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I'mtired of all the bands that are obviously influenced by Spaceman 3and/or Joy Division. Sure, they get a lot of the sound right: long,sprawling instrumental passages; psychedelic bass and guitar lines;pained vocals that sound reminiscent of Ian Curtis. After all is saidand done, though, they add nothing new to the musical landscape, andtheir output is a pale parody of itself. Suntan are the latest new bandto be acclaimed as though they are a vital addition to the psychedelicrock sound, when in fact their music is incredibly derivative. It's thesame old thing: slow build with low volume synths or lightly-playedguitar; add more guitars and drums; throw in echoed or processed vocalsdelivered lazily; once you're out of things to say, turn up the volumeand rock out. On the first track, "L #249747," the meandering andrepititious nature of the melody is only slightly less annoying thanthe need to extend the track out to nearly eleven minutes. Everythinginteresting on this song happens between 1:00 and 4:30, so there's noneed for it to have a long introduction and an angry denouement. "Bagit Up" is slightly better, though the dueling vocal parts with separateand different effects, meant to sound like a split personality, Ithink, got annoying real quick. Then when it should end, and it seemslike it does, the music comes right back again, building from cricketsor whistles to a noise fest that churns for another two and a halfminutes. It's completely unnecessary, and adds nothing to the song. Thefinal song, "Soak Up the Rays," may not sound original, but it showsreal promise for this band. A solid melody, anguished but not gratingvocals, and it's the first that justifies its length. For once the bandseems in the pocket, playing together on something approaching beauty.Ihope their debut album explores the strengths of the last song ratherthan the missteps of the first two.
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Under the guise of Populous, 22 year-old Italian Andrea Mangiamanipulates sampled drum loops, keyboards sounds and spoken wordclippings to create a very relaxed setting that tends to motion towardsthe laptop genre. To avoid a sometimes sterile environment within theblue glow set, Mangia uses slower Hip Hop beats and subtle synth basslines to create laid back grooves on most of the disc's nine tracks,while still keeping the skitter and crackle elements prominent in themix. At times, the passive approach to synth and various moduleprogressions comes across as near-soundscapes within the compositions,set to head-nodding rhythms. The sprawling time and one note upshot on"Ent-The Dexo" lays the foundation for underplayed keyboard motifswhich weave about to form the bare necessities of melodic movement."Clijster (Blepharo Edit)" clicks along with eerie synth swells thatease in to familiar Reggae keyboard accents, drawing in the long tonesof a sampled horn and squelchy beats. The throwback to the 70'ssoundtrack groove of bright bass, Rhodes piano and loose drums on"Stretch Abuse + Snare" is so settled that several repetitions arewelcomed for the drawn out keyboard padding to give the impression ofsome momentum. Quipotends to be a disc where the beats and grooves are given a minimalmelodic interpretation so as not to take away from the comfortableatmosphere created by the gentle waves of keyboards and assortedelectronic elements.
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Mathis Mootz writes evil, destructive music that is fun in a devilishway. Under the guise of Panacea he has released some of the nastiest,heaviest, and most spectacularly dark recordings I've heard.Squaremeter has, on the other hand, been something of a detour: themusic is less rhythmic, more abstract, and not so much demented as itis creepy. The gap between these two monikers is beginning to close. War of Soundis an all-out melodic attack that churns out rhythmic pulses,middle-eastern flourishes, and an unrelenting air of doom. The entirealbum feels like a slow march through the desert. There are longstretches of beat-less music that are full of pulsing, Arabian-likesound. Once the tension has reached its boiling point, Mootz bringsdown his iron fist in subtle, measured movements. First comes thebouncing synthesizers moving in dramatic tonal shifts, then there's ahint of war-drums deep and full, and then all hell breaks loose. By thetime everything settles down there's already a counterstrike building.There is a continuity that runs through every track that supplies astrong thematic base. This allows for each song to build off theprevious one. Although nothing moves at a quick pace here, there is adensity to every second of sound that makes it feel powerful andcaustic. The vocal samples that run through it are a little annoying atfirst but with repeated listens they sink into and fit well with themusical themes. I think this album should come packaged with a viking'shelmet and a broadsword, though: Mootz's evil has sunk into my bones.
