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13 May 2001

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Albums and Singles

The more attentive experimentally-minded Manchester electronicaenthusiast might be able to spin yarns of Rotations nights upstairs ina small pub room just round the corner from where the Hacienda isboarded up. Organised by Gareth Bibby of RSI Recordings, these havefeatured appearances from the likes of Mild Man Jan, Magic City,Pendro, Modified Toy Orchestra and his own pedal hopping samplingproject Disco Operating System.
The first time I caught DOS in performance, the Pan Sonic influence wasapparent, and this was born out by the opening track on the Phonia 12",which also trod similar ground to some of Mick Harris' darker tracks.The System was certainly operating under its own steam by the time ofthe dynamic 'compact disc digital audio' CD-R, but following this acouple of live appearances saw whatever small Disco portion there everwas in these technoid endeavours dwindling. Stripped down minimal loopswere well to the fore.
This disc follows that trajectory, whirling round and round in a seriesof skillfully edited rhythmic loop constructions which revel intextural exploration underpinned by a playful but subtle sense ofhumour. Each of the fifteen tracks is an exploration of repetitionusually juxtaposing two different timbres, occasionally three. Tapsdripping in robotic precision give way to twittering comfortable sinewaves clogging the ether. Bells ringing joyfully 'Because Children AreMatter' back on to an accurate simulation of the hum of the crankyportable computer from BBC space opera Blake's 7. Well that broughtback some sonic memories, but now I'd like to hear the telephone cablelaser guns and teleport too. The pumping kaga-chug of the 'Weiss Squad'makes me feel like I'm resting my mindbrain on the engine of aspaceship made out of a discarded air freshener, as I try to download afrosty chunk of cryogenic toast. Have I earnt my final reward foracceptable behaviour yet?

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13 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Simply put, Bardo Pond have never impressed me. I've never heard one oftheir records and wanted to hear it again and again. In fact, therewere times that I wanted to shut them off halfway through, as eitherthe squelching guitar or vocals were annoying enough to warrant.'Dilate' is the first release that I can honestly say I like, and forextremely good reason. Where the band has always been known for theirnear-heavy metal crunch and destruction or their plodding along untilnothing really happens, "Dilate" finds them concentrating more on darkmelodies and subtle arrangements with a much fuller sound. Sure, thereare loud guitars. But rather than smacking you on your stupid head,they're in a far more menacing tone, where you know it's not just forthe noise but for the effect. The opener, "Two Planes" is pained andbrutal with a lovely undertone of violin and bass, so when thebackwards recordings and acoustic guitar of "Sunrise" come in, you'realmost unsure if you're listening to the same band. The lovelyintertwining blues guitar lines by the Gibbons brothers are morepronounced here, as well. Sometimes they almost sound like Canned Heat,which was a very strange experience for me. There are low points evennow, as on "Aphasia," where it almost seems like the song will never berealized until the last minute where it explodes in awesome wonder. Theabrasiveness is mostly gone, though, so there's very little not tolike. Every track has a place to go, too, a change from other records.Bardo Pond is developing in a very brave way, challenging their ownideas and those of their listeners. Jump in at the shallow end and wadein: 'Dilate' is the latest release and the most impressive yet.

