Vikki Jackman - Of Beauty Reminiscing
(Faraway Press)
LP
For those who don't know, Vikki Jackman is the partner of WWR fave Andrew Chalk and indeed she is often to be found providing the musical backbones upon which he does his remarkable thang. Here we see (hear) her flex her own musical muscles on what is undoubtedly the most beautifully fragile set of piano pieces it has ever been my pleasure to listen to. There is a timelessness here that stretches minutes into hours isolating the listener in a 'non-place' where it becomes almost impossible to hear the same part twice. The music shifts and twists always seemingly finding a new route towards it's goal. And always managing to find a route that leaves you breathlessly wishing you could retake the journey but wracked with the anticipation of journeys yet to come.
Vikki Jackman - Whispering Pages
(Faraway Press 14)
CD
A beautiful new album from Vikki Jackman on that sees her returning to the delicately placed piano compositions of her previous release, 'On Beauty Reminiscing'. This time out the onus seems to be on a more atmospheric form of ambience than the sparse, wistful melodies of the other. Her palette is considerably wider here using (amongst others) drones, effects, field recordings, strings and at one point a rhythmic bassline to augment her piano.
'Whispering Pages' was always going to have to go some to exceed my expectations as 'On Beauty' was one of my picks for best album of 2007 but exceed them it does by dint of being so very different from it's predecessor. Yes it's retained the characteristic Feldman-esque broken piano melodies but she has wrapped them in an ambience of such sumptuous, easy and natural beauty that one cannot help but be enveloped in the music to the point that all other considerations become secondary.
Expect to see this album on my (and many other) end of year lists. Breathtaking.
The Jelas - Blood Smash
(Ingue Records)
CDR
Dada-ish turmoil in a vaguely Gong meets The Fall style that has been recorded with no gaps between the tracks and with the notion that the album can be reassembled into any shape and still work as a single song. Does it work? Yeah kind of but the problem is that it's not the best of songs to start with. It's alright, but the playing is rudimentary, the singing is slightly tuneless and it generally feels quite self-indulgent. None of these things bother me greatly. Indeed they are often things I see as positives in a recording but I must admit I struggled to find the will to re-listen to these recordings to try out the various connotations. Maybe you'll have better luck - I hope so.
jgrzinich - Phase Inversion
(Mystery Sea MS51)
CDR
Jgrzinich is a name that's been hovering around the edges of my attention for quite some time now but it took the ever wonderful Mystery Sea label to finally wave him in front of me. Phase Inversion is a set of three contrasting compositions. The first, 'Dispersion Trajectory', is a long undulating drone marked by the addition of skitteringly amorphous insectile sounds. The second, 'Membrane Formation', is a melding of washing tone and drone with clattering and sawing instrumentation and the third, 'Spectral Remnants', is a short, gentle set of gong-like tonal ripples.
I found the first to be a little too cold and remote for my tastes the slow addition of the scuttling extra sounds helps open the track up but I prefer a little more warmth in my music. The second is easily my favourite track here. It seems fairly minimal in it's strategies but there's a humanity to it's composition that envelops the listener. The final track offers a small coda to the album that's perfectly formed and full of interest but is a little too brief to fully immerse oneself in.
If I have seemed a little negative towards this album then I apologise. It's fair to say that Phase Inversion isn't my favourite album this month as, for the most part, it all feels a little too clinical for my tastes and I struggling to hear the composers personality but, it is extremely well made and most definitely a worthwhile listen as are all Mystery Sea releases.
Joe+N - Head Cold
(Dirty Demos DirtyCDR015)
3" CDR
Two tracks of "Loud guitar with distorted and looped melodica" recorded live in Rochester, New York. Joe and the very enigmatically named N produce lo-fi drone, scrape and rumble guitarscapes that they pile high with cascading, mal-formed melodies and gritty guitar stabs. The sounds used and the quality of the production means that Head Cold isn't the most accessible of albums but I really don't think it's trying to be. It's got the feel of a jam to it which warmed me to it immediately but the playing is rudimentary and so are the compositions. Interesting to hear but not necessarily recommended.
Kadaver - This Time...It's Cancer
(Topheth Prophet TP012)
CD
The distinctively bleak project names pretty much let you know where you're ears are going over the next 40 minutes or so. Brittle, snarling noise-scapes grind like a lap-dancer on over-time as various voice samples, screams, howls and other assorted escapades careen around on the surface. There is little let up in tone or pace throughout the album which does limit it's appeal and the trick ending is pretty pointless but if you like this sort of balls-out screaming noise fest then this is worth a listen.