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Forthis project, John Tejada eschews his current aural trends and DJ workto collaborate with Takeshi Nishimoto, with the former on drums, guitarand bass and the latter on guitar and bass. Their music isjazz-influenced in time signatures and tones, and the electronics areminimal, there for effect and a little flavoring only. Tejada is anextremely capable drummer—he learned how to play as a child. Together,he and Nishimoto lay down bass grooves that snake and hypnotize underintertwining guitar lines that dance around each other playfully, liketwo people on a first date trying to find the perfect opportunity forthat first kiss. "Jet Stream" opens the record with some clicks andburbles, and for a moment you think "Here we go again." The guitarleads you astray for a few seconds, but it's when the drums hit thatyou realize this is not the same ball of wax. The courtship of theguitars seems to be the centerpiece of this collaboration, as they takecenter stage on every track. Most tracks have a medium tempo, with onlya few powering their way through the speakers, and that's just the wayit should be. There's no need for hurry here, as both artists let theingredients delicately percolate into whatever it wants. Highlightsinclude "Search for Sleep," "Long Division," and the more electronic"Make Sense and Loose," which has some clever edits and effects. Everything at Oncecouldn't be a more appropriate title, as on their debut LP I'm Not aGun pull out all the stops, and show that there's nowhere for them togo but up.
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The latest release from Norwegian supergroup Jaga Jazzist sees the much-anticipated follow up to last year's brilliant A Livingroom Hush with a slightly different approach. On The Stix,it would appear that more of the electronic elements on both theinstrumental and production sides have been employed, which in turncements the multi-layered, at times complex compositions. Opening withthe most interesting track I've heard in months, "Kitty Wu" blendsmelodic bass clarinet and vibraphone with dub bass lines, staccatoguitar and synth patches to drummer Martin Horntveth's programmed beatsand fusion-styled playing. "Another Day" is the perfect example of liveinstrument-augmented drum 'n bass with its plucked strings doubling thesyncopated rhythms for an interesting modal composition. The choppyAfro-Cuban groove interpretation of "Suomi Finland" is anchored byrolling vibraphone and warm bass sounds in which several differentmelodies are introduced on keyboard, flute and guitar throughoutvarious sections, eventually blending nicely into each other withoutbecoming a jumble. "Reminders" kicks off with busy, up-tempo drummingand half-time bass and vibes for subtle, muted trumpet to play off,which then grows into a full-sounding orchestration of horns and athick, multi-faceted rhythm section. The interestingly titled "I CouldHave Killed Him In The Sauna" moves from middle Eastern flavored pianoprogressions peppered with synth blips and scratchy beats to 70s progrock punches that are just this side of headbanging. Pretty, long-linedstrings, vibes, synth squelches and weaving, treated bass clarinet fillout the spaces and have one's jaw on the floor. Although the group'sname evokes the style of music in which instrumental soloists are theprime focus, such is not the case with Jaga Jazzist as they are amusical collective where the sum is greater than the individual parts.With such interesting compositions that marry up some creativeinstrumentation, several listens of The Stix are required to catch them all. -
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This special little nugget is a limited CD-R of rare archival material that was available at Steven Stapleton's recent appearance in Portland, Oregon to celebrate the release of his Beta-Lactam Ring LP. It's also available for a limited time from Beta-Lactam's website. The Musty Odor of Pierced Rectums contains thirteen tracks of never-before-released Nurse With Wound pieces, similar to 1989's odds-and-sods compilation A Sucked Orange. This release, although not unified by a single concept or containing a coherent flow between tracks, once again proves that Steven Stapleton's garbage is way better than 99% of the crap released by modern experimental musicians. There's a lot of different kinds of music here, most of it in the darker, more esoteric vein. Comparisons could be made to Nurse classics such as Large Ladies With Cake in the Oven and the harsher, more industrial noisescapes on early NWW records. Most of the tracks are typically absurd mixes of mutated sounds, bizarre samples, and dislocated audio dementia. Track two reminds me of Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in A Cave and Grooving With a Pict." Stapleton seems to be experimenting with the "glitch" a little more these days. At random points, the sounds will unexpectedly stutter and drop out, leaving gaping holes or "wounds" in the composition. These thirteen untitled tracks make for a very engaging listen. Nobody is going to declare this to be Stapleton's masterpiece, but for Nurse completists, this CD-R is essential. And for the rest of those who are not obsessive Nurse With Wound collectors, what the hell is wrong with you people?
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Far too much music being released these days seems to be utilitarian in nature. Albums are touted as "great driving music" or "after-club chillout music." I've actually heard certain critics suggest that an album is best heard in a particular time and setting: "Listen to this in the early morning hours after your girlfriend dumps you." Ever since Brian Eno developed the concept of ambient music, there seems to be a concerted effort to turn music into the equivalent of a backrub: something purely contextual that functions as an emotional salve if applied properly. Since the early 80's, Nurse With Wound has been pushing the opposite concept. Steven Stapleton's music is not made to make you feel better, or as something upbeat to play while doing crunches. Stapleton's music is designed for active, deep listening. You simply can't just play it in the background as you converse with friends. Even his most ambient pieces are not meditative; they are designed as a complex drama to make you FEEL something.