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13 May 2001

Charles Monaco

Albums and Singles

Political and musical descendents of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Antibalas area 14-piece Afrobeat-inspired co-ooperative collective straight out ofBrooklyn. Knowing these facts alone, you're likely to immediately drawa (maybe too easy) comparison between the political and socialconditions of Nigeria in the late 70's and those of New York in thelate 90's. Case in point: just as Fela changed his name to Anikulapo("he who carries death in his pouch"), one member of Antibalas hastaken Amadou Diallo's name for his own. And just as Fela built apowerful, popular, and political genre from a potent mix of bothtradition and innovation, Antibalas are in the process of taking Fela'sAfrobeat in a new direction without sacrificing any of the genre'surgency, either musically or politically. Such urgency is evident ontracks like "Si, Se Puede," "Battle Of The Species," and "Uprising,"all of which proclaim a largely non-lyrical statement of existance andearnest (leftist, anti-capitalist) belief through driving bass grooves,infectious polyrhythmic percussion, and punctuating horns. 'LiberationAfrobeat Vol. 1' does a commendable job of capturing the essence of theband's feverish live performances by keeping studio over-production toa minimum (a couple of the tracks were in fact recorded live inLondon). The authentic sound of the LP is accentuated by theinstrumentation: these days, you'd expect a band like this to feature acouple of turntablists and some other modern musical accoutrements, butthankfully there's nothing but live instruments here. Antibalas makeyou confront themselves on their own terms, and in this case that meansrestricting themselves to many of the conventions of Afrobeat. But theydo it so well and with such conviction that the music doesn't seemrestricted at all - on the contrary, it is truly both liberated andliberating. By keeping the tracks on this Ninja Tune rerelease of thealbum relatively short (each less than ten minutes), Antibalas manageto present a full range of compositions which together serve as a greatintroduction to the band.

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13 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Never have I heard a record that made my brain want to chew it's wayout of my head until now. From the first track of 'Transgression,'called "Entwurf," Ultra Living sounds like a improvisedjazz/lounge/fusion project. Reminiscent of Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire,this sound seems to belie the band's moniker. It's followed by"Absurdly Pedantic" which features a repeated vocal loop and nice beatsand organ, but the occasional and prevalent insertion of high-pitchedfrequencies make it unlistenable and, well, absurdly pedantic. In fact,it seems like Ultra Living is desperately searching for an identitythroughout the release. The music is all fine, but I found itimpossible to stomach in one listen. The blending/breaking of styles isincreasingly difficult to justify, and goddamn those high frequencies.On a decent stereo or through headphones, your eardrums almost implodeat times. There are drum and bass moments ("Color-Perspective" and"Immaterial" — which also features beat box and soul sister singing),trip-hop moments ("Free Radicals"), and sounds like if the Borg made amusical ("Birds Must Be Eliminated" — a fitting track name for a Borgmusical, in fact). It's wildly inconsistent, a hodge-podge of stylesand sounds, but it's new, I'll give it that. I would just like to hearUltra Living stick with one direction and see where that leads. Mybrain couldn't take another release like this one.

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13 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

You can remove the guy from Stereolab but you can't remove Stereolabfrom the guy. Short and deliciously sweet is the first eponymousrelease from the relatively new instrumental outfit formed by currentStereolab bass guitarist, Simon Johns. It's difficult not to makecomparisons to Stereolab when the songs sound almost exactly likefamiliar Stereolab tunes, only in instrumental format. Johns onlyrecently joined the Lab for the last full-length album and EP, two ofmy least favorite releases from the groop. The strange thing is that Iactually enjoy these five songs quite a bit whereas I strongly dislikedthe two similar sounding Stereolab releases. On 'Imitation ElectricPiano' the five-member band sounds like they're executing songs the Labeither turned down or didn't have enough time to record. Much like theLab, this group is tight and provide perky upbeat post-modern bachelorpad tunes, primed for driving a trendy european automobile with thewindows rolled down. The production, however isn't as sparkly orshimmery as McEntire's knob twiddlings. Perhaps this is ImitationElectric Piano's saving grace: the same type of output but with a soundremeniscent of the older, much rougher days of the Lab — a sound whichturned most fans and critics ON to the groop in the first place. Theonly thing really missing is vocals most English and French speakerscan't understand. This 21-minute five-track EP was originally releasedon Duophonic in the UK late last year and is now available in massquantities in North America through Drag City.