Kassel Jaeger - ee[nd]
(Mystery Sea MS44)
CDR
Yet another fabulous release on Mystery Sea, if you aren't regularly checking out their releases then you really are missing out on some great music. Kassel (a pseudonym) produces a rumbling, tumbling almost drone like music that hovers in the hinterland between noise and ambient. Never truly quiet yet never actually noisy either the evocatively titled ee[nd] is an earthy and decidedly grimy listening experience that is thoroughly recommended for those with a taste for the coarser (but not noisier) side of the sound spectrum.
Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi - Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi
(Stunned #18)
Cass
Interesting cassette album mixing noise and 'traditional' instrumentation from Russian composer Sergey Kozlov. There's an earthy Krautrock atonality to these compositions that really grabbed my attention and more importantly kept it for the duration.
You're probably not going to explore either outer or inner space to these recordings as they've not quite reached psychedelic nirvana but they certainly go to some nifty places and left me wanting to hear more.
Jeremy Kelly - Jeremy Kelly
(Digitalis Industries DIGI046)
CD
There's a real intimacy to these recordings that make you feel as though you're sitting in a smoky room full of nicely baked musicians listening to them having the jam session of their lives. The fact then that this is essentially a one man band (two other musicians make occasional contributions) makes this stunning recording even more impressive. As with much of the Digitalis catalogue that I am fortunate enough to hear this has an underlying stream of folk / country tinged acoustic guitar melodies upon which Kelly floats a bewildering array of forms and sounds. He borrows liberally from both the middle-east and the mid-west adding touches of bent circuit noise and occasional electric (guitar) swarms to produce a wonderfully cohesive and deeply immersive album.
Kelvinator Motherfuckers - A New Creature
(Heretic Records HC03)
CDR
Given the provocative name I was expecting raging punk rock or some sort of pseudo-operatic death metal opus of dubious quality. Instead Kelvinator Motherfuckers bring a righteous mash-up of disjointed rhythms, vague melodies, swooping electronica and bruising ambience to the table. It's wonderful stuff that grabs you and yells 'Listen to me!' in your face for a far too short 22 minutes.
Kostis Kilymis - .accumulated
(Organised music from Thessaloniki #2)
CDR
This very nicely packaged CD arrived with no extra info about the composer other than what was written on the back of the sleeve which credits Kilymis with 'sounds, recordings & processing'. The sounds that Kilymis has recorded have been culled from very ambiguous sources (mostly field recordings I suspect) and processed to maximise their most uncomfortable, piercing, grating and dis-harmonious qualities. He / she / them / it has used these sounds alongside the unprocessed sounds to create a recording with an incredibly sparse beauty that avoids pretty much all the clichés of noise music.
.accumulated certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There is very little concession here towards the comfort of the listener. Microphone pops and knocks are incorporated into the recordings sharing the stage with more deliberate sounds. Many of the tones used are painfully high both in pitch and in the mix. I found myself cringing along to this album on more than one occasion. Of course each cringe was accompanied by a rueful smile because there is an undeniable charm here.
This is easily the least compromising albums I've heard in a very long time and I like it all the more for that fact. Boldness of vision of this calibre should always be supported. Recommended.
King Razor / Posset - Split Series #1
(Dirty Demos DirtyCDR019)
CDR
2 tracks each on this CDR-ep featuring two UK based noise musicians. King Razor's two contributions mine the area of post-industrial noise utilising a slow and very heavy metronomic pulse as a bedrock upon which he layers an array of grinding noises and brutally processed voices. It's generally two slow moving to really connect with but enjoyable nonetheless.
Posset take a very different tack to KR opting for the 'joyful racket' approach. An explosion of sound, light and colour that hurls itself at you. Breathlessly attacking over it's allotted 14 minutes, pausing only once, before abruptly dying. I find this form of blood and fire composition a little too bruising for my delicate constitution but over this sort of timescale it's pretty absorbing.
Kiss My Farkyn
CD-R
What can I say? It's either 'mad genius' or just plain 'mad'! Either way is good. 10 tracks, 33.16 minutes, of ecstatic oddities. To write a review in the manner of this album would necessitate me starting each sentence in the middle and working my way outwards whilst replacing all the adjectives with verbs. It’s indescribable, it’s incredible, it's inspired and it's insane. I love this!
