October 2009
Editorial
Hi folks
Both illness and technical difficulties has kept WWR from your screens for the last 3 months and for a time it was looking touch and go as to whether WWR would continue but we're back.
In early August, and for the fourth time in three years, my seedee player took a nosedive into the dustbin. Fanzine writing, and music loving in general, is hard on the equipment.
For the last year I've been expecting either my amp or my speakers to make that last final squeal before shuffling off into the great audio junkyard in the sky but they're still soldiering on no matter how extreme the noises they're asked to deal with. If either of them had gone tits up it wouldn't have been a problem as I have spares of both. Seedee players on the other hand cannot stand the pace and I had neither a spare nor the cash to replace it.
Then, two days after I finally managed to replace my player and had started reviewing again I was laid out by a mystery virus that sapped every ounce of energy from me. Standing up without suffering bouts of vertigo became a real issue and so listening to all this wonderfully swirly music I get sent was not high on my list of things to do. It took about 3 weeks to finally get myself back on my feet but I'm now fully recovered and raring to go.
So, apologies for the delay. I hope you weren't too inconvenienced by my tardiness. This issue of WWR is chock full of choice cuts from some familiar names and some not so familiar ones. Some of the reviews may be a little brief but that was simply to salvage some time and get this issue out to you all. Please remember that if it's in here it's because I think it's worth being in here. I don't review music I don't like but I do speak my mind about what I feature. Honesty is the only policy.
Peace, love and shiny new seedee players
Ian Holloway
Music
The Bordellos - Debt Sounds
(Welshcake Records WC1)
CDR
Long time friends of WWR, The Bordellos, return with the first release on their very own Welshcake Records label. 17 tracks recorded over 10 consecutive Fridays with minimal rehearsal and zero overdubs. It's monumentally stoned sounding and as lo-fi as it's possible to get. They wear their psychedelic hearts proudly on their (probably paisley) shirt-sleeves and they sing heartfelt songs about love, Rolf Harris, love and lot's of other things, including love.
TB are very much a band out of time. Their sound is that of the indie-est of music from the late 70's and 80's. Their beautifully shambolic musicianship is brutally at odds with both modern tastes and modern recording technology. They will never grace the cover of either NME or Sound on Sound and you've gotta love them for it. I couldn't listen to this all the time - I think I'd go insane - but I feel the same about most music.
Debt Sounds is The Fall, is Daniel Johnson, is Jad Fair, is Half Man Half Biscuit, is The Bordellos.
Concern - Truth & Distance
(Digitalis Industries ACE016)
CD
Whilst probably being more of an ep (remember them) than an album this is 30 minutes of loveliness from Gordon Ashworth via the ever wonderful Digitalis label that should be very high on any right-thinking music lovers wants list.
The album opens with it's longest and most euphoric composition. This 17 minute title track, from a slow crackled beginning, rises to stand naked in the sun engaging in a joyous droning cry to the heavens before laying itself down to rest as it began. Track 2 (Young Birth) is no less blissful than it's predecessor but is more restrained in it's rapture. The acoustic drone (the whole album is acoustic) delicately threading it's way to it's end, requiring you to do absolutely nothing except enjoy the ride. Final track, Heartsink, takes you from the comfort zone of the previous two tracks into a slowly emerging cascading piano melody that brings the album to a close.
A short but perfectly formed declaration of Ashworth's musical truths.
Ctacik - In Order To Prevent Sense
(Verato Project)
CDR
I must admit that the sleeve design for this one, a photo of a woman's torso (ribs to knees) being held by four male hands each of which has large nails sticking out of them, had me a little fooled. I took one look and relegated it to the bottom of the pile of Verato cds thinking it was going to be a load of pseudo-goth noise tosh and as such it's the last of their releases to make it onto my player. I did it a disservice. It's actually far more interesting than that.
'In Order...' is a very nicely melded amalgam of tone and drone ambience decorated with some nicely sparse and melancholic instrumentation and field recordings. It's, for the most part, a disquietingly sad set of compositions that periodically erupt with fiery eloquence. It's a very theatrical album. Admittedly some of the sounds he (or she or they) use are a little, not so much hackneyed but, dated and this does distract on occasion but it's been mixed beautifully and filled with ideas meaning it's easy to slip back into the music after these minor interruptions.
Recommended heavily to those with a taste for the macabre.
