit too unrewarding and uneven for me (although I have noticed that this album has inexplicably gotten some rave reviews from the British music press, so perhaps my ears are defective). Hopefully, this is merely a transitional album on the way to something better and not a new direction. I am disappointed, but not yet resigned.
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![cover image](/brain/images/christina_carter-lace_heart.jpg)
Root Strata (2xLP) / Many Breaths (CD-R)
Two years ago a meager 300 copies of this album were made on CDR through Christina's Many Breaths label, each adorned with a handmade cover that included newspaper clippings and original artwork. The patchwork nature of that CDr release has been eschwed by Root Strata in favor of a far more elaborate and stunning package of near equal scarcity (only 500 copies were pressed). New artwork and some flashy vinyl constitute the visual component of Carter's record this time around, both of which compliment the delicate and airy sounds that populate the album's six songs. The auburn bursts of color on the cover translate almost perfectly the blocks of chords that Christina pulls from her guitar. Her style is a blend of jagged rhythmic strumming and diaphanous, almost etheral tones. Melodies often sound as though they are seeping from her guitar in quiet ribbons, but many of the songs feature awkward meters and broken phrases that jump from the strings in an almost improvised fashion. This juxtaposition is probably responsible for many of the Jandek comparisons Carter has been receiving, but her music is far more melodic and sober. For Christina, songwriting is obviously more important than anything else. The atmosphere she develops on the record emerges because of her quasi-ambiguous lyrics and ritualistic performances; the echo and reverb that soak it act only as decorations in an already ornate and severe structure.
The album begins with a simple and looping melody. The repetition is bluesy but the melody is less showy and played straight, at least at first. Christina's chants of "Dream long, dream long" drift out of the speakers as though her voice were resonating from inside a cave. References to sanctuaries and partnerships immediately bestow a sacred quality upon the record and the simplistic, almost droning quality of the "Dream Long" melody appropriately recalls the spellbinding meter of some religious music. As the song slowly unravels, moans of melody bubble up over a dominant rhythmic plucking and send the record off on a solo jam that would be perfectly entrancing were it not for the sudden cut which ends it.
This quick fade or sudden cut is used to conclude a couple of the songs on Lace Heart. It represents the album's greatest flaw and most annoying feature. After listening to seven or more minutes of sinuous guitar parts, the last thing I want to hear is a sudden fade or awkward stop in the music. The majority of the record is a continuous and calming string of understated phrases, however. Both Carter's lyrics and her jumbled strumming elicit a relaxed and hazy sensation not unlike being half awake. On "I Am Seen" she combines a vocal fugue with a rambling guitar line and inverts the relationship typically shared between her and her guitar. Elsewhere, "Long Last Breaths" almost disappears into the midst of its own repetition, becoming very silent before settling into a rumbling, unaccompanied groove.
Lace Heart, like many of Christina's solo records, exists in a meditative, almost obsessive place. In less capable hands a boring or numbing experience might have been the result. Lace Heart's dream-like progression and somewhat obtuse character provide a lot of depth, however, and make it both a superficially enjoyable record and potentially deep listening experience.
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![](/brain/images/william_gardiner-onliving.jpg)
Self-released
Onliving is a very brief (about 20 minutes) four-song suite, but it sounds vibrant and fully formed as such. There are only five musicians involved (aside from Gardiner himself, credited with the mysterious role of “electronics”) and the foundation is largely built upon a tensely repeating piano pattern that is very much indebted to minimalists such as Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt (not bombastic enough to allude to Glass). The four interlocking movements are all basically variations of the same spartan elements, but they cohere into a masterful tug-of-war between the sparse but insistent piano and the swirling and melancholy clarinet and flute central theme. The best parts of Onliving, however, are the sparingly used yet devastatingly effective strings: they alternate between mournful lyricism and violent churning that show that Gardiner learned a thing or two about passion from another of his major influences- Astor Piazzolla.
There is very little here to find fault with: Onliving is very brief and very simple, but it all works remarkably well. Also, while there is essentially only one true theme repeated again and again, it is quite beautiful and memorable and Gardiner dances around it expertly and teasingly. I suppose the sustain-blurred piano solo that makes up the entirety of the second movement, “The Loving Bells,” is a bit on the boring/filler side, but it is mercifully brief and segues nicely into “Running,” and fits thematically with everything that surrounds it. Also worth mentioning are William’s surprisingly restrained and unobtrusive electronic contributions: until I listened closely and critically, I couldn’t even tell that they were even there. Gradually, however, I came to realize that this album sounds immediate, alive, and remarkably dense given the skeletal ensemble involved, and that credit belongs largely to Gardiner’s behind-the-scenes processing and tweaking of reverbs, delays, and decays.