Korperschwache - Eight Velvet Paintings for Helen Keller
(Inam Records 24)
CDR
Late 2008, early 2009 has already seen a crop of releases from Inam records that are to be admired and sought out. Releases by Sujo and Vopat had already made the label into one to watch a fact that was further confirmed the moment Korperschwache hit my seedee player. The music here is less exuberantly post rock than Vopat and less consumed by the search for the cosmic (or Kosmiche) drone than Sujo. Instead Korperschwache occupy the very fertile middle ground between the two mixing long drawn out guitar drones with a welcome tendency to bombastic melody hidden amongst the distortion.
I like this approach. I like this approach a lot. The lazy melodies slowly unfurl and reveal themselves to be part of a greater whole. The production is a little on the muddy side which does dampen the mood a little but only a little. Very much an album to listen to in a single sitting as there is a vague audio narrative to the music that is disturbed by stopping (or so I discovered) but rewards total immersion in it's sound and rewards you well, over and over again.
(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)
Zack Kouns - Vast, Dark Expanses Inside Our Bodies
(moonmoonmoonmooon records)
CDR
I must admit I was put off somewhat by the title and cover art (photos of intestines) of this album. I put it on expecting the usual tedious tirade of 'I hate my life so I'm gonna wear black clothes' total noise but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. Kouns is definitely a lover of the darker side of life and the ambiences he conjures are very much in line with the title he's given this album but there's a deft hand at work processing (but not overly so) a battery of sounds (lots of guitar) into a nicely chaotic composition. The vocals, I think, let the recording down by being a little unoriginal and I'd like to think that the vast, dark expanse inside my body sounds more like the Piero Umiliani soundtrack to a 1960's Italian porn film rather than droning, atonal industrial guitar abuse. It probably doesn't but I can hope.
Well worth a listen for those amongst you with a taste for the esoteric, the dark and the cacophonous.
Igor Krutogolov - White
(Auris Media / Topheth Prophet aum010 / tp006)
CD
Igor Krutogolov is an Israeli artist and composer with an impressive pedigree which shines through in the soundscape (split unnecessarily into 7 separate tracks) that he's created here. An aurally assertive keyboard drone carries the music upon which Krutogolov layers field recordings, vocals, strings, flute and much more to establish a restless and unsettling ambience. There is a sense of constant movement as abstracted melodies emerge and disperse with a fluidity that belies the complexity of the composition. I must however admit to some confusion over the inclusion of the final track. At 38 minutes in length this should be the centrepiece of the album but strangely isn't. Consisting mostly of the sound of rainfall it is simply too quiet as an ending to the album. At several points during the track I had to check the display to see if the album was still playing. Positioned earlier in the album and this wouldn't have been an issue as played in isolation it is a beautiful track but, in its current position on the running order, by the halfway mark my attention is elsewhere. A real shame because to that point I had been absorbed by this absorbing, unusual and, otherwise, heartily recommended album.
Brian Lavelle - How To Construct a Time Machine
(download)
Mp3
One of a number of albums available to download from Mr. Lavelle’s website. All are worth a listen but this one is the stand out. 5 tracks of guitar based drones that ever so slowly wind their way around your brain and squeeze. With Lavelle conjuring up tones that could heat a politicians heart this is probably the warmest sounding album I've heard in a long time. What we have here are three perfectly good drone pieces that frame two absolutely stunning drone pieces, 'Theory of the Machine' and 'Description of the Machine', both of which are utterly sublime, transcendant pieces of music that put me into orbit the first time I listened to them. I do have one or two quibbles however. None of the tracks feel linked in any way. The sudden and / or definite endings to each track bring the carefully crafted ambience crashing down around you and as such there's no feeling of cohesion between the 5 tracks leaving you feeling as though you're not listening to a complete album. Incidentally I recommended this album to a friend and he said exactly the same thing. Leaving your audience wanting more is one thing, leaving them unsatisfied is quite another. At this point though I have to say that what makes these, to be honest, quite minor faults worth pointing out is that the music on the album is so damn good that it makes the problems all the more profound. Don't let my concerns stop you from getting this though, it is really rather wonderful.
