Accomplice Affair - Jezioro Wspomnien
(My Hands Music MHM001)
CDR
Composed primarily using keyboards, guitar, voice and processing this dark ambient project by Polish musician Przemyslaw Rychlik is a decidedly more mellow and psychedelic beast than is the usual case with that genre. His atmospheres are interesting enough but the vocals he scatters throughout the album, especially the whispering, whilst initially an interesting addition to the album soon become quite tiresome. The music also occasionally looses it's way as track three gets to be a bit late 70's Pink Floyd sounding towards the end and track two begins as scarily new age. It's certainly not all negatives though as Rychlik really does know his way around both his instruments and his genre as shown on the excellent soundscape that constitutes the sixth (and title) track. It's certainly an interesting take on a genre that admittedly I don't visit very often but not, I think, an essential addition.
Adhesive Dan - The Reflection Of Sound
CDR
Whilst maybe taking the concept inherent in his chosen name a little too far in the packaging (a jewel case with a small sticky label stuck to it) of his album (a CDR with a sticky label stuck to it) and therefore achieving nothing in the eye-candy stakes this level of minimalist anti-design does suit the music contained within. Two tracks, one a 27 minute pulsating, mangled drone that is too short by at least half, the other an 8 minute excursion into a more delicate and meditative soundworld that also could have / should have been double its length. You don't need flashy packaging when the music's this good (although it couldn't hurt).
Aeoga - Coav
(Aural Hypnox AH02) CD
Aeoga - Zenith Beyond The Helix-Locus
(Aural Hypnox AH05) CD
After a fine start with much gonging and tinkling 'Coav' soon relaxes into a sedate yet uneasy atmosphere of noisy menace. This is music for the darker, dustier, cobwebbed parts of your ears. There is no light here. That faint glow you see up ahead is reflecting from the eyes of whatever's lurking around the next corner. Aeoga are all about the atmospherics (I'm trying really hard not to use the phrase 'dark ambient' here because I don't like it but it is appropriate) and to this end use their sound sources (whatever they may be) well. However, the somewhat lifeless production does rob the album of a lot of its dynamics, leaving it not as 'big' as it should have been but apart from that quibble this is nicely creepy.
The creepy continues on 'Zenith Beyond The Helix-Locust' (I've no idea what that title means) where the implied threat that underscores 'Coav' is replaced by abject terror. Not much has changed over the year that seperates these two releases. A great many of the instruments and sounds present on 'Coav' reappear here. What has changed however is the intensity of the whole thing. You can now feel the breath on the back of your neck, the bangs, crashes, screams and scratches are closer and the fear is more intimate, the walls are running with sweat and there's nowhere to go but forward. The production could still be improved but this has a far greater presence in a room than its predecessor.
Through the use of some well chosen instrumentation, gongs are always a good choice, Aeoga create a sound that would rival that made by tectonic plate shift. A great, cavernous, subterranean roar. Oh, and as with all Aural Hypnox releases the packaging has to be seen to be believed.
Ilyas Ahmed - Between Two Skies-Towards the Night
(Digitalis Arts et Crafts Editions ACE003)
2CD
There's a whole swathe of gently psychedelic acoustic music swirling around the US at the moment. As is always the case much of it is produced in microscopic quantities and rarely heard outside the stereos of a few select (and lucky) individuals. The two albums included here were originally released as a (very) limited run of 50 copies each but have been lovingly re-mastered and re-issued by Digitalis Industries and may (insert non-specific deity of your choice here) bless them for it.
Ahmed melds voice, acoustic guitar and piano (there are other instruments too but lists are boring) to sumptuous effect. Musically, American folk music must be identified as the prime inspiration of many of these compositions but they are rarely confined by the inherent boundaries of the genre. I must claim some ambivalence (at best) towards the amorphous vocals as to my mind they generally feel somewhat lazy and ill conceived never achieving the state of easy grace of the music. Vocals are rarely my bag however and I will give Ahmed kudos for trying something different with his and the quality of the rest of the sounds he produces more than compensate for any misgivings I might have.
Ajilvsga - Medicine Bull
(Dreamsheep DS006)
CD
Ajilvsga is a duo consisting of Nathan Young & Brad Rose who is the man behind Digitalis Recordings. I’m fortunate enough to be the recipient of promos from Digitalis so when I saw Brad’s name on the inlay with this seedee I made an assumption that this was going to follow the Digitalis tradition of being guitar led experimental roots Americana or warped acoustic psychedelic. The robes and hoods in the photos should have tipped me off that this wasn’t going to be the case.
Medicine Ball is bleak, intense, heavy, sludge noise drone. I’ve no clue what they are using to make these sounds, there is definitely guitar but after that it’s anyone’s guess. These guys certainly know what they’re doing though. The focus never wavers and the unrelenting ferocity of in the darkness they emit is staggering.
My capacity for music of this nature is, I must admit, limited. I’m an old hippy at heart and as such like a little whimsy or light in my music, some yang to piss on yings fire, so how often I’ll return here is open debate but, with that said, it’s definitely worth a visit or two.
Tetuzi Akiyama, Kevin Corcoran & Christian Kiefer - Low Cloud Means Death
(Digitalis Recordings ACE 011)
CD
Absolutely stunning set of improvised cuts by this new trio. (Acoustic) guitarist Akiyama, Kiefer on accordion, piano and other unspecified sound making implements & Corcoran on percussion together produce music of utterly absorbing beauty.
Low Clouds Means Death consists of a series of Feldman-esque pieces but where that erstwhile composers music feels utterly precise, each note meticulously placed with the utmost and deliberate care, here the precision feels beautifully natural. The trio’s control of their music and their musicianship leading them to create something that is timeless in every sense of the word.
Indeed, so unified do they sound that it’s easy to forget you are listening to an ensemble piece. The subtlety with which they advance each piece almost belies belief and the quality of the music is almost beyond compare.
Allerian - Listening Device
CDr
The info that came with this cd describes it as 'dark ambient'. I disagree. I think saddling music this free with such a leaden weight of a label does it a huge diservice. 'Dark', in this context, implies bleak and oppressive but I'm sitting here listening with a huge grin on my face thoroughly enjoying myself. It's not ambient either. Ambient music interacts with the sounds already present in a room preferably to the point where you cannot tell one from another which this doesn't do. This doesn't become one with the room, it takes over the room. You can wander around for hours inside this. It's enormous! Electronic sounds in constant motion characterise each track on the album and Allerian has a nifty little knack of utilising sounds that are always unusual enough to keep you engaged whilst new ones fly at you from every possible angle. My sole complaint would be with his use of an exclusively digital palette. I'd have loved to see the addition of some more organic sounds into the mix but that's a very small complaint and this is a very big album.
Amputation Desire / Ghogal - Wish / Not Wish
(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug059)
CDR
Two track album with each band working with the others sounds. I’m not utterly sure which track belongs to which act so I’m going to assume it mirrors the order given in the title listing.
The first track is a deep, dark pit of slow burn rumble. At times it sounds like how you’d imagine a distant artillery battle would. It’s well made and I‘ve played this track a few times. The second track is a fuzz-drenched distorted wall-of-noise. It’s pretty much your standard noise track with nothing to truly recommend it.
