Lives and dramas of a long-distance milkman

On the move

2007-10-05T15:53:00.000+01:00

I have decided to move this blog to Wordpress, since I already use it for themilkfactory, and since it is much more user friendly than Blogger. I have imported all the posts and comments from here, and I have also disabled comments on here so if you have been reading the last post and want to comment on it, I hope you will not mind to do this on the new blog.

I hope you will subscribe to the new RSS feed and will continue to post comments.

Simple mathematcis.

2007-10-05T13:30:00.000+01:00

The more I find new blogs, the less I find time read them. Simple mathematics.

I recently came across a nice little web toy called Netvibes, which allows me, amongst other things, to collect the blogs I read more or less regularly in rather appealing fashion, and under a variety of user defined tabs. Until now, I used Bloglines, but never liked the interface much, so Netvibes has proved a much more friendly and usable tool. It also allows me to collect bookmarks, notes, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, my Google calendar, 4 search engines at once, my bookmarks and, surely, many more goodies should I ever wish to waste any more time flicking through the hundreds of modules available. It certainly makes for a rather pretty, if a tad content-heavy, home page. And of course, it has the advantage of being accessible anywhere in the world.

My Netvibes homepage

In recent days, I have stumbled upon a few new blogs to which I have hastily subscribed. The exquisite Stephen Fry for instance has just started one. Being an absolute fan of his (I regard him as one of the greatest living Brits, with Sir David Attenborough), adding his blog to my already long list of subscriptions was utterly necessary. Of course.

I have also discovered Armistead Maupin’s web ramblings. Thanks to a very prominently displayed Michael Tolliver Lives (his most recent book) in Waterstone’s in Redhill, I have finally got on a mission to read the whole Tales Of The City series. I have recently put the last in the series to bed, which left me feeling a bit empty. After six books, I had grown to look forward to my commute to and from work with excitement, and to my daily encounters with Mary-Ann Singleton, Michael ‘Mouse’ Tolliver, Mrs Madrigal, DeDe Halcyon, Brian Hawkins and the rest of this enchanting cast. I am currently reading Michael Tolliver Lives, which is not the next book in the series as such (Maupin is said to be writing it as we speak), but it features many of the characters from the series, including of course Michael Tolliver and the delightful Mrs Madrigal. This current book is actually the first novel I ever bought in its hardback version. But, I digress.

Finding Maupin’s blog (which, thankfully seem to be updated only sporadically), and aiming to keep up with it, is at least, a good intention.

There’s also Me And My Big Mouth from Scott Pack, a man described as ‘the most powerful man in the books trade’ by the Guardian. Although most of the posts are focused on books or on the book industry, which I know very little about, it is still an interesting read. I originally came across it thanks to Kathryn over a year ago, and have been following it every since. The very post you are reading was actually triggered by one of his, where he introduced a new blog by author Marie Phillips. I must confess that I had never heard of her before, but somehow, her web prose, rounded up under the "Woman Who Talked Too Much" banner (there is a warning in there somewehre) sounded interesting. Scott said:

“Marie Phillips has started a new blog. May I point you in its direction?

The Woman Who Talked Too Much (which Ethan and Martha will vouch for as an uncannily appropriate title) will contain her musings on television, music, movies, books and stuff. She has already posted on Saturday night's Strictly Come Dancing, her reaction to which my family witnessed in the flesh and we can confirm that she really is rather excited about it.”

So, as a good web 2.0 user, I followed the link and started reading a post called ‘Ronnie Hazlehurst RIP, and other thoughts on theme tunes’ which tickled me enough to subscribed to the RRS feed.

The problem is that, apart from Woody’s blog, which I read religiously, I am failing miserably to even try to keep up with pretty much any blog I subscribe to, whether it is that of my heroes (Robin Guthrie, Greg Davis), that of friends or that of general interest. I can subscribe to RSS feeds at the click of an icon on my browser, but the more I come across interesting blogs, the more I click, and the less I actually read. I seem like on a mission to harvest as many as I can.

Of course, some of the feeds I have subscribed to are purely informative (BBC news, the Guardian online, Reuters, Google News, a handful of record labels who are thoughtful enough to provide an RSS feed and interesting enough to warrant me subscribing, and a few other random sites), so these only usually get a quick look in, with only the occasional post granted a bit more of my time. As for the rest, I think I am resolving myself to carry on missing things like before the days of RSS, only now, I am actually aware of what I am missing!

The return of the prodigal...

2007-09-03T13:00:00.001+01:00

The most observing amongst you may have noticed that this particular corner of the blogosphere has been rather quiet in recent weeks. This is due to said corner returning to its original purpose, that is talk about music that I have received recently and not yet reviewed, or that I may not review at all but still like, and life in general really. But 'why?' I hear you scream! Well, the answer is rather simple really: themilkfactory is back! Yep!

After over a year in the doldrums, the site came back to life a couple of weeks ago. The format is different (no monthly updates anymore), but the purpose is the same: reviewing good music and interviewing interesting artists. So head off to the new site for loads of new reviews by myself of course, but also by Max Schaefer and David Abravanel for now, and hopefully from more contributors soon.

The address of the site hasn't changed: www.themilkfactory.co.uk

There is also a RSS feed available for those who use a reader: www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/feed

Check it out!

ASCOLTARE: B.E.A.M. (Tripel Records)

2007-07-31T13:42:00.000+01:00

ASCOLTARE
B.E.A.M.
TRIPELLP005
Tripel Records 2007
08 Tracks. 50mins49secs

Ascoltare | Ascoltare B.E.A.M. | Tripel Records

From complex glitched up electronica with occasional orchestral tendencies to digital hip-hop and sample-heavy collages, Cambridge-based Dave Henson continues to evolve on the fringe of the electronic scene, applying his own unpredictable vision at will. This is an ethic that is also applied to Tripel Records, the imprint he co-founded with fellow Cambridge residents and musicians Andrew Coleman, better known as Animals On Wheels, and UM’s Peter Gregory.

For his latest project, Henson ditches the rich soundscapes of Visceral Vendor and the sample-heavy textures of Fatty Parts For A Good Match and Mutiny In Stereo for minimal techno formations in the tradition of Basic Channel or Sähkö. B.E.A.M. is split over two contrasting formats, five tracks collated on heavy vinyl and four additional pieces made available for free as digital downloads on a purpose-built Myspace page, establishing an interesting parallel between the retro futuristic appeal of UFO and exopolitics, which inform the project, and the past/future context of the formats. B.E.A.M. is darker than its clean-cut beats and grooves suggest. Behind sparse rhythmic screens hide dense, meticulously layered soundscapes of found sounds, statics and noises occasionally which coagulate into brittle melodies and repetitive motifs, adding to the impression of gravity that slowly builds over the course of the project.

Right from the opening bars of Exo On Ferrick, which proudly asserts ‘Let’s jack, that’s it, move those hips’ over dubby loops and distant clicks, Henson sets the tone. As he progressively adds substance to the beat and fills up the rest of the sonic space with reverbs, the piece gains density and abrasive vigour. The epic Semjase In Excelsis, which follows, is a much more complex and progressive affair. Developed over ten minutes, it rises somewhere between noise and music concrete to gather pace as the beat settles and additional loops are added. Although Henson relies on a considerable amount of disparate elements here, he introduces them one at a time, carefully avoiding overlaps to maintain the austere feel of the piece.

Passed the thick clicks and dub formations of Asket’s Ship, B.E.A.M. veers closer to the minimal techno it draws from, especially on Flatwoods and Sky Fishing, the two closing pieces of the LP, and on Deft Disk, the first of the thee MP3s. Here, Henson relies more strictly on radical 4/4 beats and rarefied musical forms, but the last two MP3 tracks reference more sophisticated atmospherics, returning to bleaker, more threatening, soundscapes.

With his latest incarnation, Ascoltare’s Dave Henson combines the ethic of minimal techno with his own aesthetic to create a very convincing collection of sharp electronic music. Although more preoccupied with the dance floor than on previous work, his mastery at assembling pertinent soundscapes and placing them in context confirms him as one of the most interesting and overlooked talents of the UK electronic scene.

PORN SWORD TOBACCO: New Exclusive Olympic Heights (City Centre Offices)

2007-07-25T21:44:00.000+01:00

PORN SWORD TOBACCO
New Exclusive Olympic Heights
TOWERBLOCK039CD
City Centre Offices 2007
14 Tracks. 35mins29secs

Buy it: CD
Porn Sword Tobacco | City Centre Office

Named after an isolated shop somewhere in his native Sweden, near the studio where he records, Porn Sword Tobacco is the musical project of Henrik Jonsson, a musician hailing from the town of Gothenburg in Southern Sweden. His eponymous debut album, delivered on German imprint City Centre Offices in 2004, introduced his delicate blend of electronic soundscapes and beautiful melodies, and its follow up, Explains Freedom, published a year later, only served to reassert his sound.

With his third album, New Exclusive Olympic Heights, Jonsson assembles his most cinematic and accessible collection of music yet, at times developing sumptuous pieces over just a minute or two, at others stretching narratives a bit longer. Melodies swirl around warm atmospheric expanses and crackling beats while acoustic brushes and soft electronic washes blur the contours of Jonsson’s miniature epic vignettes. Pieces such as opener Tools For Trains, Giftwrap Yourself, Slowly, Do The Astrowaltz or U.S Saloon Props 41/59 are faraway beacons shrouded in dense layers of fog. As melodies echo in the distance, rising above the clouds only to be swallowed again in dense opaque atmospheric swathes, Jonsson creates a surprisingly cosy and gentle collection of tempered electronic textures.

At times, the heavy cover lifts for a moment, providing much more fertile grounds for luxurious orchestrations and elegant melodic themes to flourish. While Cubical Fever, with its library music influences, or Pappa! Min Karlek Ar Gravid retain some elements of melancholy, the tone is lighter, more in focus, while On En Hyllning Till Cyckeln, Jonsson carves a sweet romantic interlude with the graceful crystalline tones of a lonely piano which seems quite at odds with the more elaborate pieces but intrinsically belongs here as a particular mid-way point between the various influences found on this album.

New Exclusive Olympic Heights is a much more sophisticated and accessible record than its predecessors, yet Henrik Jonsson retain the essence of Porn Sword Tobacco by constantly emphasising the atmospheric nature of his music, making it both a logical step forward and an new opening in his career.

COPPÉ - Fi-lamenté (Mango & Sweet Rice)

2007-07-20T00:05:00.000+01:00

COPPÉ
Fi-lamente
MSR011
Mango & Sweet Rice 2007
19 Tracks. 77mins06secs

Mango & Sweet Rice

Coppé has been delivering her finely tuned miniature epics with astonishing regularity since her debut self-titled album was released in the late nineties, working with an ever increasing circle of friends and collaborators along the way. After spending a few years in Arizona and Hawaii, Coppé returned to Japan in 2002 following the death of her father and has since established her Mango & Sweet Rice imprint in Tokyo, where she has also been seen regularly performing live.

Following last year’s double anniversary album 9+10, which collected rare tracks and remixes as well as new tracks, Coppé could have opted for a well-deserved rest, but instead, she got straight back in the studio to work on her eleventh album. The result is Fi-lamenté, which clocks at no less than nineteen tracks spread over nearly eighty minutes of elegant electronica on which the songstress applies her unmistakable voice in soft Japanese and English brushes. Once again, numerous artists, met during various tours or on the web, have answered her call, each weaving their own digital strand into her musical space. The album opens with the gentle tones of Black Water Melon, produced with Spoomusic’s Ariel Gross and Dave Ramen, and the scintillating Nicola with Dutch artist Kettel. Plaid contribute a lush new version of last year’s Lavender Oil, Mickey The Cat dresses Alien Mermaid with a delicate groove and rich soundscapes, and later, former Jah Wobble engineer Cai Murphy wraps a delicate blanket of found sounds around Coppé’s sweet voice on the frugal I Live In A Lava Lamp. Perhaps the most surprising contribution of all is found on the title track, where long term friend and musician Terry Driescher uses a sample of Coppé’s mother singing Utai, a traditional Japanese vocal form.

Very much like on previous albums, Coppé constantly jumps from one mood to another, dealing playful, atmospheric or haunting cuts with equal dexterity. With Bristol-based guitarist and producer Fred Moth, Coppé layers sparse drum’n’bass beats, electronics, breezy vocals and slurping noises into a light-hearted sonic vignette, Bristol Rain, before switching to the much more peaceful Broken Kaleidoscope with Demi Batard and the sun-drenched Just Want 2 B Me, shaped by Krautiopharm. Later, Coppé becomes all moody on the sumptuous and evocative I turn, with Parker and Dight, who create here one of the standout tracks of this album.

Coppé makes music with her heart, grabbing each new opportunity with passion, soaking up influences and eagerly pushing the boundaries of her music. While she ultimately calls the shots, she is happy to stand back and let other musicians guide her into their own realm. Fi-lamenté is one of her densest and most impressive records yet, and as she continues to surprise and captivate, she still manages to create music that sounds like very little else around.

VARIOUS ARTISTS: One Point Two: More Digital Listening Music From Rednetic (Rednetic Recordings)

2007-07-14T01:35:00.000+01:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS
One Point Two: More Digital Listening Music From Rednetic
RN012
Rednetic Recordings 2007
14 Tracks. 72mins58secs

Rednetic Recordings

In the last five years, London-based imprint Rednetic have delivered a steady stream of elegant electronic records. While the label’s scope has considerably expanded over the years, the focus has largely remained on classic electronica. The label was set up in 2002 by Mark Streatfield and Joseph Auer, and the first release was Streatfield’s debut album as Zainetica, Escaping Dust. Since, Auer, who had then moved from London to Tokyo, released the Kyoto Tokyo 2001 EP, and further releases by Utility Player, The Vizier Of Damascus, Inigo Kennedy, Tommy Bass and Boltfish co-founders Will ‘Cheju’ Bolton and Murray ‘Mint’ Fisher, amongst others, have firmly established the label as one of London’s best imprints.

In 2004, the One Point One compilation collated tracks by some of the above artists together with offerings from Ochre, Sidechain and F.E.A.R. Three years on, the second instalment in the series harvests a further fourteen tracks of classic electronica and techno, with contributions from Mint, Tommi Bass, Liberation Jumpsuit, Infinite Scale, Boc Scadet, Joseph Auer, Sunosis, Zainetica and many more.

Very much like its predecessor, One Point Two spans a vast array of genres, from the elegant electronic swathes of Boc Scadet’s She Spoke Of The Sky, Zainetica’s Awaken or Sunosis’s Leap and the ambient expanses of Polestar’s Retro Future, Infinite Scale’s Cell Out or The Vizier Of Damascus’s Murmurs to the Detroit-infused offerings from Cheju’s Hubl or Inigo Kennedy’s Faraway Towns to the old style techno of Tommi Bass’ Electro Glitch 2007 and the acid funk of Liberation Jumpsuit’s One Night Stand.

The album kicks off in gently mood with the delicate formations and beats of Mint’s Queasy, but things sharpen up quickly, first with the electric charges inflicted by Tommi Bass, then with the dirty electro funk distilled by Liberation Jumpsuit, before Boc Scadet applies lush dreamy textures and brings One Point Two right back into melodic mode. A perfect reflection of the path followed by Rednetic over the last first years, the album then alternates between delicate pieces (Polestar, Infinite Scale, Joseph Auer) and more upbeat moments (Utility Player, Cheju, Inigo Kennedy).

Rednetic have gained confidence with every release, and the label’s audience has been growing accordingly. This second compilation brings together the many flavours of Rednetic and provides an ideal entry point for one of the most consistent independent imprints around.

RETINA.IT: Semeion (Hefty Records)

2007-07-10T00:29:00.000+01:00

RETINA.IT
Semeion
HEFTY063CD
Hefty Records 2007
13 Tracks. 69mins21secs

Buy it: CD
Retina.IT | Hefty Records

Lino Monaco and Nicola Buono first met in the mid nineties while they were both DJs in a club in Naples, Italy. They began making music as the Qmen, before turning to more experimental musical forms as Retina.IT. This resulted in a first series of EPs and an album, Volcano Waves 1-8, for Chicago imprint Hefty, all published in 2001. Since, there have been sporadic releases, including a few compilation appearances, a handful of remixes, an album released under the Resina moniker, and a second, self-titled album, released in 2003 and 2004 respectively, on their own Mousike Lab imprint.

Semeion is not a totally new body of work as most of the thirteen tracks collected here have previously been published on various EPs released between 2001 and 2006. Only two tracks have never been released before, and a third one was commissioned for the soundtrack for a video by Claudio Sinatti, which was presented at the 2005 edition of the Videominuto festival.

Monaco and Buono create elegant minimal electronic formations over typically linear beats, with occasional found sounds softening the overall angular approach. Retina.IT often build their compositions around very few elements at a time, focussing primarily on the impact of each sound on the mood of a piece and how each new component affects its balance. Yet, with so little to play with, Monaco and Buono manage to craft rather funky and hypnotic little numbers with irresistible grooves tucked away in every corner. Tracks such as Pick, Uranio or Violynth force their way through futuristic dance floors with rather sharp electronics and angular rhythmic sequences, while elsewhere, the pulsating beats and bass found on Zilencer, Per Assurdo or Civilta Meccanica, combined with sparse noises evoke experimental early sixties TV sci-fi.

At times, the pair take stock, step back and invest their energy into slightly denser compositions. On Apeiron or T-UFO for instance, they carves complex rhythmic formations deep into beautiful haunting soundscapes, revealing a more meditative and atmospheric side of their music, while On Zucchine Alla Scapece, these hypnotic washes are applied in more subtle fashion as the pair work a lone drone against which they hang delicate processed vocal samples to emphasise the melancholic tone of the piece.

Semeion presents an interesting cross section of the work produced by Retina.IT in the last six years. While the band has remained rather the shadow of bigger electronic acts, Semeion demonstrates the consistency of the music produced over the years and how the pair have developed and strengthened their sound.

SPACEHEADS AND MAX EASTLEY: A Very Long Way From Anywhere Else (Bip-Hop Records)

2007-07-06T13:15:00.000+01:00

SPACEHEADS AND MAX EASTLEY
A Very Long Way From Anywhere Else
BLEEP35
Bip Hop 2007
08 Tracks. 57mins21secs

Spaceheads | Bip Hop Records

The first collaboration between British sound artist Max Eastley and experimental duo Spaceheads dates back to 2001, with the album The Time Of The Ancient Astronaut, released on the ever-excellent French imprint Bip-Hop. Six years on, they reconvene for this second instalment of dense experimental music.

Eastley began to experiment with sound and machines in the late sixties, focusing particularly on natural elements such as wind and water, with great importance given to chance and accidents in his work. He has worked with various other experimental musicians, ranging from Brian Eno and David Toop to Peter Greenaway and Thomas Köner, and has exhibited his sound installations around the world.

Formed of Andy Diagram (trumpet) and Richard Harrison (electronics and drums), Spaceheads is an unconventional duo that evolves at the frontier of avant-garde jazz, noise and rock. The pair began working together in the late eighties in Manchester, first as part of various jazz formations then as a unit. They have since released a number of albums and performed all over the world.

When working with Spaceheads, Eastley plays a monochord instrument of his fabrication called the Arc. Combined with Spaceheads’ aural feast, Eastley’s sonic secretions create a tensed atmosphere that develops throughout the album, from the daunting owl calls of the opening The Chamber Of Statues and the spatial echoes of Every Thought Is Buried In Time to the intense layering of sounds that punctuates the title track. Diagram and Harrison appear to work around Eastley’s inputs, at times wrapping his eruptions in delicate swathes of electronics, at others in layers of dissonance. There is an intricate dialogue developing all throughout the record between Eastley and Spaceheads resulting in a series of dense soundscapes. While there is great intimacy in the exchanges, the scope of this record is rather ambitious, even for such an experimental record, with the trio often veering close to vast cinematic structures. It is therefore all the more impressive that they continue to pay extreme attention to even the minutest details of a piece.

The mood is generally subdued and introspective, with very few open rhythmic sequences to provide relief from the various sound assemblages, but the trio push into more dynamic terrains on Love Lends Wings To Our Desires and the twenty minute epic title track, on which Harrison plays a much more predominant role. The album concludes with the hectic Escape, which once again provides Harrison with fertile grounds on which to apply dense drums sequences.

The tracks featured on this album were recorded during two very different sessions. Four tracks were captured live on Frioul Island, off the coast of Marseille in the south of France, while the rest was recorded in a shed in the village of Brawby, North Yorkshire, the common link being the remote aspect of each location. The resulting recordings show surprising uniformity of tone and are a testament to how fruitful the collaboration between Eastley and Spaceheads is.

THE ORB: Orbsessions Vol. 2 (Maliscious Damage Records)

2007-06-29T14:19:00.000+01:00

THE ORB
Orbsessions Vol. 2
MD624
Maliscious Damage Records 2007
11 Tracks. 76mins01secs

Buy it: CD | LP
The Orb | Maliscious Damage Records

The first installment in what is announced as a trilogy, delivered two years ago, delved deep into the Orb’s sonic archive, and provided, in the process, the beginning of a thread throughout the band’s career, seemingly marking various stages and incarnations of one of the most emblematic British acts to have emerged from the dance scene of the late eighties.

The Orb shot to fame during the rave revolution with the epic A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld and the seminal Little Fluffy Clouds, and rapidly became a major act alongside the likes of Orbital, 808 State and Banco De Gaia. Formed by Dr. Alex Paterson and KLF/JAMMS maverick Jimmy Cauty, the band has been through many personnel changes during its near twenty years of activity, Swiss musician Thomas Fehlmann being, alongside Paterson, the only remaining active member.

Subtitled ‘Finest Quality For The Connoisseur’, Orbsessions Vol. 2 collects another eleven previously unreleased tracks. While the first volume sounded at times slightly disparate, this second chapter appears like a much more cohesive piece. The sonic characteristics of the band are present all the way through, from deep rumbling dub effects to extensive sample use, but there is no trace of the band’s poppier tone of the early 2000s or the infectious minimalism of recent years. This album presents The Orb at their most elaborate and ornate, with contributions from Fehlmann, Andy Hughes, Hans Joachim Roedelius, vin100 and legendary producer Youth alongside Paterson,

Orbsessions Vol. 2 opens with the somewhat dark and haunting tones of D.A.D.O.E.S? Dense clouds of noise and echoes swallow any melodic attempt, while muted vocal samples and Berber chants punctuate the piece at regular intervals. Ralph’s Cupboard follows a much more familiar sound pattern as a melody circles above a hypnotic dub groove and intricate sound formations. From there on, the remaining tracks are set between these two points. 2026 is a stunning piece of progressive ambient that sparkles with hypnotic elegance, while It’s A Small World is a refined slice of bouncy electronic music in the great Orb tradition. Shem, with its vast soundscapes and beat-less facade, sits at the more experimental end of the spectrum, whereas Shem Version, which follows, feeds on a very similar drum pattern as Massive Attack’s Inertia Creeps, with which it also shares some of its dark oppressing atmospherics.