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06 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Generally speaking, a great organic musician has the potential to be agreat electronic musician. This is exactly what I think of whenlistening to music from Mr. Keith Fullerton Whitman, somebody mostpeople know from writings, remixes, compilation appearances and onealbum as Hrvatski. The second release from Lucky Kitchen side-labelApartment B is a 21+ minute CD from Whitman recorded a few years ago(yeah, it's actually listed as Keith Fullerton Whitman but I figuredwho'd read the review if they didn't know he was Hrvatski?). This discis the essence of what somebody can do with minimalism. Each 10+ minutetrack makes the most incredible usage of one source - acoustic guitar,processed in real-time through 4-track and other unlikely gear. I can'tfully explain everything used without quoting the entire cover, but Ican say with 100% confidence that Whitman has a lot to teach theEuropean and Japanese laptop clickers about composition, form andstructure. The first track starts off with a simple, searing,high-pitched melody, other octaves get added in, first lower then muchlower, then much much higher, yet remaining simple, subtle andcaptivating. More and more replicas are added to the blissfulprogression, resulting in a stellar cosmic mix. Track two is anotherten minute piece in which Whitman exploits tones and relative tonesmeshing with each other, this time most likely toying with guitarharmonics (if he is indeed using the guitar again). After the half-waymark, the overlapping tones are greeted with more energetic, melodic,shimmering, glistening notes, building up into an aural bird sanctuary,then quelling down with newer droning tones. Wow. Perhaps I'veexplained this all wrong, but boy does it sound tasty.

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06 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The latest release in the Crouton catalog is perhaps there mostambitious to date. Jon Mueller has collected the works of threemusicians — Chris Rosenau (of Pele fame), Hal Rammel, and JohnKannenberg — and placed them on 3 3" CDs, packaging them in a beautifulquadruple gatefold sleeve complete with an exquisite corpse textwritten by the three artists and Mueller. The first piece is "Two IceFields of the Exact Same Size" by Chris Rosenau, a beautiful and starknineteen minute electroacoustic piece inspired by a trip to Iceland."Two Ice Fields" begins with the haunting wail of an acoustic guitarand a wine glass and slowly disintegrates into a juxtaposed collage ofacoustic guitar, heating vent, dry ice, and egg shells among otherinstruments. Ending abruptly in its 19th minute, the first cd of thiscollection leaves you stranded in a cold, but beautiful wilderness oforganic sound. The second disc, "Three Days from Anywhere" byimprovisor and composer Hal Rammel begins with the sound of whatappears to be a single fly recorded by a stereo microphone. Themicrotonal sound bounces from structure with faint electronics fadingin and out of the piece, the fly continuing until it encompasses you,only to disappear and give way to found sounds arranged by Rammel. Tofully appreciate the second disc, you have to listen to it onheadphones to experience the isolation and aural textures of the music.The final disc of the series is by John Kannenberg. "Lave" compilesbass and synth along with field recordings and shortwave frequencies.The loudest of the folktales, it's also the most dense, creating athick blanket of sound that surrounds the listener and washes over himor her in ambient fields. Interspersed with minimal electronics, "Lave"creates an alien landscape of shimmering minimalism. Created todocument specific moments captured during a particular time by theartists, Folktales succeeds in offering beautiful stories of sound thatoffer passage to distant emotions and captured moments.

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Chris Rosenau - Two Ice Fields,...
Hal Rammel - Three Days from Anywhere
John Kannenberg - Lave

06 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

As multi-instrumentalist improvisational rock-based music becomes more popular with the emergence of groups like Volcano the Bear, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Pele, and others, Rollerball's music pursues a more structured, orchestrated environment on their current release from Roadcone. "Trail" sees this Portland, Oregon-based quintet adding more blocky beats, electronic processing and effective use of not playing to the mix. In addition, there's more focus instruments as various members often take the lead with horns, clarinet, vocals or stringed instruments.The band has certainly lost no ground with their increase of focus material; in fact there seems to be more colorful noisemakers added this time around including two members who listed 'painting' as an instrument and one including a letterpress. Fans of the improvisational sound of Ryan Moore and Neils Van Hoorn heavy LPD/Tear Garden would most likely find themselves bobbing their heads to the ten-minute "Butter Fairy". Even Meat Beat Manifesto fans would be charmed with the album's openers which almost organically mimic some of the experimentation going on with something like "The Thumb" from Actual Sounds + Voices. An unexpected vocal track, "Narcisse", alarmingly jumps out of nowhere with a refrain whose lyrics I'm struggling with, reminding me that it's always those songs we -almost- know that get stuck in our heads, as they circle around furiously until we figure out what in the world they're saying. Oh, Rollerball are damn good at that! Fans of the more improvisational noise will get a charge from some of the other offerings like "White Death" but for the most part this disc is a much more constructed, cohesive element than what has surfaced before from the band. This month sees the group embarking on a European tour including dates in Italy and the United Kingdom, with any luck shows across the USA will follow.