Asher - The Depths, The Colors, The Objects & The Silence
(Mystery Sea MS39)
CDR
Asher delve into the underbelly of experimental sounds producing three heavily textured pieces of music. They straddle the divide between found-sound soundscaping and field-recordings. Very little happens over the course of the album, tones and voices come and go, yet it is massively dense. Asher's is the music of the butterfly collector. The world becomes the butterfly pinned to the board, scrutinised and examined to the accompaniment of the fluttering of it's wings. It's a hard and long listening experience with little let up in the crushing bleakness of the atmosphere's created and indeed it is hard to find reasons to recommend it to you on musical terms but, there is a compulsion to it that keeps me listening. Whether that compulsion is based on curiosity or enjoyment I've yet to decide.
Bad Brains - Build A Nation
(Megaforce)
CD
Has anyone else noticed the canonisation of BB that has been going on the last couple of years. This isn't something I'm going to rail against, I love the Bad Brains and it's about time they got the props due to them. However, this album isn't quite the return to form masterpiece that was hoped for. And, to make matters worse, it's for the same reasons that have dogged them throughout the last 20-odd years. The metal-tinged hardcore workouts are as inspired as ever but Bad Brains are, at best, a mediocre reggae band and yet again the album is groaning under the weight of some really quite uninspired plodding. All the classic BB elements are here. HR's voice is as sinuous as ever it was, Dr Know has contributed some of the most fiery metal style guitar ever heard on a hardcore album and Earl and Darryl are the unrelentingly groovy bedrock. And it's a good album. In parts it's a really good album but I think it's one of those that's going to end up in pieces on a walkman rather than enjoyed as a whole.
Barbara - Peger
(Heart & Crossbone HCB-009)
CD
Israeli label Heart & Crossbone have been responsible for some of the most extreme and punishing music to grace my seedee player and this album by Barbara continues that noble tradition. Mixing some fabulous grindcore riffing with a defiantly math rock angularity before adding some old school Septic Death style vocals pushes many of the right buttons for me. In places this reminds me very much of John Zorn’s Naked City project (in particular the Torture Garden album) but what that project had that Barbara lacks is a crystal clear production. Much of Peger’s power is lost in the fuzzy murk of their mix which for a less adventurous band would have been a blessing but here it serves only to steal away a good proportion of the impact and that‘s a real shame. Like I said earlier though this is cracking stuff that with a little more time spent on the mix would have been utterly earth-shattering.
Baseline - Estado Liquido
(RMO Productions RMOBS02)
CD
Cosmic drone meets industrial rhythm on this project from Spanish musician Pilar Baizan. Her muse leads her to stack layer upon layer of electronic loops, drones, glitches and other assorted abstractions and obstructions to create a towering monolith of post-industrial kosmiche psychedelic. I like this album a lot. Think Cluster jamming in a steel mill. Beautiful, powerful, metallic drones soaring over angular arrhythmic hits that slowly disperse into grinding noise and pulsating loops. And that’s just the first track.
Track 2 opens with a cavernous rumble before morphing into a jittering, slowly evolving grind. It’s a nice tune but a little inconsequential when compared to the two tunes that bookend it.
The heartbeat at the core of track three allows the sedate mechanical drone to quietly build in momentum and insistency, eventually breaking through to the surface with a clattering of sound. This one is by far the more muscular of the three tracks and it flexes it’s way through much of it’s twenty two minute runtime before the heartbeat once more emerges and the track slowly fades away.
A very recommended release that, if you’re at all a fan of the music featured in this zine should be hunted down immediately.
Pascal Battus & Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Ductile
(A Question of Re-entry #8)
(Organised music from Thessaloniki #3)
CDR
Your guess is as good as mine (probably better) as to the pedigree of these two cats. What I do know for sure though is that together they produce an abrasive cacophony that would rival that produced by any other noise merchant and they do so using only paper and microphones with the total absence of any processing effects. I know this because it says so on the sleeve but once you know this you can kinda tell. On first listen you find yourself playing a game of 'How did they make that sound?' but soon your subconscious mind becomes drawn into the game and you are absorbed into the maelstrom.
If I'm being perfectly honest, and I always strive to be so, then I must admit that Ductile isn't an album that'll feature regularly on my player but over the last month it has made more than a couple of appearances. The sounds they generate are a little cold and abrasive but I suppose that is the characteristics of the sound source. At first I was listening with curious ears as to how they were gong to pull this idea off. Subsequent listens were made with ears that simply enjoyed the verve with which this pair have realised their idea.
BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Doctor Who - At the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Vol. 1: The Early Years 1963 - 1969
(Mute)
CD
It doesn't take a genius to work out which tune opens this collection of sound effects and incidental musics created by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for the Doctor Who series. Indeed Delia Derbyshire & Ron Grainger's theme music (which has to be the most recognisable piece of music in the UK) appears some 4 times in all. The other 72 (yes you did read that right) tracks are devoted to some of the most fantastic pieces of, pre-computer (or post for that matter), electronic musics that you'll ever hear. The pieces reproduced on this album are taken from the time of the first 2 Doctors including sounds from the pilot episode. Keeping in mind that this music was created over 40 years ago the freshness is astounding. Nothing here has dated in the slightest still sounding remarkably contemporary. This is a testament to the skills and creativity of those involved and leaves one to wonder why quite so much homage is paid to the likes of Stockhausen, Varese, Henry, etc, when the work on offer here by Derbyshire, Grainger, Brian Hodgson, Dick Mills, Dudley Simpson, John Baker (and the wonderful Daphne Oram who isn't on here) is as unrepentantly eccentric, unique and cutting edge as anything created by those erstwhile composers.
BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Doctor Who At the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Vol. 2: New Beginnings 1970 - 1980
(Grey Area of Mute)
CD
If you listen very carefully you can hear the sound of me arriving in geek heaven. These are the sounds that shaped my ears and sculpted my musical tastes. I was a little kid in the 1970's and Doctor Who ruled my world. I loved everything about it and hearing these incidental pieces and sound effects is like trying on a favourite (purple velvet) jacket that you haven't worn in decades and finding that it still remembers every contour of your body. Whilst maybe not as sonically ground-breaking as the work featured in Volume One of this series this is still a treasure trove of electronic goodies. Some of the sounds used have dated slightly and I'm sure I heard some ZX Spectrum sound effects in there somewhere. But be aware I'm quibbling in the interests of being the impartial, professional reviewer when what I actually want to do is giggle like an over-excited 7 year old and sing 'Woo-oo-oooo Ooo-oooo' (join in you know the tune) at the top of my voice. Brilliant stuff.
BCS Entertainment - Trial and Error
CD
I have no idea what the hell is going on here. This is easily the oddest thing I've heard in quite some considerable time. Described to me as a bit of 'a wrong un' and I have to agree. I have to agree especially as I consider that phrase a great recommendation. The music is all over the shop, though even turning and changing on a whim as it does it never feels like it's doing so randomly. You can feel a guiding hand here just it's not always readily apparent where the hand is guiding it to. It's a huge joyous mix of post-punk-electro-pop-indie-krautrock inspired lunacy and it's available from the label in return for a SAE which is a price within anyone's budget. Do me a favour though and if you do order a copy (and you really should, it's completely bonkers) then send them a couple of quid as well because any label with the balls to stump up the cash to release this deserves your support.
Bearcub - ep
CDR
Lively 4 track instrumental ep occupying the margins between post-rock and indie. The songs feel newly minted and are played as such so they're a little stiff in places but there's a jaunty playfulness and a pop heart that is pretty much guaranteed to, at the very least, get you nodding along (especially when the criminally underused violin kicks in).
It does seem that some of the songs have been written with vocals in mind ('Your Zoo' & ' Agamemnon') leaving things sounding slightly bare in places but a little time and the addition of a decent vocalist should see Bearcub evolve into something to look out for.