Later, Ba’albeck sounds like Perpetual Dawn given the Toxygene treatment. There is little more than a mechanical groove, at times supported by tabla and an occasional ‘ooo-ooo’ to keep the mind occupied, but its relentless drive is enough to keep it afloat. Jam On Your Honey shows similar characteristics, but feels even funkier and more playful.

It is something of a mystery why some of these tracks have remained until now unreleased. Spanning an undetermined period, although the overall sound seem to indicate that most of these date from the mid to late-nineties, there is an interesting sonic consistency throughout. Very much like its predecessor, Orbsessions Vol. 2 fills some gaps in the band’s work, but the selection is much more consistent here. While a new album is announced for later this summer, this second collection is a superb testament of the creative cauldron that The Orb continue to be.

DEXTRO: Hearts And Minds (Gronland Records)

2007-06-25T23:37:00.001+01:00

DEXTRO
Hearts And Minds
12GRON51
Gronland Records 2007
04 Tracks. 25mins07secs
Format: 12’

Buy it: 12"
Dextro | Gronland Records

Ewan Mackenzie’s first stab as a recording artist came in the shape of the confident Consequence Music, his debut album, originally released on his own 16K imprint, and recently snapped up by London-based Gronland Records. This accompanying EP features the original album track, plus remixes from Arkham, Alias and Clark.

The original version of Hearts And Mind is a haunting piece of beautiful melodic electronica which resonates with the melancholy typical of Boards Of Canada records, but Mackenzie develops a rather tight and personal combination of electronic and acoustic sounds, upon which a distant processed voice floats, which contributes greatly to the enthralling aspect of the piece.

Although retaining the vocal influx and some of the acoustic tones of the original, Arkham beefs up Dextro’s dreamy electronic by applying a more dance floor-friendly beat structure and electronics which are not without recalling Spooky circa Gargantuan. In the remixer’s hand, Hearts And Mind becomes here a heady piece of vintage electronic music. Anticon’s Alias takes an entirely different path with his version, adding vocals, acoustic guitar and glockenspiel. Over the course of its six and a half minutes, his remix builds up considerable momentum, rising from delicate pop to a dense, shoegazer-esque wall of electronics before returning to gentler grounds. Last but certainly not least is Warp’s maverick Clark, whose take on Mackenzie’s track is a thoroughly deconstructed version of the original, with added abrasive twist. There is very little left of Dextro’s exquisite soundscapes left here. Instead, Clark sends beats bouncing on harsh noise formation, providing an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the EP.

RUSUDEN: Fe IX/X 171 A (Soho Six Records)

2007-06-21T14:28:00.000+01:00

RUSUDEN
Fe IX/X 171 A
SOL003
Soho Six Records 2007
07 Tracks. 24mins23secs

Rusuden | Soho Six Records

Rusuden is the brainchild of Lexington, Kentucky, based musician Justin Morgan. Once a member of various rock and indie formations, Morgan switched to electronic instruments and computers in the later part of the nineties and began performing as Rusuden at the turn of the century. Following a series of self-released CDRs, his debut album, Formulae, was released on Sonicterror in 2003, and introduced his blend of glitched-up Detroit-infused electronica. The album was followed by a collection of remixes of tracks from the album by the likes of Wisp, The Gasman, Ochre, Multiplex and Morgan himself. Warm Human Antennae, Rusuden’s second album proper, was released in 2005 on Morgan’s own Soho Six imprint. While still essentially electronic, this record presented a much wider sonic scope, with guitar textures becoming quite predominant in a few tracks.

For his latest musical escapade, Rusuden has his eyes set firmly on the dance floor. The snappily titled Fe IX/X 171 A, a scientific term relating to the process of imaging solar activity via ultraviolet light, features seven slices of unadulterated old school electro with subtle injections of acid and ambient, tempered with an ounce of Germanic minimalism. The mood evokes in turn the Richard D James of Polygon Window, early Ritchie Hawtin, B12 or early Black Dog even. Fe IX/X 171 A also marks a new creative peak for Rusuden. Clocking at just twenty-five minutes for seven tracks, Fe IX/X 171 A is a very concise and tight affair. Morgan’s delivery is confident and efficient. His soundscapes fuse classic electronic tones and futuristic vision, particularly on Snogon, Zanika or Takkong, whilst he engineers much coarser formations on tracks such as Yametarans or Yadokirin. The compositions work on a variety of levels, as different elements become obvious with repeat listens. Cold bleeps, acid squirts and regimented beats reveal hidden lush warm analogue soundwaves, secondary melodies and even occasional voices to complete Rusuden’s intricate tapestry. Morgan keeps rhythms and melodies fluid and fresh, and excellent sonic consistency, all the way through as he focuses on setting feet as much as mind in motion.

Originally released as a clear blue vinyl, Fe IX/X 171 A has since received an extended digital release with five additional tracks recorded around the same period. With this return to purely electronic soundscapes, Morgan’s foray into classic electronica is his most convincing and accomplished record to date.

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW & THE HUN HANGÁR ENSEMBLE: A Hawk And A Hacksaw & The Hun Hangár Ensemble (The Leaf Label)

2007-06-19T01:00:00.000+01:00

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW & THE HUN HANGÁR ENSEMBLE
A Hawk And A Hacksaw & The Hun Hangár Ensemble
DOCK47CDVD
The Leaf Label 2007
08 Tracks. 29mins20secs

Buy it: CD
A Hawk & A Hacksaw | The Leaf Label

Originally the solo project of former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes, A Hack And A Hacksaw is a totally unique project, which has taken Barnes in a variety of locations across the world. Beside his previous regular spot as drummer with Neutral Milk Hotel, Barnes has also served with Bablicon, Bright Eyes and Broadcast. He started working on his next project, A Hawk And A Hacksaw, toward the beginning of the century, and released his first album in 2003.

Feeding on a vast set of influences, ranging from Eastern European traditional music to avant-garde and beyond, the first self-titled A Hawk And A Hacksaw album, recorded in the quiet town of Saumur, on the border of the Loire, in France, totally disregarded traditional musical boundaries to create an exhilarating soundtrack out of field recordings over which pianos, accordions and various other instruments flourished into beautiful melodies. The scope of Barnes’s music continued to expand with his second album, Darkness At Noon, released a year later. On The Way The Wind Blows, Barnes was joined by violinist Heather Trost, now an active AHAAH member. The pair worked with Romanian ensemble Fanfare Ciocârlia, a popular twelve-piece formation which combines traditional Romanian music with influences from the whole Balkan region and beyond. Toward the end of 2006, Trost and Barnes discovered Fonó, a music workshop and centre for Hungarian music in the heart of Budapest. They convinced four musicians they met there to form an ensemble. Barnes and Trost consequently recorded a mini album with the Hun Hangár Ensemble, and they are set to tour with them in the summer. This very limited eponymous recording comes with an additional DVD documenting the work of AHAAH over the last couple of years.

The eight tracks of this mini album partly draw from traditional Hungarian, Serbian, Romanian and Klezmer folklore, and also feature two new compositions from Barnes and Trost. The album opens with the soft melancholic tone of Trost’s violin cast against a piano and a cimbalom, a traditional Hungarian instrument similar to a dulcimer. The mood changes with Zozobra as an accordion first, then the crystalline sound of the cimbalom, hurry through a fast-paced rhythmic section with strong Romani overtones. After these, the formation goes on to perform a series of traditional music themes, ranging from the vibrant melody of Serbian Cǒcek, supported by a vivid brass section, to the rampant melancholy of Oriental Hora and the beautiful Hungarian bagpipes motifs of Dudanotak. At times, tracks encompass a wide range of moods in just a few moments. Both Romanian Hora And Bulgar and Ihabibi begin with very melancholic melodies before gathering pace and swelling into rich harmonics and pulsating rhythms.

The additional DVD provides a further insight into the evolution of a band like no other. Over the years, Barnes has defined a strong musical identity, and with Trost now a regular feature in AHAAH, he continues to refine it as the band becomes more essential with each release. This limited release is a resounding example of how traditional and contemporary can fit in beautifully, something that AHAAH have become quite expert at.

TAXI TAXI! Taxi Taxi! (Rumraket)

2007-06-14T00:51:00.000+01:00

TAXI TAXI!
Taxi Taxi!
RUM009
Rumraket 2007
06 Tracks. 18mins56secs

Buy it: CD
Rumraket

Somewhere between CocoRosie, The Sundays and Susanna & The Magical Orchestra is Taxi Taxi!, a duo formed by Stockholm-born and bred seventeen-year old twin sisters Miriam and Johanna Berhan. On the back of the interest generated by a couple of demos posted on the Internet, Taxi Taxi! have performed an impressive number of live dates in Scandinavia and have now been enrolled to take part in some of Europe’s biggest festival. Their eponymous debut EP has just been released on Efterklang’s Rumraket imprint.

In just six songs and nineteen minutes, the pair create achingly beautiful melodies built from sparse arrangements, with often little more than an acoustic guitar or a piano to fall back on. At times, echoes of a lonely accordion or harmonica flicker a moment, casting a delicate shadow over a song before vanishing again. Intriguingly alike, the two voices are hauntingly reminiscent of Harriet Wheeler, especially on opener All I Think Of and on the stunning Heart. While they often evolve separately, they at times get locked into rich harmonies which show vast emotional potential.

The songs are deceptively simple little vignettes caught between melancholy and reverie, with melodies as soft and light as morning dew, dropped over delicately fingerpicked guitars or airy piano lines. From the contrasted tones of All I Think Of or Water to the breathtaking Belle, To Hide This Way, Heart and Mary, Taxi Taxi! charm, touch and convince again and again. Despite their young age, the Berhan sisters show incredible control and maturity over the six songs of this EP, recorded with producer Björn Yttling, of Swedish pop band Peter, Björn and John. One of the most beautiful records you’re likely to hear all year.

KIERAN HEBDEN & STEVE REID: Tongues (Domino)

2007-06-12T23:50:00.000+01:00

KIERAN HEBDEN & STEVE REID
Tongues
WIGCD189
Domino Recording Co. 2007
10 Tracks. 44mins45secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid | Domino Recording Co

Since he took some time off Fridge to concentrate on Four Tet, Kieran Hebden has become one of the most prominent artists of the British electronic scene of the last ten years. Three years ago, he met legendary percussionist Steve Reid, and the pair began working on live collaborations, resulting in the double-barrelled Exchange Session (volume one and two). The records were the result of improvisations, which were presented in their raw form, with no overdubs. Although split into bite size sections of barely more than thirty to forty minutes, these recordings suffered from lack of general focus necessary for this kind of project, and failed to capture the true energy of the live shows the duo had been performing earlier.

While recorded in the same conditions as the twin albums of last year, Tongues is a much more settled and balanced affair, and demonstrate how the two have learnt to channel their respective energy and work alongside each other in a more efficient fashion. Crucially, Hebden’s presence is much more prominent and consistent here. The fluid essence of Four Tet still doesn’t quite percolate through Reid’s ardent rhythmic sections, but he contributes to the lighter aspect of the great majority of the pieces here. The opening track captivates with its syncopated cuts and dense noise formations, evoking a jogger’s portable music device gone into spasmodic fit. Brain and even more so Out Time are refreshingly melodic and cheerful, the latter proving a rather seductive piece where lush harp samples cascade down a restrained rhythmic section.

Later on, the pair tackle the phone system hold favourite that is Greensleeves on music boxes and metallic percussions and manage to make it at once sound fresh and powerful. Reid leads almost entirely on Mirrors, with Hebden set slightly back, providing discreet electronics all the way through. Superheros sounds like a video games arcade in the middle of a civil war as dense clouds of analogue bleeps continuously hammer the driving rhythm set in motion by Reid. Rhythm Dance proves a much more hazardous piece. After layering soft electronics for just under a minute, Hebden seems to suddenly fall victim of a massive sonic fit before he gets some order in the chaotic sound collage he has spread at Reid’s feet as the tracks finally gets going. If, over its course, the pair manage to regain some interest, they struggle to limit the damage. The album concludes in rather subdued mood with the slightly sombre tones of Left Handed, Left Minded. Here, the pair tame their respective instruments to offer a beautifully restrained piece.

On Tongues, Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid have moved away from the lengthy and dense improvisations of their previous effort and refocused on the playful aspect of their collaboration, and while the album still shows signs of slight over-indulgence at times, Hebden and Reid manage to create here a record at once experimental and interesting.

OPSVIK & JENNINGS: Commuter Anthems (Rune Grammofon)

2007-06-12T00:34:00.000+01:00

OPSVIK & JENNINGS
Commuter Anthems
RCD2062
Rune Grammofon 2007
10 Tracks. 46mins36secs

Buy it: CD
Opsvik & Jennings | Rune Grammofon

Opsvik & Jennings first appeared as an entity two years ago with their debut album, the superb Fløyel Files, released on NCM East. While Norwegian-born bass player Eivind Jennings had already two albums under his belt, Overseas and Overseas II, published in 2003 and 2005 respectively on Fresh Sounds Records, and had contributed to a considerable number of albums and formations, guitarist Aaron Jennings, hailing from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a relative new comer. The pair met in New York where they both relocated in the late nineties.

Their second album, Commuter Anthems, released on Rune Grammofon, can best be described as a game of two halves. In the first section of the album, the pair adopt a rather more bucolic and chilled tone than that heard on Fløyel Files, with delicate melodies floating over air-thin instrumentations primarily formed around electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, concertina, horns and electronics. The album opens with the graceful guitar and piano motifs of The Last Country Village and Silverlake. While very much a continuation of some of the more melodic moments of Fløyel Files, these two pieces show a much more symbiotic approach to sound. The title track, which follows, has the light-hearted disposition and visionary approach of futuristic sixties pop music, underlined by a gentle melody and the prominent display of a Theremin in the background. The mood occasionally dips a tad, especially on the introvert Wrong Place Right Time, but even there, a discreet flute creates elegant patterns over a rather stern backdrop.

In its second half, the album takes a slightly jazzier turn, perhaps highlighting Opsvik’s influence over the pair’s work. Port Authority shows once again subtle sixties influences in its wonderfully melodic main theme, but later, the musical expression becomes more syncopated on I’ll Scrounge Along, where the pair work a much groovier sequence, with Opsvik’s bass taking a more central role. In contrast, Ways is a superbly evocative composition, with a clear cinematic feel. As the track unfolds, it goes through surprising transformations, evoking in turn early twentieth century music and orchestral grandeur before gently fading away in a circling melody. The Pendler is this album’s most ambitious piece, as Opsvik and Jennings appear to make good use of their full instrument arsenal, without ever loosing sight on the melodic aspect of the track. The album concludes with the short and sweet Apology / Goodbye, which dissolves before it is given time to fully develop, leaving the listener wanting more.

Commuter Anthems represents a slight departure for Opsvik & Jennings, who take their original sonic template and expand it in a range of directions, from jazz to folk and country music. The pair crafts beautiful melodies set in delicate yet complex soundscapes, creating often poetic compositions. Ultimately, Opsvik & Jennings defy classification with playful spirit and panache and present a truly enjoyable record.

Nitin Sawhney leads Aftershock London

2007-06-11T14:56:00.001+01:00

The newly reopened Royal Festival Hall, on London’s South Bank, will play host to Aftershock London, a unique event set under the artistic direction of multi-instrumentalist and music producer Nitin Sawhney. The performance is the result of workshops that have taken place across the city over an eight-week period with young emerging musicians and artists. This performance, which is due to take place in the Ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall, is the last in a series of showcases that have taken place across the city.

The performance will take place on Friday 15 June. This is a free event.

SAVATH & SAVALAS: Golden Pollen (Anti)

2007-06-08T00:44:00.000+01:00

SAVATH & SAVALAS
Golden Pollen
86839
Anti- 2007
16 Tracks. 52mins29secs

Buy it: CD
Guillermo Scott Herren | Anti-

Following a debut album, Folk Songs For Trains, Trees And Honey, concerned primarily with gentle acoustic-infused electronica, Guillermo Scott Herren turned to his father’s native Spanish roots, moved to Barcelona and covered his Savath & Savalas project with soft Mediterranean tones and moods with Appropa’t and its sister EP, Mañana, both released on Warp during 2004. While Folk Songs… was an entirely instrumental record, Appropa’t saw Herren venturing into song-based territory with Catalonian singer songwriter Eva Puyuelo Muns sharing vocal duties with him. For Golden Pollen, his first album for Los Angeles imprint Anti, it is Herren alone who steps behind the mic, with Swedish singer songwriter Jose Gonzalez landing a helping hand on one track.

Like on its predecessor, all the songs of Golden Pollen are sung in Spanish, and Herren makes extensive use of acoustic instruments, delicate melodies and occasional found sounds. Right from the short sequence that opens, the mood is set, and Herren never veers away from his template. All the way through, softly blushed vocals float above rich orchestrations and gentle rhythms to create airy pieces best suited for the time of the day when the torpor retreats and life returns. From the refined melodies of Apnea Obstructiva, Estrella De Dos Caras or El Solitario to the denser Concreto, Te Amo… Por Que Me Odias?, Vidas Animadas or Tormenta De La Flor, Herren crafts impeccable compositions which nothing seem to be able to derail. Everything is not quite as peaceful though. Three songs in, Paisaje begins in calm mood, with environmental noises bubbling in the background while a soft acoustic guitar carves delicate formations in the foreground, but soon voices and instruments appear in total melt down and struggle to stay in tune. Although Concreto, which follows, is not affected in such a way, there is still a partial feeling of misplacement that lingers over it for a while.

Once again, Herren has surrounded himself with an impressive cluster of musicians and artists here, including Jose Gonzalez, who takes care of the main vocal section on the beautiful Estrella De Dos Caras, or Los Angeles-based singer Mia Doi Todd, who guests on Intro, while Triosk drummer Laurence Pike, Danny Bensi and experimental vocalist and Battles member Tyondai Braxton provide drums, cello and additional vocals respectively all the way through.

While Appropa’t represented quite a new direction for Guillermo Scott Herren, and was linked to his move to Barcelona, Golden Pollen is less of a surprise, and perhaps lacks the spontaneity of its predecessor. This said, Herren certainly excels as much at assembling lush sun-drenched songs and chilled moods as he does intricate hip hop beats and shattering grooves. Golden Pollen requires a bit of time to settle and reveal its many depths, but once it does, it becomes a very enjoyable record indeed.

THE BLACK DOG: Remixes 2 (Dust Science)

2007-06-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

THE BLACK DOG
Remixes 2
DUSTSND006-6
Dust Science 2007
03 Tracks. 21mins33secs
Format: 12”

Dust Science Recordings

While they are currently said to be working on a new album, The Black Dog continues to show impeccable form with this second collection of remixes of tracks taken from their excellent Silenced LP released in 2005, courtesy of Orlando Voorn, Derailleur and Vector Lovers, all three taking the superbly crafted original Black Dog template for a spin on the dance floor.

Voorn’s reading of Sudden Intake turns the swelling ambient textures of the original into a refined piece of vintage techno conveyed by a driving beat and sumptuous silky synthetic waves. Voorn retains the dreamy aspect of the Black Dog track, expanding its scope quite drastically by processing the main melodic theme to superb effect, turning it into a hypnotic and haunting piece.

Alt/Return/Dash/Kill, revisited by recent Dust Science signing Derailleur, is a much more hard-edged affair, with sharp angles defining the outer limits of the track, while the more musical elements converge into dense sonic masses at the centre of the spectrum. Very much in line with his own work for Varial and Dust Science, the groove, built around a tribal drum sequence and a round bass line, underlined by short vocal samples, is relentless, effortlessly carrying the rest of the piece across its seven and a half minutes.

With its clean cut rhythmic pattern and dry minimal electro treatment, the Vector Lovers reworking of Machine Machina accentuates the dynamic of the Black Dog piece and emphasises its melody. The result is a warm and breathy piece of minimal German electro which progressively flourish over its course, yet it remains as utterly tight and precise in its most layered section as it is in its more arid parts.

ISLAJA: Ulual Yyy (Fonal Records)

2007-05-29T11:51:00.000+01:00

ISLAJA
Ulual Yyy
FR49
Fonal Records 2007
09 Tracks. 39mins00secs

Buy it: CD
Islaja | Fonal Records

Islaja’s first forays into dysfunctional folk sounded like the wanderings of a little girl lost in a forest teeming with crooked trees, chilling winds and hairy monsters, with virtually no clear reference points for the listener to hang on to. Her short vignettes, paper-thin arrangements, acoustic guitars and found sounds predominantly, wrapped around matchstick-like melodies, were fragile and ephemeral affairs, the peculiar timbre of Merja Kokkonen’s voice, at times brittle to the point of breaking, at others almost accidentally falling in or out of tune, adding to the overall disjointed feel of her music

Crucially, for Ulual Yyy, Kokkonen has been raccorded to the electricity grid and relies on much more expensive orchestration, bringing in Rhodes pianos, synthesizers and electric guitars, and sprinkling them with saxophones, violins and various other noises. Right from the onset of opener Kutsukaa Sydäntä those fearing a much more polished results will be reassured though. The songstress has lost none of her acidic tones and knack for abrasive melodies, and these more elaborate sound collages actually appear much more vulnerable than those of previous outputs. The solemn piano and electric guitar backdrop of Kutsukaa Sydäntä only just supports Kokkonen’s saturated vocals and threatens to come crashing down at every twist and turn of the melody.

There is, much more than on Meritie or Palaa Aurinkoon, a quietly dramatic aspect to this album, which at times evokes the mournful tones of Portugal’s traditional fado music or the rampant melancholy of Argentinean, tango. Kokkonen’s voice at times drones and lingers, shying away from attention, or cuts through caustic curtains of sounds with sheer emotions. The music appears more desolate and tormented than before. Shards of saxophone, in turn soft or strident, tear the fabric of this record with insistent regularity on Sydänten Ahmija, Pete P and Laulu Jo Menneestä. On Muusimaa, Kokkonen is caught amidst a disturbing storm of tuneless chords, as if she was surrounded by kids hammering instruments without cohesion.

The last three pieces are comparatively peaceful and spacious, with reduced sound sources and more clearly applied melodies. After the earlier torments, these are welcome resting grounds. The album concludes in surprisingly bucolic mood, with the last four and a half minutes of Suru Ei being entirely constituted of bird songs.

With her two first albums, Islaja’s Merja Kokkonen charmed and intrigued with delicate folk songs. Ulual Yyy is a much more unsettling record. The fairytale ballads have been replaced with much more striking soundscapes, and Kokkonen herself is driven by stronger currents. This third album is a much more mature album, but it remains a mysterious creation which only fits these moments in life when reality is a too vivid option.