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06 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

"One Amazing Day" is the result of field recording trips to Greenwich's gargantuan (physically and financially) Millennium Dome structure, the official celebratory site of the new millennium. Prior to its closing a few hours before 1/1/00, visitors could come and trudge through 14 interactive zones of futuristic themed exhibits and view a sort of three dimensional, mid-air ballet live show.

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V/Vm Test Records

For 32 minutes you walk around with the V/Vm lads to take in the truly ambient sounds: large crowds of people (complete with crying babies, clicking cameras, chatting, bitching, heckling, etc.), kiosk recorded voices and music, loud speakers, event music and, ultimately, site construction. And, surprisingly, it seems that all the source sounds are unadulterated. Of the 14 seamlessly meshed tracks most are a minute or less but 2 at near 9 minutes apiece offer an extended document of specific events with cheesy narrations and/or contrived soundtracks. There's an obvious contempt here for the lottery funded, pre-packaged 'experience' offered by the New Millennium Experience Company and the British government and, of course, an inherent silliness to the whole project, but it also makes for interesting listening. I enjoy these sort of audio travelogues that take me to some place I've never been. Your mileage may vary.

There is an accompanying, yet to be completed, Experience web site as well: http://www.theexperience.8k.com/. This disc is just one of many from the V/Vm camp as of late. Check the Brainwashed site for the slew of other 7" and 12" vinyl and 3" and 5" cd releases.

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06 May 2001

Administrator

Albums and Singles

In less than a year's time, the highly ambitious French-based Bip-Hop collective has launched a webzine and fairly hip label with 4 releases readily available and more on the way. Unafraid to flood the market, the first two releases, "Bip-Hop Generation" volumes 1 and 2 gather various tracks from some of their favorite electronic acts from all over the world. Luckily these folks have good taste and great connections. Marumari from the USA, Massimo from Italy, Phonem from the UK, Goem from Holland and Ultra Milkmaids from France and Schneider TM from Germany only contributes tunes for Volume 1. Here, the spectrum ranges from beat-organized cuts from Marumari to shrill sonic substructures and medical sounds from Massimo and Goem.
Volume 2 features 20 tracks of contributions from Bernhard Flaishmann, Arovane, Warmdesk, K√∂hn, Wang Inc., and Laurent Pernice. On this disc, the music explores more incidental melodies, letting the electric clicks sort of fall to the background. Standout tracks include the emotive pieces from K√∂hn and the twittery pulsing dissonant ambience of Wang Inc., allegedly due for a full-length release one of these years! Both volumes serve a multitude of purposes. First off, many people reading this could have heard of Scheider, Ultra Milkmaids, Arovane or Wang ‚Äî people who have become listeners of these fine groups might find a collection featuring others interesting to pick up to experience some more music from a collective who obviously has similar tastes in music. Next up, each disc comes with a short bio, selected discography and website of each artist providing helpful reference points. Finally, it benefits the Bip-Hop fellas as they're already starting to roll out full-length albums from new and upcoming electronic acts. Unlike releases like Clicks and Cuts, these compilations aren't out to prove any point or lump a bunch of groups into one definable genre, they're simply sharing in some of the cooler future electronica names. My only issue is simply getting sick of seeing the word "bleep" in association with music.