Big Block 454 - Their Coats Flapped Like God's Chops
CDR
Long time Manchester experi-mentalists Big Block 454 travel the gamut of outsider-music traditions over the course of this 17 track album. Their cited influences of Krautrock, The Residents and the Bonzo Dog Band are always apparent but never all-consuming allowing BB454 the freedom to pursue their own identity. The funkier side of Can is, to the these ears at least, the most obvious of those influences as BB454 delve into a much unexplored area of experimental music - that which you could conceivably hit the dance floor and bop along to. Music for the head and the feet. It has to be said that there are a couple of moments on this cd about which I have nothing nice to say, these being mostly decents into whimsy and zany. Fortunately, these are few and the rest veers between the sublime and the magnificent.
Big Block 454 - Bratislava
CDR
I liked the last BB454 album i heard but the daftness got on my nerves more than a little and spoilt the album for me. This time out however the daftness is fully integrated into the album. it's woven throughout in both the music and the lyrics and boy does it work. Sure there are moments throughout that I'm not connecting with (Melamine for instance) but on the whole, and it's the whole that counts, this is corking stuff that takes elements of Devo, The Residents and a whole host of other outsider pranksters and adds a healthy dose of English eccentricity to create something new and wonderful. This isn't going to be for everyone but it's definitely for me.
Birch Book - Fortune & Folly
(Helmet Room )
CD
Jon Michael B'eirth (from here on called B'ee) is better known as the person behind psychedelic troubadours In Gowan Ring. Birch Book is where he presents his more directly song based compositions. Here he wears his influences boldly on his sleeve. The press release notes both Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake and indeed there are elements of both but I can also hear shades of Donovan and Dylan. However if this is making you think that Birch Book is merely the derivative of it's constituent parts then please push that thought away as B'ee is taking his obvious love for the above and celebrating it through a set of songs that are entirely his own and show a songwriter actively engaged in honing his craft.
Bisturi / Vril / Mixturizer - BVM Split
(R.O.N.F. Records RNF-032)
CDR
If the darker and more atmospheric end of noise music is your bag then you'll already be well aware of R.O.N.F. Records. Last month I featured their excellent 'Altered Neurologycal Function Vol.1' comp and this month sees a cool split seedee from three bands who are all new to WWR.
First up are Bisturi who open the album in a surprisingly psychedelic way with various half-melodies and broken rhythms scattered and roaming around the mix. A droning noise slowly builds in the mix along with some amorphous voice samples before the whole thing comes to a close with a birth.
Second and third are Vril with a pair of erratic and acidic constructions of razor-edged noise. It's great restless fun that'll nicely soundtrack your next armageddon.
Finally we have Mixturizer who, despite sounding like they're going to be a hip hop act, wrap things up with a cretaceous fuzzy roar.
Bjerga & Iversen / Skullpture - split
(Musically Incorrect Records MIR#25)
CD-R
Bjerga & Iversen open this split CD-R with a track constructed from ‘amplified objects, effects and electronics‘. It’s piercing sine waves, vague rustlings, beeps, burps, clatters and shimmers all sit atop a warm and comforting vinyl crackle. For those of you without an LP player raised exclusively on CD or, heaven forbid, MP3’s then you just won’t understand the beauty of this sound. As for the track as a whole, it’s delicate and fragile yet solidly constructed and beautiful to listen to.
Skullpture, as the, dreadful, name implies, are a much darker sounding outfit. Consisting of the enigmatically named Novaro, PT & Wikgren, Skullpture’s untitled improvisation by-passes the niceties of the B&I track and instead confronts the listener with a soundworld that is unapologetically abstract, angular and antagonistic. Some guitar peddle abuse (especially the echo) aside this is great fun. Whilst Bjerga & Iversen invite you into a warm room and give you the comfy chair next to the fire, Skullpture tie you to the chair and flick peanuts at your head. Recommended.
Sindre Bjerga - I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
(Dirty Demos DirtyCDR 017)
3"CDR
Sindre Bjerga is one half of the prolific Norwegian duo Bjerga & Iverson who I last reviewed way back in WWR 3 (their split release with Skullpture on Musically Incorrect Records). This is a far different kettle of fish to that release, it's a damn sight louder that's for sure. A massive, muddy roar is propelled along by a metronomic drumbeat as shards of electric noise crash and break like surf on a shoreline. Very minimal in construction and rather brutally mixed means this isn't going to be an everyday sort of listen but if you're in the mood for something a little nasty and edgy then this would be a good place to start.
Sindre Bjerga & Cam Deas - Split Series #2
(Dirty Demos DirtyCDR 026)
CDR
Sindre Bjerga is a long time favourite here in Wonderful Wooden heights and his contribution to this release is yet another reason to love what he does. Slow build hum and noise crescendos that grind and snarl their way into your head and heart. Especially impressive as it's live.
UK sound mangler Cam Deas is a new name to me who here works a 24 minute track of bent and warped guitar. His 24 minute contribution is a rolling display of his oeuvre where he's at his best when he allows the music room to breathe and not get too bogged down in overtly abrasive effects and volume. It's a fine piece however that flows nicely through it's many distinct fluctuations.
Black Motor - Vaarat Vastukset
(Dreamsheep DS008)
CD
I’m going to let you all in on a secret about this music reviewing lark. You ready for it? As a reviewer you get to listen to a frankly ridiculous amount of music but it’s rarely the music you want to listen to. I can’t really remember the last time I pulled an album off the shelf because I hadn’t listened to it in a while. As I write this there are two piles of about 40 cds next to me waiting to be played and written about. Not that I’m complaining you understand. Of that 40 odd most will be worthy of several listens as the bands, artists and labels who send to me are a pretty consistent bunch. The point I’m trying to make is that my listening habits are dictated by what I’m sent rather than what I like to a great extent. Now here’s where this becomes apposite to the album in hand. Up to about 4 years ago I listened to a lot of jazz. I fell deeply and profoundly in love with the music for one pure and simple reason. I do not understand it at all! Mystifies me completely. Every twist and turn of a good jazz album, whether by Coltrane, Dolphy, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, whomever, takes me by surprise and I love surprises.
I don’t get sent much jazz to review at WWR - I think 2 albums in 4 years - but playing on my stereo at the moment is the long awaited third and I am loving it.
Finnish trio Black Motor mix an atonal skronk with wonderfully chilled lyrical passages to great effect. Even on first listen there was a comfortable familiarity to the music - which I certainly do not mean in a negative sense - as it felt warm and open. Inviting and yet exotic. Like visiting a new country in the company of your best friend. You don’t know what you’ll find there but you know the company will be good.
Opener Yksi Sinulta Puuttuu is for me the weakest track on the album. It’s easily the most atonal and avant-garde piece here and gets the album off to a deceptive start. I think positioned later in the running order would have benefited this track as it really is the odd one out here. It’s blatant disregard of the niceties of established notions of musicality is laudable but at odds with the melodic nature of the other tracks. As fond as I am of a good ruckus it is the remaining 5 tracks that really make Vaarat Vastukset something to behold. The melodies pour from the arrangements and lift the album from any assumptions made during the opening 10 minutes or so. The balance between melody and madness is perfect and has left me gob-smacked meaning that this album has taken up residence on my player. Hugely recommended.
Blackpepper - Disabled Algebra
(Dirty Demos DirtyCDR 008)
3"CDR
Another quality mini-CDR from Dirty Demos this time providing a sampling of Blackpepper's twitchy and vaguely uncomfortable (in a good way) breakbeat. This is dance music for people who aren't particularly too keen on dancing as rhythms and melodies float in and out on a whim refusing to settle into a groove. At different times Disabled Algebra reminded me of (amongst others) Boards of Canada, Matmos and particularly Pendulum but equally Blackpepper is very much its own beast and seems set on carving out a niche all of it's own.