ALOG: Amateur (Rune Grammofon)

2007-05-24T13:29:00.001+01:00

ALOG
Amateur
RCD2069
Rune Grammofon 2007
12 Tracks. 59mins34secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Alog | Rune Grammofon

Thanks to tirelessly inquisitive minds and an unquenchable thirst for sound processessing, Norwegian duo Alog have, in just three albums, stretched their musical universe beyond recognition. In their hands, nothing ever sounds totally ordinary, and as their approach as become more experimental with each release, moving from largely electronic structures to much more delicate soundscapes built around acoustic instrumentations and found sounds, they have developed a truly unique semantic and continue to refine it. Alog deal with sound on a large scale, taking as much consideration perfecting elements of their tracks which are not directly within audible range as they do crafting overhead components, resulting in extremely detailed and complex pieces more fitting to avant-garde than to traditional electronic music.

Following last year’s excellent Catch That Totem! published on Melektronikk, which collected some rare and previously unreleased material, Eide and Haugan return to Rune Grammofon with their fourth album. With this opus, the pair do not quite revise their work ethic as drastically as they have done in the past, but instead refine techniques applied on 2005’s Miniatures and manage to produce a record which is at once more complex and more accessible.

Amateur, here used in the context of ‘person who appreciates’, was recorded in various locations on the west coast of Norway, especially in schools, where the pair, accompanied by Nicholas H. Møllerhaug and regular Nils Økland collaborator Sigbjørn Apeland, made use of the sometime rudimentary facilities at hand. At times, the quartet found themselves stranded in one location for days because of bad weather and passed time by building their own instruments, adding to the eclectic sources used across the album. The result is an incredibly dense tapestry of sounds and noises, at times used in their barest form, at others treated and processed beyond recognition. Opener Son Of King is a bubbling piece on which Møllerhaug’s vocal acts as a continuous thread throughout. Various phrases are chopped up and re-assembled in apparently random fashion, creating a strangely disconnected tale from which pretty much only the title can be heard intelligibly, over a backdrop of wood and metal percussions which sounds increasingly more like a trotting horse as the track progresses.

At times, Alog seem primarily concerned with the very musical essence of their work, bringing melodies to the forefront, while at others, the focus is much more on the rhythmic aspect of their compositions. It is when the two meet however, like on the fascinating The Beginner, which share with label-mate Svalastog a taste for acoustic loops, that the pair are at their most enchanting. As loops and patterns settle, the track becomes a haunting incantation. A Throne For The Common Man has a similar feel, but the context is very different. Eide and Haugan begin by defining the sonic space with bells and chimes before progressively building a dense layered structure from a variety of acoustic instruments. What results is a grinding groove that absorbs everything in its path. Sleeping Instruments questions of the notion of silence and whether it is a sound in itself. As its title suggest, this piece is entirely built around fragments of sounds sourced from instruments ‘at rest’, whether it is wood contracting or fingers running on the surface of an instrument. The Future Of Norwegian Wood works on a similar principle, but silence is not quite as intrusive here. As various wood sounds are processed and assembled, Alog create a surprisingly consequent piece which comes alive around the three minute mark as a rhythmic sequence is set in motion. The ten-minute Bedlam Emblem sees a dense cloud of saturated noises, which wouldn’t be out of place on a Spunk record, slowly materialise and become overwhelmingly oppressive. On close inspection, this constantly changing ball of sound is made of a multitude of entangled minute debris interacting with each other.

In comparison, Write Your Thoughts In Water or Turn Back. Undo appear almost too straightforward, but there again Alog play with lights and shades to create illusions and deflect the attention away from the painstakingly complex and extremely detailed assemblages that are these tracks and focus instead of the poetry that results.

After ten years, Alog continue to develop and refine their approach to sound, as they move away from recognisable musical forms. As their most abstract record to date, Amateur is surprisingly accessible and playful, and this is certainly what makes Alog one of the most compelling outfits around.

SEEFEEL: Quique (Redux Edition) (Too Pure)

2007-05-17T09:37:00.000+01:00

SEEFEEL
Quique (Redux Edition)
PURE194CD
Too Pure 1993 / 2007
18 Tracks. 123mins41secs

Buy it: CD
Too Pure

Riding high on the wave created by earlier nineties indie luminaries such as My Bloody Valentine, Seefeel took the concept of cloudy guitar-led music, once labelled shoegaze, a reference to the recurring tendencies adopted by most bands at the time to never look up, and brought it to an entirely different level by confronting it with the ambient sound pioneered by Aphex Twin, Global Communication and The Orb. Formed of Mark Clifford (guitar, sequencing), Sarah Peacock (guitar, vocals), Darren Seymour (bass) and Justin Fletcher (drums, programming), the band develop a totally unique blend of processed guitars, rhythmic loops and hypnotic bass, with occasional hazy vocals textures.

Following two impressive EPs, More Like Space and Pure, Impure, both published on London-based imprint Too Pure, Seefeel delivered their first album, Quique in the autumn of 1993, and went on to release two more albums, Succour, for Warp and (CH-Vox) on Richard D. James’s Rephlex before apparently disbanding, with Peacock, Seymour and Fletcher forming the gritty pop combo Scala whilst Clifford continued experimenting with ambient as Disjecta and set up his own Polyfusia imprint. Following occasional outings as Woodenspoon and Sneakster in the late nineties, he reappeared a couple of years ago with Running Tapper, a collaborative effort with electronic musician Simon Kealoha.

Quique is considered by some to be Seefeel’s seminal record, and thirteen years after its original release, it remains a cutting edge record, sounding like very little else. Right from the onset of the cyclic Climatic Phase #3, the tone is set. Guitars are stretched, layered and looped over a groovy bass line and a slow moving rhythm pattern to form a dense sonic mass which seems to absorb everything in its path yet appears utterly delicate and eerie. This formula is developed over the course of the whole album with various degrees of intensity, from the warm waves that come crashing over the beat-less shores of Imperial, the fresh breeze blowing over Through You or the dark isolationist tones of Signals to the enigmatic fog of Polyfusion, Industrious or Plainsong, on which Sarah Peacock’s gossamer presence is rendered in delicate layers over the dense sonic backdrops of each piece as her voice is worked into the fabric of the music.

This new version comes with an additional CD featuring three rare tracks and no less than five previously unreleased songs and mixes all recorded during or around the album sessions. Clique, which opens this second part, displays some similar structures than those heard on the original album, yet the sound appears rougher and more angular, especially on the drums, which although placed in the background, emerge over the melting wall of guitars, bass and voice, and while Is It Now? and Silent Pool are dense and dark, in some way pre-empting the introvert structures of (CH-Vox), the blatantly ambient My Super 20, with its ever-changing drone, wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Global Communication’s influential 76:14. Elsewhere, Come Alive (Climatic Phase #1) slowly builds momentum over its course, at times echoing the end section of Minky Starshine, featured on the band’s Pure, Impure EP. Time To Find Me, which originated on More Like Space, together with the Avant Garde Mix of Charlotte’s Mouth and the Overnight Mix of Climatic Phase #3 are presented in stripped down version, revealing the intrinsically dubbey structures of the band’s approach in all its glory.

Although they only released three albums and four EPs proper between 1993 and 1996, Seefeel have created an incredibly consistent and influential body of work. Quique captures the band at the turning point between the guitar-led abstract indie pop of their early days and the more textural sound of Succour and (CH-Vox). With this album, Seefeel combine ethereal guitars, which find its source in the work of the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine, with technique used by the pioneers of electronic music to produced one of the most fascinating records of the early nineties, and one that continues to captivate and inspire. The additional material collected on the second CD only serves to underpin the importance of the band’s work and how visionary and unique Seefeel were.

Off again

2007-05-04T13:34:00.000+01:00

You know what it's like, you wait for a holiday for ever, and then two come at once! I am not yet again fully back into London mode, but I will be off all next week as I go and soak up a bit more sun, this time in Portugal. As before, comments will not be posted until I get back, unless I find an Internet cafe and can be arsed checking emails, but please keep them coming... in fact, bring them on full stop!

For those interested, click on the picture below to check the photos of Mexico.

PANDA BEAR: Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)

2007-05-04T12:58:00.000+01:00

PANDA BEAR
Person Pitch
PAW14
Paw Tracks 2007
07 Tracks. 45mins49secs

Buy it: CD
Paw Tracks

Person Pitch, Panda Bear’s third solo album, is a rather more luxurious and vibrant affair than its predecessors. While his 1997 eponymous lo-fi debut refused to decide between Casio-style knob tweaking and folk songs, its follow up, Young Prayer, released in 2004, dedicated to his recently deceased father, was much more sombre and atmospheric. In the last year, Panda Bear, real name Noah Lennox, got married, became a father and moved to Lisbon, where the album was recorded. On this latest opus, he lets loose and assembles a magnificent collection of uplifting and gently psychedelic avant pop.

Largely influenced by the vocal layering of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, especially on opener Comfy In Nautica and on the epic Bros, Noah Lennox is in fine form here, crafting beautiful melodies and arrangements which, while retaining some of the lo-fi essence that informed early Animal Collective albums, and his own, benefit from a more elaborate production. The rhythms are often tribal and the guitars hypnotic, with additional found sounds and electronics bringing unusual textures. The voice never appears entirely in focus and is often placed slightly at the back of the spectrum, making the lyrics slightly mysterious, as caught up in fog. This will be familiar sonic territory for Animal Collective fans, and it undeniably gives a strong hint as to what is Lennox’s contribution to the band, especially on their last two records. Yet, without the radical vision of Avey Tare, Lennox is free to let the music flow freely, and it shows. Not able to contempt with just one main theme for each song, Lennox changes focus halfway on more than one track. Take Pills, Bros and Good Girls/Carrots in particular seem as made of two or more songs welded together. In the case of the latter, it is perhaps because Good Girls and Carrots are actually independent songs, but they morph into one another in such a way that they become part of the same entity.

Beside the grandeur of these, Lennox also drops a couple of atmospheric pieces with the slow burning melody and kaleidoscopic backdrop of the moving Im Not and the introspective ambient sonic cloud of Search For Delicious. The album concludes on a delightful note with the slightly melancholic Ponytail.

With the next Animal Collective album due later this summer and Avey Tare’s collaboration with former Múm vocalist Kria Brekkan delving into much more experimental territories, Panda Bear offers on Person Pitch a series of beautiful songs. His music is much more confident than on previous solo outings, yet, he retains the innocence and spontaneity that have characterised his work to date, ensuring that this album is as refreshing and exhilarating as a summer shower at the end of a stormy day.

BATTLES: Mirrored (Warp Records)

2007-05-03T00:16:00.000+01:00

BATTLES
Mirrored
WARP156
Warp Records 2007
11 Tracks. 51mins52secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Battles | Warp Records

The problem with such a stellar live act as Battles is that, whether they try to capture the energy of their performances or polish their music in such a way that it becomes a completely different entity, they are likely to ultimately disappoint. Battles are certainly in such predicament. Hailed as one of the best contemporary live acts around, the band’s fist three EPs, released between 2004 and 2006, never really sought to showcase their stage performances, yet they clearly informed the relationship between the four musicians, and consequently cemented the music. But Battles were still to demonstrate their ability to carry this onto a full length, which is now done with this debut album.

Labels don’t serve Battles well. The one that seem to have been created for them especially, ‘math rock’, being the most incongruous of all. As the quartet effortlessly dispatch mind-bending pieces one after the other, debris of rock, jazz, funk, metal and electro fly by without ever sticking up for long, clearly indicating that the point of the band is somewhat well beyond pigeonholes.

Nothing is quite as visceral and essential as the anthemic tribalism of first single Atlas. With John Stanier’s flamboyant drumming firmly at the centre of the piece, echoing the band’s traditional stage formation, the rest of the band massage acerbic guitar sections, rumbling bass lines and twisted electronics into a relentless groove, with reluctant front man Tyondai Braxton adding filtered vocals, at times reminiscent of early Animal Collective, over it all. Over the course of the track’s seven minutes, Battles fast-forward, slow down, pause, rewind and start all over again to create a true classic. In comparison, the incendiary Ddiamondd is abrasive and arrogant, as if the band had spontaneously combusted and were rushing to get through the track before going up in smoke.

The next three tracks are more subtle and show some restraint, starting with the surprisingly level headed Tonto, a magnificent slice of sturdy modern rock with enough balls to withstand a drastic change of pace in its second half without showing any sign of losing focus. Next, the short and sweet Leyedecker is refreshingly tuneful and damn catchy. This is the calm before the many stormy circumvolutions of Rainbow, an ambitious tale of avant-rock on which the quartet change direction almost constantly, juggling melodies and fiery arrangements with disconcerting ease. The piece concludes in somewhat subdued fashion as the band reach an atmospheric shore on which Braxton’s vocals resound with impressive magnitude.

On tracks such as the engaging opening Race: In, or the dramatic Tij, the band establish a clear groove from the outset and pretty much stick to its incandescent driving force all the way through. The album concludes with the brooding Race: Out, with Stanier originally forcing rumbling drums onto the scope before Ian Williams and David Konopka begin an exchange of phrases from their respective sides.

Battles is like an ego war in reverse. While each member contributes essential components to the overall sound, the sum of their collaboration is greater than any single intervention, which pushes the focus solely on the music. This is a state of affair with Battles live, and it is on this record too. Although Mirrored might surprise and disconcert, its impeccable cohesion and visionary perspectives reveal a band at ease with its experimentations and willing to push ahead.

ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO: Kraut Slut (Static Discos)

2007-05-02T00:08:00.000+01:00

ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO
Kraut Slut
STA019
Static Discos 2007
10 Tracks. 57mins37secs

Buy it: CD
Antiguo Autómata Mexicano | Static Discos

Hailing from Monterrey in North-East Mexico, Angel Sánchez Borges has been an active member of the underground Mexican scene for over fifteen years, releasing music under a variety of guises, but he only emerged on the international scene a couple of years ago when he released his first album as Antiguo Autómata Mexicano, Microhate, on Düsseldorf-based imprint Background Records. With his latest, song-based, project, Seekers Who Are Lovers, Sánchez revisits the work of The Velvet Underground and Will Oldham.

With this first release for Tijuana’s Static Discos, original home of Murcof and Fax, Sánchez returns to the refined minimal techno of AAM. With Microhate, Sánchez explored a series of organic spaces built around minimal grooves, intricate sound formations and vast ambient soundscapes. Kraut Slut continues on a similar path, but here Sánchez relies on slightly more straightforward track structure, driving beats and clean-cut atmospheric soundscapes, reminiscent of Mille Plateaux or Komplott, yet he retains some of the abstract angles of his debut.

Album opener Rother, Dinger, You And Me and Mille which follows, set the tone. While the former evolves imperceptibly from a linear beat and rarefied electronics into a more elaborate piece of techno, the latter is a much richer slice of progressive dance music, which, after a rather introvert intro, slowly gathers pace as Sánchez applies more layers. Reflect Ella, All Styl and Co Opt follow similar paths, each track progressively developing from just a handful of components into crystalline formations. On Malandre De Culto, Sánchez drops a subtle melody over a soft aquatic groove, while, on the sombre Extirpe and twisted dub of Ham & Jazz, he toys with much more introspective ambient soundscapes, echoing the vast textural accents of Microhate. The album concludes with remixes of Mille (Kampion) and Co-Opt (J. A. Berricochea). While Kampion offers quite a radical rereading of the original, slowing it down drastically and softening its edges, Berricochea exposes the atmospheric hues of Sánchez’s version and deploys them as sumptuous electronic drapes.

While it may be regrettable that Sánchez hasn’t explored further the raw organic ambient and cinematic soundscapes that characterised his first album, his take on minimal techno proves very enjoyable and masterful. His beats are sharp, his grooves relentless and his sounds clean cut, with delicate melodies flourishing unexpectedly, making Kraut Slut an effortlessly classy piece of work.

COLLEEN: Les Ondes Silencieuses (The Leaf Label)

2007-04-30T00:35:00.000+01:00

COLLEEN
Les Ondes Silencieuses
BAY57
The Leaf Label 2007
09 Tracks. 43mins20secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Colleen | The Leaf Label

The twist on Colleen’s third album title, which translates as ‘The quiet waters’ but can also be interpreted as ‘The silent soundwaves’, reveals a lot about the content of the record. Gone are the complex electronic experimentations of previous records, replaced with simple melodies and crystal-pure acoustic instrumentation. While Paris-based Cecile Schott had already made a substantial step towards real instrumentation on her previous album, The Golden Morning Breaks (2005), there were still traces of the electronic treatments she had applied on previous outputs. For Les Ondes Silencieuses, Schott relies solely on instruments such as viola da gamba, which she already used on The Golden Morning Breaks, spinet, a relative of the harpsichord, both dating from the baroque period, as well as classical guitar, clarinet and crystal glasses.

Schott’s Radio France commission Colleen Et Les Boîtes A Musiques, released last year, already partly hinted at more delicate and introvert forms than previous work. This new album offers a series of wonderfully emotional and contemplative compositions revealing at long last the chore of Schott’s work in its full glory. Right from the opening moment of This Place In Time, the rich tones of the viola da gamba are layered in harmonic formations, ranging from sombre overtones in the lower registers to lighter nuances in the upper octaves. The pace is voluntarily slow, with silences carefully assimilated into the sonic canvas of the piece. This is a process that Schott repeats throughout the record, giving each composition a particular dimension. The melody of the title track is punctuated with pauses which serve to highlight the emotional scope of the piece. Equally, on Echoes And Coral, entirely played on crystal glasses, the chime-like resonance of each glass and the silences between notes is intrinsically part of the music.

Elsewhere, Colleen creates rich soundscapes by simply layering different instances of the same instrument, most prominently on Blue Sands and, to a lesser extent, Le Bateau, where the viola da gamba, in turn plucked, struck with mallets or played with a bow, is given impressive sonic depth. The sharp metallic tones of the spinet rains on Le Labyrinthe like an invigorating spring shower, especially in its second half where the pace becomes more alert, while a melancholic clarinet wraps its warm tones around the almost medieval guitar phrases on the stunning Sun Against My Eyes and Sea Of Tranquillity.

Colleen has consistently taken brave steps since she first appeared, determined to follow her singular path without compromises. Les Ondes Silencieuses is the logical development of her earlier experimentations. Relying solely on acoustic instruments, a process which she has perfected through her live performances, she creates here a magnificent piece of work, all in nuances and gentles tones, which is undoubtedly destined to eclipse her previous work and inform her journey ahead.

Holiday break

2007-04-08T22:47:00.000+01:00

This blog is going to stagnate for the next couple of weeks while I am sunning myself in Cancun (Mexico) and explore some of the Maya wonders that are found around the resort.

Comments will also not appear on the blog while I am away but it should stop anyone for posting reactions to reviews and comments on albums while I am away. I will publish them all on my return, unless I can drag myself away from the sun and sit in front of a computer screen for a while.

THE BUOYS: Grillo Parlante (Bathysphere Recordings)

2007-04-03T00:50:00.000+01:00

THE BUOYS
Grillo Parlante
DWCD005
Batyshpere Recordings 2007
10 Tracks. 47mins53secs

Bathysphere Recordings

The choice of using an old cinema projector to adorn the cover of Grillo Parlante, the debut album from Midland-based unit The Buoys is hardly fortuitous. Indeed, Chris Cousin, Stu Smiths and Steve Gibbs have all been involved in various projects involving or relating to films. Beside a stint as SofaLofa last year, Cousin is also a regular member in folktronica trio Chin Chin (Deep-Water), electronic outfit Normal Position (Ai Records) and Big Toe. He most noticeably performed at Leicester’s Space Centre last year with video artist Sean Clark. Gibbs is better known for his dub project Vibronics and as head of Scoops and Zion Trains Universal Eggs labels, but he has also composed for theatre and art installations, while Smiths has worked as a cameraman and film editor.

Combining soft ambient electronic soundscapes, occasional found sounds and guitar textures, at times vaguely reminiscent of Robin Guthrie, into quietly cinematic and ethereal pieces, the trio build here a rather convincing series of largely beat-less tracks which fluctuate between introspective pieces, experimental vignettes and sweeping compositions.

On the opening track, Absolutely Nothing, a lone guitar floats just above dense clouds of static noises, interferences and drones. Although it never manages to lift off from the rest, the contrast between the surface melody and the dark overtones in the background sets the tone for the rest of the album. Arches continues pretty much on the save level, but the mood appears to lighten up slightly as a drum sequence enters the scope and give some structure to the otherwise vaporous soundscapes surrounding it.

Beyond this point, the music becomes much more fluid and unpredictable as the band abandon pretty much any concrete rhythmic component. Instead, they rely on much more refined musical forms and, as the pace slows right down, especially on tracks such as the rather splendid Spider, Dehli Handkerchief, Solar, which is sweetened by the gentle vocal layer provided by Chin Chin singer Theresa Connelly, or New.

By the time Grillo Parlante resurfaces, the mood has turned rather pastoral with Forman, giving an insight into a slightly different incarnation of the trio’s musical ability. This is reinforced on Wrist as the band wind down and take leave.

Grillo Parlante has been pieced together with great care and the music reflects a taste for sumptuous yet often minimal soundscapes, with delicate melodies creeping up out of nowhere. The cinematic aspect of the work here is undeniable, and contributes to making this debut album a truly compelling collection of fine atmospheric electronic music.

SPLINT: Moro (Lampse)

2007-04-02T09:01:00.000+01:00

SPLINT!
Moro
LAMP008
Lampse 2007
11 Tracks. 51mins38secs

Splint! | Lampse

Formed in 2004 by Swedish artist Johannes Lundberg, Splint! bring together some of the finest improv musicians of the Scandinavian scene, including Lundberg’s compatriot drummer and percussionist Jon Fält and Norway’s Gunnar Halle (trumpet, electronics) and Nils-Olav Johansen (guitar, keyboards, electronics). All have served with various avant-garde formations, including a stint as part of Veslefrekk, the earlier incarnation of Supersilent, for Johansen.

The band has often been likened to Supersilent but their approach, which explores more defined musical lines, sets Splint! slightly closer to the likes of Food, Humcrush, or to a lesser extend Wibutee. They however share with the seminal Norwegian quartet a taste for highly contrasting pieces, which is demonstrated at length on this playful debut album.

Claiming inspiration from jazz visionaries such as Miles Davis, Alice Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, Splint! process these with contemporary technology, applying electronics and samples to create a series of rather diverse compositions, ranging from incredibly dense and free to vast atmospheric minimal pieces. Right from the opening track, Halle’s trumpet becomes a clear thread, guiding the listener through cataclysmic clouds of noise and more subtle sonic patterns. On Fooj, he carves a delicate theme as the rest of the band progressively build up delicate layers, but things heat up on the following track, Sintjom, where, caught between dub effects and groovy drums, his lines become harrowingly dense and emotional.