Culver - Blue Angel
(Muzzedia Verhead 010)
3"CDR
Teeny weeny mini-cdr from Gateshead resident Lee Stokoe of deep dark ambient drone. Its isolationist tendencies are firmly rooted in it's cavernous rumble. Consisting of a mostly constant, gritty drone over and under which slow tones ebb and flow like a soupy ocean.
Sonically it's a little on the murky side which makes it hard to separate some of the individual sounds and could probably have benefited from a little more clarity in the mix but it does what it does very nicely for the 16 minute runtime and offers an immersive journey to those with a penchant for the dark.
(verhead [AT] muza.freeserve.co.uk)
Darwinsbitch - Ore
(Digitalis Industries ACE016)
CD
Behind the immaculately named Darwinsbitch is one Marielle Jakobsons who, on this, her debut solo seedee, has assembled a many layered monolith of sound.
Taking elements of drone, folk music and melancholic sacramental music, jakobson (who is also part of the duos Date Palms and Myrmyr) has focused them into a most intriguing whole. There is a deceptive ease to the music. It's far too easy to slip comfortably inside the ambience and miss the sheer quality of the music. Her instrumentation is dense yet unobtrusive and drenched in the white heat of her drones.
Ore is a beautiful piece of folk music that is equal part utterly familiar, utterly alien and utterly compelling.
Rita Galetti - Falter
(Contra Musik Produktion CMP23)
CD
I know very little about Rita Galetti. Actually, let me rephrase that. I know almost nothing about Rita Galetti but a quick interweb search tells me that she's a sound artist working out of Canada. Throughout the album she utilises a battery of equipment and techniques to create a continuously rolling set of compositions. There is a nicely melodic core to her work that is often missing in music with an experimental bent and the relaxed vibe that pervades much of the album is to be enjoyed. It is a little too restless at times, much of the album consists of short tracks, and some ideas could maybe have been worked out more fully and allowed to blossom in a more gradual and thorough manner. That said though the album at no point feels unfinished or rushed and is another in a list of fine releases coming via CMP.
Hinsidan - Bleach Dye Yr Heart
(Gears of Sand GOS32)
CD
You'd think I'd have learned by now not to judge a CD by it's cover as it's often misleading but in this case the track titles didn't help - track one is called 'Slaughter of the Innocence, Slaughter of the Innocent' & track two is 'Vivisection of the Soul'. These two, and other, really quite appallingly naff titles helped my second exposure to Hinsidan find itself falling through the pile of albums awaiting review for which I must apologise cause it's actually pretty good.
The trio that make up the group employ a battery of mostly electronic instruments to produce a head stew of tone and drone ambience with occasional flurries of mellow Boards of Canada style electronica and even some singing - definitely not the albums high point.
On the whole though Hinsidan is a very listenable set of tunes. It's not the best thing I've heard recently (and it's certainly not the worst) as it never really managed to utterly absorb me into itself but it's found itself on my player several times in recent weeks and makes a very fine aural backdrop which after all is exactly the point of ambient music.
Hreda - Minnows
(Ingue Records)
7"
2 track 7" singkle from Oxford based trio of vaguely mathy post-rock instrumsntals. Previous reviews comparing them to the wonderful Explosions In The Sky are, I think, a little overly generous and also do a disservice to Hreda. Their sound is missing the majesty and grandeur of EITS but instead displays a technical expertise and a groove all their own. There is a much more metallic and, dare I say, prog heart to Hreda. The music is occasionally a little too busy for my tastes but with the changes coming thick and fast you only have to wait a couple of seconds before the tune is off in another direction.
Naturally, being a 7" single (or in my case a promo cdr) there is only 11 and a half minutes of music on here but it is 11 and a half minutes well spent that leaves you wanting more but until the album appears I recommend picking a copy of this up and listening to it on repeat.
Another quality release from Ingue Records.
The Infant Cycle - The Sand Rays
(Diophantine Discs n=20)
CD
A different sort of album from the predominantly drone loving crew at Diophantine as Jim DeJong's The Infant Cycle project is (at least in this instance) more interested in the endless vagaries of rhythm than in the infinite variations of tone yet he never loses site of the horizon-gazing timelessness of the best drone albums, which is no mean feat. His rhythmic oscillations are collected from a huge array of sources (as listed on the cd) such as vinyl run-out grooves, field recordings, skittering electronics and a host of others, over which DeJong has liberally scattered breathless, organic sounding instrumentation.