And (much to my partners delight) it comes with a free spirograph.
Black Sparrow - Legs Heavy With Pollen
(Dead Sea Liner 12)
CDR
I've virtually no info to give you on Black Sparrow other than that it's the work of someone called Robin (I think). Black Sparrow is the sound of recordings peaking. Lo-fi drones recorded with everything in the red. There is nothing quiet or subtle about this album, it gets right up in your face and glares at you, It wants you to know that it doesn't like you, it thinks your car is ugly and your mother is the town bike. It's loaded with broken sounds and it doesn't want them fixed because it did it itself and it fucking likes it that way! Has it been done before? Yeah. Has it been done better? Yeah. Is it any good? Hell yeah!
Bobbys Beard - Bobbys Beard
(Ingue Records)
CDR
With the exception of the fact that they’re from Somerset (or at least that’s where they recorded the album) the truly appallingly named Bobbys Beard (the punctuation error is theirs) are an enigma to me. It’s on Ingue Records though which means it’s well worth a listen so here goes.
The music is a chilled and whimsical slice of psychedelia. I can spot a variety of influences hiding amongst BB’s songs. The whole thing has a pronounced Beach Boys-esque feel to it, the vocal style has been liberated from the Stone Roses or the Inspiral Carpets and there’s a real Angelo Badalamenti vibe to some of the tracks.
The production is pretty lo-fi which works to their advantage and the songs are pretty good. It’s pop music though and good pop always lives or dies on the quality of it’s hooks and they’re, for the most part, missing here. I love that they’re more than willing to throw a shot of anarchy into the proceedings and it’s a good listen but it desperately needs those hooks that will raise it up to the next level.
The Bordellos - Meet...
(Brutarian)
CDR
I've previously described The Bordellos as being 'quirky British pop a la Syd Barrett or The Fall'. Well, I'm pretty much sticking by that description as this new album takes their weird and wacky take on pop music to new, illogical, extremes. Some tracks are definite standouts - Scream & Arthouse Gang being my personal favourites - but all are, at the very least, listenable. The Bordellos mix a refreshingly tongue-in-cheek sense of humour with an easy songwriting style evocative of beer and weed filled summer afternoons spent watching your mate's band jam. So much so, I'm going to revise my description slightly to read 'quirky British pop a la Syd Barrett or The Fall or The Bordellos'.
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.
Box - Digested Material
(Electronic 001)
CDR
Box - evilBOXlive
(Electronic 008)
CDR
A box of many corners producing music of jarring angularity and complexity utilising guitars and a battery of amorphous and enigmatic instrumentation. I've chosen to review both of these albums together as there is a compositional unity on display being as Box is the nom de plume of one person - Neil McIntee. His soundworld is populated by crashing noise and electronic spatters, digital cascades and harmonic drones, electronic glitches and pulsating tones. A post-industrial diaspora of sound derived mostly, I suspect, from digital sources and a guitar.
I think the most appealing thing for me about Mcintee's compositions is his refusal to rush. All the pieces here (even the shorter tracks that make up Digested Material) move at a stately and unhurried pace. His ability to manage his sounds is, from the first moment, never in doubt so it is very nice to be left in the position of being able to sit back and allow his compositions to take you wherever they wish to.
Strangely, given my propensity for long tracks it is the former of these two albums that I claim as my favourite simply on the grounds that the individual pieces seem more 'mature' - in the fine wine sense - as though they've been allowed to sit and improve over time. As the second's title indicates that it was recorded live (I know I should check the press release at this point but I simply cannot be bothered) this is only to be expected. There's nothing to deter you from this album either though as it does include some very fine moments it‘s just a little too fidgety for my tastes.
Mark Bradley - Drifting
(Feelscape Recordings FRC01)
CDR
This debut Feelscape Recordings release is by American sound mangler Mark Bradley and it is indeed and auspicious start for the label as he here provides some deep and languid explorations. The albums centrepiece, the 28 (and change) minute long third track (Drifting), is both the most sonically interesting and the track that’s least likely to get repeated plays due to it’s mix of the rounded tonalities, that characterise much of the rest of the album, with some really quite piercing high end tones. I like this tactic but it’s one I can only take in short doses and after the best part of 30 minutes I’d had enough. Don’t let this really minor quibble put you off giving this a try though because this album is well worth a listen.
Mark Bradley - For The Monks
(Existential Cloth Recordings)
CDR
Mark Bradley - Bible Black
(Idrone Park cd17)
MP3
Two short new releases this month from US musician Mark Bradley. The first, 'For The Monks', is a set of slow drones and sci-fi twittering. It opens with the blissful and gently euphoric 'Fade In' before slipping into a more melancholic ambience on 'Oslo'. The simple melody line giving it a gloriously wistful quality. At only 1 minute 21 seconds long track 3, 'Transcend', seems little more than a segue (albeit a nice one) towards the final track, 'The Monks', which is for me the best track here, a lava-lamp of tones, swelling and fading to create a beautifully mesmeric microcosm of sound.
As good as 'For The Monks' is and as much as I like it, I like 'Bible Black' even more. Right from the off this is a more dynamic and wholly hallucinogenic set. On the opening track, 'And Even Still', his organ-like drones overlaid to such a density that they almost preclude any and all other sounds from reaching our ears. This is followed by the deep resonances of 'In Cascades'. It's alpine horn sonorities creating ripples in the air surrounding the speakers. Third and final track, 'What Once Was', is the more restrained of the three. As with 'The Monks' on the previous ep it's more concerned with gentle falls of sound. It's sleepy autumnal feel a relief after the intensity of the previous two. It's the relief of arrival rather than the turmoil of travel.
Two fine drone EP's. Both recommended.
Paul Bradley - Immure
(The Locus of Assemblage mass11)
3"CDR
I wasn't blown away by the last Paul Bradley album I heard (Drone Works #1). It wasn't a bad album but I felt that it was constrained by it's twenty-odd minutes. It was over before it ever really felt as though it had got started. With this 3"cdr we have, roughly, the same amount of music but this is a whole different ballgame. Each of the three tracks has an identity and a lifespan all of it's own. The gong crescendo of track 1, the otherworldyness of the second track and it's multi-layered 13 minute drone and the short comedown of track 3 show just what Bradley is capable of. This time the disc is too short not because the music has yet to get anywhere interesting but because I'm not ready to let it leave yet.
Paul Bradley - Drone Works #6
(Twenty Hertz)
CD-R
This is the replacement #6 in the series the first having been withdrawn for some reason. Bradley’s second contribution to the series is a delicate 20 minute drone that's so quiet it took me three listens before I managed to make it all the way through without outside noises drowning huge chunks of it out. A far more satisfying listen than his earlier piece, Bradley's somnambulant electronic drone winds it's merry way, untroubled and unhurried. You get to walk with it for while until, even at this lazy pace, it eventually pulls away and fades into the distance.
Paul Bradley - Chroma
(Twenty Hertz TH016)
CD
The latest release from UK drone musician Paul Bradley sees him embracing a slightly more ambient sound than had previously been apparent although Bradley's take on the genre is very much his own. Working from what seems like a, not limited but, concise palette Bradley paints an ambient landscape of subtle tones and shades. His drones are steely and forceful, they are electric and magnetic with the ozone aftertaste of a lightning storm. Like the best ambient music Chroma is never overpowering or intrusive it simply is.