Later on, a sombre veil of introspection descends on Ittobåt, Tannin and Dammas. Small clusters of electronic debris erupt from all sides and gather into minimal electro-acoustic formations before breaking up and assembling again into new intricate knots. At times, processed voices add to the slight discomfort, but soon clouds dissipate again as Fält activates his grooves once again hesitantly on Dappysch before the quartet takes a turn towards chaotic electro-acoustic with Sandyn and Angublans. Here, the soundscapes are more hectic and intense, but the groove remains largely at bay while the band lay down their experiments. The closing two tracks see Splint! once again slipping into more intimate and subdued moods, but unlike before, these two pieces appear more opened and light, with refined soundscapes bringing the energy levels right down.

Splint!’s debut is at once playful and spiritual, with accessible moments and complex experimentations surprisingly well balanced all the way through. As they combine a classic acoustic vision with highly effective electronics, the quartet create here a piece of work which in turn excites, intrigues and fascinates.

XELA: For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights (Type Recordings)

2007-04-02T00:04:00.000+01:00

XELA
For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights
TYPE017
Type Recordings 2007
12 Tracks. 60mins45secs

Buy it: CD
Xela | Type Recordings

Four years after it was first released on the recently revived Neo Ouija, Xela’s debut album, For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights has been remastered and given a whole new set of attires thanks to graphic artist Matthew Woodson for its re-released, this time on Twells’s excellent Type Recordings imprint, only a few months after the third Xela album, The Dead Sea, was released.

Characterised by soft electronic sounds and gentle melodies clad with glitches and clicks, For Frosty Mornings was a rather confident debut for a musician who had only recently made the jump from indie guitar to computer-based music, and it has lost none of its substance and shine since. Recorded between 2000 and 2002, while he was sharing his time between a dead-end job in a car part shop and an art degree at university, the album is not quite as ambitious as it successor, yet it demonstrates a impressive level of maturity and control. Twells never sets to impress here, yet his delicate sound formations and evocative melodies, rooted somewhere between the minimalism of Mille Plateaux and the elaborate melancholy of Boards Of Canada, gather much evocative scope and create a soundtrack of understated beauty.

Right from the outset, with the stunning Age Of Monsters and Under The Glow Of Streetlights, Twells firmly establishes the tone of this album and never veers much from it afterwards. This two sister pieces are articulated around gentle melodies and complex rhythmic click clusters, yet they appear disarmingly simple and effective. Later, Impulsive Behaviour or the beautiful Last Breath, with its rich glow and guitar motifs, reveal a similar approach but applied to slightly more minimal and introvert soundscapes. Eselwhere, tracks such as Inbetween Two Rooms, An Abandoned Robot or Booble Hats In Summer showcase much more mournful and dark ambiences where melodies are swallowed by thick sound formations.

This new version also boasts two previously unreleased tracks, A Glance and Dance Macabre, which were recorded just after the regular album sessions and actually fit rather well here with there incredibly detailed rhythmic sections, delicate melodies and sweeping arrangements.

Although recorded over five years ago, For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights hasn’t lost any of its charms. More purely electronic than the recent Dead Sea, it however shows a high degree of human emotions and is as impressive today as it was when it was first released.

EFTERKLANG: Under Giant Trees (The Leaf Label)

2007-03-28T08:51:00.000+01:00

EFTERKLANG
Under Giant Trees
DOCK46CD
The Leaf Label 2007
05 Tracks. 29mins11secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Efterklang | The Leaf Label

Copenhagen-based outfit Efterklang caused something of a stir as they deployed their elegant pastoral pop songs over the course of Tripper, their debut album, released in the autumn of 2004 on Leaf. In just under an hour, the quintet, formed of Mads Brauer (electronics), Rune Mølgaard (piano), Thomas Husmer (drums) and multi instrumentists Rasmus Solberg and Casper Clausen, the latter also assuming vocal duties, hung up beautiful crafted songs set in scintillating backdrops of pianos, strings and found sounds. The album followed a previous EP, Springer, originally published on the band’s own Rumraket imprint in 2003 before Leaf released it early again in 2005. Efterklang have since released a very limited one-sided vinyl EP at the end of 2006.

Under Giant Trees comes in a fold out packaging with stunning illustrations from Danish artist Nan Ha Hvass, who captures the spirit of the music particularly well here. The five tracks featured on this mini album were devised as additional pieces to be performed during the band’s 2005 tour and were recorded in the band’s studio when Efterklang returned to Copenhagen. Moving away from the naïve melodies of previous releases, these are sweeping songs for drunks and sailors, torn between the somber atmospheres of Matt Elliott and the cinematic melancholy of Yann Tiersen. Falling Horses and Towards The Bare Hill especially stagger over emotional melodies and appear to progress with no particular aim as melodies and orchestrations revolve unsteadily around each other, but they are finely tuned indeed and crafted in the most exquisite fashion. Himmelbjerget waxes and waning gracefully between soft string work and orchestral grandeur, while Hands Playing Butterfly reveals a much more nocturnal tone as a lonely piano snakes its way through sparse string work. The album concludes with the delightful Jojo, which somewhat fails in its mission to bring the listener gently back to reality, flourishing instead with increasing gleam and panache as the end nears.

For this release, the delicate sound formations which was at the heart of the band’s early work have largely been replace with ambitious melodic structures and rich orchestrations, but they are still heard furtively lurking in the background, emerging at the first sign of a calm moment, only to be buried under more ambitious arrangements again. As Efterklang push deeper into their magical sonic world, Under Giant Trees is a magnificent appetiser to the follow up to Tripper, due out toward the end of the year.

VOLGA: Pomol (Lumberton Trading Company)

2007-03-26T11:57:00.000+01:00

VOLGA
Pomol
CDLUMB005
Lumberton Trading Company 2007
13 Tracks. 63mins35secs

Volga | Lumberton Trading Company

Moscow-based quartet Volga finely balance archaic overtones sourced from traditional Russian folklore and hypnotic rhythms with modern textures expressed through dense post-industrial electronics and processed acoustic instruments. This singular outlook gives the band a totally unique sound as they link past and present together with oriental and occidental musical forms. Formed in the later part of the nineties, Volga released their eponymous debut album in 1999, and have since delivered three albums and a number of live recordings and remix projects.

The voice of lead singer Anjela Manukian evokes the soft tones of Kate Bush and the many incarnations of Liz Fraser or Lisa Gerrard, yet there is a particular grain in her voice that is reminiscent of the spellbinding power of Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares. Tearing through hypnotic percussions and post-industrial electronic experimentations, she apposes ancient Russian texts, sung in a variety of dialects, that she has collected during years of researching Russian folklore. She is backed by multi-instrumentists Alexei Borisov, Roman Lebedev and Uri Balashov.

Pomol opens and closes in similar fashion, with Angela Manukian’s voice set very much as the main focal point of each song. Elsewhere, it is framed with tribal drums and harsh post-industrial electronic formations that are only softened by the addition of processed traditional instrumentation. All throughout, the music is deeply rooted in tradition, but the treatment applied on every single aspect of these thirteen songs places them at the heart of the contemporary experimental electronic scene. Tracks such as Corn, Sonnaja, Svaha, Tausen or Rubaha betray very little of their origins, but others, such as the title track, Kruchu or Detinushka, appear to bear the weight of centuries of history. The latter, with its exquisite guitar motifs and enthralling beauty, is undoubtedly the highlight of the album, but pieces such as the wonderful Pomol, the high octane Tausen and Ropes or Volga Mother, with its crystalised dub, all convey a great deal of emotions and prove very interesting offerings. The album closes with Manukian’s most beguiling vocal performance on the atmospheric and mysterious Sufi.

The album may originally be let down by the rather rigid and martial aspect of the arrangements, but the post-industrial approach adopted by the band, which contrasts greatly with the highly ornate vocals, actually serves to emphasise the sheer beauty and complexity of the melodies. Volga negotiate the difficult amalgamation of tradition and modernism very well here and manage to create a rather impressive collection of emotional electronic music.

COCOROSIE: The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn (Touch And Go Records)

2007-03-22T23:42:00.000Z

COCOROSIE
The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn
TG306
Touch & Go Records 2007
12 Tracks. 41mins06secs

Buy it: CD | LP
CocoRosie | Touch And Go Records

Toy pianos and human beat boxes, tiny bells and music boxes, dragons and butterflies, the world of Coco and Rosie, or sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady, relies heavily on fantasy, dreams and coded imagery. It is therefore not much of a surprise that they asked French artists Pierre & Gilles, who themselves have developed a very personal sense of symbolism, to shoot the cover of their latest effort, and teamed up with Michel Gondry for the video of the first single to be taken off the album.

CocoRosie first emerged three years ago with a stunning debut album, La Maison De Mon Rêve. Recorded in the bathroom of their Parisian apartment during a rainy summer, the album, collating acidic lullabies and pop vignettes too clever to ever be played on the radio, was wonderfully chaotic and unpredictable. With their follow up, Noah’s Ark, released in 2005, the Casady sisters relied on much more ornate instrumentation and deployed some increasingly widescreen melodies and intricate soundscapes. To further embellish their delicate pop songs, they recruited the services of oddball popsters Antony and Devendra Banhart and French beatbox artist Spleen.

The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn sees the Casady sisters wrap their surreal poetry in slightly less opulent and rich draperies, relying on just a few sound sources for each song. This gives the album a more minimal tone, but it also shows off the pair’s ability to write incredibly dense little vignettes in a much clearer light. Recorded in Island with Björk collaborator and Bedroom Community head Valgeir Sigurðsson, this third opus is somewhat less obsessed with dreams and tales, but this is not to say that CocoRosie have abandoned their toy box pop for more mature musical forms. The sisters’ mix of vocal affectation and elegance is intact here and weights heavily on the overall performance. Sierra’s classically trained voice contrasts greatly with Bianca’s rawer tones, as she goes from soft whispers to little girl’s blabber. As the sisters play off each other, a strange dialogue develops which is carried all the way through without ever failing to intrigue and entertain.

The album opens with the hip-hop infused Rainbowarriors and Promise before the sisters turn to more subtle and delicate song structures with Bloody Twins, on which their voices appear tightly entangled with melody and arrangements, Sunshine, with its clear melodic theme, or the cinematic Houses and Raphael. Elsewhere, CocoRosie playfully assemble pop songs out of minimal sound sources. On the magnificent Japan, the sisters voice their concern with political and social issues (‘everyone wants to go to Iraq / but once they go, they don’t come back / bringing peanut butter jelly and other snacks / we might have our freedom but we’re still on crack’) , while Sophia Lauren, orphans and baby dinosaurs cross paths on Animals. On the closing Miracle, Antony provides a delightful counterpoint to the acerbic verve of Casady sisters and brings this collection of imaginary pop songs to a rather stylish close.

While The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn isn’t quite as flamboyant, dense and dreamy as Noah’s Ark, Sierra and Bianca Casady continue here to craft wonderfully evocative poetic pop songs and subtle adult lullabies. If their work gains maturity, it still bears the touching innocence and naivety that made them so fascinating in the first place.

ARVE HENRIKSEN: Strjon (Rune Grammofon)

2007-03-16T00:47:00.000Z

ARVE HENRIKSEN
Strjon
RCD2061
Rune Grammofon 2007
12 Tracks. 47mins08secs

Buy it: CD
Arve Henriksen | Rune Grammofon

With fingers in more pies than humanely imaginable, it is a wonder how Norwegian trumpeter extraordinaire Arve Henriksen actually finds the time to work on his own music. An active member of formations as diverse as avant-garde improv super group Supersilent, Iain Bellamy’s Food, Audun Kleive’s Generator X and the Christian Wallumrød and Trygue Seim Ensembles to name but a few, Henriksen is one of the most adaptable and gifted musicians of his generation. His first solo album, Sakuteiki, released on Rune Grammofon at the end of 2001, introduced his sparse and beautiful soundscapes, while its follow up, Chiaroscuro (2004) vastly extended his sonic range. .

Recorded with fellow Supersilent members Ståle Storløkken (Keyboards) and Helge Sten (electronics), with the latter also producing, Strjon, the medieval name for Henriksen’s home town of Stryn, is once again a departure from previous recordings. While echoes of Sakuteiki and Chiaroscuro resonate throughout the album, the scope of this third solo effort is much more open and vast than that of its predecessors.

While the compositions remain largely focussed on Henriksen’s unique sound, Stroløkken and Sten often force Strjon out of its lingering semi-torpor and into the harsh blare of electric lights to reveal much more angular and abrupt tonalities. The album opens on traditional Henriksen territory with Evocation, but the abrasive textures of Black Mountain set Strjon on a different course as Sten wraps a recurring trumpet theme in coarse noises and processed electric guitars. Ascent is quieter, but darks shadows lurk in the distance, entangled in brushed rhythmic patterns, evoking in part a malfunctioning clockwork mechanism or a hypnotic tribal call.

On Green Water, Henriksen first applies gentle touches against a cluster of percussive noises, but as the background layers become more vivid, so is the increasingly deconstructed main melody. Set against the ominous and dense textural cloud of the title track, the wonderfully airy and light Glacier Descent, with its cascading layers of vocals ranging from deep guttural hums to mystical incantations, appears incredibly sharp and poignant.

Henriksen relentlessly drifts from conventional musical forms (the radiant harmonies of Alpine Pyramid and the delicate brushes of In The Light are amongst of the finest moments on this album) to uncharted experimentation (Black Mountain, Green Water, Wind And Blow). In turn raucous, croaky, vibrant or ethereal, Henriksen carves distinctive shades and tones out of his trumpet which Sten then places into context. Yet, unlike on Sakuteiki and Chiaroscuro, where Sten remained largely in the background, his electronic textures, combined with Stroløkken’s keyboard work give this album a much earthier feel.

At its most peaceful and reflective, Stjron is as spiritual and voluptuous as its predecessors, but when subjected to harsher soundscapes and processes, it becomes a haunting collection of dense organic atmospheres. Here, Henriksen continues to develop his distinctive lexical and challenge his work to deliver his most uncompromising record to date.

AUS: Curveland (Moteer)

2007-03-11T23:31:00.000Z

AUS
Curveland
MOTEER009CD
Moteer 2007
10 Tracks. 40mins08secs

Buy it: CD
Aus | Moteer

Despite being just twenty three, Japanese musician and producer Yasuhiko Fukuzono already has no less than five albums under his belt, including this latest effort, collecting music that goes from atmospheric electronic experimentation to unadulterated pop. He also regularly dabbles in composing and producing soundtracks, and co-run the Tokyo-based record label Flau.

On Curveland, Fukuzono slowly peels off layers of soft electronics and discreet glitches and statics wrapped around dreamy melodies and, on many occasions, the breathy vocals provided by Cokiyu, to reveal deeply emotional moments often reminiscent of early Múm or of Fukuzono’s compatriot Piana. Curveland is all half-tones and tempered ambiences, in turn shrouded in light or clouds, with treated acoustic instrumentation gleaming through cracks and tears affecting the surface calm to give each song a singular texture. Fukuzono works a very straight and narrow groove here, never veering far from his sonic template, and he does so with precision as he assembles minimal sound sources into complex and evocative soundscapes. Yet, Fukuzono manages to retain the fresh feel of his music all the way through. Beautiful melodies emerge almost unnoticed and dig their way through fragmented constructions until they evaporate, leaving just a vague after taste, helping create the overall eerie effect that lingers over the whole album.

All the way through, Fukuzono toys with lyrical atmospheres and vast narratives, yet he stops short of creating sweeping pastoral pieces, resorting instead to underwhelming ethereal themes and delicately assembled miniature pop songs. The result is simply stunning. It is difficult not to succumb to the fragile aspect of pieces such as Lied, With Rain, Curve, Tejina, Apt or Yoakemae and marvel at how they hold together with grace. Fukuzono applies gentle sonic touches to alter melodies without ever breaking their individual flow, and collates his compositions without much breathing space in between, as if the short silences separating each piece was as much part of the songs as any of his sound sources. Cokiyu’s sweet and sour vocals add to the ephemeral aspect of Fukuzono’s music and appear intricately woven into the sonic landscape of this album.

Although comparisons to both Múm and Piana are valid, Aus’s resolutely minimal outreach gives this album a singular relief and places Fukuzono’s work in a league of its own. Curveland is a truly enchanting and accomplished collection of ethereal Japanese pop with interesting scope and depth.

THE BLACK DOG: Book Of Dogma (Soma Recordings)

2007-03-07T10:22:00.000Z

THE BLACK DOG
Book Of Dogma
SOMACD057
Soma Recordings Ltd 2007
22 Tracks. 109mins01secs

Buy it: CD
Dust Science Recordings | Soma Recordings Ltd

The year is 1989. Electronica is in its infancy. The rulebook is still being written. Ken Downie, Ed Handley and Andy Turner release their first EP, Age Of Slack, under the Black Dog banner. Blending classic Detroit techno and hip-hop, the trio are shaping the sound of their generation. A handful of EPs later, they get picked up by then budding Sheffield-based Warp Records and go on to release the highly influential Bytes, as Black Dog Productions, the name of their early label. The album, which is part of Warp’s seminal Artificial Intelligence series of releases, is assembled as a compilation, with the trio acting under a variety of aliases (Xeper, Balil, Atypic, Plaid, I.A.O.).

Fast-forward to today and Ken Downie is still heading his project. Following the departure of Handley and Turner, Black Dog has seen a few line-up changes, but in recent years, brothers Martin and Richard Dust have become permanent fixtures and the release pace has gained momentum, with no less than six EPs and an album issued in just over two years. Meanwhile, rare early records from the band’s first incarnation change hands for hundreds of pounds on auction sites and in second hand shops. After a lengthy restoration exercise undertaken by Downie and the Dust brothers, the band’s first six EPs are now collected here and released on Glasgow-based Soma Recordings.

The twenty two tracks collected on this album were recorded between 1988 and 1992 and formed the backbone of the emerging ‘electronic listening music’ movement which spawned the likes of Warp, Aphex Twin, Autechre, B12 and many more, all united under the ill-fated and long dead IDM tag, and still infiltrates electronic music today. The band’s use of odd time signatures, hip-hop samples and harsh electronics largely put them at odds with the rave scene of the time but made acceptable the notion that music with strong dance influences could be enjoyed in the comfort of a home, preferably on headphones.

The first of the two CDs collects the band’s long unavailable first three EPs, Age Of Slack and Virtual (1989) and Techno Playtime (1990), all released on Black Dog Productions. The band’s knack for infectious rhythms and grooves, which made Bytes one of the most compelling electronic albums of the nineties, is already clearly defined here, with tracks such as Virtual, Ambience With Teeth, The Age Of Slack, Techno Playtime or Seers & Sages showing the breadth of the band’s scope in their early years and the great maturity with which they set out through uncharted territories. Carving their way through complex rhythmic patterns, intricate sound formations and hyperactive melodic themes, Downie, Handley and Turner already demonstrate the kind of panache that later made Bytes such a phenomenal record.

The second CD features the Parallel Squelch and Vanttool EPs in their entirety, plus Virtual Hmmm and VIR2L taken from the VIR2L Remix EP. These three EPs were released on General Production Recordings between 1991 and 1992 and were compiled on an album, Parallel, in 1995. The progression from the earlier tracks is clear, with Parallel, Erb, Vanttool and Virtual Hmmm proving especially masterful upbeat and complex techno pieces. While the band’s sound appear more settled and focussed, the level of experimentation remains very high, with techno, acid, hip hop and ambient collide with insistent regularity.

Book Of Dogma doesn’t only document the rise of a band but also the genesis of a movement which, despite finding its roots in the US, is utterly British. The great majority of these tracks haven’t been available for years, yet they sound as fresh, modern and innovative today as they did then. Simply essential.

RADICAL FACE: Ghost (Morr Music)

2007-03-05T00:52:00.000Z

RADICAL FACE
Ghost
MM069
Morr Music 2007
11 Tracks. 47mins46secs

Buy it: CD
Radical Face | Morr Music

Radical Face is the song-based project of Ben Cooper, better known as one half of electronically subverted indie-pop duo Electric President, which he formed with Alex Kane in 2000. The pair released their self-titled debut album on Berlin-based Morr Music last year. While Cooper has previously recorded an album under his Radical Face moniker, The Junkyard Chandelier in 2003, Ghost, released on Berlin-based imprint Morr Music, home of B.Fleischmann, Isan, American Analog Set and Lali Puna, is his official solo debut

At the helm of Radical Face, Cooper affirms a more subtle and gentle personality than with Electric President, exposed through catchy pop melodies and brushed orchestrations. At times evoking the captivating world of Sufjan Stevens, especially on songs like Let The River In, Wrapped In Piano Strings or Homesick, or the offbeat pop of Merz, Cooper generally finds inspiration in the great American folk tradition, which he then enriches with discreet found sounds to bring it right up to date. Apparently recorded in a shed somewhere in Jacksonville, Florida, where Cooper has established his studio, Ghost is modern, fresh and elegant, with dense orchestrations washing over its naturally stripped down songs to give them substance and definition.

Based around the idea of houses collecting memories, with those having lived in a place still inhabiting it, albeit as ghosts, long after they have departed. This translates into very structured yet spacious song forms with instrumental sections given prominence all the way through, and found sounds, from wood cracking to empty footsteps, giving some compositions a particular relief. The voice is also pushed slightly in the background, as to preserve a cloud of mystery over Cooper’s often dark and claustrophobic lyrics. This gives Ghost a rather moodier tone than its upbeat songs could originally lead to think. Cooper works his way through beautifully written pieces, which repeatedly twist and turn unpredictably from delicate acoustic melodies to full blown orchestral grandeur and back, his voice, soft and sweet, contrasting with the overall mood of the record.

Cooper never settles on a particular theme for very long, but he retains a strong unity of sound all the way through, creating effects with anything from lonely banjo or accordion to sharp electric guitar incisions, dense synthetic waves and haunting found sounds. Although there is definitely a radio friendly aspect to these compositions, they would probably be best suited to the dead of the night, with only insomniacs and graveyard shift workers left to appreciate their universal appeal. Songs such as Welcome Home, Let The River In, Wrapped In Strings or Winter Is Coming all work on so many different layers that repeat listens tend to reveal new depths and meaning, from their apparent lightness to much murkier entrails.

Ghost shares with Electric President’s debut a taste for atmospherics and melodies, but with this album, Cooper exposes his music in a much softer light and candidly reveals its deepest cracks and darkest corners. The result is at once touching, enchanting and a tad disturbing but captivates all the way through without ever dipping in any way.

RUBENS Carnivalesque (Herb Recordings)

2007-02-27T00:35:00.000Z

RUBENS
Carnivalesque
HERB001CD
Herb Recordings 2007
10 Tracks. 55mins16secs

Herb Recordings

Scotland is once again taking the lead on the melodic electronica front with this rather fine debut release from Rubens, a duo formed of Mark Flanagan, who has previously been spotted transmitting from Glasgow under the ~ism banner, and Ayrshire-based Gordon MacDermid, AKA Gump. Yet, this is about where the connection with at least part of the Scottish electronic scene ends. As its title leads to think, Carnivalesque exults with refreshing joie de vivre and enchanting playfulness. Music flows through its ten tracks like a wild highland stream, jumping from one to the next with disarming ease.