Much of the album sounds decayed and vaguely dilapidated. It's run-down griminess allowing it to achieve a sense of character that's often overlooked. It's lived-in homeliness is hugely addictive as is the verve and the dexterity with which the whole thing has been assembled into a massively compulsive whole.
Recommended.
The Infrared Experience - White
(Contra Musik Produktion 22)
CD
No info accompanies the two new releases from CMP and in the case of this on at least there are no clues to be gleaned from the sleeve either. What info is given however is to inform that the entirety of this album was created using electric guitar and assorted pedals.
The enigmatically named 'White' is a startlingly mobile set of gently psychedelic squalls. Layers of guitar meticulously overlaid to mostly good effect. Ironically it's when the guitars are at their most recognisable that this alum loses momentum. The switch between the more immersive longform drone pieces and the more 'traditionally' played guitar pieces is, especially early on in the album, quite jarring but becomes less so as the album continues, whether as a result of improved composition or as a result of acclimation by the listener I cannot say. What I can say though is that 'White' is absolutely worth investigating for fans of guitar-centric abstractions.
Soon Kim & Tetsuya Hori - Non-Transposed Sense
(Konnex Records KCD 5228)
CD
A simply astonishing set from two Berlin based Japanese musicians that mixes Kim's beautifully understated saxophone with Hori's laptop, melodion, toy-piano, cigar box and beer bottle - the cigar box isn't that apparent but the bottle is used to nice effect.
Kim, who has previously studied under Ornette Coleman, is, as one would suspect given the nature of his instrument, often to be found providing the more flighty aspects of the compositions but his playing is beautifully understated refusing to overpower (or overplay) the sumptuous textural bedrock provided by Hori's variety of instruments. Indeed on the final track it is Hori who very much takes the lead to which Kim provides flashes of light and colour before it all ends rather oddly.
There are parts of the album that don't work so well - the spoken text of track 2 being a particular weak point - but that said this is one of the finest examples of electro-acoustic music I've ever heard. Both musicians seem utterly in tune with each other and the music is, as I started this review by saying, simply astonishing.
The Knockouts - Honolulu Sunscream
(High Town / Topplers)
CDR
Infectiously groovy set of garage instrumentals for this Luton quartet featuring ex-members of 80's indie popsters Thrilled Skinny. There's a refreshingly self-aware coherence to what's on offer here as the band flow effortlessly between pseudo-psychedelic pop jams to low-down and lo-fi garage / surf skronk without ever losing site of the fact that guitars are meant to be fun.
It's been years since I listened to much music that even approximates this sort of stuff and so I probably not the most reliable of reviewers but I liked it a hell of a lot. It reminded me very much of London white-trash surf-punkers Ten Benson from before they discovered AC/DC and got shit. This is effortlessly joyful and it made me want to dance drunkenly around the room and nothing ever makes me want to dance, drunkenly or otherwise.
Ennio Mazzon - In An Undertone At A Loose End
(Ripples Recordings RPL001)
3"CDR
Debut release from Ripples Recordings is a mini set of hissing noise and drones from Italian musician Mazzon. There are some nice flourishes throughout the ep and Mazzon has conjured some nicely hard edged drones upon which he builds his music. However with an average runtime of 2 minutes the 9 tracks that have been squashed onto this 3 inch CDR do have a tendency to sound a little like sketches rather than fully formed pieces. I think what's there is interesting and I'd be interested to hear more but like a battery hen the music needs more room to breathe and stretch in order achieve it's full potential.
Mixturizer - mxtrzr
(R.O.N.F. Records RNF-040)
CDR
My only previous exposure to the music of Manuel Marrero Cubas' Mixturizer project was as part of a split release also on his R.O.N.F. label on which I described him as issuing forth a 'cretaceous fuzzy roar'. Well upon hearing a full length I stand by my words. Obviously there's more to it than just that but as a baseline description it holds quite a lot of water.
Noise is Manuel's passion. Harsh digital noise at that. This is anything but music for the faint of ears. The screaming, screeching, careening shards of grit that avalanche from each track are great fun. His noises are some of the sharpest edged that I've heard in a long time, in places piercing even. This is a wonderful change from the standard po-faced, guttural belch of much noise music as it seems to have the biggest, cheesiest shit-eating grin on it's face as it throws itself at you and slam dances on your eardrums.
Regular readers will now by now that with each passing month I'm becoming less and less interested in full-on noise assaults and most of the pieces that hit my player do so only the once. Now and again though I get one that reinstates my belief in noise as a vibrant genre. This is one of those times.