Paul Bradley - Searching For The Way
(Locus of Assemblage)
3" CDR
Paul's previous contribution to LoA's 3" CDR series (Immure) was a sublime melange of gongs and translucent tones. This time out Paul uses surging crescendos to propel the choral-esque tones and slicing shards of electronics straight to the centre of your attention. In place of the pervasive ethereal quality that is his calling card there is a solidity and physicality to the sounds used that hasn't often been apparent in Bradley's solo music making this a very fine addition to an already impressive discography.
Paul Bradley - Somatic
(Con-V CNVR15)
CDR
This beautifully packaged CDR on the predominantly web-based label Con-V is the latest in a string of fine releases from Paul Bradley. This is new(ish) territory for Paul as the delicate wash of his tonal pallette is here augmented by layers of grimy and gritty field recordings. The whole feels significantly less 'airy' than is often the case with a much more textural and tactile quality. Here it seems that the intention of the music is to bypass any somnolent ambient characteristics inherent in the drones by the inclusion of elements (both sonic and structural) that, almost, forcibly engage the listener. One is compelled to stay alert to the flow of the music unable to divert one's attention from this fascinating construction even if one should be so asinine as to actually want to.
Brain Lesion - Abomination of Desolation
(Heretic Records HC10)
CDR
With a project name and album title like these you pretty much know exactly what you're going to get don't you. A bit of 'aaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!', a smattering of 'wwwwwwuuuurrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!', and a shovelful of 'ssssssssssssskkkkkkkkkkkkrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!'. And guess what? You'd be...well, correct actually. Ugly, monosyllabic noise. Ambient music for the 327th level of hell as presided over by Dark Lord Cedric the Squirrel Fondler. This is the deep, dark, death obsessed end of the noise world where only the blackest of clothes may be worn. I find it all a bit silly but I like it. It's unapologetic and contains more than enough ideas to both keep me listening and to bring me back for more.
brb>voicecoil - Occupation by Killers
(Muzzedia Verhead MV008)
3” CDR
Mini cd from UK musician Kevin Wilkinson of lo-fi almost noise constructions. Made from close up recordings of plastic on wood and tin on concrete alongside some judiciously placed field recordings this 22 minute composition of rhythm and drone skirts the edges of noise music without falling entirely into that genres increasingly mundane clutches. I like the way Wilkinson doesn't quite hide the primitive nature of his sound sources - there's a griminess to the recordings that grounds the music very nicely allowing it to retain it's humanity which is a factor all too easily removed from much experimental music.
Brekekekexkoaxkoax - We Used To Be Such Good Friends
(Hushroom Recordings hushroom4)
CDR
If Wonderful Wooden Reasons has been especially difficult to write this month (and it has) then this album is the reason. For the 3 weeks since it arrived on my doormat it's dominated my stereo. It's playing as I type. Nothing unusual in that, the album I'm reviewing usually is. But, and here's my point, this is the third time it's been on today and it's only noon. Yesterday it was playing in the car, on my mp3 player and I played it a couple of times in the house too. It's superb.
Brekekekexkoaxkoax (what is that name about?) is the alter-ego of one Josh Ronsen, from Austin. Texas, and a rotating array of collaborators (here it's Bill Thompson, Jacob Green, Vanessa Arn, Glen Nuckolls and Genevieve Walsh). The role each musician takes is unspecified and to be perfectly honest I care nothing for such things. What is important is the beautiful noise they make as a collective (in whatever combination that may be). Primarily guitar led melodic improvisations (I think) that roll gently around the room. Acoustic instrumentation flows around electronic as the music shifts and drifts like the tide. The music never rests but most importantly never rushes. Every idea that rolls along is allowed to develop fully before it relinquishes it's hold on the ambience and something new takes it's place.
It's an amazing album.
Brekekekexkoaxkoax - I Manage To Get Out By A Secret Door
(eh? 35)
CDR
I was absolutely besotted with the first Brekekekexkoaxkoax album I heard (We Used To Be Such Good Friends) and indeed if the truth be told I still am. It is probably the best album I heard in 2008. I mention this to give you some measure of how much this one, it's predecessor, has to live up to. So, does it? Well, yes actually. It seems that on 'We Used...' those involved were continuing on from where they left off on this earlier set of explorations. The ensembles assembled around guitarist Josh Ronsen are more fluid in their composition this time out (two solo pieces, a duo, a trio and a quartet) and the instrumentation seems less elusive with Ronsen's guitar being the most readily apparent.
The real glory of the Brek-etc ensembles lies in their willingness to embrace musicality. Far too often we hear improvisational groups diving headlong into jarring atonalities without ever taking the time to consider what it would be like to improvise around a melody and do so in a thorough and engrossing way utterly devoid of musical clichés. It's a joy to hear musicians who seem to consider both directions as being equally valid of investigation.
Once again, I am stunned. A beautiful album, heartily recommended.
B°tong - Polar:is
(Petty Bourgeois Broadcasts)
CDR
B°tong is Swiss composer Chris Sigdell who has been active since the mid nineties in various guises. His music is a deep and dark somnambulant stream punctuated with occasional flurries and eddies of sound and texture that serve to both enhance and agitate the flow. Much of Sigdell's sounds display a love for the harsher ends of the sound spectrum but they are assembled with such a sympathetic ear that they achieve a naturalistic quality that is the flip side of what early expectations lead one to expect. 'Polar:is' is forceful and vigorous excursion into the outer edges of ambient music. It's considerably more interesting than most music being produced in this style at the moment and if, to use a crass term, dark ambient is your particular bag then you'd be hard pressed to find anything better.
B°tong - Microsleep
(Verato Project)
CDR
Swiss composer Chris Sigdell had previously impressed me with his Polar:is album on Petty Bourgeois Broadcasts a year or so back. He operates deep within dark ambient territories producing music to soundtrack your most uncomfortable sleepless nights.
I'm not entirely sure where Sigdell sources most of his sounds. Most I suspect are electronically generated although I think I can spot some other types of sounds (bells, guitar) in the mix. His compositions are constructed over a solid bedrock of some fine drones that give each of the pieces their character before he decorates them with shards of hard sound. If some of his strategies are a little age-worn, slowed down vocal samples and stuttering electronics, that's only because they are such good strategies and are here used to their best effect.
Dark ambient done very well and recommended to all fans of the genre.
B°tong - Hysteria
(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug065)
CDR
Apparently the source sounds of this seedee come from recordings of water and earthquakes, the second of which definitely points your mind in a certain direction as to what the music is going to sound like. You’re mind would be pointing in the right direction too but there is more to both B°tong and to ‘Hysteria’ than that. Added to the mix are a host of warped voice samples and his usual vast array of sounds created on, what he calls, ‘ancient technology’. It’s a darkly psychotropic experience and one I urge you to try for yourself.
Burmese / Cadaver Eyes - Split
(HCB Records HCB-016 New Scream Industry IND-002)
CD
Dear Santa
For Christmas this year our singer would like a new throat as the one he's got is now ruined. Those bass amps you brought us last year now sound like farts in a hail storm. Thank you very much they're perfect. Also Mark says thanks for the drumkit. He's beaten it half to death and the cymbals now sound like saucepans.
We've made an album with our friends Cadaver Eyes. They're really good and like us they've mutilated all their instruments to within an inch of their lives. We will leave a copy of the album for you with your milk and mince pies. We think you'll like it a lot because it's proper noisy.