Released on relatively new imprint Herb Recordings, Carnivalesque follows the band’s first appearance on the digital-only compilation Natural Environments, released in the second half of last year, and is Herb’s first CD release.

Carnivalesque resonates with echoes of early Warp-era electronica a la Black Dog, Autechre or B12, sprinklered with essence of mid-seventies Kraftwerk, Cluster and Tangerine Dream, the lot blended into voluptuous swathes of synthetic waves and unashamedly upbeat and modern electronica. Right from the opening moments, the pair set the tone with crystalline acoustic guitars layered over crisp electronics on Vertical Hold, and swirling melodies on the uplifting Breaking Into Smile. Within the first ten minutes, Rubens deploy an impressive armada of sounds and moods, wrapped up in disarmingly simple and confident pieces, that it is a wonder how they could sustain the pace for long and continue to deliver. Yet, they do, time and again, from the epic Ferris Wheel to the dense sonic clouds of Cayla’s Third and Winter Broth, carving wonderfully evocative melodic themes within translucent electronic formations, always reaching higher, pushing further, creating dramatic landscapes on which melodies flourish and develop at will, drum loops grow ever more intricate and dense, sound formations constantly change shape and appearance.

Even on the more subdued and introvert terrains of pieces such as Giraffe, Blue Belles Burn Slowly or After Now Is Next, Flanagan and MacDermid balance rampant melancholy with impressionist touches and inspiring arrangements to consolidate the overall mood of the record. Carnivalesque is intrinsically organic and warm, with vast cinematic open spaces and more intimate moments alternating with insistent regularity, denoting impressive maturity and judgement from the band. This is a record made by human beings, for human beings.

CHRIS WATSON / BJ NILSEN: Storm (Touch)

2007-02-18T22:43:00.000Z

CHRIS WATSON / BJ NILSEN
Storm
TONE27
Touch 2007
03 Tracks. 50mins09secs

Buy it: CD
Chris Watson | BJ Nilsen | Touch

Back in 2000, Swedish musician recorded a series of storms over the Baltic sea, and consequently suggested that him and fellow Touch sound artist Chris Watson coolaborate on a project focusing on weather conditions.

Watson, once of pioneering electronic outfit Cabaret Voltaire and, later, of The Hafler Trio, is an established wildlife recordist, who has, beside his three albums for Touch, worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and recorded nature for a variety of wildlife programs for the BBC. After a few years away from the music scene, he returned in 1996 with his first solo album for Touch, Stepping Into The Dark, which was built from recordings he had made all around the world during previous years.

Stockholm-based Benny Jonas Nilsen first emerged in the early nineties under the pseudonym of Morthond (later Morthound), with his debut album, The Crying Age, published on Swedish imprint Cold Meat Industry when he was just fifteen. Nilsen reinvented himself as Hazard in the mid nineties and released a handful of ambient records for Malignant, Ash International and Touch, before eventually publishing music under his own name.

Storm features three extended tracks, with Watson claiming No Man’s Land, which opens, and Nilsen Austrveg, which closes the album, the pair collaborating on the middle track, SIGWX. The two solo tracks span just over fifteen minutes each while the middle piece clocks in at just under nineteen minutes. Each piece is based on a series of recordings made on the artists’ respective coastlines and documenting everything from wildlife (especially in Watson’s piece) to sea conditions, wind and storms.

Watson’s recordings were made on the North East coast of England and Scotland, during October and November, between 2000 and 2005 and present a rather active series of soundscapes, with vast colonies of sea birds drowned in an increasing cacophony as they get more agitated, rough seas and animal noises. The latter bring an organic, almost human, dimension to the piece, especially in the second half when Watson introduces recordings made in a cave.

Nilsen’s piece is built from recordings made on Gotland and Öland, two neighbouring islands situated in the South East of Sweden. Here, Nilsen focuses primarily on the evolution of weather patterns and the impact it has on his environment. As sounds of waves breaking on the shores, strong winds and rain appear to constantly battle for supremacy, an underlying rhythmic pattern slowly emerges, with organic loops spreading over several minutes as the elements take it in turn to dominate.

Taking its name from a weather forecast term indicating significant weather, SIGWX sees Watson and Nilsen bring their respective recordings together and confront their findings, from various life forms to evolving weather patterns and environmental noises. Watson’s meticulous formations provide a rich backdrop for Nilsen’s more exposed recordings, resulting in an exceedingly dense and dramatic piece.

Despite the apparent simplicity of this record, Watson and Nilsen present here an incredibly detailed and vibrant document, which not only charts landscapes and weather conditions, but also captures a myriad of particles of wildlife and places them in a very particular context. These three sequences are extremely vivid and realistic, leaving the listener to wonder whether they may be experiencing these for real.

ZAINETICA: Redirection (Boltfish Recordings)

2007-02-15T20:03:00.000Z

ZAINETICA
Redirection
BOLT035
Botlfish Recordings 2006
14 Tracks. 76mins25secs

Zainetica | Boltfish Recordings

While Redirection is only Zainetica’s third album released on CD, London-based artist Mark Streatfield has, since Escaping Dust (2003), accumulated an impressive body of work, from MP3-only EPs and albums on labels such as Boltfish, IVDT, Enpeg or Laced Milk Technologies, to countless compilation contributions. He has also been running his own imprint, the ever-excellent Rednetic, releasing music from the likes of Joseph Auer, Mint, Utility Player, Cheju and The Vizier of Damascus.

Streatfield’s first foray into music dates back to the drum’n’bass days, but, in recent years, he progressively moved toward gentler terrains. His debut album, Escaping Dust, was a masterful exercise in classic electronica, with echoes of early Black Dog, Beaumont Hannant or Ritchie Hawtin giving it a solid base. Redirection shows very similar affiliations as Streatfield serves subtle melodies wrapped in beautiful analogue soundscapes and organic textures. Yet, the general pastoral tone of this record is often interrupted with more urban emissions, especially with pieces such as Dolorous, MI, Redirection or Divided adding a considerable amount of grit to this otherwise rather corporeal collection. As he assembles corrosive glitches and harsh electronic textures over angular rhythmic sections, Streatfield almost imperceptibly redefines his musical scope, incorporating new sounds and ambiences into his blend of classic Detroit techno and early Warp-era electronica.

Although the music appears effortless, as each track gently flows into the next, the level of complexity is high. Working from rudimentary sources, Streatfield builds his compositions bit by bit, applying layers with parsimony to focus on the chore structure of a piece and avoid any distracting elements. Redirection is however anything but austere. Streatfield opts for warm soundscapes and sprawling atmospherics to offset the minimal structures he toys with, alternating between vivid formations (Inception, Dolorous, Concept, Hidden, Daylight) and more subdued moments (Central, Maglev, Close), and even dabbles with folk elements on the delicate Underfoot, on which a treated acoustic guitar lands on a abrasive bed of white noise and distrotions.

A logical evolution in Streatfield’s prolific body of work, Redirection is an incredibly diverse, yet focused and consistent record. Streatfield is never shy of showing off his influences, but, as he continues to gain maturity and confidence, his music remains truly original and fresh. This is electronic music at its cleverest and most human.

POLE: Steingarten (~Scape Records)

2007-02-14T00:58:00.000Z

POLE
Steingarten
~SCAPE44CD
~Scape Records 2007
09 Tracks. 45mins06secs

Buy it: CD
Pole | ~Scape Records

It has been a while since Pole’s Stefan Betke’s last poured his bouncy grooves down our ear canals, and it is fair to say that the electronic caravan has moved on a fair bit. Betke has certainly not remained on the side of the road though, as this new slice, his first output since his 2003 self titled album, proves at length.

Moving away from the monochrome aesthetic of previous records, the cover of Steingarten depicts one of King Ludwig II’s fantasy Bavarian castles, built to protect him from reality. The album itself also moves away from Betke’s original template as he ornates his minimal dub radiation with various soundscapes. His liquid grooves are still found sprinkled all over these nine tracks, but more often than not in vaporized form. Whereas radiating bass lines were regularly found at the heart of his compositions, they have been moved so far in the background that they almost disappear, leaving frail melodic structures to curve under the weight of various other elements.

Steingarten also marks a return to entirely instrumental music forms following Pole’s brush with hip-hop on his previous output, which featured a handful of vocal contributions from American rapper Fat Jon. Here, there is very little of the digital urban grit left. Instead, Betke veers toward Chain Reaction territory once again by starving his compositions of oxygen until they appear emaciated. It is then only that he inflicts violent electric surges by way of treated electric guitars, which are in turn pebble-dashed over the skeletal techno forms which relentlessly drive the groove (Winkelstreben, Düsseldorf, Jungs) or applied in colourful layers on more subtle pieces. This process is not entirely new to Betke, yet it is the first time that he dares such contrast in tone, and it often pays off. His obsessive minimalism however sometimes wears a tad thin, as on the rather uneventful mid-section of the record. Schöner Land and Mädchen are uncomfortably linear and leave a slight bitter after taste as the listener is caught up between utterly precise sonic forms and left wondering whether a particular track has only just started or whether it has been going for some time.

When Betke asserts a more exuberant side of his musical persona, the mood changes entirely. While Warum, Achtenrbahn or Düsseldorf are quirky electro moments bubbling with Detroit enthusiasm, the latter featuring the most coherent melody found on this record, Sylvenstein reveals that the Pole of old is still lurking in the background, and Jungs shows off a shiny body built up out of a steamrolled Autechre carcass. The album concludes with the rather poetic Pferd, upon which Pole relies to draw an interesting line between past and present without appearing at all nostalgic or arrogant.

As the title suggests, Steingarten is a chaotic and unpredictable affair, with arid moments and rich patches alternating with insistent regularity. While Stefan Betke’s music was never conceived to entertain in the more common sense of the word, there are times here when a glimmer of fun is perceptible, albeit in the distance. Despite appearances, Steingarten is a Pole album through and through, but Betke is clearly older and wiser now, and his music has become more open and concrete.

THE MARCIA BLAINE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS: Halfway Into The Woods (Highpoint Lowlife)

2007-02-06T00:07:00.000Z

THE MARCIA BLAINE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
Halfway Into The Woods
HPLL024
Highpoint Lowlife 2007
11 Tracks. 61mins01secs

Buy it: CD
The Marcia Blaine School For Girls | Highpoint Lowlife

Scotland has been delivering some fine electronic acts with insistent regularity, from the beautifully melodic and innovative Boards Of Canada to some of the acts from the Benbecula stable. The Marcia Blaine School For Girls, a trio hailing from Glasgow, have released some very promising EPs on Static Caravan, Awkward Silence and Metal On Metal, since they first appeared in 1997, and the compilation of Scottish electronica they put together for Highpoint Lowlife in 2005, Some Paths Lead Back Again, which predominantly featured work from the collective and its satellite projects, as well as tracks from the likes of Izu or Chris Dooks, was a rather tasty appetizer.

In 2005, Highpoint Lowlife released the excellent debut album by Marcia Blaine member Ruaridh Law, under his Village Orchestra guise. Halfway Into The Woods shares with Law's cut a flair for beautiful melodic themes wrapped in lush electronic soundscapes, layered over crisp rhythmic pattern. The Marcia Blaine crew however expand on the gentle psychedelic tones and create elegant shimmering pieces which appear to continuously blossom and morph. Right from the outset, the collective set the tone by progressively building The Secret Of The Mezzanine from an ethereal wave into an ever changing series of colourful sonic patterns. From there on, nothing comes to disturb the Marcia Blaine purpose as they progressively close the door on reality and unveil their fantastic dream world. All the way through, the tone alternates between moody pieces (Boris, Last Game Of Mercy, Pink Inside) and mesmerizing intricate compositions (Rude Mechanical, Last Game Of The Mercy, Qoelet). Elsewhere, MBSFG dip their feet into surprisingly pop territory when they incorporate vocals into their dense electronic structures on the effervescent Still and Yugo Or Iago.

On Milk And Honey, the trio swap light ethereal formations for darker, more chilling textures, concluding this album on a surprisingly unsettling and sombre note, yet, while the atmosphere becomes more oppressive, there is always in the distance a glimmer of light which guides the listener gently back to the real world.

As a teaser to this album, the band have made available a companion remix EP, free to download from the Highpoint Lowlife website, with contributions from Maps & Diagram, Izu, Dextro, Talve or Erstaub amongst others, each artist providing a different twist on the originals. While some choose to remain close to the Marcia Blaine sonic template, Izu, Erstaub, Dextro and Orphax turn the collective sound upside down and rampage freely through their delicate structures, throwing harsh electronics, electric guitars and isolationist forms against the trio’s graceful electronics.

With Halfway Into The Woods, The Marcia Blaine School For Girls finally deliver the fine collection of atmospheric electronica they have been promising for years. While the beautiful soundscapes and melodies deployed here will undoubtedly please those who fell in love with The Village Orchestra, the wider scope of this record, together with its consistency, is likely to gain the trio a whole new fan base.

FUNKSTÖRUNG: Appendix (!K7)

2007-02-02T00:16:00.000Z

FUNKSTÖRUNG
Appendix
!K7210CD
!K7 Records 2007
11 Tracks. 52mins02secs

Buy it: CD
Funkstörung | !K7 Records

It is quite astonishing to realise that, in the ten or so years they worked together, Funkstörung only released three albums proper. Beside their own releases, the duo, formed of Michael Fakesch and Chris De Luca ran their own imprint, Music Aus Strom, for a while, produced a handful of records for other artists, worked on solo projects and remixed an incredible amount of tracks for people as diverse as Björk, Wu-Tang Clan, A Guy Called Gerald, Nils Petter Molvær or The Notwist, some of which have been collected in Additional Production (1999), Vice Versa (2001) and this latest offering.

While their sound placed the band in the direct vicinity of Autechre for a while, Fakesch and De Luca drifted toward more accessible terrains with their 2004 album Disconnected, before returning to their acid roots with the rather excellent vinyl-only Return To The Acid Planet offering two years ago, proving if necessary that they were most likely to be found where not expected.

Having gone their separate ways mid-last year, De Luca and Fakesch assembled this ultimate compendium of remixes as a bowing out act. Appendix is neither a retrospective of the band’s work, its scope being mostly centered around electro-funk and gritty electronica formations, with only rare occurrences of the surgical digital hip-hop that made their first album a rather interesting offering, nor a testament, but, as the vast majority of these remixes were done between 1999 and 2005, it provides an insight into the genesis of Disconnected and how their music had come to adapt so well to vocal performances.

Very much like Vice Versa, Appendix is an incredibly eclectic collection, which stretches well beyond the realm of their original heavy electronic assemblages, yet this still transpires to be the unifying thread between all the reworked tracks displayed here, from the stuttering hip-hop of Towa Tei’s Latte & Macaron or the liquid revision of Lusine ICL’s Sustain to the surprisingly quirky and radio friendly reshuffle of the Raveonettes’s Love In A Trashcan or the Breeders-esque remix of Enik’s No Fire. At times, this constant genre fidgeting can prove a tad tiring, but, when it works well, it is also a credit to the pair’s incredible aptitude to adapt to various situations.

All throughout their career, Funkstörung have fed their remixing experiments into their own work, which has in turn filtered down to further remixes. Thanks to this symbiotic approach, the band have followed unpredictable paths, sometimes to the detriment of credibility, yet, this constant recycling process has allowed them to thrive and challenge not only their audience, but themselves as artists.

RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI: Daydreaming (Miasmah Recordings)

2007-01-31T13:14:00.000Z

RAFAEL ANTON IRISSARI
Daydreaming
MIACD004
Miasmah Recordings 2007
07 Tracks. 34mins07secs

Miasmah Recordings

Since Norwegian duo Deaf Center deployed their voluptuous blend of Gothic electronica back in 2004, there has been a pretty regular stream of associated releases related to Erik Skodvin, from his solo project (Svarte Greiner) to that of Miasmah, the imprint he set up (Greg Haines, Encre). Sound artist Rafael Anton Irisarri hails from Seattle, where he curates the Kupei Musika imprint. He has released minimal electronica as Luken, but this is his first album under his own name, and here, he explores radically different forms of music.

On Daydreaming, Irisarri paints incredibly subtle impressionist vignettes with sparse touches of piano and electronics. Each piece casts a particular light upon this effortlessly elegant suite, making it a beautiful and captivating record.

Unlike the claustrophobic formations found on Skodvin’s output as Svarte Greiner or the haunting spaces of Greg Haines’s recent Slumber Tides, Irisarri relies on gossamer drapes and carves wonderfully light and airy pieces. Traces of Brian Eno and Harold Budd are welcomed signposts in landscapes otherwise shrouded in fog. Waking Expectations, which opens, is a delicate reflective piece led by an omnipresent piano over which melancholic sound waves come crashing. When a guitar softly rains on the melody of A Thousand-Yard Stare, there is an echo of Budd’s collaboration with the Cocteau Twins. While treated sound debris cloud the opening moments of Wither, they are pushed aside by a particularly pure and sharp piano line. On Lumberton, Irisarri intensifies for a moment his execution for this surprisingly romantic piece, yet, here again, strips of Guthrie-esque guitar ornate the delicate melody until it fades away.

The piano is once again at the heart of Voigt-Kampf, but this time, in treated form. Lengthened and soften, each note becomes ethereal swathe, caught in a gentle breeze like a thought in a dream. Fractal displays a more ambitious series of soundscapes, with layers of fuzz and distortions slowly laid down over a muffled heartbeat-like rhythmic marker. Although the mood of the entire record lends itself to daydreaming, the title is especially relevant to these two particular tracks. Irisarri concludes with the haunting and contemplative A Glimpse.

Daydreaming is a haunting collection of stunning dreamscapes which not only allows for the mind to wander, but actively stimulates mental illusions and emotional attachment. Here, Irisarri assembles an incredibly consistent series of particularly elaborate and evocative ambient pieces which are likely to captivate for years to come.

BEN FROST: Theory Of Machines (Bedroom Community)

2007-01-25T23:32:00.000Z

BEN FROST
Theory Of Machines
HVALUR2
Bedroom Community 2006
05 Tracks. 38mins40secs

Buy it: CD
Ben Frost | Bedroom Community

There is something terribly disturbing about the cover of Ben Frost’s latest offering. Showing him hanging upside down, feet and hands wrapped in green plastic bags and tied together. Additional images of him lying on the floor looking half dead or of his head caught up in a strange metallic contraption further accentuate the feeling of unease that surrounds this release. While a definite stylistic slant, these images are more than just a simple visual translation of the content of the album.

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, twenty-six year old Frost relocated to the somewhat cooler Reykjavik in 2005 and teamed up with Björk collaborator and Bedroom Community label head Valgeir Sigurðsson. Prior to depositing his bags of noise on the Bedroom Community doorstep, Frost has been spotted on labels such as Room40 and John Chantler’s Inventing Zero. He has also been involved with various art installations and has worked on scores for films and dance companies. More recently, he has worked under the collective moniker of School Of Emotional Engineering and released a self-titled album, published on Architecture, in 2004.

The scope of Theory Of Machines, Frost’s first offering for Bedroom Community, is rather vast, ranging from gritty guitar-fuelled cloudy drones to digital minimalism and greasy heavy rock. This album challenges and unsettles by its apparent inertia and the underlying perversion which results from the sometimes violent atmospheric shifts throughout. Nothing is quite what it seems here. Compositions that appear calm and introvert can erupt into raucous clouds or dense seismic formations unexpectedly only to be pulverized into minute particles. Elsewhere, Frost applies layer after layer of thick sonic foundation to form cyclical pieces.

The album opens with the title track, which grows from an ethereal guitar line into a much grittier and sturdier edifice. We Love You Michael Gira works in similar ways, but the result is more subtle and delicate, despite the mind-drilling ring of an alarm clock pacing amongst abrasive glitches for a while. Stomp is a much more complex composition. Raising razor-sharp electric fences around pulsating electronic debris, Frost builds tension and gets under the skin of its audience, while Coda is a much rawer piece, with electric sparks flying across all the way through. The last track, Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water is, in contrast, totally introvert and almost pastoral as Frost progressively applies an orchestral feel into his processed soundscapes.

Ben Frost’s music is not exactly pretty in the esthetic meaning of the word, but the treatment he applies give his compositions an interesting sheen. While the reaches of this album are, as its title indicates, somewhat mechanical and industrial, there is an organic thread which runs through each track, binding Theory Of Machines together beautifully.

Joanna Newsom, Barbican Centre, London Fri. 19 January 2007

2007-01-22T23:31:00.000Z

Wearing an almost identical dress to the one she is depicted in on the cover of Ys, Joanna Newsom shyly steps in front of a full Barbican Hall framed by her drummer, guitarist and conductor. Once behind her towering pedal harp, she delivers the first notes of Emily. Tonight, she will be performing Ys in its entirety, backed with the London Symphony Orchestra. This date comes at the end of a short tour of the UK, and is the sole performance with the Barbican-based formation.

Joanna is there, on stage, just behind the guitarist...

The songs are presented in the exact same order as on the album, but Van Dyck Parks’s arrangements at times appear to have be given a slightly different relief. Cast against the orchestra, Newsom’s voice sounds as if it has once again gained in maturity and clarity, giving the songs a much sharper and vibrant feel. Emily flows well. The song, for her younger sister, provides a perfect introduction to the evening. Monkey And Bear follows. Equally as exquisite as the original, its Celtic roots, brushed with discreet medieval tones, appear much clearer, highlighted by the outburst of percussions and the soft vocal harmonies provided by Newsom’s drummer.

As the lights are dimmed, the focus is on Joanna alone when she starts Sawdust And Diamonds. Her execution is particular acute and physical here as she caries the whole song alone. Her hands run on the strings in intricate sequences, like spiders on a web, yet, nothing of the complexity transpires in the music as she weaves melodic patterns and lays upon them her delicately acidic tones. Here, she captures the attention of the audience for good and will not let go until the end of the performance.

The epic Only Skin follows. Stretching over sixteen minutes, it is a monster of a piece, but it is delivered with precision and class. The pastoral feel of the song is accentuated as the orchestral backdrop ebbs and flows with the melody. Toward the end, Newsom is joined by Smog’s Bill Callahan, her partner in life, who adds a deeper, darker harmony to the culminating section of the song. Cosmia, which is, as Joanna informs us, the last song she will be performing with the orchestra, flows like a river, at times tumultuous and wild, at others peaceful and vast. The soft accordion brushes which give the song a discreet Jacques Brel flavour on Ys are absent here, but this almost goes unnoticed as vibrant orchestral swathes continuously swell.