Brian Lavelle - Just A Song At Twilight
(Dust, Unsettled)
CDr
First release on Lavelle's own Dust, Unsettled label is a series of slowly unfolding drone and tone pieces. His given instructions that the cd should be listened to quietly at twilight go along with my assumption that this is very much ambient music in the strict Eno sense of the word, music that is as interesting as it is ignorable (Is that a real word? I'm sure you know what I mean by it). Should you choose to focus on the music there is lots to be found within it but equally it can happily fade away into the background. Working from what sounds like an exclusively digital pallete, which surprised me given the trees and water imagery of the booklet, Lavelle's music is both measured and sedate, a little too much so for my taste. There are moments here (track 2 especially) where I could believe I'm listening to a 'New Age' meditation album. A shame as I have several of Lavelle's previous albums and this is never a factor and indeed it isn't on track three. Equally, there are moments here where Lavelle's multilayered sounds start to infiltrate every corner of your brain. My recommendation (for what it's worth) still lies with his astounding 'How to Construct a Time Machine' release from a few years back (see review on this page). This one, for my tastes at least, is just a little too nice.
Brian Lavelle - Alessandri's Dream
CDR
Produced in a private edition of just 15 copies you've got about as much chance of getting your hands on a copy of this fabulous little EP as I have of becoming pope. Lavelle has long been a prime mover in this little corner of the musical universe we call home and over the years has amassed a substantial discography. Alessandri's Dream is his trribute to Italian surrealist Lorenzo Alessandri and consists of a 17 minute isolationist drone that billows from the speakers in a fog of translucent colours. For most of it's existence it is content to hover and waft around the room but in it's dying moments it announces it's imminent demise with a short and understated fanfare of tones.
Beautiful and recommended.
Brian Lavelle - The Petrified Forest
(Taalem alm 51)
3"CDR
There are two Brian Lavelles. There's the Brian Lavelle that creates mature and mannered ambient compositions that slowly reveal themselves like a flower unfolding to greet the sun. Then there's the Brian Lavelle that creates head mangling, massively psychedelic, cosmic drones. I like the first Lavelle but his music has a tendency to become just a little too nice for my palette. I love the second Lavelle! When he fires that tone at you there's no escape. You're along for the ride and the ride is always good.
Well, I'm happy to report that this 2 track, 20 minute set is definitely from the latter and it's cracking stuff. The amorphous bloops and swoops mean it's just sci-fi sounding enough to make my inner geek giggle with delight and it's soaring fluid composition is 'out there' enough to make my outer space-cadet groan with psychedelic ecstasy.
A fine recording from an artist working at the top of his game.
Brian Lavelle - Supernaturalist
(EE Tapes EE12)
CD
This is fab. It's mellow, immersive and really rather wonderful.
I don't have a great deal to say cause every time I try to listen to it, it slips away.
Elusive music.
Buy this.
Brian Lavelle - Ustrina
(AFE 106lcd)
CDR
At almost 70 minutes in length Ustrina from Scots dronist Lavelle is a significant investment of time and focus on both the part of the composer and the listener. Lavelle operates predominantly in the realms of warm and slightly fuzzy drone music. Narcotic tones and washes that gently shroud the audience with a vaguely clammy sense of unease. You've got to admit that's an enticing prospect especially as Lavelle is very, and I do mean very, accomplished at this sort of thing. Like a darker version of Chalk & Heeman's Mirror project, Ustrina is one of the best things I've heard from this side of Lavelle (the other side specialises in superbly forceful psychedelic cosmic-drone) and should be sort out without delay.
Josh Lay - Poison Drinker
(Sentient Recognition Archive SRA003)
CDR
You're guess is as good as mine (perhaps better) as to who Josh Lay is. I'm guessing he's an ex-Serbian Olympic boxing coach with a wooden leg, a dog called Ovaltine and a complete run of 1950's Wonder Woman comics that he reads to the pigeons in the park every other Thursday. I don't know how close to the mark I am there (pretty close I think) but what I do know is that he does make a damn fine noise. On Poison Drinker he treats us to 2 tracks (one clocking in at a shade over 16 minutes, the other a shade under 10 minutes) of noise drone wonderfulness. The longer of the two is bristling with mechanical menace whilst the shorter drips with digital trepidation. Both are excellent and I really wish the album was longer.
Stephane Leonard - Lykkelig Dyr
(Heilskabaal + Naivsuper)
CD
3 years in the preparation, this new album from Berlin based musician / artist Stephane Leonard makes some interesting alchemy.
On reading the press release you'd be forgiven for expecting a cornucopia of exotic aural snapshots from the varied locations and happenings that Leonard recorded for use on this project. Not so as Lykkelig Dyr reveals itself to be a much more conventional concoction. Don't get me wrong this is still a psychedelic soundclash albeit one operating within distinctly musical boundaries, the most obvious being Glitch.