Lots of love
Burmese
Cadmium Dunkel - The Enerhaugen Concerts
(Krakilsk kra045)
CDR
With the exception of a big list of the instruments used in the making of this album I have absolutely no information to give you as to who or what Cadmium Dunkel is / are. They (he / she) do however make a rather nice noise. Swooping drones and rumbling noise paired with fragile instrumentation, tumbling melodies paired with percussive stabs and sparse immersive atmospheres paired with all the above. There is a deliberate sense of motion here in it's layers of sleepy tonalities that means this is easily one of the more interesting (and recommended) post-industrial noise releases I've heard in a while.
Caethua - Village of the Damned
(BlueSanct INRI083)
CD
I must admit that the opening track, a slightly whimsical slice of indie americana, was, for me, an inauspicious start to this album from New York state musician Clare Hubbard. Musically it's certainly not a bad track but the vocals are, shall we say, an acquired taste. The rest of the album though is sumptuously psychedelic. It retains it's lo-fi acousticity (I've invented that word especially for this review) but is delightfully expansive in scope. It's musically self-indulgent without ever feeling so. I remain unconvinced by her vocals but whether she's strumming, droning, percussioning (there's another new word) or teasing gentle melodies out of whichever instrument is featured at any given moment Hubbard does make some divine music.
This certainly isn't going to be to everyone's taste but I really do recommend you give it a try.
Juan Jose Calarco - Raiz de Invierno
(Locus of Assemblage mass20)
3" CDR
Another sublime release from the Locus stable. Their series of 3" CDR has been exemplary and this one by Argentinian sound sculptor Juan Jose Calarco is certainly no exception. His delicate field recordings and carefully crafted sounds create a fragile yet deeply earthy ambience which hovers intriguingly at the fringes of your perceptions before erupting in a tsunami of thunder, water and hiss and then receding once more.
Juan Jose Calarco - Darsena Interna
(Mystery Sea MS52)
CDR
My previous exposure to the work of Argentine musician Calarco (his mini CD on Locus of Assemblage) had been very favourable so I was quite excited about this new release on the always recommended Mystery Sea label. Calarco’s soundworld has, at it's base, a distinctly urbanised setting. His music is embedded into a oppressive, hissing layer of industrialised (but not industrial) rumble.
I'm hearing more and more of this sort of composition lately and the urban is increasingly replacing the industrial as the norm. The relentless battery of the industrial is no longer as valid a soundworld to many and so it no longer resonates as much as it maybe did previously. As such I think it's position is being usurped by sonic reproductions of the low-key background miasma of the modern urban environment. Calarco's composition is, I think, very reflective of this assumption. His music has a stark brutality that is tempered by the flecks of humanity that can be glimpsed through the haze of sound.
I must admit that being a dedicated country dweller I find these sounds to be utterly inimical to a positive state of mind. As a composition though they are fascinating and beautifully orchestrated.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Shining Skull Breath
(Students of Decay SoD-40)
CDR
Founder member of San Francisco 'post-rock' (hateful-term) combo Tarantel, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma here constructs a simply stunning set of fuzz laden drone washes. Both attention grabbing and subtly insidious, Jefre constructs huge, beautiful monoliths of grit from which tumble melodies like coins from an end of row Vegas slot machine.
Celer - Tropical
(Mystery Sea MS50)
CDR
Celer are Will & Danielle and this album consists of piano, strings, radio, electronics, arrangements (?), tape, words, bells and field recordings. I know this because it says so on the inside of the sleeve. That’s my question mark back there by the way, it’s not on the sleeve just in my head. It seemed a strange thing to write on the instrument list, but I digress.
Tropical is a bit of a misnomer as titles go as there is a far more arid or tundra feel to Celer's music than there is tropical. It consists of a series of stately, slow moving, round mid-range drones. There is very little superfluous decoration in the music. All the attention is focussed entirely upon the drones and their careful evolution.
This is easily one off the nicest drone albums I've heard in a while and it's found it's way onto my seedee player many times over the last few weeks. It isn't the most memorable of discs though with the tracks being fairly amorphous and vague. Another way of putting this though is that the tracks are quite amorphous and vague which is the very quality that has kept the album visiting my seedee player over the last few weeks as it's almost impossible to get bored of them. Both version work for me depending on my mood.
Definitely worth a listen but as it's on Mystery Sea you already knew that.
Andrew Chalk - The River That Runs Into The Sands
(Faraway Press)
CD
The second release on Andrew Chalk's new Faraway Press label. The first, 'Shadows from the Album Skies', was a looong beautiful drone stretched over the entire cd. This one offers more of Chalk's characteristic masterful dronescaping but, due to the shorter track lengths, what we have here is a drone album with a palpable sense of urgency. Now, don't get me wrong, this album still moves at a snails pace but it's a pretty nimble snail. For me certain types of drones remind me of certain times of day. For instance, 'Soliloquy for Lilith' by NWW is undoudtedly a night time drone. It's bathed in darkness and night-time rhythms. 'The River That Runs...', however, feels decidedly early morning. The stunning mid-range drones that Chalk conjures and their shimmering harmonics evoke the feel of a summer sunrise. This is transcendant music, celebratory and triumphant like all good sunrises.
Andrew Chalk - Vega
(Faraway Press)
CDr
It's snowing outside and it's very cold. I'm wearing two jumpers and the heater is pulled up next to my chair. I have candles burning in the hope that they'll help warm the room. I'm holding a mug of hot coffee in my left hand and I'm typing slowly, and badly, with my right. The speakers are either side of my head and pouring from them is this album. This album is hot chocolate with marshmallows on a winter's night. It's an old pair of trainers. It's an extra hour in bed on a weekday morning. It's hot buttered toast. It's a favourite baggy jumper. It's soft, it's warm, it's sensuous, it's sinuous, it molds itself to you like a feather duvet. This is, quite simply, exquisite.
Andrew Chalk - Blue Eyes of the March
(Faraway Press)
CD
I listened to this in my garden, on headphones, whilst sitting watching a blackbird decimate the grasshopper population. I couldn't tell where the music ended and the rest of the world began.
Andrew Chalk - Goldfall
(Faraway Press)
LP
It's on vinyl, it's beautifully presented in handmade packaging and the title tells you exactly what it sounds like.
Andrew Chalk - Goldfall
(Faraway Press)
CD
This is what dreams sound like. Not the ones you get if you've eaten too much cheese before going to sleep but the ones you get just as you're waking up and every part of your body is relaxed, warm and comfortable.
Andrew Chalk - East of the Sun
(Faraway Press)
CD
Originally released in 1993-94, this is the latest in a string of astonishingly good albums from Andrew Chalk via his own Faraway Press imprint. Slow, heavy pulses merge with overlapping washes of sound. Interestingly, it's impossible to play this album loudly, it's inherently quiet. Even with the volume turned way up it pretty much hovers at the edges of perception as if it's daring you to let your attention wander. The instrumentation is masked in reverb and delay removing the distraction of familiar sounds and leaving you afloat on an ocean of warm honey. Immaculate.
Andrew Chalk, Daisuke Suzuki, Naoko Suzuki - Ghosts on Water
(Faraway Press)
CD
5 tracks for voice, flute, percussion, piano, field recordings and kantele (a small Finnish harp) and a sharp change of style for Mr. Chalk. Here we hear his music in a more 'song' (those inverted commas are very important) orientated format. This entire EP is barely as long as one track on his other albums and provides a very different listen to anything I've heard from him before. As ever the atmosphere is soft and sumptuous, you sink into Chalk's music like an overstuffed armchair, but the addition of voices and the more obvious instrumentation (at least compared to his other releases) mean this is a less immersive listen than is often the case. Here one gets to hear the minutiae of the music rather than being suspended inside the swirling whole. It's an interesting excursion and one I hope is explored in greater depth in the future, especially the solo(ish) piano work on tracks 4 & 5 which is simply divine.