After a short interval, Joanna returns to the stage, this time on her own, for a few more songs. ‘This is not a Christina Aguilera costume change’ she says, justifying her change of dress by the intensity of the first half of the concert. She begins with The Book Of Right On and Sadie, renamed Sasha in honour of a friend, both from The Milk-Eyed Mender, followed by Ca' The Yowes To The Knowes, a traditional Scottish song which is perfectly suited to her voice and instrument. Joanna is then joined by her drummer and guitarist for a brand new song with strong Irish folk flavours, which may give an insight into what the follow up to Ys might sound like. With one more song under their belt, the trio retire. Joanna comes back once more for a one song encore. ‘We have been debating which song I should do, and this is the one’ she says before breaking into Bridges & Balloons, concluding a truly magnificent evening under the ovations of a devoted audience.

The contrast between Joanna Newsom’s frail appearance and disarming modesty and the confidence with which she delivers her songs, either with the orchestra or on her own, couldn’t be greater. With Ys, Ms Newsom undoubtedly delivered a career-defining record, and this live performance didn’t disappoint.

Those albums that keep on creeping up...

2007-01-19T13:15:00.000Z

The most recent post on Enda's blog describes his usual listening pattern for a track as:

1. Discovery
2. Love/Hate/Indifferent
3. If love, repeated plays for certain period of time
4. Less regular outings
5. Even fewer outings.

I often have noticed similar patterns with albums. I will sometimes play them a lot in the first few weeks, depending on whether I like them a lot or not, then a bit less, then, depending on whether they made a lasting impression, they will get very irregular airings or not leave the shelf they've ended up on ever again. This is, you understand, not related to whether an album is actually good or not.

There are however a handful of albums that keep on creeping up on me at very regular intervals. They are linked to artists I am mad about, obviously, and reaching for them depends on a variety of reasons, whether it is dictated by my mood, events, magazine article or just a particular track resurfacing in my mind out of the blue.

Here's the non-exhaustive list, in no particular order:

Autechre: Tri Repetae / Chiastic Slide
Cocteau Twins: Heaven Or Las Vegas / Head Over Heels
Broadcast: Tender Buttons / Ha Ha Sound
Biosphere: Substrata / Dropsonde
Alice Coltrane: Ptah, The El Daod / Journey In Satchidananda
Animal Collective: Campfire Songs / Feels
310: Recessional / After All
Pet Shop Boys: Behaviour / Very
The Creatures: Boomerang
Joanna Newsom: Ys (this one is very recent obviously, but I have noticed the pattern developing already).

ROSY PARLANE: Jessamine (Touch)

2007-01-17T00:20:00.000Z

ROSY PARLANE
Jessamine
TO68
Touch 2007
03 Tracks. 48mins50secs

Buy it: CD
Rosy Parlane | Touch

After a spell in experimental rock outfits Thela and Parmentier, New Zealand-born Rosy Parlane established himself as a sound artist with a series of releases for Sigma Editions and Synaesthesia. He has also collaborated with artists such as Fennesz, AMM founder Eddie Prevost and avant-garde musician Mattin. In 2004, Parlane joined the ranks of influential UK label Touch and released the magnificent Iris.

Following a similar template to the one applied to Iris, Jessamine is articulated around three distinct tracks clocking at over thirteen, sixteen and nineteen minutes respectively. Like its predecessor, this album is a fascinating journey through dense soundscapes built around a multitude of instruments (guitars, piano, melodica, violin, drums), various objects (sawblade, radio, computer, bowed metal) and field recordings, all blended into thick and complex drone-like atmospheric formations which continuously change texture, tone and feel as new layers are applied. Although intrinsically monotone and austere, Parlane’s creations are extremely detailed, rich and evocative. Melodies may be almost entirely inexistent as such, yet there is undeniable musicality throughout, giving Jessamine a surprisingly pastoral and light appearance.

The album opens with shimmering noises layered over a scarce backdrop, but the piece becomes more vibrant as Parlane applies delicate touches. It takes a while for the track to settle, but just as it reaches its climax, it reluctantly begins to recede, lingering out for some time. There is much more grit in Part Two as interferences and environmental glitches continuously emerge from a seemingly orchestral cloud. After circling for a moment, they eventually evaporate, only to materialize once more in a condensed form toward the end. Part Three is perhaps the most rewarding composition here. While its first section gently develop over a series of soft and warm sounds, a wall of guitars progressively washes over before exploding into autonomous particles of distortion. As this cloud of noise comes crashing down, all is left is a single thread of sound which eventually brings this album to a close.

Parlane is responsible for the vast majority of the sound sources used here, but additional contributions from sound artist Marcel Bear on Part One, Japanese guitarist and violinist Tetuzi Akiyama on Part Two, and no less than eight guitarists, including Norwegian noise artist Lasse Marhaug and Dead C member Michael Morley, on Part Three. Yet, it is very much the New Zealander’s vision that transpires throughout. Rosy Parlane has found in Touch his spiritual home and Jessamine is sure to continue establish him as a major artist.

MIRA CALIX: Eyes Set Against The Sun (Warp Records)

2007-01-15T23:34:00.000Z

MIRA CALIX
Eyes Set Against The Sun
WARP150
Warp Records 2007
10 Tracks. 62mins37secs

Buy it: CD
Mira Calix | Warp Records

Hot on the heels of her collaboration with pianist Sarah Nicolls and arranger David Sheppard as Alexander's Annexe and over three years after the stunning Skimskitta, Mira Calix returns with her most ambitious record yet. Building on her orchestral work with the London Sinfonietta and with Alexander's Annex, she presents here a rather diverse and expensive collection of complex electronica.

Calix, real name Chantal Passamonte, has been digging her own singular groove on the electronic scene deeper with each release, pushing further into field recordings and experimentation. The former Warp PR girl's unique blend of miniature sound collages have been made up of everything from urban pollution to insect noises, although, since relocating to Suffolk, the bulk of her sound stock comes from the countryside surrounding her studio. Her instinctively adventurous work has led to commissions coming thick and fast in recent years, from Geneva's Natural History Museum with the infamous Nunu, to London's Barbican Centre, which were compiled on Three Commissions, released two years ago to pieces for art installations and dance companies.

While OneOnOne was quite a dry affair and Skimskitta had a very organic feel, Calix follows yet another path for this third album as she magnifies intricately woven minute sound formations and turns them into vast pastoral symphonies. Where others spend their energy cleaning samples and polishing their production, she thrives on trials and errors, going as far as adding grit and 'accidents' to her compositions to accentuate the realism of her music.

The album opens with the delicate and acidic Because To Why, which features a school choir recorded while rehearsing with Alexander’s Annex. The composition appears very much an extension of her more recent work as Chantal Passamonte applies gossamer sonic layers, alternating between treated vocal elements and a lonely violin while running water and environmental drones can be heard in the background. Later, Protean works in similar fashion, with its birds and forest noises placed against a dense orchestral theme. The epic The Way You Are When is even more intense, blossoming from a light string section into a more complex array of voices, creaking interferences, clattering industrial matter and orchestral debris, which, although rarely crossing paths, all seem connected and impacting on each other.

The Stockholm Syndrome is a rather more unhealthy proposition. Sounding like a nasty experimental Siouxsie Sioux clad in distorted electronics, with Calix lazy voice weighing the atmosphere down, there is an element of discomfort here which makes the track stick out uneasily. Elsewhere, the litany of Eeilo offers a stark contrast to the rich formations of aforementioned pieces with its lone piano and minimalist settings, while One Line Behind uses treated sections of the school choir heard earlier layered over a dense orchestral framework. The closing hidden track is a short sequence of the choir chanting the album title.

While her two previous albums collected a great number of often short compositions, Eyes Set Against The Sun shows a move toward more expensive pieces, which undoubtedly coincides with Mira Calix's increasing involvement with contemporary classical music. The album doesn’t actually seem quite as coherent as Skimskitta and sometimes feel as the reflection of a transitory period in Calix’s work. Yet, there is much to explore on this record as she continues to craft elegant sonic tapestries, ensuring her music remains as challenging, intriguing and entertaining as ever.

Alice Coltrane (1937-2007)

2007-01-14T22:30:00.000Z

Alice Coltrane at the piano

I have just read about the sad news of the death of Alice Coltrane on Mapsadaisical’s blog. A quick search on Google and Yahoo news sections have unfortunately confirmed it.

I first encountered Alice Coltrane through a interview that she gave to UK magazine The Wire in April 2002. Although hadn’t heard of her before, my interest in jazz being relatively recent, I was intrigued by the photos, and the association with John Coltrane both prompted me to read the article. In this interview, her spirituality came across quite strongly, and the way she was talking of her music gave me envy to hear some of her records. The interview coincided with the re-release of three of her Warner albums, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana (1976), Transcendence (1977) and Transfiguration (1978). Dave Shooter, at work, had copies of all three on his desk, so I asked him if I could borrow them to which he told me that, since he had them already, I was welcomed to keep them.

On listening to Radha-Krisna and Transcendence especially, I loved the incredible fluidity of her music, especially on the pieces where she plays the harp or the piano. I was also fascinated by the chants and the hypnotic nature of her music.

It is not until Andrew recommended some of her earlier Impulse records that I grasped the majestic touch of the music she had produced following the death of John Coltrane in 1967 and truly fell in love with her work. Albums such as Ptah, The El Daoud (1970), Huntington Ashram Monastery (1969), A Monastic Trio (1968), Journey In Satchidananda (1970), Universal Consciousness (1972) and World Galaxy (1972), captured my imagination like no other jazz record has done. They are all permanently on my MP3 player.

I still have a few of her albums to discover, including her last one, some of them yet to be released on CD. Her latest album, Translinear Light, came out just over two years ago and was her first in 26 years. Recently, while visiting the Barbican Centre website, I found out she was due to give a rare concert there on April 1st, with her saxophonist son Ravi, bassist Charlie Haden and 81 year old drummer Roy Haynes. I immediately booked a ticket, and was very much looking forward to see her play. Unfortunately, she will not be coming to London.

ADJÁGAS: Adjágas (Ever Records)

2007-01-12T00:35:00.000Z

ADJÁGAS
Adjágas
EVER06CD
Ever Records 2006
09 Tracks. 39mins24secs

Buy it: CD
Ever Records

Four years ago, Sami artist Mari Boine released a couple of albums on Norwegian imprint Jazzland, including a collection of remixes by the likes of Jah Wobble, Biosphere, Bill Laswell and Nils Petter Molvær and Eight Seasons, a superb collaboration with label founder Bugge Westeltoft. While she adopted a resolutely contemporary sound, her work provided an insight into traditional Sami culture. Living in nomadic tribes on a territory stretching across Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and part of Russia, the Sami People have suffered a similar fate to the Native Americans, being bought with alcohol and progressively made to adopt sedentary lifestyles. While, in the last twenty years, Scandinavia has proved to be a hotbed of talents, the Sami culture has remained confined to its people.

The arrival of Sami duo Adjágas, with their self-titled debut album, released on Ever Records, could very well change all that. Formed in 2004 by Sara Mariella Gaup (23) and Lawra Sombry (26), both vocalists, Adjágas have, with this record carved a fascinating niche for themselves. Using a traditional form of musical expression called the ‘yoik’ or 'joik', which relies not on words but on sounds as a mean of expression, the pair recorded this album with various musician friends and producer Andreas Mjøs, whose credentials include working with Susanna & The Magical Orchestra, Jaga Jazzist and Rotoscope.

The nine songs featured here are largely acoustic, providing all the necessary space for the vocal performances to flourish freely. The mood is reflective and hypnotic, with gentle melancholic touches giving a particular relief to each piece. Although branded as an acoustic Sigur Rós, the music of Adjágas is in essence closer to the ritual chants of Native Americans, highlighting the similarities between the two cultures. The songs, part incantations, part tribal calls, develop into captivating little vignettes in which male and female voices dance around each other, at times taking in turn to lead, at others merging into one, dressed in sumptuous swathes of guitars, banjos and occasional percussions. The strong contrast between Sara’s clear and slightly acidic voice and Lawra’s darker guttural tones works interestingly throughout, as each joiker takes it in turn to lead and brings their own textures and flavours to the mix.

The album opens with the gentle sparkling Lihkulaš, but, as the track rapidly gathers momentum as the voices come in, the accompaniment becomes more potent. Later, a similar treatment is applied to Mun Ja Mun, the infectious Ozan, and, to a lesser extent, Suvvi Ijat, which closes the proceedings. The most instantly gratifying moments on the album, these are powerful evocative pieces. Elsewhere, the band adopt a more reflective tone. Songs such as Rievdadeapmi, Guorus Fatnasat or Siivu build on the fluidity of the yoik and pastoral aspect of the music to reveal beautiful cinematic forms. Melodies are at their most fragile here, often appearing as if at breaking point, but, held together by shimmering orchestrations, they continue to thrive until their natural end.

This debut album is truly magnificent; yet, its underwhelming aspect means that it requires time to grow. By continuously building on their powerful roots while applying gentle contemporary brushes, Adjágas have created a beautiful evocative piece of work.

NICO MUHLY: Speaks Volumes (Bedroom Community)

2007-01-08T22:25:00.000Z

NICO MUHLY
Speaks Volume
HVALUR1
Bedroom Community 2006
07 Tracks. 53mins27secs

Buy it: CD
Nico Muhly | Bedroom Community

Released on new Icelandic imprint Bedroom Community, set up by record producer and Björk collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson, Speaks Volumes is the debut album from twenty-four year old composer and musician Nico Muhly. Born in Vermont and raised in Rhodes Island, Muhly studied composition at the Julliard School. He has since worked with Antony & The Johnsons, orchestrated the score for The Manchurian Candidate in 2004, collaborated with Björk on Medúlla and conducted the score for Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9, once again working in partnership with Björk.

Speaks Volumes is a fascinating collection of complex and delicate chamber music pieces framed with discreet electronics. While the seven tracks presented here all share rather austere attires, developed from few instruments at a time, there is, running through the whole album, a deep sense of musicality which gives it a surprisingly light and airy appearance. Although his music can at times seem somewhat serious and conceptual, especially on the textural and moody Clear Music, with which he opens, or on the complex and expressionist Honest Music, Muhly deflects the tention by projecting playful elements at the forefront of his compositions, from the relentless clarinet pursuit of It Goes Without Saying to the swelling waves of piano and celesta fighting out for attention on Pillaging Music.

Elsewhere, Muhly adopts a rather more stern approach on the superb Quiet Music and A Hudson Cycle. Both pieces, interpreted by Muhly on the piano, are short and introspective, but, whereas the former shows strong spiritual and cinematic overtones, the latter is a much more subtle and fragile composition. Originally created as a wedding gift for two friends, the piece is at once melancholic and uplifting and pays a noted homage to the work of Philip Glass, which Muhly cites as one of his most important influences.

The closing track is a much more experimental and intriguing composition. Keep In Touch opens with a lonely viola drawing a pseudo improvised arabesque before being joined by Antony on vocal duties. This is perhaps the most demanding moment on this album, but the dense canvas formed from the alternatively plaintive and abrasive instrument and the mournful hums and hoos, with background electronics progressively adding grit to the mix, serves the intrigue surprisingly well and brings this album to an end in a rather unexpected fashion.

While Nico Muhly has been getting noticed for his work for a while, with compositions performed on both sides of the Atlantic, this first collection, as eclectic and disparate as it is, is certain to raise his profile and put the fledgling Bedroom Community imprint on the map.

PANDA BEAR: Bros / ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: People (Fat-Cat Records)

2006-12-28T23:05:00.000Z

PANDA BEAR
Bro's
12FAT059
Fat-Cat Records 2006
02 Tracks. 17mins47secs

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
People
12FAT060 / CDFAT060
Fat-Cat Records 2006
04 Tracks. 18mins55secs

Buy PANDA BEAR: Bro's: 12”
Buy ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: People: CD
Fat-Cat Records | Paw Tracks

Panda Bear brought the Fat-Cat 2006 release schedule to a close with his solo debut for the label, Bro’s, so it was only fair that Animal Collective would lead the Cat’s 2007 parade with their latest offering. Both come only weeks after Paw Tracks re-released the band’s rare live album Hollinndagain.

Of these two releases, Panda Bear’s is definitely the most inspiring. Coming ahead of a split twelve inch with Excepter and his third solo album, both due on Paw Tracks, and recorded last year in Noah Lennox’s home in Lisbon, this EP features two versions of the title track. The original is a hypnotic thirteen minute epic composition built around two distinct sections which are seamlessly blended into one. The first part of the track is particularly characteristic of Noah’s solo work. Layered over a linear shimmering guitar strum, Lennox’s vocals, somewhat set slightly in the distance, carry essence of sixties psychedelic pop and give this piece a luscious warm hue, but, as the musical backdrop become meatier, a more tribal tone emerges and eventually takes over, pushing the track in a direction which recalls early Animal Collective work.

Formed of Black Dice’s Eric Copeland and fellow Animal Collective member Avey Tare, Terrestrial Tones evolve in a much more straightforward experimental field. Here, they give Bro’s a radical reworking by stripping it off its layers of sound and isolating Noah’s voice. The rest of the sonic space is filled with recurring elements which maintain a rhythmic effect all the way through. As these imperceptibly shift in and out of focus and the voice at times almost entirely disappears, Terrestrial Tones retain the atmospheric mood of the original but give the track a completely new dimension.

Although coming out over a year after Animal Collective’s enchanting Feels, three of the four songs featured on this EP, People, Tikwid and My Favorite Colors, were actually recorded during the same sessions. A slow-burning piece which builds up over its entire course, the title track shares more than a few common genes with songs like Banshee Beat or Loch Raven. Yet, as words are replaced with incantations and strummed drones seem to materialise, People recalls some of the band’s compositions circa Here Comes The Indian.

The short interlude My Favorite Colors further reinstates the Collective’s chanting tradition, proving that, despite investigating more accessible sonic terrains in recent years, the band have lost nothing of their boldness. In contrast, Tikwid is a much more upfront and openly happy song, with a short and snappy sparkling chorus while noises and samples constantly detract the mind from the piano and drums combination. The EP concludes with a live version of People, recorded in Boston during the band’s 2005 US tour.

While there is currently no information on a follow up to Feels and the forthcoming Panda Bear album is tentatively scheduled for winter 2007, the almost simultaneous arrival of these two EPs will undoubtedly be welcomed by fans. If neither Bro’s nor People depart radically from previous releases, the latter giving no real clue to which direction the band might be found digging their way next, they are both worthy addition to the Collective’s musical nebula.

The 2006 Review

2006-12-21T21:13:00.001Z

1. JOANNA NEWSOM: Ys (Drag City)
This album sounds like nothing else. On Ys, Joanna Newsom lays her wandering folk songs onto lush orchestral backdrops. With Steve Albini recording, Van Dyke Parks arranging and Jim O’Rourke producing, she creates here a work of incredible substance and density.

Highlight: Only Skin
Review | Buy CD | Buy LP | Drag City

2. SVALASTOG: Woodwork (Rune Grammofon)
One half of Norwegian duo Information, Per Henrik Svalastog swaps electronics for acoustic instruments and creates an evocative soundtrack with strong folk overtones. Processed and assembled into beautiful sonic vignettes, this album, his second solo work, is impressionist music at its most compelling.

Highlight: Mouse Tracking
Review | Buy CD | Svalastog | Rune Grammofon

3. GEIR JENSSEN: Cho Oyu 8201m: Field Recordings From Tibet (Ash International)
Geir Jenssen steps out of his Biosphere guise to present a realistic document of an expedition he joined in 2001 to climb Mount Cho Oyu, in the Himalayas, the sixth highest summit in the world. Field recordings collected throughout the ascension are assembled into an intimate and personal sonic diary, while the accompanying booklet gives an insight into the complete expedition.

Highlight: Palung: A Yak Caravan Is Coming
Review | Buy CD | Geir Jenssen/Biosphere | Ash International

4. CLARK: Body Riddle (Warp Records)
Now going under his sole surname, Clark came back fighting fit with his third album, his most accomplished to date. Gritty, greasy and textural, Body Riddle saw Clark assembling a string of unashamedly electronic compositions and affirm once and for all his place amongst Warp’s greats.

Highlight: Herzog
Review | Buy CD | Clark | Warp Records

5. VARIOUS: The World Is Gone (XL Recordings)
Mysterious duo Various emerged out of nowhere with a handful of intriguing EPs released between last year and this year, followed by this extremely convincing debut album. With elements of dubstep, electro, ambient, electronica and folk colliding all the way through, The World Is Gone was certainly a disconcerting record, but definitely one that continues to captivate.

Highlight: Hater
Review | Buy CD | Buy LP | Various | XL Recordings

6. THOMAS STRØNEN: Pohlitz (Rune Grammofon)
Norwegian percussionist Thomas Strønen took time off from his duties with Food, Humcrush and various other outfits to release his debut solo album. Pohlitz captured the imagination of many with its rich layers of sounds and textures and dense melodic patterns. .

Highlight: Heterogeneous Substances
Review | Buy CD | Thomas Strønen | Rune Grammofon

7. SVARTE GREINER: Knive (Type)
Svarte Greiner’s Knive could most definitely claim the title for darkest album of the year. There was very little of the soothing tones of Deaf Center, the band he usually officiates with on this stark collection. Instead, he exposed on his debut solo effort a series of dismembered soundscapes and broken ambiences which definitely put a chill in the air.

Highlight: Easy On The Bone
Buy CD | Buy LP | Type Records

8. MAX RICHTER: Songs From Before (Fat-Cat Records)
Contemporary composer Max Richter followed his hugely successful The Blue Notebooks with Songs From Before, a collection of pieces inspired by passing time, and sourced in music from various eras. The album features extracts of poems by Japanese author Haruki Murakami read by Robert Wyatt. Deeply moving and evocative record.

Highlight: Autumn Music 1
Review | Buy CD | Max Richter | Fat-Cat Records

9. COLLEEN & LES BOITES A MUSIQUES: Colleen & Les Boites A Musiques (The Leaf Label)
Last year, French radio station France Culture commissioned Colleen a series of compositions for their Radiophonic Workshop programme. She presented this collection based entirely on music boxes of all sizes. Sampled, treated and reassembled into thirteen ephemeral pieces, these compositions were a fascinating addition to Colleen’s already impressive discography.

Highlight: What Is A Componium Pt. 2
Review | Buy CD | Colleen | The Leaf Label

10. MOUNTAINS: Sewn (Apestaartje)
Brooklyn-based duo Mountains returned with the follow up to their 2005 eponymous debut. Made up of more compact and structured compositions, Sewn retained the pastoral mix of acoustic instrumentations and electronics of the pair’s first offering, but set within delicate pieces, these soundscapes took a totally different dimension.

Highlight: Bay
Review | Apestaartje

11. GRIZZLY BEAR: Yellow House (Warp Records)
With its multi-faceted psychedelic tones and its superb layered melodies, Yellow House was a triumphant follow up to last year’s lo-fi Horn Of Plenty. Now in full formation, Grizzly Bear hinted at anything and everything from the Beach Boys to early Pink Floyd and the Incredible String Band. And, was there a more exhilarating song than Colorado all year?