Steven Stapleton's newest release is a full-length LP on the incomparably interesting Beta-Lactam Rings label. She and Me Fall Together in Free Death is probably the most approachable, largely "musical" album that NWW has released since Rock N' Roll Station. It's also one of his strangest concepts, a marriage of trance-inducing Krautrock grooves with a traditional jazz standard and some jarringly atonal musique concrete. Side A is the 20-minute title track: a slow-motion jam reminiscent of of one of Can's sidelong tracks on Tago Mago or the more avant-garde grooves of Tony Conrad and Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate. The propulsive Jaki Liebezeit drumbeat is the foundation for a long jam session with what sounds like a dijderidoo and layers of guitar feedback. It's a massive, heavy sound, the kind that Julian Cope would devote a whole chapter to in his "Kratrocksampler." Side B is one long piece with three distinct movements. Beginning with those familiar, World Serpent-trademark windchimes, the listener is quickly ushered into Stapleton's singing debut (!) in a rendition of the oft-covered traditional jazz ballad "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair." This was a favorite of the recently deceased Nina Simone, and also of the avant-jazz screamer Patty Waters. Nurse With Wound's version is backed by cello drones, repetitive guitar strums and tambourine, sounding very much like The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs." It's such a treat to hear Steven Stapleton's multitracked vocals cover this classic song, and this eerie version rates as one of my favorites. This song and the title track prove to the naysayers that Nurse With Wound is equally adept at rock n' roll songcraft as he is at demented sound collages. The creepy jazz cover seques into "Chicken Concret (For Missy E)," a truly warped tape-edit job that juxtaposes chicken squawks and sythesized birdcalls with random bleeps, speaker hiccups and gongs. Could this be Steven Stapleton's tribute to Timbaland and Missy Elliott's incomparable use of musique concrete techniques on their major label hip-hop anthems? Hard to say, but I like to think so. Side B ends with the hyper-sexualized "Gusset Typing," in which a mutated woman's voice describes her masturbation and orgasm in intimate, anatomical detail. Her monologue is set against an intense rhythmic throbbing that builds as she reaches her climax. At the end, she blows her load and the record ends. This certainly qualifies as an active listening experience, and it's also a great make-out record!
- She and Me Fall Together in Free Death
- Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair
- Chicken Concret (For Missy E.)
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Named after Vic Darkwood and Gustav Temple's postmodernmanifesto for the modern gentleman, London's The Chap began life asKaramasov guitarist Johannes von Weizsaecker's side project—a startdocumented on their debut, 2002's 10" Fun. Since then, The Chaphave developed into a real band and added songs to the originallyinstrumental repertoire. Their sound is an arch blend of motorikrhythms, sharp riffs, languid solos, pop hooks, fat synth bass, andweird lyrics. Despite sharing with some contemporaries a fetish for newwave, post-punk, and krautrock, they manage to occupy a unique,futuristic position -- they just don't sound like anyone else. They'lloccasionally break from song structures into experimentation, and theymay baffle us with the strangeness of their subject matter, but there'sno chin-stroking austerity about them: The Chap have their tongue intheir cheek at all times.
Having played these songs live forabout a year, it's good to see that on record, rather than just layingdown their live sound, they've indulged in a bit of studiomanipulation, with both striking pan effects and microscopic sampletweaks to listen for, once again setting them at a distance from otherguitar outfits. They've also indulged their more contemplative side, ason "Volumatic Spacer Device", which ponders sagely the relative meritsof sex and asthma. This album doesn't have a bad song on it, but thestand-out track for me is the pseudo-operatic rocker "(Hats off to)Dror Frangi" (a forthcoming single), which combines a simultaneouslycharming and irritating "rah rah rah" chorus with a driving riff, totell the romantic tale of one person's need to find "samples in SMDIformat, for my Peavey SX Expander."