Andrew Chalk & Daisuke Suzuki - The Days After
(Faraway Press 11)
CD
Reissue of an earlier cut by this Anglo-Japanese pairing. Two tracks of transcendent tones and curious half-melodies that pluck the thoughts from your mind and leave you breathless and becalmed. No-one, and I really mean no-one, does this better than Andrew Chalk
Andrew Chalk - The River That Flows Into The Sands II
(Faraway Press FP07)
CD
Not so much a follow-up more a continuation of Andrew Chalk's earlier album of the same(ish) name. Recorded at the same time and using the same techniques as volume one this could have been a disastrous rehash of that earlier work and in less capable hands this would have been the case. Andrew however displays his trademark care, patience and skill in teasing out the minutiae of sounds that are his calling card to produce not so much a worthy successor but a stunning continuation of one of his finest works to date.
Andrew Chalk - Time of Hayfield
(Faraway Press)
CD
Time of Hayfield, the latest beautifully packaged and perfectly realised album from Mr. Chalk, presents a cascading array of weightless tones and drones that float effortlessly from your speakers. Andrew's compositions are laced with a glow that spreads effortlessly across the room. His music flows upon it's own unravelling melodies that gracefully and sedately roll ever outwards.
This time round things are a little more insistent than is often the case. The mix is that little bit more forceful and the sounds are just a tad more resolute therefore not allowing concentration to waver. What comes as no surprise is that 'Time of Hayfield' was recorded at the same time as Andrew's truly stunning 'Goldfall' album as it shares many of the textures and atmospheres as that release which lends this album a familiarity to those of us lucky enough to have heard the precursor. As ever this is hugely recommended.
Andrew Chalk & Daisuke Suzuki - The Shadows Go Their Own Way
(Siren Records 015)
CD
Fabulous new collaboration between UK drone artist Andrew Chalk and Japanese field recordist Daisuke Suzuki following on from their previous two releases (The Days After & Senshu). These collaborations are a different animal from Andrew’s solo releases (I can’t comment on Daisuke’s as I’ve never heard any) as the gentle, translucent drone is replaced by disjointed half-melodies and sing song sonorities. The pair, ably assisted by their respective partners, Vikki Jackman & Naoko Suzuki, meld a plethora of instruments and strategies to create a hallucinogenic swirl of sound. It’s difficult to focus fully on the music for long as it’s nebulous nature means it easily folds around your perceptions lulling you into a fully immersed stupor from which you can only emerge when the musicians allow (or when some outside inconsiderate interrupts the music).
Always wonderful and always recommended.
Cheapmachines - Transit
(Locus of Assemblage)
3" CDR
Cheapmachines' version of the drone eschews the almost stereotypical mellowness that many think characterises such music and instead opts for a far more insistent and muscular variety. The 16 (and change) minute rolling organ tone that makes up the bulk of the sound on offer here is a frontal lobe squeezing, third-eye squeegeeing, perspective contorting hallelujah of otherworldly bliss. Far too short to be fully satisfying and exactly the right length to leave you desperately craving for more.
Circle Six - Momentary
(acccdr003)
3"CDR
I don't know why but on first glance I expected this mini CDR from Circle Six to be a riot of noise and aggression. Maybe it's the monochrome disc art or maybe it's the starkness of the track titles (Frozen, Chelae, Holder, Opening in the Ground) but I was expecting another bedroom Masonna wannabe hurling his distorted screaming into the winds. That's not the case. On 'Momentary' Circle Six marry a variety of styles and sounds to great effect. Sure there's plenty here to keep all bar the most retarded of noiseheads happy but Circle Six also add spice to the recipe through judicious restraint and a cool sense of rhythm. As ever with 3" discs this is a little short to make a full and frank decision on the particular merits of the band but equally I think 3" CDRs are the perfect format for noise music. Just long enough to excite but not long enough to bore. Recommended.
Circle Six - Diary of a Glitch Born Baby
(Roil Noise RNOCDR092)
Business-card CDR
Based around a sample from the anti-abortion abortion / masterpiece (depending on your particular point of view) Diary of an Unborn Child by Lil' Markie (get the original here). Circle Six take the refrain and drench it in disjointed glitch and growl that strangely makes Lil' Markie (actually American televangelist Mark Fox) seem less fucked-up and disturbing. This does however feel like a off-hand piece of whimsy from Circle Six and I think should be regarded as such.
Clutter Vs Susan Matthews - Slow Corrosion EP
(Earth Monkey Productions 002)
3"CDR
Susan is a perennial favourite here at WWR (this is her third appearance in these pages this year) but Clutter on the other hand are a completely new property to these tired old ears. The music on offer on this mini-cd is much more grounded than Matthews solo work. The usually all pervasive ephemeral exoticism of her music has been replaced by industrial rhythms, disjointed half-melodies and static-charged noise cascades. I like this, I don't think I'll play it very often, it's just a little too mechanical for my tastes, but I'll definitely be playing it. I found myself missing Susan's vocals which in itself is unusual for me as I generally am not a vocals fan but to my mind they are the heart of Susan's music and I think it would have been interesting if Clutter had made wider use of them in his adroit re-workings. In all it's a very interesting diversion and a bold and welcome sideways step into the unknown (presumably for both participants) which should always be applauded.
Coelacanth - Mud Wall
(Mystery Sea MS11)
CDR
Coelacanth is the duo of Jim Haynes and Loren Chasse and this is the CDR release on Mystery Sea of an album that is currently on re-release through Helen Scarsdale (although at the time of writing Mystery Sea still have a couple of copies left of this original release).
Mud Wall is a vitually impenetrable 41 minutes of the most aptly titled music I have come across in years. There is a depth here that takes repeated listens to fully appreciate. The sounds are so thick and cloying that you can almost feel yourself being sucked in. The production is heavy and oppressive, probably deliberately so, and the pace is slow and relentless. Recommended for those with a taste for the extreme ends of the ambient spectrum.
Maile Colbert - Moborosi
(Twenty-Hertz)
CDR
New release on the always recommended Twenty-Hertz label is a set of rolling melodies, sung poetry and digital tones by American sound artist and film-maker Maile Colbert. Moborosi is a pot-pouri of ideas and sounds as Colbert melds both organic and synthetic sound sources to usually impressive effect. There are moments that didn't really capture my attention. These being the more 'song' orientated moments, in particular, track 2 (Day of Fire) with it's reverb laden choral vocal line. I can hear that it's done with a deft touch for that sort of thing but it moved me not. Fortunately the rest of the album is more to my taste, a gently swirling soundworld of abstractions throughout which Colbert creates fragile melodies from the unlikeliest of sounds.
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.
Corpoparassita - Ilbelgioco
(Industrial Culture Records ICR011)
3"CDR
One of a series of interesting mini-CDRs from Industrial Culture Records, Italian duo Corpoparassita present what is claimed to be 'the soundtrack to your worst nightmare'. A bold claim and, I have to say, a little over-ambitious, this certainly isn't the soundtrack to any of mine. What we do have is two slightly insubstantial dark ambient style rumbles and a Discharge 'cover' that is surely unrecognisable to even the hardest-core Discharge fan but is conversely my favourite track here. It's not a bad little EP by any means it's just that it's also nothing that hasn't been heard many times before. Worth a listen if your big into the whole DA thing but if you're not then this isn't going to change your mind.
Valerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock
(Digitalis DIGI049)
CD
If ever there was an album title that was going to confuse the casual passer-by then this one has got to be a candidate. Italian Saxophonist Cosi has created an absolutely staggering set of eastern tinged explorations of his instrument garnished with some immaculately conceived bursts of rhythm and noise (by which I do not mean the black clad and screaming scat-muncher variety but more the wild-eyed and giggling acid casualty variety). The closest parallel I could give you to Cosi's compositions would be early Krautrock, indeed track 3, 'Proud to be a Kraut - A Burning OM - Reprise', is probably the best song Neu never recorded, but still this music is purely and simply his own. Even at it's most repetitive and atonal there is a musicality bubbling just under the surface that makes 'Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock' a deliciously addictive and joyous experience. Over the last month it has taken root in my seedee player refusing to allow anything else a turn but that's fine by me as this is easily one of the best albums I've heard in 2008.
Valerio Cosi - Collected Works
(Porter Records PRCD - 4008)
CD
The last Valerio Cosi album I heard was a late contender for my favourite album of 2008. This Valerio Cosi album is an early contender for my favourite album of 2009.
Saxophonist Cosi is on great form here on a set of free-wheeling instrumentals. This is music created from an undiluted love of sound. Never descending in cacophony but always flying the torch for chaos. Cosi's recordings are stunningly anarchic mixing jazz, world, ethnic, electronica, noise and much more over a searing psychedelic flame. The eclecticism on display is breath-taking as is the musicianship and whilst Cosi's saxophone is often, understandably, the lead instrument on these recordings it is never at the cost of the dynamics of the composition, often fading (almost) away to let the music live and breathe.
An immaculate album, heartily and unreservedly recommended.
Cracked Dome vs Ghoul Detail
(Roil Noise RNOCDR037)
CD-R
Getting sent lots of split albums lately. This one features one newbie and one old friend. Cracked Dome is the newcomer and he opens the proceedings with a, deceptive but rather splendid, circular noise drone. Deceptive because track 2 arrives dripping with speaker shattering shards of harsh and aggressive noise that set the pace for the rest of his contributions. Big, bad and bold, it's loud enough to dominate your attention and it's quick enough to keep you interested.
Ghoul Detail, from here on referred to as Jon, is in a strange place on this album and first impression is of how well he's started melding the voice samples with the music. Played loud, track one will definitely get your neighbours talking. I used to find the voices a little intrusive but this is spot-on. Second impression comes 5 tracks later when you realise that it's 5 tracks later and he's taken you on a journey over which you had no control whatsoever. absolute bliss. I love it when an album mangles my perceptions and this one did it to the Nth degree. The final two tracks brought me back to earth very nicely and are all recommended but it's for tracks 7 to 12 (apologies for not writing tracktitles) that this album is a must hear.
Alistair Crosbie - musicforshipwrecks
(AFE 117lcd)
CDR
Giving your album a strikingly similar cover image to one of the finest compositions of the 20th century, the Les Disques Du Crepuscule release of Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic, is always going to grab my attention but it does place the album in a perilous place regarding the expectations it has raised in my mind. Musically, there are similarities also, as Crosbie's muse is a melodically ambient one and he is imbuing the music with a distinctly aquatic feel (as you can probably guess from the title).
On first listen I wasn't too taken with 'musicforshipwrecks' as it seemed a little insubstantial but subsequently I've discovered previously un-noticed depths and have grown to like it very much indeed. The production lets it down as it sounds a little timorous and thin in places and the sounds often strain during the swells. This may be deliberate but, whether it is or not, it is distracting. The 19 (and change) minutes of the second track is the real gem here as it rolls and soars throughout but the other three are all eminently listenable. Recommended.
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.
Ctephin / Rabbit Girls / Damno Te / Ghoul Detail - Split
(Roil Noise RNOCDR038)
CDR
American label Roil Noise specialise in the dark and deep ends of the drone and noise pool. Size is the name of the game here. Massive, pummeling, tumultuous noise (Ctephin), beats you could drive in rivets with (Rabbit Girls, Damno Te) and drones that would blanket an ocean (Ghoul Detail). Each band (although only Ctephin conform to that description) is on fine form although an over-reliance on synthetic sounds does leave parts of the album sounding a little cold and distant but as an introduction to both the artists and the label this is a fine release (far more so than the distinctly patchy R.I.N.O. compilation (see review elsewhere)).
Ctephin / Ghoul Detail / Spagirus - Aural Sects
(Roil Noise RNOCDR052)
CDR
Three way split on the Roil Noise label of two of their stalwarts and one newcomer (to me at least). Ctephin provide gritty, crackly, tonal play, overlaying sparse forlorn drones with an ocean of spluttering noise. They come over all Merzbow on track two before settling into a disjointed and cacophonous pseudo-Arabian melody on track three. The hammered guitars of their fourth contribution brings their section to a suitably riotous close.
Our old friend Ghoul Detail is in a decidedly mellow mood on his three tracks (mellow being an entirely relative term) and it's not until the seventh mnute of his third track that things really come to a head. I like this more restrained side of GD as he lets the sound do the work for him and the music swells and flows with a logic all it's own.
Spagirus are a new name to me and here provide a single long track of pulsating, soaring drones. It's big, its loud and it's beautiful.
One of the best Roil Noise releases I've heard and heartily recommended for all three contributors.
Ctephin - Hey, at least it's not crack
(Roil Noise RNOCDR075)
Business Card CDR
Roil Noise regulars Ctephin make a welcome return to my stereo with this one track mini-CDR. It's a very different Ctephin to the one I had heard previously as the wall of sound has been replaced by slow effected guitars overlaid over a deteriorating, shuddering back drone. It's really rather lovely but waaaaaay too short. My hope is that it's a taster of what's to come.
Ctephin & Mystified - Diminished
(Roil Noise RNOCDR041)
CDR
Two long tracks from these WWR regulars both of whom are on top of their game here. Ctephin take a beautiful disharmonic journey through a galaxy of clashing bell tones, acid trails and cataclysmic event horizons. It's probably not a place you could live for long periods but for half hour visits (32 minutes 58 seconds to be precise) it's a dream destination. For Mystified it's the drone that is becoming increasingly central to his work. Here he breaks up his sedate constructions with recordings of water drops that are maybe a little over-processed for my comfort but they create interesting diversions before the next wave of sound rolls in.
Cria Cuervos - Ilauna
(Locus of Assemblage mass21)
3" CDR
You know that scene in a movie where the orchestra is getting ready to play and they're sitting there warming up by scraping, plucking, tuning and generally being all discordant and noisy. Yes? Well, in the case of Cria Cuervos that scene is the starting point, the ending point and indeed the whole point although instead of a orchestra you should maybe picture the backline from Einsturzende Neubauten and the day-shift from your local ironworks. You're intrigued, I can tell. You should be, it's very good.
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)
Cursillistas - Wasp Stings The Last Bitter Flavor
(Digitalis Arts et Crafts Editions ACE 006)
CD
Matt Lajoie's Cursillistas project has been winding it's own merry psyche-folk way for a couple of albums now, all of which had successfully passed me by until this release on the always magnificent Digitalis Records dropped through my door. It's my understanding that Cursillistas has been slowly evolving over time from a song oriented outfit into it's current free-rolling, trancey and, in all honesty, astonishing current incarnation. Mixing mantra-like chanting, loops of melody, tribal rhythms with an almost kosmiche exploratory vibe Cursillistas has produced an album of startling complexity and subtle nuances that twists your head into a huge bunch of different shapes. Very, very recommended.