Sascha Muhr - wandering:trapped
(Q-Tone qt03)
CD
A few months back I was the fortunate recipient of two rather fabulous albums (by Homework and by Terje Paulsen) from new label Q-Tone. Now they've followed these with a further pair of releases by Hiroki Sasajima and this one from Muhr.
This 9 track set of guitar improvisations is an interesting prospect that, for me, suffers from a lack of dimensions. I've never been a massive fan of single instrument music, I need more layers and levels to my sounds than these types of recordings generally provide. Here the emphasis is on slow and expressive playing without un-necessary showboating or descents into cliché. Muhr's recording certainly is one of the better I've heard and the latter half of the album is very good indeed. The earlier, more fiery tracks are for me the less interesting as it feels too worked and a little contrived.. Like I said though, it's worth persevering as it does get very much better.
Omnivore - Spandaurandurandauballet
CDR
Under their previous awful name (I'll let you search the WWR archives for it - it began with a 'D') Omnivore produced one of the best albums it was my pleasure to hear in the entirety of 2008. With 2009 nearing it's end they have once more provided me (and you if you've any sense) with a fantastic slice of fiery jazz excess. Omnivore's jazz is obviously very much influenced by Zorn's Naked City project and their combination of restless free-jazz skronk, math-rock musicality and a stoner heart with a brutally uncompromising grindcore-esque mentality is an absolute joy to these jaded ears. This is very much a continuation of where the previous album left off as saxophone, drums and guitars (alongside some circuit bending) collide in a glorious mass pile up of sound.
Massively recommended.
Yui Onodera - Entropy
(Trumn T02)
CD
A welcome reissue of the debut release from Tokyo based drone musician Onodera suffers from a terrible misnomer. This is anything but the sound of entropy. While the range of sounds on offer may be sparse, the ideas cementing them together, the clarity of the conception and the quality of the execution imbues his music with both life and movement, languid life and gentle movement admittedly, but life and movement nonetheless.
Onodera's compositional techniques marries amorphous tone with occasional flurries of grittier textures. His music draws from a broader palette than simple drone as loops, swirls, pulses and eddies all contribute to the heady psychedelic swell. It's difficult to really pin down Onodera's compositions as they have a deceptively nebulous quality that avoids detailed listening which is a quality I like very much as it gives the music a longevity that is easily lost in music that one can pin down and analyse. It's intrinsic nature is to drift across your attention allowing itself to be glanced at but not watched.
Beautiful music.
Hiroki Sasajima - renz
(Q-Tone qt04)
CD
A few months back I was the fortunate recipient of two rather fabulous albums (by Homework and by Terje Paulsen) from new label Q-Tone. Now they've followed these with a further pair of releases by Sascha Muhr and this one from Sasajima.
Characterised by soft tones and organic field recordings Sasajima has assembled a set of gently immersive soundworlds unified by a deep sense of textural isolationism. Whilst there is a definite unity between the tracks Sasajima has imbued each with enough individuality to retain both a sense of cohesion and one of progression.
There is a slight insubstantiality to Renz which did bug me a little. It has a tendency to fade a little too far into the background and as such you do tend to lose chunks of the music when your attention gets diverted elsewhere but on the whole it's a solidly constructed foray into experimental ambience.
Sil Muir - Sil Muir
(Diophantine Discs n=22)
CD
I've been the lucky recipient of several Diophantine releases over the last few months and on the whole they have been a sublime assortment of music and Sil Muir is definitely no exception. The four constituent pieces are a beautifully constructed fever-dream of sound that somehow manage to become the entirety of your consciousness for their duration. My one complaint (and it's a teeny weeny complaint) is that there are four separate tracks which meant that as each track reached it's conclusion the 'real-world' dragged me unwillingly back for the few seconds it took to once more immerse myself in Sil Muir soundpool. A single longform piece would have saved me from the horrors (ok, a slight exaggeration) of mundane reality. Seriously though, this is a sublime set of ambient drone pieces from a label who is fast becoming one of the best places to source music of this form.
Social Junk - Born Into It
(Digitalis Industries ACE018)
CD
Coming from a label that, to my mind at least, is more connected to the looser and distinctly introspective ends of the freaky music spectrum the atonal relentlessness of 'Born Into It' comes as quite a surprise.
US duo Heather Young and Noah Anthony have plundered the Throbbing Gristle toy-box of rhythmic discordance and shamanistic, unfettered vocalising to create something I've not heard done this well for quite some time.