Highlight: Colorado
Review | Buy CD | Buy LP | Gizzly Bear | Warp Records

12. BENOÎT PIOULARD: Précis (Kranky)
Last year, a very limited 7” single drew a lot of attention on Benoît Pioulard, AKA Thomas Meluch, a young musician from Ann Arbor, South Michigan. This year’s debut album, Précis, with its delicate scintillating melodies, acoustic motifs and treated textures, proved an even more substantial and enchanting offering.

Highlight: Needle And Thread
Review | Benoît Pioulard | Kranky

13. BURIAL: Burial (Hyperdub)
2006 was the year when dubstep was on all the lips and on all the playlists, and Burial was certainly at the forefront of the offensive with this self-titled debut album. The music ethic recalled that of early Photek with its clean cut grooves, sparse soundscapes and clinical sound treatments, yet there was a hell of a lot of life in there. This was the sound of the underground rising.

Highlight: Gutted
Buy CD | Hyperdub

14. VETIVER: To Find Me Gone (Fat-Cat Records)
Leading his band from gracious indie folksters to poetic acoustic pop without loosing an inch of credibility, Andy Cabic certainly hit the jackpot with this colourful selection of disarmingly simple gentle songs.

Highlight: You May Be Blue.
Review | Buy CD | Vetiver | Fat-Cat Records

15: NICO MUHLY: Speaks Volume (Bedroom Community)
Vermont-born composer Nico Muhly presented his first solo work following a string of collaborations with Philip Glass, Antony And The Johnsons and Björk. Making the most of rarefied instruments, Muhly’s take on chamber music gave this superb collection a truly modern feel.

Highlight: Honest Music
Buy CD | Nico Muhly | Bedroom Community

16. ADRIAN KLUMPES: Be Still (The Leaf Label)
Triosk Member Adrian Klumpes ventured on his own and presented his debut solo album, Be Still. Built entirely from one improvisation on the piano. Sliced, manipulated and reassembled into nine compositions, the original recording became dense and atmospheric in Klumpes’s hands.

Highlight: Unrest
Review | Buy CD | Adrian Klumpes | The Leaf Label

17. HUNTSVILLE: For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon)
Norwegian trio Huntsville’s blend of improvised experimental jazz, noise and pop, sprinkled with flakes of country music is not only surprisingly accessible, but truly infectious.

Highlight: Add A Key Of Humanity
Review | Buy CD | Huntsville | Rune Grammofon

18. TIM HECKER: Harmony In Violet (Kranky)

With Harmony In Violet, his sixth album, Tim Hecker crafted an incredibly dense and layered organic textures with deep emotional scope as melodies drift in and out of the thick fog of treated noise.

Highlight: Dungeoneering
Buy CD | Tim Hecker | Kranky

19: JOHANN JOHANNSSON: IBM 1401 – A User’s Manual (4AD)
Jóhann Jóhannsson’s father was Iceland's chief maintenance engineer for the IBM 1401, the first affordable mass-produced home computer. He was also a keen musician and learned of a way to play music on the computer. With this album, Johannsson paid a moving tribute to his father and to the machine itself with orchestral swathes and discreet electronics.

Highlight: The Sun’s Gone Dim And The Sky’s Turned Black
Buy CD | Johann Johannsson | 4AD

20: SQUAREPUSHER: Hello Everything (Warp Records)
Tom Jenkinson appeared all fresh and revived with this latest offering. While his trademark drum’n’bass was still shaking the very foundations of electronic music, Squarepusher turned his world on its head and collected here his most accessible piece of work to date.

Highlight: Planetarium
Review | Buy CD | Buy LP | Squarepusher | Warp Records

------

20 more albums, EPs, compilations and others things worth mentioning, in no particular order.

CALIKA: The Bright Spot (Benbecula Records)
GLIM: Aerial View Of Model (Karate Joe Records)
BROADCAST: The Future Crayon (Warp Records)
CONSOR: Mesantropia (Creaked Records)
MATMOS: The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast (Matador Records)
GESCOM: MiniDisc (OR)
OCHRE: Lemodie (Benbecula Records)
BATTLES: EP C / B EP (Warp Records)
TRIOSK: The Headlight Serenade (The Leaf Label)
SICKOAKS: Seawards (Type Recordings)

SOFALOFA: Melifluous (Bathysphere Recordings)
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG: 5:55 (Because Music)
VIZIER OF DAMASCUS: Badshadi (Rednetic Recordings)
RICHARD H. KIRK: Fear (No Evil) (Dust Science Recordings)
JIMMY EDGAR: Color Strip (Warp Records)
STEREOLAB: Fab Four Suture (Too Pure)
MARSHALL WATSON: Maths And Other Word Problems (Highpoint Lowlife)
EL PERRO DEL MAR: El Perro Del Mar (Memphies Industries)
ALOG: Islands Of Memory (Creaked Records)
KIERAN HEBDEN & STEVE REID: The Exchange Session Vol .1&2 (Domino Recording Co.)

Comments moderation

2006-12-21T10:27:00.000Z

I've decided to introduce comment moderation to keep track of comments posted on this blog. This means that your comments will not show up instantly, and I hope this will not deter you all from commenting on my posts as it is always good to know what your thoughts are.

WARP:2006 - What A Rapturous Party!

2006-12-21T09:35:00.000Z

Warp have published the 2006 release summary I wrote for them. It is available on the Warp website as two pieces. The first one, reviewing their releases for the first part of the year, including Prefuse 73, Battles, Jimmy Edgar, Nightmares On Wax, Plaid and a few more, was published last week, and the second part, with bits on Broadcast, Grizzly Bear, Clark, The London Sinfonietta and the rest of the label's releases for this year, was published this week.

You can check the full article here:

Part one | Part two

GEIR JENSSEN: Cho Oyu 8201m (Ash International)

2006-12-18T22:34:00.000Z

GEIR JENSSEN
Cho Oyu 8201m: Field Recordings From Tibet
ASH7.1
Ash International 2006
12 Tracks. 48mins15secs

Buy it: CD
Biosphere | Ash International

Best known for his ambient work as Biosphere, Norwegian musician Geir Jenssen is also an accomplished mountaineer. In 2001, he took part, with five other climbers and a Sherpa, in an expedition to climb Mount Cho Oyo, the sixth highest summit in the world. Culminating at 8201m, the mount is situated on the border between Tibet and Nepal, a stone throw away from Mount Everest. This album and its accompanying booklet document the month-long expedition and give an insight into Jenssen’s state of mind during the trip. It also gives an idea of what mountaineers attempting such a journey are faced with, from freezing cold temperatures to altitude sickness and physical and mental pain.

Armed with a MiniDisc recorder, a microphone and a shortwave radio receiver, Jenssen collected field recordings through the whole ascension and they are presented here entirely in their naked form, documenting the journey from the moment the expedition crossed the border into Tibet to reaching the first base camp, various intermediate camps and finally the summit, thirty days later.

The recordings weave an intricate and, at times, oppressive, sonic web as the expedition progresses through the first stages of the ascent, ranging from urban noises and everyday life recorded in the last towns and villages crossed to herds in transit, music captured on the shortwave radio receiver, birds feeding, someone breathing through an oxygen mask and storms. As the expedition gets nearer to the goal, the accrued effort required due to the rarefied oxygen transpires through denser soundscapes and shorter selections, as if the simple fact of recording was progressively becoming too demanding.

While the recordings are stark testaments of the gruelling conditions faced by Jenssen and his companions, the accompanying essay, entitled Only Krishna & I, provides a much more personal and touching view on the expedition as Jenssen documents the journey, from the moment he finds an advert in a mountaineering magazine to being the only one, with his Sherpa, to reach the summit, to his return to Katmandu.

Click on the map for a bigger version. Map from www.tibetmap.com

Geir Jenssen’s work has often been tightly connected with his environment, from the club slant of his debut album as Bleep to the subtle sounds of nature of Substrata to machinery noises on Polar Sequences, recorded with Higher Intelligence Angency's Bobby Bird. Here, he shows once again his ability at creating evocative sceneries from carefully selected and processed field recordings, but the purpose is entirely different. This album and the associated essay record a deeply personal journey, which undoubtedly has marked his work since, through the austere structures of Autour De La Lune or the richer soundscapes of last year’s magnificent Dropsonde, which was partly built around recordings made during this expedition. Here, Jenssen exposes his soul in a way he has never done before, and continues to charts ambient territories for others to colonise.

HUNTSVILLE: For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon)

2006-12-14T00:53:00.000Z

HUNTSVILLE
For The Middle Class
RCD2058
Rune Grammofon 2006
04 Tracks. 50mins09secs

Buy it: CD
Huntsville | Rune Grammofon

Experimental country music, now that’s a concept that Norwegian trio Huntsville seem eager to stick their milk teeth into. Not that it represents the bulk of their debut album mind, but the band mention country music as being one of their many influences, and it certainly finds its way into Huntsville’s largely improvised compositions.

Formed by guitarist Ivar Grydeland, multi-instrumentist Tonny Kluften and percussionist Ingar Zach, who have been working together in a variety of outfits since 1998, including improv expanding ensemble No Spaghetti Edition, which they founded, and smaller formation HISS, Huntsville represents a shift from the demanding outputs of previous incarnations to much more refined and hypnotic playgrounds. For The Middle Class shows signs of a somewhat more traditional approach to composition, yet the two main pieces, The Appearance Of A Wise Child and Add A Key Of Humanity, develop from the excellent understanding that these three musicians have of each other.

The album opens on a series of white noise sequences which are progressively swallowed by growing cyclic rhythmic patterns and various interferences. As its hypnotic groove settles and its backdrop becomes less abrasive, The Appearance Of A Wise Child reveals a much warmer set of soundscapes upon which an acoustic guitar draws a hesitant melody. From there on, the piece takes on a slight tribal turn until it finally breaks up. Add A Key Of Humanity is much more melodic from the start. Although occasional coarse electric guitar distortions ripple out in the first section of the track, the mood is here somewhat peaceful and restrained. As the trio bring various elements in and build the runaway train rhythmic backbone of the track, it gains in strength and vivacity. Seven minutes in, making the most of a plateau of relative calm, Grydeland introduces a cyclical plucked banjo theme which sets the track on a completely different course. While Kluften establishes the groove on a tensed bass line in the background and improves the relief of the piece, the banjo becomes for a moment totally overwhelming and gives this track, and the album, a very distinctive flavour. Huntsville might still be miles from developing a form of experimental country music, but this certainly proves a curious and rather thrilling combination of sounds.

The two remaining pieces are much gentler and provide interesting counterpoints to these epic moments. Much shorter and entirely beat-less, Serious Like A Pope and the delightful Melon show Huntsville in a radically different light. On the former, the trio weave an intricate and dense soundscape from drones, electronics and a guitar, with just a sporadic bass marking a cautious beat, while on the latter, it is largely left to Grydeland to generate the haunting theme of the piece on his acoustic guitar. Only discreet layers of treated percussive noises and a monotone electric piano are brought in to bring some substance to this otherwise rather airy closing track.

While it is pretty obvious from the two substantial improvisations here that Huntsville can work from each other and build on their respective strength very well, For The Middle Class is a surprisingly accessible and melodic collection. The band experiment with various music forms in very effective and convincing fashion, making this album yet another flawless addition to the Rune Grammofon catalogue.

JOANNA NEWSOM: Ys (Drag City)

2006-12-12T22:55:00.000Z

JOANNA NEWSOM
Ys
DC303CD
Drag City 2006
05 Tracks. 55mins41secs

Buy it: CD | LP
Drag City

No word can convey the emotional turmoil that Joanna Newsom’s Ys causes to this reviewer’s soul. Neither can words begin to do any justice to such a complex and tortuous piece of work. For her second album, Ms Newsom has seriously upped the stakes. Already, The Milk-Eyed Mender, released on Drag City over two years ago, demonstrated the extent of her story-telling talent and her musical capability. With Ys, she takes this to a completely new level and dares going where very few have gone before her.

A classically trained harpist, Joanna Newsom has, in recent years, been involved in a variety of projects, from playing keyboards with art rockers The Pleased to guesting for the likes of Smog, Cat Power, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan or Will Oldham. Her solo work has however set her in a place all of her own. Newsom began singing almost by accident as she studied creative writing. Her unique, child-like voice proved something of an acquired taste, but it undoubtedly belonged with the delicate dreamy folk songs of The Milk-Eyed Mender, giving her work a truly individual identity.

On Ys, Joanna Newsom ditches traditional pop song structures for much more elaborate forms, sourcing strength in both classical and traditional folk music to allow for her tales to develop over several minutes. Freed from the confines of the classic verse/bridge/chorus form, Newsom creates here a world full of magic and wonders which continuously flourishes and expands as orchestral waves ebb and flow, at times washing over Newsom’s omnipresent harp, at others retiring into the most minute cracks. The songs were originally recorded by Steve Albini, with Newsom singing over skeletal versions of each piece. Van Dyke Parks then added orchestral swathes around voice and harp, creating the supporting structure for these songs to become epic wanderings, which were then brought to life by Jim O’Rourke.

Newsom’s voice has gained in maturity but looses nothing of its disarming innocence and charm. Here, it becomes a wonderfully adapted vehicle for her rich language and intricate melodies, painting vivid images of life and death through exquisite metaphors and harmonies. From the delicate arabesques of Emily and Sawdust And Diamonds to the vast expanses of Monkey And Bear, Only Skin and Cosmia, Newsom crafts some of the finest lyrics heard in recent years, building up her stories around impeccable rhymes, and drops them onto ever-changing melodies. Classical and folk structures are intricately assembled without ever conflicting. Harp, strings and woods wrap themselves around banjos, accordions and guitars, while the madrigal opening of Monkey And Bear, the constant time signature variations of Only Skin or the subtle melodic progression of Emily give each piece a particular depth and a unique tone.

While The Milk-Eyed Mender was often deceptively simple, Ys is majestic, openly complex and fascinating. Above all, it is an incredibly mature and honest piece of work. Already a timeless classic, Ys sounds like nothing else around and is likely to remain unique as it is set to leave a strong mark not only on Joanna Newsom’s burgeoning career, but on everyone it touches.

SOLO ANDATA: Fyris Swan (Hefty Records)

2006-12-10T23:22:00.000Z

SOLO ANDATA
Fyris Swan
HEFTY057
Hefty Records 2006
10 Tracks. 62mins13secs

Buy it: CD
Solo Andata | Hefty Records

Electronic music was never meant to be warm and pastoral, but Solo Andata are the latest in a long list of musicians to use computers to do just that. Not that Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin, the men behind the project, limit themselves to artificial sound forms. Right from the moment they met, almost six years ago at the end of a gig in Perth, Australia, they opted for a much wider scope, involving the pair’s respective instrumental expertise. While Fiocco combines electronics with occasional drums and piano, Ikin, who has spent most of his formative years playing in a variety of bands, adds generous swathes of acoustic guitars. Since they formed, Fiocco has moved to Sweden, and the pair have been communicating and creating music using the Internet. It was therefore almost logical that they should choose to release their music on Chicago-based Hefty.

Fyris Swan is Solo Andata’s debut album and follows an iTurnes-exclusive EP published earlier this year. Feeding from a variety of genres, from folk to ambient to film music, Fiocco and Ikin blend them all into this distinctive series of compositions. At times using just the bare minimum in terms of sounds and melodies, while at others assembling more elaborated formations, Solo Andata craft wonderfully subtle, elegant and fragile instrumentals. Cinematic and pastoral, Fyris Swan is not without evoking the startlingly textural forms of Mountains’s Sewn, albeit developed over richer soundscapes.

The album opens with the gentle acoustic guitar swirls of Her Face As Soft As Sleep, upon which additional layers are applied over its course to give the piece a delightful sheen, which is found pretty much all the way through Fyris Swan. As the pair delve deeper into their atmospheric constructions, the mood settles, only disturbed by occasional blushes of ethereal jazz (Old City Crowd, Among The Olive Trees) or vaporous drones (A Ballet Of Hands). While the compositions often appear as if almost entirely static, Fiocco and Ikin develop melodic themes and musical structures over a whole track, making painfully slow but utterly satisfying progress as each element is brought in and carefully placed before another is being considered. This contributes to giving Fyris Swan its recurring cinematic feel. Solo Andata don’t look for instant ephemeral reward here. Instead, they are prepared to wait for their music to grow so as to achieve a much more sustained effect.

While there is no real narrative through the record, Fyris Swan doesn’t actually suffer from it as Solo Andata continuously refine their soundscapes and introduce new components to their music, allowing it to flourish in various ways all throughout, making this album a rather very convincing debut.

Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir leaves Múm

2006-11-24T14:35:00.000Z

Múm's vocalist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir has left the band earlier this year it was announced on the Fat-Cat website. In a letter posted on the site, she says that she hasn't been working with 'the boys' since June 2005 and will not be featuring on the band's next album, due out next year. She has since been working on a modern dance piece with Eirikur Orri, who often plays with Múm, and with Animal Collective's Avey Tare, with whom she has recorded a few songs which could be released some time next year.

Kristin Anna's twin sister Gyða left the band before they began working on their third album, Summer Make Good.

GESCOM: MiniDisc (OR)

2006-11-24T00:49:00.000Z

GESCOM
MiniDisc
ONLY3CD
Or 1998/2006
45 Tracks. 66mins18secs

Buy it: CD
OR Records

Audio visual history is full of obsolete formats, and recent years have been particular harsh, with audio cassettes, DAT, VHS, S-VHS, betamax, videodiscs or Philips’s ill-fated DCC, to name but a handful, all biting the dust in a matter of years, while the CD is getting under constant attack from MP3 players and computers, and even the DVD seems doomed as hard-drive recorders become more common and broadband is more widely available and faster. Only the vinyl record has regained some market shares.

One of these almost entirely extinct formats is Sony's minidisc. Launched only fifteen years ago, it looked for a while as it was here to stay, but, with the arrival of the iPod and other MP3 players, the format rapidly became doomed. It was different when Gescom released Minidisc back in 1998. While albums had been issued on minidisc before, this was the first ever minidisc-only release. Composed especially to make use of some of the format's specific characteristics, the album featured forty five tracks divided into eighty-eight segments destined to be played at random and looped at will, therefore creating an ever changing piece of work. With the demise of the format, OR and loose collective Gescom have decided to transfer the piece onto CD, described as the next best format available.

Formed around the nucleus of Autechre's Rob Brown and Sean Booth, Gescom has remained a mysterious formation, with very little information on the various contributors (allegedly up to twenty). Connections with the Autechre sound have perhaps become clearer in recent years, with Confield, Gantz Graf and Draft 7.30 especially displaying some of Gescom's characteristics, yet the collective's approach remains in most part more experimental. The very nature of this project, a radical digital cut and paste with open ends, makes it an intense experience.

Sound particles of various sizes and consistence are slotted alongside each other without apparent logic into fragments of tracks ranging from just a few seconds to a couple of minutes. These are placed in such a way that it is very difficult to understand where a piece ends and another begins. Glitches, statics, samples, found sounds and noises cross the range at random, sometimes arranged into vague melodic or rhythmic formations, at others left to decay into silences, which in turn become sonic components. This vast collage however is much more coherent than could be expected. Either played in its original order or at random, MiniDisc is a fascinating piece with a surprisingly potent narrative, which, at times, evokes the work of the Radiophonic Workshop. Playing on the unpredictability of the medium, Gescom create here a truly magnificent, if somewhat difficult, piece which loses nothing of its substance on CD.

MÚM: The Peel Session (Fat-Cat Records)

2006-11-21T23:48:00.000Z

MÚM
The Peel Session
CDFAT057 / 12FAT057
Fat-Cat Records 2006
04 Tracks. 21mins14secs

Buy it: CD
Múm | Fat-Cat Records

Icelandic purveyors of fine dream soundtracks Múm fill the gap between their last record, released two years ago, and their next opus, due out next year, with the publication of their sole Peel Session, recorded at the world famous BBC Maida Vale studios back in 2002 following the release of their debut album, Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK. The session captures the band as they begin to blur the boundaries between their electronic roots and the more delicate acoustic and textural sound they have showcased in recent years. Here, while they still largely rely on electronics, as the opening sequence of Scratched Bicycle/Smell Memory attests, Múm dress their songs in slightly more contrasted tones.

Múm have developed a stage persona which has progressively been infiltrating their records, and this early testament clearly documents how the band’s sound lends itself perfectly to the live environment. The melodies retain the fresh envelop of the original versions yet the arrangements appear fuller and more ethereal, while the voices of twin sisters Gyða and Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir take on a much more vaporous and dreamy turn on Now There Is That Fear Again. As they combine electronic and acoustic instrumentation into tight soundscapes, Múm draw a series of sonic arabesques which contrast greatly with the more subdued originals. On the opening track, which pertinently brings two songs into one, Múm layer slices of glitches and noises over frenetic interferences and beats, yet the main melody floats well above, and when liberated from the cloud of ambient hums and buzzes, develops into a wonderfully strolling piece. Awake On A Train is a more straightforward and pastoral installment, with gentle vocals set against sharp electronics while an accordion traces a series of melodic themes and takes this track in a variety of directions.

Now There Is That Fear Again is the most elaborate track on here, with multiple layers of accordion dripping over the sisters’ vocals, guitars and live drums to form a vivid organic piece. The song’s gentle opening moments reveal a rich backdrop which flourishes further as the track progresses and more layers are applied. The Ballad Of The Broken String finds the band in more subdued and reflective mood and brings this all too short Peel session to a beautiful close.

CONSOR: Mesantropia (Creaked Records)

2006-11-14T21:28:00.001Z

CONSOR
Mesantropia
CRDS07
Creaked Records 2006
11 Tracks. 60mins32secs

Consor | Creaked Records

In just a handful of releases, including the publication of Alog’s long-lost Islands Of Memory EP earlier this year, Creaked Records are slowly growing to be a reliable source of excellent electronic music. From the Alpine heights of Switzerland comes Samuel Vaney, who officiates as Consor. Following a first EP released last year, Vaney signed to Creaked. His first album, Mesantropia, reveals a somewhat dark and experimental take on contemporary electronica.

Working from field recordings, noises, electronics and samples, Vaney creates here a series of dense and gritty soundscapes tempered with delicate drapes, which he applies onto rarefied melodic formations and develops in unpredictable ways all through the hour long Mesantropia. The album opens with a scintillating music box theme gently underlined with discreet percussions. This apparently innocent piece seems brought to an abrupt end and all the listener is left with is the remaining echo of an evaporated melody. While Aikon sounds too much like a gimmick with its mobile phone interference routine, Monoski is a rather more intriguing offer. Nothing much happens for a while apart from a distant drum beat pattern, but as the beat grows stronger, the background starts filling up, first with deep noises, then with a budding melody, but it is not until three quarters in that Vaney finally releases the tension by suddenly cranking the volume up and sharpening up his knives. While this is undoubtedly a risky strategy, it creates a sense of anxiety which is developed in similar way, although not to the same extent, later on, on Godmorgon.