Like much of the best music to emerge from that scene Leonard's rhythmical manage to just stay on the obtuse side of being both melodic and rhythmic. These clusters of tones and bleeps spattering themselves across a hard backdrop of processed sounds. It's the composition that brings the whole to life though. Slightly cold and unemotional Leonard's sound palette may be but in his hands they are mixed into a sinuously relentless concoction capable of transmuting these base elements into pure (digital) gold.
Les Libriums Du Désir - Nut System
(Samarkande Records DSR001)
CD
This is a collection of musical compositions by Charles Belanger accompanied
by the spoken texts of Marcel Renaud and Xavier-Claude Mantais. The music is often baffling in it's overflowing complexities. Juxtaposing blaring atonalities with cascading swirls of melody, drone and noise. It's really quite fab. The words are for me the less successful aspect simply because I don't understand French. The voices of the two men aren't interesting enough to carry the pieces on the language's innate musicality and I've no idea if the tales are worth the telling. But, the music has always been my thing and this is very much worth a listen even with the language barrier.
Les 7 Mondes - free ep
MP3
London based French duo Les 7 Mondes return with this free to download (but please don't ask me to do yours as I probably won't) ep of keyboard and guitar mash-ups. L7M are truly one of a kind. Maxx has told me in the past of the difficulties L7M have getting reviewed and I can see why as they make music that is hugely difficult to categorise. Dance music you'd be hard pressed to dance to mixed with psychedelic music you probably wouldn't want to trip to. Think Autechre meets early 90's techno-hippies System 7 but much, much noisier. Triumphant yet jittery, this ep makes me feel like I'm listening to music composed for the 1970's Russian space program except it's being played at the wrong speed and everythings gotten a bit addled and that my friends is a very good thing.
Lid Emba - Reason Isn't Radar
(Stickfigure)
CD
Atlanta based drummer Sean Moore presents a selection of digital recordings of loops, beats, samples and melodies that take the notion of electronic music and strips it to its most basic of components. All pretence is removed and what is left is a twitchy, glitchy, fun and funky exploration of the outer edges of beat driven sounds. There is an underlying groove here that belies the complexities of the rhythms used which, while I'm not entirely sure makes it danceable, certainly touches that part of your soul that makes you want to bounce along. Think Autechre with a smile on it's face and a song in it's heart. Recommended.
Lid Emba & BobCrane - We Substitute Radiance
(Stickfigure Records stick44CD)
CD
The last time we encountered Sean Moore's Lid Emba project he was making like "Autechre with a smile on it's face and a song in it's heart". The addition of Ryan Huber (who is BobCrane (and also Vopat and Olekranon - none of which I'd encountered previously)) to this project has seen a slight stylistic diversion towards more abstracted and less euphoric territories with the ambience now balanced on an uneasy precipice. Rhythm is still very much the order of the day with much of the album based on a series of complex and bewildering beats upon which the two have constructed a swirling kaleidoscope of electronica. Disjointed and unsettled the music offers little in the way of comfort, it simply goes its own way regardless of whether you're along for the ride or not. Occasionally things get a little bogged down in some 80's-esque cod-industrial synth dreariness (parts of Stampeder) but it isn't long before the quality of the musicians at work re-asserts itself and things are back on track. The drone of album closer 'Flying Undead Overhead' being a particular highlight.
'We Substitute Radiance' isn't as much 'fun' as previous Lid Emba but it's every bit as good.
Lietterschpich - I Cum Blood in the Think Tank!!!!!!!!
(Heart & Crossbone HCB - 013)
CD
This is the second seedee I've reviewed on the heartily recommended Heart & Crossbone label (see Grave in the Sky) and it's a another absolute corker. Lietterschpich are a rampaging, doom laden noise monster of a collective dedicated to seriously fucking with your ears, mood and mind. This 6 person outfit have taken the sludge metal format and drenched it in a shrieking, grinding, farting cacophonic apocalypse of noise held together by a real, honest to goodness, thumping drum kit. There are actual songs buried inside this morass and that's the ace up Lietterschpich's sleeve. Too many bedroom noisemongers are content to crank everything up to 11 and wail away (which is fine up to a point) but here we see the true glory of noise as it's shaped, focused, aimed and fired with a distinct intent. A truly fabulous listen and easily the best noise album I've heard in a very long time.
Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
(Load Records)
CD
You always knew it was there. Lurking in the background. Just waiting for the opportunity to emerge from the shadows and say 'Hi! Remember me? I'm your Slayer album.'. You relent and on it goes. That couple of seconds pass as the needle makes it's way along the run in groove and then it.....all.....comes.....back.
LB know about this. LB know the feeling and LB have set about recreating it as only they can. After three albums the bass has finally arrived on a LB album. The octave pedal is kept perfectly in check and now it's the bottom end of the bass that powers the songs. 12 tracks of raging glory. Relentless, over-powering, pumelling, breath-taking joy! Y0u never know where it's going next and it doesn't matter because where it does go is always perfect. They even indulge in some melody of all things on 'MohaWK windmill'. Awesome! Quite simply, awesome!
Andrew Liles - In My Father's House Are Many Mansions
(Fourth Dimension FDCD68)
CD
I'm a recent convert to the world of Andrew Liles. His name had been hovering around the edge of my attention for a little while but as with a lot of these people it's difficuilt to start listening because much of their music is either out of print or there's just so much of it you have no idea where to start. I've a couple of Andrew Liles releases, both of which have been reviewed in ECReviews and this remix album was too good an opportunity to miss. Essentially what we have here is a big chunk of my record collection remixing its newest member. It should be the perfect stepping on point but unfortunately it's bit of a non event.
There's nothing essentially wrong with this album. Some of the contributors (Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter, Aaron Moore, Darren Tate) are on top form, others are still very listenable (Paul Bradley, Aranos, Irr. App (Ext), VidnaObmana,) but the rest vary between okay and oh dear. Neither Ruse nor Band of Pain are able to follow Jonathan Coleclough's translucient drone. I've heard The Hafler Trio do similar but better a couple of dozen times and Nurse With Wound phones in his dull and uninspired contribution.
The good thing about these sort of releases though is that you'll probably disagree with me utterly and love the ones i didn't. On the whole it's an ok album but it did leave me with the slight feeling that I'd have rather spent my time listening to each artist (including Mr. Liles) doing their own thing.
Lonesome Jonesome - The Peeper and the Chin Chin
(2Casual Recordings 2cas004)
CDR
A nifty piece of bedroom folk picking from Derby from the enigmatically named Lonesome Jonesome. 10 acoustic (guitar) instrumentals (plus occasional other instruments) that are tapping into some sort of primal melody that doesn't really feel beholden to any particular genre. There is a freshness to The Peeper and the Chin Chin that is hard to resist. The tracks tend to be a bit on the short side (averaging out at around 1 minute 40 seconds), sometimes maybe too short which leaves them feeling a little like sketches rather than the finished article but even then they are delightful to hear. Recommended.
Long Search For Pegasus - Beyond the Bone Fields
(Red Brick Chimney #3)
CD-R
For the first 4 tracks at least this is the Ennio Morricone soundtrack to the Sergio Leone movie that neither of them ever made. Widescreen, cinematic music that does, in places, get a little too pompous and overblown for it's own good but is generally pretty good. The middle of the album sees a move towards a more dark ambient territory and it's a place LSFP obviously feel at home because this is cracking stuff. Drawn out tones and random noises allow the album to move away from soundtracking whilst still retaining the cinematic scope of the earlier tunes.
The penultimate track (Dolphins) sees us back in soundtrack territory with what is very reminiscent of the scores John Carpenter did for his movies in the 80's - think keyboards and lots of them. Staying on an eighties horror theme the album ends with it's longest track, 'The Hills Are Alive', but this turns out to be a rather uninspired (and overly long) keyboard workout that lacks the charm of the rest of this eminently listenable album.
Francisco Lopez - Untitled #188
(Con-V CNVCD 001)
CD
A long and rolling soundscape from Madrid’s Francisco Lopez that mixes and processes field recordings taken in Montreal by himself and others. It moves at a snails pace and at 71 minutes it's a punishingly long listen. I found my attention wandering quite considerably, so much so I began to wonder if it was deliberate. The protracted, almost, silences that pepper the album seem purposefully placed to test ones attentiveness. Which is something that became increasingly frustrating as the album wore on. Much of this is too vague for either my old speakers or my older ears. When it is audible however it’s rollicking good fun and his sound-palette is second to none but the tendency to continually return to silence kept pulling me away from the music and drove me up the wall. For me this has it’s moments (the opening few minutes are astounding) but overall I felt it was in need of some quite brutal pruning.