Naturally, I’d be very eager to hear a deeper, more ambitious, and larger-scale work, but this EP is certainly quite impressive on its own. I read that Gardiner has been listening to a lot of Animal Collective these days, which fleetingly filled me with trepidation about his future work, but Onliving provides ample evidence that William already has a coherent vision and a rare ability to incorporate outside influences seamlessly into it (much like his more established kindred spirit Jóhann Jóhannsson). Classical music needs more new blood like this.
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![Splinterskin - 'Wayward Souls' Splinterskin - 'Wayward Souls'](http://www.coldspring.co.uk/Covers2/csr114cd.jpg)
Artist: Splinterskin
Title: Wayward Souls
Catalogue No: CSR114CD
Barcode: 8 2356647172 1
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Dark Acoustic / Woodland Folk
Shipping: Now
Buy CD | Download Album
Caught in the oblivious borderland, Splinterskin unveils his spell after years of solitude and hermetic isolation, in the form of a harsh, dark folk music. His tales are told using an old classical guitar accompanied by haunting vocals, violin, and soothing whispers cradled in the delicate atmospheres of autumn. With simple yet mystically riddled lyrics that beckon, Splinterskin taunts the listener with hidden meanings, allegorical concepts, nearly indescribable deep feelings, and a sense of universal understanding only a spirit as Splinterskin could possibly weave together as music.
‘Wayward Souls’ is a collection of tales blending life and death, entities & creatures, hidden wisdom, unknown places, pain and suffering, folklore, possession, insanity, nature and the dark world that surrounds.
With tales such as 'Dancing Dead Men,' 'The Thing that Wasn't,' and 'Chanting Bells Call Shadows', one can only suspect the moods are of a dark, moody and nightmarish nature...yet, there are no words to truly describe Splinterskin's message or music.
Tracks: 1. Chanting Bells Call Shadows | 2. Dancing Dead Men | 3. The Crumbling Cabin | 4. Something In The Walls | 5. Moonlight Rain | 6. The Thing That Wasn't | 7. Broken Down Hearse | 8. Still At The Window Sill | 9. Hoofbeats | 10. The Eyes That Hide | 11. The Skarekrow (October Roads) | 12. A Horrible Night To Have A Curse | 13. Black Bird Sorrow Song | 14. The Man On The Porch | 15. A Trail Of Trees | 16. Wayward Souls | 17. Dancing Dead Men (Reprise)
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![](/brain/images/area_c-the_planetarium_project.jpg)
This is the first release in Eric Carlson’s alt-Space series, a planned succession of performances in non-tradition musical venues that are consciously shaped by the location itself. All of the works were composed and improvised (in almost complete darkness) around planetarium displays that Carlson designed with the staff. Aside from the obvious embrace of space-themed sounds (Eric uses samples of radiation, radio emissions, and other thematically appropriate sources), the performances on this album were further inspired by the blurring effects of the planetarium’s domed roof.
The first of the four 30 minute pieces is “The Basin of the Heavens,” a collaboration with Mudboy (Raphael Lyon). It begins with sustained, shimmering guitar and harmonium ambiance. Gradually, some tension and phantom melodic movement is added with passing tones and color is provided by Carlson's fragile web of treated guitars and Lyon's psychedelic organ noodling. As the song snowballs in intensity, it becomes conspicuously more and more like a freaky krautrock jam before the bottom drops out and it morphs into constantly shifting proggy ambience. However, around the 20-minute mark, things get a bit crazy and Eric and Raphael briefly erupt into a flurry of wildly panning radio emissions before easing back into their pulsing, jangling trippiness. Carlson makes quite a few unexpected (yet skilled) transitions on this album, and this piece is no exception, as it ends with a elegantly beautiful and floating coda that favorably calls to mind both Brian Eno’s Apollo and Eric Carlson’s own Charmed Birds album.
“Messier Object 45” is the first of two appearances by Black Forest/Black Sea’s Jeffrey Alexander (the title refers to the Pleiades, incidentally). It commences with a subtle, glimmering guitar loop and a great deal of cosmic and heavily delayed ambience and slowly builds into some throbbing, quietly intense, and rather menacing space rock. Oddly, Carlson and Alexander soon opt to take the music into much less interesting quavering ambient territory for a rather lengthy and momentum-killing stretch. Thankfully, it fades out around the 15-minute mark and the song starts again with a haunting duet between Eric’s melancholy minimalist guitar and some tortured howls and squawks that likely emanate from one of Alexander’s homemade instruments. Ultimately, it coheres into a droning and coruscating outro of layered guitars before fading out for the final time.