This truer form of industrial music- shorn of the European synth pomposity or American pseudo-metal tedium of recent years is a welcome return. Social Junk, as the name implies, makes a wonderfully earthy and human cacophony that, much like modern culture, borrows liberally from the detritus of it's surroundings. 'Born Into It' alternatively sounds like the most soul-crushingly unpleasant of industrial labours whilst also bringing to mind a joyous spontaneous carnival - oh, and the opening of track 3 sounds like the start of an episode of the original Star Trek.
I liked this album a hell of a lot. It reminded me of how good industrial music used to be and how good it sometimes still is.
Philip Sulidae - Unknow
Philip Sulidae - The Blacken Solver
(dontcaresulidae)
3"CDR
Two mini sets of cosmic isolationist tone and drone from this Australian musician whose music links lonely tones with a subtly derelict post-industrial melancholy.
Unknow's 3 tracks are an absolute joy. They conjure images of loss and abandonment that leave one feeling distinctly uneasy.
The Blacken Solver contrary to what it's title would lead you to believe is the more open and psychedelic of the two. Here he has sacrificed much of the cloying atmospherics and replaced them with a more expansive and expressive palette that makes wider use of the sounds available to him.
Taiga Remains - Wax Canopy
(Digitalis Industries ACE015)
CD
Alex Cobb of Taiga Remains is also the person behind the Students of Decay label which, if your at all familiar with it, should give you a fair insight into just where he's coming from with the music on Wax Canopy. Cobb's music is a shimmering glaze of guitar-sourced drone, a fuzzed-up, coruscating kaleidoscope of colour and light with the ability to initiate a gentle shift of perceptions. It's deceptively simple and surprisingly joyous. This isn't an album born out of night time somnambulism but of searing heat and white light. It's fun to listen to (which isn't something you get to say about too many drone albums) and even more so if you crank the volume up a little and really embrace the blissed-out, burn-up of it all.
Tamaru - Figure
(trumn T01)
CD
This set of bass guitar improvisations has at it's base (please excuse the pun) a strict doctrine as outlined in the accompanying notes. Tomaru's setup, through it's simplicity, allows him to fully control the overtones coaxed from his delay drenched bass sounds.
There is an inherent problem in single instrument composition in that it often suffersd from a dearth of available sounds unless one is willing to overdub, something which Tamaru's strict minimalistic improvisational style precludes.
Figure is a little one-dimensional in places but equally the control and finesse displayed is quite something to behold. His tones are pristine and the music moves with a stately grace.
My minor reservation aside this is an interesting and worthwhile foray into improvisational minimalism.
Darren Tate - When An Insect Visits Your Window
(Fungal 035)
CDR
As many of you no doubt already know I have a close working relationship with the erstwhile Mr. Tate. At the time of writing we've made three albums together (with another on the way) and I've released one of his albums through Quiet World. I even designed the sleeve for this album. So, with all possible bias put aside here goes.
For me Darren is at his best when he's utterly absorbed in his two favourite toys, his guitar and his keyboard - especially his keyboard. When he really gets into the depths of his synth he pulls out some truly mesmerising sounds as is fortunately the case here. Darren has produced an album worthy of any of the early 70's kosmiche pioneers. His guitar makes an occasional appearance but it is the pulses and swoops of his electronics that carry the ambience towards the stars. His choice of sounds walk a narrow line between being horribly dated and supra-contemporary, luckily in hands as capable as his it is the latter that comes to the fore.
It's been too long since he last put out any, widely available, new music (there have been a few unique albums produced for Art Into Life in Japan) and it's a joy to hear his beautifully psychedelic sounds once again.
Viosac - You Are Planning To Enjoy The Apocalypse
(VATS2)
CD
These Canadians, who are more commonly known by the unwieldy name of 'Violence and the Sacred', have produced an album of two distinct halves. The first is dominated by disjointed Korg synthesizer compositions which I found to be hugely tedious, to the point that I'd pretty much decided not to review the album. Overly insistent cavalcades of bleeps and boops have never been of particular interest to me. Luckily I persevered though as on track 5 the album suddenly unfolds to reveal hidden depths. The Korg is restrained (but ever-present) and it is joined by a wider variety of sounds and instrumentation that allow the music to breathe and to grow.
I'm still not hugely taken with the album but I do think that fans of the less intense ends of experimental and industrial music will find something of interest here.