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It's hard to remember that the 1980's—usually thought of as the decadeof new wave, college rock and hair metal excess—was also the decade ofa vitally important generation of underground experimental musicians.Post-industrial, noise and audio surrealism flourished during the 80's,and labels like United Dairies and DOM were the primary outlet for thisunique crop of artists. A lot of this music has remained hopelesslyrare and unavailable on the digital format. Luckily, last year saw somere-releases of HNAS' classic back catalogue, but there is a lot stillleft untouched. Where are the CD reissues of the Nihilist Spasm Band,Asmus Tietchens, Robert Haigh, Uli Trepte, Masstishaddhu and TwoDaughters? How about Limpe Fuchs, Smegma and Algebra Suicide? Come onpeople, this is a goldmine of great musical esoterica! Now that I'mthrough ranting, I can revel in the fact that Roger Doyle's Silverdoorlabel has now re-released his United Dairies masterpiece. Rapid Eye Movementswas originally released under the artist name Operating Theatre in1981, and for me it is an unmatched classic of tape collage. Nokidding, I like to refer to this album as the "Citizen Kane" of musiqueconcrete. I first heard the United Dairies cassette nearly ten yearsago when a friend played it to me while I was in an altered state, andI was baffled and awed by this strange construction of disparateelements and bizarre sound effects. Later, I listened to it again andagain in an effort to decipher the seemingly narrative progression ofthe tape edits. The United Dairies release contained only two sidelongpieces: "Fin-Estra" and "Rapid Eye Movements." For this reissue,however, Roger Doyle has added two earlier pieces as a bonus: "ThePiano Suite" and "Why is Killkenny So Good?" The former is athree-part, impressionistic solo piano performance by Roger Doyle.While the music is nice enough, it really sticks out like a sore thumbsandwiched between two lengthy, atmospheric tape collage pieces. Nooffense to Mr. Doyle, but I don't think that the inclusion of thispiece was a very good idea. In contrast, "Killkenny" fits perfectly onthe disc, an eerie cut-up of a 13-year old drug addict describing hisaddiction as dimensional sounds swoop and mutate in the foreground."Fin-Estra" is a dark, mental voyage filled with unexpected drama. andDoyle utilizes sped up and slowed-down tape queuing in an ingenius way.The sounds of an orchestra, children at play, and strange alien tonesare juxtaposed. The 25 minutes of "Rapid Eye Movements" is my favoritemoment in avant-garde music. A man trudges through the snow screaming"Madeleine!", a room full of foreign shoolchildren recite words,someone plays scales on a lonely piano in an empty room. It's the auralequivalent of a disjointed, ephemoral dream, full of deja vu momentsthat seem even creepier and more evocative with each listen. I'm on atleast my 100th listen of Rapid Eye Movements, and it still hasn'tbecome boring or predictable.
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After a week of spending some time almost every day listening to thisdouble CD set that compiles three previous releases by Icarus, thereare some bits that I've grown to really like quite a lot, but there arealso some bits that I like less with every listen. For example, thethree tracks from the UL-6 EP (originallyreleased on Output Recordings in 2001) that take up a good chunk of thefirst disc are initially quite impressive in their complexity,featuring off-kilter combinations of scattershot breakbeats and soundsthat seem like the final creaks and clanks of dying machinery. Onrepeated listens, that complexity begins to take on an air of aimlessnoodling, especially on the track "UL-6" which could definitely bear abit of shaving down from its 10+ minutes. Disc one is saved, however,by the excellent pair of closing tracks (taken from last year's Soviet Igloo12") which tone down the hyperactive elements and bring in a melodicside that bears some resemblance to Telefon Tel Aviv. The entirety ofdisc two is taken up by the 2002 album Misfits (previouslyavailable on the Not Applicable label), and the six tracks manage tostrike a decent balance between the skittery-clattery bits and themellow-melodic bits. Aside from one lovely track that appears to becalled "Xot Zioks" (sorry, the track listing is really small and in afucked up font), none of it is quite as pleasing to my ears as thosetwo Soviet Igloo tracks from the first disc. I also can't helpbut wonder—considering that the eleven tracks on this release have atotal combined length of around 75 minutes—why did this have to be adouble disc?
samples:
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Nothing musical has ever made me dizzy like this before. I don't knowif I was just tired, if it was the music, or maybe a combination of thetwo but it's doing it again now. The walls were wavering and I felt asif I were suffocating, the light that should've been filtering throughthe curtains from outside were swallowed up by the sound. I'm feelingsick. My skin is crawling, I can't keep my eyes focused and my headsimply won't hold up any longer. My skin itches; there's somethingunder my skin and it fucking itches. I look at the clock and it's 3:30in the morning. Ten minutes later I look again and it's 4:30. I'mlosing my mind. I try to stand up but sitting back down seems like thebest idea. There's something crawling up the back of my neck and Ican't quite swat it away. There's lots of them, they're biting, and nowmy eyes are closing. I can't go to sleep but I want to, desperately. Myarms are getting heavy, it's harder to breathe, my shoulders and backare starting to throb and ache. I know there's light in this room but Ican't feel it or see it. I'm getting paranoid, I want to scream butwhen my mouth opens there's no sound. Then it's gone. I can breathe,the sun is rising up over the trees in my backyard and I suddenlyrealize that I'm sitting on the floor and not in a chair at all. I feelmore awake; every sound in the room is amplified a thousand times,however. The hum of my computer is more obvious, the wind outside isdisasterous, when I take a drink of water it is almost deafening. I didnot go to sleep easily last night, the incessant chirping of the birdskept me awake until fatigue pushed me under. Now I'm going back to itlike a little fiend. The lights are out and I'm breathing heavilyagain.
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