Jeffrey appears again on “Cassiopeia” alongside his bandmate, cellist Miriam Goldberg. It begins with a hobbling, yet insistent, plucked cello pattern lurking beneath a seething cloud of surprisingly harsh electronics and bow scrapes. The presence of Goldberg and her cello is quite welcome: she cuts through the heavily-processed and somewhat detached sounds surrounding her both violently and beautifully, resulting in the strongest and most dynamic piece on the album. As with all the previous songs, “Cassiopeia” consists of several movements, the second of which is extremely minimal and consists of a repeating plucked string pulsing beneath a host of creaks, scrapes, and whines. Then, unexpectedly, the trio launches into a mesmerizing and rather devastating reprise of the eerie middle section of “Messier Object 45.”
Carlson is joined by Eyes Like Saucers’ Jeffrey Knoch for the closer, “Lesser Dog, Greater Still,” which notably uses a harmonium yet again for its droning foundation. There are a few moments when the droning becomes too amorphous and edgeless for my liking, but the duo wisely disrupt the tranquility with crackling electronics and short wave radio before it gets boring most of the time. Despite those occasional missteps, the piece becomes quite compelling around the halfway point, as ominous electronic bleeps converge into a pulsing rhythm and Carlson contributes some uncharacteristically frenzied guitarwork (beautifully augmented by some melancholy harmonium by Knoch). However, the crescendo is unexpectedly derailed by the sudden appearance of an off-kilter and wheezing drum machine and the weirdly psychedelic and ethnic-sounding interlude that follows. Gradually, it is enveloped by some gently droning guitar and static-y radio and fades out amidst some forlorn harmonium and scraping strings.
Obviously, a mere CD can’t hope to capture the majesty and impact of such site-specific and visually enhanced performances, but the material collected here is quite memorable and almost uniformly excellent regardless. It is hard to believe that this is only the first of Eric Carlson’s series. The Planetarium Project sets the bar intimidatingly high for the next installment. I wish I lived in Providence.
samples:
- Area C and Mudboy – The Basin of The Heavens
- Area C and Black Forest/Black Sea – Cassiopeia
- Area C and Eyes Like Saucers – Lesser Dog, Greater Still
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![](/brain/images/nadja_and_black_boned_angel-self-titled.jpg)
This project, originally conceived by Aidan Baker and 20 Buck Spin, is an undeniably excellent idea: both artists’ aesthetics seem like they could be complementary in a way that would yield far more than the mere sum of their parts. While I like Nadja’s heavily processed shoegazer doom quite a bit sometimes, I often feel that it could benefit from a healthy infusion of rawness and unpredictability. Campbell Kneale, conversely, is often so intense and harrowing that it is difficult to listen to his work twice. My hope was that Nadja’s dense wall of doom would present Kneale’s blood-splattered guitar maiming in a more melodic and listenable (but still scary and uncompromising) way than I am accustomed to. That is not quite what happened, but the results are often compelling nonetheless.
This album consists of two lengthy instrumentals (both are over 20 minutes). Notably, a third track (with vocals) was recorded at the same time (“Christ Send Light”) and it sounds a hell of a lot like Jesu. That song was wisely released separately, as it would have been jarringly out of place here amidst all the amelodic hellish roaring. I’m curious about which direction this project went in first, but I could not locate a chronology anywhere.
“I” slowly fades in with a clean, chorused, and rather somber guitar motif over a bed of slowly intensifying distortion. Finally, nearly seven minutes later, the volume erupts and the drums kick in, yet the riff does not change. While undeniably heavy, dense, and texturally impressive, it never catches fire due to the numbing repetition and plodding, uninspired drums. Thankfully, both the riff and the pedestrian drumming vanish around the 10-minute mark and give way to a nightmarishly gnarled and snarling guitar maelstrom that persists until the song ends. No one does oppressive, grinding, pseudo-industrial chaos quite like Campbell Kneale, and this particular example is nicely enhanced by fleeting glimpses of backwards drums and indistinct melodic fragments that are vainly struggling to avoid being consumed by the black hole around them.
“II” segues from that fading entropy with an ominous, throbbing low-end drone and quavering feedback. Gradually, it coheres into a lurching, elephantine dirge of slow motion drums and impossibly dense power chords coupled with Baker’s floating, hazy atmospherics. The main riff changes slightly after a while but the actual notes being played are essentially irrelevant: all pretensions of melodicism, variety, and song-craft are sacrificed at the altar of sheer, crushing density and hypnotic, endless repetition. While mining roughly the same stylistic vein as the previous track, “II” is much more successful, largely because the transitions betweens parts are seamless and no attempt at all is made to be anything other than a deafening, all-consuming juggernaut.
Essentially, Baker and Kneale have created an intensely heavy, but somewhat bloated and unfocused album. I suspect a more organic and mutually inspiring collaboration was impossible under the circumstances of the time: the two bands did not play together and the whole album was constructed by passing sound files back and forth between Canada and New Zealand. I hope that another collaboration is in the works: while not transcending either band’s solo work, this experiment hints that far greater things are possible.
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