Elsewhere, Vaney plays with sombre soundscapes and assembles claustrophobic pieces. While Valmo’s first half is rather gentle and airy, it progressively becomes heavier in its second half to the point where the rarefied atmosphere becomes almost unbearably oppressive toward the end. Sashimi, Satelitte and Minotaur’s Fall are all dense and thick and only progress through the sheer pressure of their respective weight. Springbok and Niqorb denote a lighter approach, with the former developing around a guitar line while the latter’s intricately woven electronic structure recalls Autechre circa Tri Repetae. If these don't quite manage to entirely relieve the pressure, they nevertheless provide a welcome breathing space half way through the record and ensure Mesantropia doesn’t veer into absolute paranoia.

Samuel Vaney’s first full length as Consor offers an interesting range of atmospheric moments and soundscapes, and his approach to experimental electronica reveals a certain amount of maturity. Vaney carries this album pretty well and maintains a good level of consistency all the way through. While Mesantropia is not original in scope, its execution is pretty much spotless, making it an overall thoroughly enjoyable work.

Gescom's MiniDisc... released on CD

2006-11-08T22:37:00.000Z

Gescom’s seminal MiniDisc, the first ever MiniDisc-only release, originally published in 1998, is being issued on CD for the very first time. The album was specifically assembled to take advantage of the format’s versatility, collecting forty-five tracks split into eighty-eight PQ points set to be played in random order. The format, which was once at the forefront of Sony’s strategy, has since almost totally fallen into oblivions, prompting Sean Booth, Rob Brown and OR to reissue the work on the next best format. The sleeve shows Alan Phillips of Sony showing off MiniDisc in a Sony Conference. MiniDisc, the CD, is out on 13 November.

For more information, check out the OR website.

Buy it: CD

BENOIT PIOULARD: Précis (Kranky)

2006-11-01T16:58:00.000Z

BENOÎT PIOULARD
Précis
KRANK098
Kranky 2006
14 Tracks. 36mins52secs

Benoît Pioulard | Kranky

Despite what the name and album title could suggest, Benoît Pioulard is not the latest French talent to make it to these shores. Instead, Thomas Meluch, who hides behind the Gallic-sounding moniker, hails from the South Michigan city of Ann Arbor. For years, he has been assembling precious little vignettes which he has then collected into very limited self-released albums and EPs, yet, Précis, released on Chicago-based imprint Kranky, is Tom’s first record to benefit of a wide release. The album follows Mr. Pioulard’s debut Enge EP, published earlier this year on Moodgadget. While released at just three hundred copies, the EP received praises on both sides of the Atlantic and introduced Benoît Pioulard’s delicately contrasted soundscapes. With Précis, he expands on his sonic scope by adding rich layers of electronica and shoegaze to swathes of pop and folk.

The album opens with the scintillating psychedelic drone of La Guerre De Sept Ans which sees clouds of acoustic sounds slowly merging into a dense noise formation, yet rapidly, the tone changes entirely with the pop-infused Together And Down and Triggering Back. While the former is an introvert piece with lingering motifs, the latter reveals a more upbeat and pastoral approach, with subtle undertones adding delicate relief to the main melodic theme. The process is repeated at regular intervals and various density all the way through this album, from the laidback Alan And Dawn or Palimend to the lush and expensive Needle And Thread or Ash In The Sky.

In between his perfectly formed pop songs, Tom inserts a series of experimental sonic vignettes. While using the same mixed palette of acoustic instrumentation, treated acoustics, electronics and found sounds, he indulges in more introspective soundscapes and arranges them into dense formations which, at times, evoke the granular sound of Fennesz or label mate Tim Hecker. Elsewhere, echoes of Simon & Garfunkel, Slowdive and Greg Davis trickle down Meluch’s compositions and give this album its true identity.

Précis is a mature and convincing follow up to Benoît Pioulard’s debut EP and shows a great deal of control on sounds and melodic structures. In just over thirty six minutes, Meluch assembles a fascinating collection of songs with clear evocative scope and creates one of the most interesting debut albums of the year.

PHONOPHANI: Phonophani (Rune Grammofon)

2006-10-30T22:04:00.000Z

PHONOPHANI
Phonophani
RCD2054
Rune Grammofon 2006
13 Tracks. 75mins28secs

Buy it: CD
Phonophani | Rune Grammofon

Phonophani’s Espen Sommer Eide began his solo quest with this self-titled opus back in 1998. The album originally received a very confidential airing on Geir Jenssen’s Biophon imprint in 1998, and has just been re-released by the ever-excellent Rune Grammofon with an additional three tracks. Eide has since released two further albums, Genetic Engineering (2001) and Oak Or Rock (2004), and has teamed up with Dag-Are Haugan to form Alog, with whom he has released three albums and a handful of EPs which were recently collected on the excellent Catch That Totem!

While both projects seem intricately linked and thrive from a similar ethic, Phonophani’s scope is slightly darker and relies on more openly electronic textures. Eide already demonstrates here a clear taste for intricate sonic structures and elaborate arrangements based on a surprisingly mature approach to experimentation. Right from the pulsating dub swathes of the opening I. F. A., Eide applies melodic patterns and noises onto sumptuous abstract backdrops. Relying largely on organic rhythmic elements found evolving deep within his soundscapes rather than on conventional drum/bass sequences, Eide unleashes clouds of glitches, bleeps and melodic debris onto vast landscapes and manipulates the atmospheric fabric of his compositions to ensure consistency of tone all the way through.

As the album progresses, echoes of life can be found scattered over a handful of tracks, most prominently on Duration-Happiness, on which a heavily treated human voice, possibly that of Eide, rises above a lush orchestral mist to bring the track to a slightly unnerving end, while a child’s voice illuminates the solemn Sol, and on the enigmatic C, which seems built around the skeletal remains of Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson. Elsewhere, Eide carves delicate dreamy sequences out of minimal sound sources. Pieces such as Zumas, Kaliphoni and Order Of Disappearance show a much more spiritual side to his work as he articulates bleeps and airy melodies around hypnotic noise structures. If these can appear a tad dated now, they are so tightly integrated with the rest of the album that they never actually appear out of place. This reissue features three previously unreleased tracks recorded during the same period. Fitted at the end of the original record, these compositions do not exactly bring anything more to the album but their insertion allow the listener to wander in Phonophani’s carefully devised space a few more minutes.

On this debut release, Espen Sommer Eide assembles sounds, structures and atmospheres with impressive maturity and lays down the blueprint for his work both as Phonophani and as part of Alog. While the album doesn’t go as deep into experimental territories as its successors, it is, eight years after its original release, a surprisingly fresh-sounding and relevant collection of intricate electronic music.

Múm release 2002 Peel Session

2006-10-29T08:38:00.000Z

Icelandic dreamy popsters Múm will be releasing their only Peel Session on 4 December on Fat-Cat, a little over two years after John Peel passed away. The session was recorded in 2002 following the release of the band's Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is OK album. The EP, which was recorded by the original band line up, features live reworked versions of Scratched Bicycle / Smell Memory, Awake On A Train, Now There Is That Fear Again and The Ballad Of The Broken String. Múm are set to deliver their fourth album for Fat-Cat in Spring 2007.

Review coming soon.

MAX RICHTER: Songs From Before (130701 / Fat-Cat Records)

2006-10-16T16:10:00.000+01:00

MAX RICHTER
Songs From Before
CD1305
130701 / Fat-Cat Records 2006
12 Tracks. 37mins18secs

Buy it: CD
Max Richter | Fat-Cat Records

British-born composer and musician Max Richter studied composition and piano at Edinburgh University and at the Royal Academy Of Music before pursuing his studies in Florence under the late Italian composer Luciano Berio. Richter then co-founded contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus in 1989, and spent ten years performing works by Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Graham Fitkins, Louis Andriessen, Brian Eno and many more with them. During this time, he developed an interest for sampling and electronic instrumentation, which led him to work with The Future Sound Of London on their 1996 album Dead Cities. His first album as a composer and musician, Memoryhouse, was recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and released on the BBC Radio 3's Late Junction imprint in 2002.

It is not until his sophomore effort, The Blue Notebooks, published two years later on Fat-Cat's sub-label 130701, that Richter's profile became more prominent. While Richter's debut combined classical instrumentation and discreet electronics, the process was developed further on The Blue Notebooks to add grain and texture to the music. He has since been involved in a variety of projects, including producing the long-awaited second album by folk legend Vashti Bunyan.

For Songs From Before, Richter has teamed up with the same string ensemble as on The Blue Notebooks, augmented with readings from Japanese poet Haruki Murakami by Robert Wyatt. Very much like on its predecessors, Songs From Before is haunted by rampant melancholy and swirling melodic themes, creating a dense atmospheric backdrop for more subtle ornamental elements to flourish.

Richter shares a deep sense of minimalism with the likes of Steve Reich or Arvo Pärt, but there is a more cinematic and evocative feel to his compositions, at times evoking the work of Michael Nyman, or Ennio Morricone even. This contributes greatly in Richter's music being at once superbly forward-thinking and extremely accessible. From the sparse melodies of Song or Flowers For Yulia to the crystalline lines of Fragment, Autumn Music 1 or Sunlight and the dense torpor of Ionosphere, Time Passing or Lullaby, Richter plays tricks with the mind by constantly affecting the atmospheric canvas of his compositions. Wyatt's smoky voice surfaces at regular interval, adding grain to the spellbinding aspect of the music.

Songs From Before doesn't instantly appear that different from its predecessors, and in many ways, it is not. Richter is said to view his work as a composer as a long evolutionary process, and this album reflects this in the way it feels very much in tune with both Memoryhouse and The Blue Notebooks, but each one of these records has a particular density, and Songs From Before is no exception.

Coppé's first European tour

2006-10-11T12:03:00.000+01:00

The exquisite Coppé will be touring Europe for the very first time this autumn as part of the Cyber Tongue tour with audio-visual artist Ben Sheppee and London-based breaksters Liberation Jumpsuit. Confirmed dates are as follow:

Thu October 19th: Resonance 104.4FM Live Session (The Clearspot, 7pm)

Fri October 20th: Mavryx @ The Spitz (with Modified Toy Orchestra)

Sat November 4th: Ginglik, Club on the Green, Shepherds Bush

Sat November 4th: Digital City, Shoreditch

Tue November 7th: Head+Arm @ The Vibe Bar, East London

Sat November 11th: Optica Festival, Gijon, Spain

For those who haven't experienced Coppé's weird and wonderful pop, these gigs are probably the best opportunity to see what she is all about.

Coppé has been releasing since the late nineties on her Mango & Sweet Rice imprint, and has worked with artists as diverse as Plaid, Kris 'Thrash' Weston, DJ Vadim or The Program to name but a few. While she names Richard D James as one of her main influences (she even dedicated a song to him on her last album), her work encompasses a wide ranges of genres, from delicate ambient pop to techno and jazz-infused electronica.

AS ONE: Planetary Folklore 2 (Archive)

2006-10-09T08:38:00.000+01:00

AS ONE
Planetary Folklore 2
CDDPU1128
Archive 2006
08 Tracks. 40mins28secs

Kirk DeGiorgio

Undoubtedly one of the most influential artists of his generation, Kirk Degiorgio is responsible for partly shaping the musical landscape of the nineties with a multitude of projects reflecting the widening spectrum of the genre over the years. With one foot rooted in seventies soul and funk and the other in Detroit techno, Kirk's work as encompassed a wide variety of styles, from jazz, funk, electro and classic techno to hip-hop and ambient, to create a compelling collection of elegant electronic music.

Born in the late sixties in East London, Degiorgio spent his formative years harvesting as much music as he could, but it is when an aunt gave him all her soul and funk seven inch singles that he began building what would become the backbone of his work. Consequently, he scoured the airwaves in search of black music radio shows, recording whatever he could. The next logical step was taken when he hit the club scene in the early eighties.

His first couple of releases appeared on B12 Records in 1991, and he rapidly gained interest from other labels, including R&S, New Electronica and Planet E, leading to the release of countless EPs, and later his first full-length album, Reflections, under his As One moniker. It is around the same time that he set up his Applied Rhythmic Technology, or ART for short, imprint, soon followed with another, OPART, releasing some of his own work as well as that of friends such as B12, The Black Dog or Gescom.

Almost ten years on from the first Planetary Folklore voyage, released on the now defunct Mo'Wax, Degiorgio re-arms his gun and deliver another slice of fine classic electronica tempered with elements of jazz and soul. Very much in the tradition of previous work, Planetary Folklore 2 combines impeccable soundscapes, groovy rhythmic sections and elegant atmospheres. While reminiscent of early Warp/ART/Rephlex times, this album also feels fresh and modern thanks to Degiorgio's uncompromising approach. Melodies drip lusciously from rich organic backdrops while intricate beat sequences snake their way through dense sound clouds to serve Degiorgio's aim. The wonderful Geranium harks back to a time when bleeps were de rigeur, whilst It's All Turning Blue or Irradiant wouldn't have gone amiss on a Black Dog Productions release. Elsewhere, Degiorgio injects some discreet jazz vibes into Blueshift and To See With Your Eyes, giving each track a particular relief by rendering the grain of the drums in exquisite shades. To complete the tableau, the moody Seyfert's Sextet and I Used To Live Here (Pts. 1 & 2) give this album a slightly more melancholic turn and contribute to reveal part of its emotional scope.

This second Planetary Folklore offering is only remotely related to its predecessor. If Degiorgio applies here a vaguely similar template to that used on the 1997 album, this new opus manages to flourish all by itself and feels as a piece of work in its own right. Here, Degiorgio continues to refine his sound and feed on a wide array of influences to create yet another magnificent record.

OUCH!

2006-10-07T10:07:00.000+01:00

Some may have been wondering why this blog has been a bit quiet in the last week. Well, I was involved in a motorcycle accident last Thursday (28/09) which resulted in a broken shoulder for which I needed an operation on Saturday.

I have been back home since Monday, and although I have mobility in both hands, and even discovered that I could type with both hands when my keyboard is on my laps, typing like this gets very tiring very quickly, so I cannot curently work on full blown reviews, but I am hoping that things will improve in the next couple of weeks... Bear with me for a little longer as I have received some interesting music lately and am dying to write about quite a good few records.

OCHRE: Lemodie (Benbecula Records)

2006-09-28T01:06:00.000+01:00

OCHRE
Lemodie
BEN034CD
Benbecula Records 2006
10 Tracks. 57mins15secs

Buy it: CD
Ochre | Benbecula Records

Chris Leary first got noticed with his debut EP, Sound System Bangers Vol. 1, in 2003, yet he had spent the previous few years freely distributing his music on the Internet and on CDrs. This led him to work on a series of remixes for artists such as Rusuden or Melodium, while his own tracks regularly got picked up to be featured on various compilations. His debut album, A Midsummer Nice Dream, published two years ago on London-based Toytronic, collected tracks created over a long period of time, but this sophomore effort is the fruit of a much more focused gestative process.

With Lemodie, Leary creates a voluptuous soundtrack which goes well beyond the boundaries set with A Midsummer Nice Dream. While the scope remains very much set into electronic territories, classical orchestrations resonate all throughout as melodic themes are adorned with delicate silky string motifs, at times taking the form of a string quartet, at others given full orchestral treatment.

Elsewhere, Leary brings complex rhythmic formations to life with rich analogue tones and soft washes, piecing together sumptuous cinematic soundscapes from disparate elements to create a series of truly evocative compositions. While he still cultivates the melancholic aspect of his music, conveyed through sweeping melodies and elegant electronic arrangements, Lemodie is more upfront than its predecessor. The rhythmic fabric has gained in complexity and relief, arrangements appear more structured and in focus, reflecting on the overall narrative of the record and its consistency. Leary deploys here an impressive array of sounds and moods and applies grain and textures with great expertise.

Answering the soft hues and shapes of the cover, the compositions go from crisp digital landscapes (111, Infotain Me, Anomie) to atmospheric lustre (Open Top) and vast evocative moments (Sosacharo, Lifewish). If influences are perceptible, Leary puts them to good use and takes great care in blending them into the background so as not to overshadow his own inputs. With this second offering, Leary shows here increased confidence and focus and quietly makes his place amongst the artists to watch.

SQUAREPUSHER: Hello Everything (Warp Records)

2006-09-26T07:44:00.000+01:00

SQUAREPUSHER
Hello Everything
WARPCD148CD
Warp Records 2006
12 Tracks. 63mins41secs

Buy it: Ltd Edition CD | CD | LP
Warp Records

Four years ago, Tom Jenkinson was asking 'Do You Know Squarepusher?' If the album that hid behind this title lured you to think that you did, think again. With his eighth album in eleven years, Tom Jenkinson shakes off his compulsive beats and driving grooves in favour of a much more chilled and eclectic sound.

Tom Jenkinson burst out on the electronic scene in the mid nineties with a series of EPs for Spymania, Rephlex and Worm Interface, and a debut album published on Richard D James's Rephlex. A seasoned self-taught bass player and drummer, Jenkinson's particular blend of experimental drum'n'bass dipped in a bubbling bath of digital jazz and acid house and his seminal live performances rapidly brought him a huge following, Since, he has cleverly set the pace for his contemporaries with each new release by cleverly dodging expectations.

Hello Everything marks the most radical revision of the Squarepusher template since Music Has Rotted One Note. While there are echoes of the frenetic electro-bop of past releases, more prominently on Hello Meow, Planetarium, Welcome To Europe, Plotinus or The Modern Bass Guitar, the emphasis has overall switched to the melodic aspect of Jenkinson's work, revealing in the process more than ever his spotless production skills. Here, Tom Jenkinson scatters jazz crumbs in the most conspicuous way (Theme From Sprite, Bubble Life, Rotate Electrolyte), injects elements of folk on the wonderfully delicate Circlewave 2, revives his interest for avant-garde sonic explorations on Vacuum Garden and Orient Orange, scissors his way through epic rhythmic patterns and febrile synthetic waves on Plotinus, all with the same consistency and devotion.

As the title suggests, highlighted by a selection of pictures of instruments ranging from an acoustic guitar and a drum machine to a xylophone, a drum kit and a bass guitar, all played by the same person, the ubiquitous Tom Jenkinson is once again responsible for playing every last instrument on here and also assumes full production duties. This certainly contributes to Hello Everything feeling extremely consistent, despite the varied approach adopted. Here, Jenkinson appears more liberated and opened to new influx of ideas. Rumours has it that he is, since the release of Ultravisitor, free from contractual duties with Warp, which could have contributed to the liberated feel of this album. Whatever the reason, Tom Jenkinson has produced with Hello Everything his most accomplished record since Music Has Rotted One Note, and perhaps his best record to date.

Supersilent and Wibutee live at the London Jazz Festival

2006-09-22T08:13:00.000+01:00

Londoners: two dates for your diaries.

Wibutee: 11 November, live at the ICA

Supersilent / In The Country: 15 November, live at Cargo (Thanks to Colin for pointing that one out).

Both gigs are part of the London Jazz Festival. Click here for full listing.

Supersilent

QUINOLINE YELLOW: Colour Index 47005 (Uchelfa Recordings)

2006-09-22T07:48:00.000+01:00

QUINOLINE YELLOW
Colour Index 47005
UCHEL0047005
Uchelfa Recordings 2006

Uchelfa Recordings

Answering to the evocative E104 name and deemed 'not recommended for consumption by children', Quinoline Yellow is a synthetic greenish yellow dye used in the food industry. It is also the name adopted by London-based electronic artist Luke Williams, who has in the last few years released a series of critically acclaimed EPs on Skam and is own Uchelfa imprint. His debut album, Dol-Goy Assist, was released last year on Skam.

Quinoline Yellow's new EP, Colour Index 47005, named after the industrial reference of Quinoline Yellow, is the unapologetically electronic follow up to Dol-Goy Assist. In these times when most musicians desperately try to sound acoustic, it is refreshing to find such a rich collection of highly contrasted artificial soundscapes put to the service of stunning melodies and dense atmospheric tones. Williams is, alongside Bola's Darrell Fitton, amongst the most ardent protagonists of the pure synthesis approach, producing wonderfully warm and engaging electronic music in an all too rare fashion.

Right from the onset, Williams positions this latest collection in line with previous releases as he develops lush melodic themes and dresses them in ornate electronic swathes. In just six tracks, spanning a drop under thirty minutes, Williams creates a vibrant patchwork of expressive musical sequences which seem to borrow as much from the post industrial era embodied by the likes of Richard H Kirk, as they do from the digital age. Whether through the sluggish circumvolutions of Powys Quoits, the syncopated electro of Miniature Cockroach Cab (a track that surely deserves attention for its title alone), the vocal inserts of Carrageenan and Clos Pen Glin2, the blurred digitalia of The Wash Pool or the ethnic scope of Bob Brigham's Gold Chariot, which echoes Bel Canto's Look3, Williams eternally redefines the environment in which his compositions evolve while maintaining a constant atmosphere temperature all the way through. Elements appear to drift in and out of focus as melodies ebb and flow, and melodies themselves at times seem to dissolve, only to emerge later entirely intact, giving this EP a strong astral feel. Here, Williams is as versatile and interesting as ever, driving each composition to its fullest.

This latest offering from Quinoline Yellow is another classic instalment in Williams's growing body of work and provides a further insight into his uncompromising approach and vision.

TWO HOME-MADE COMPILATIONS

2006-09-20T22:50:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week, I was working on finally creating a cover for a compilation that I made last year, so I could give a copy of it to Sean's mother as she's been asking me for some music for some time. The compilation was originally inspired by the compilation created by St Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs for the series The Trip a couple of years ago. I wanted the compilation to feature some St Etienne-like artists (Peach, Mono, Technique, Mulu), together with some French, British and American sixties pop and some more modern tracks. The result (see cover below) turned out to be rather very nice if I may say so myself. I played it a few times in the office, where it was very well received, and it usually surfaces on summer evenings. I renamed the compilation MetroPop to highlight not only the French slant on some of these tracks, but also the fact that despite being rather chilled, almost all these tracks have, in my opinion, something of an urban feel.

VARIOUS ARTISTS: MetroPop: Paris - London - New York Vol. 1 & 2

Click on the image to enlarge

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While I was working on the cover, I found another half-finished compilation in my iTunes playlists, and promptly decided to finish it and create a cover so I could also give this one to Sean's mum. The track listing reads as follow:

01. Gene Clark: Strength Of Strings
02. Lou Rawls: Dead End Streets (Parts 1 & 2)
03. Magnétophone: A Sad Ha Ha (Circled My Demise)
04. John Martyn & Beverley Martyn: Primrose Hill
05. Gorillaz: Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head
06. Merz: Warm Cigarette Room
07. Al Stewart: Year Of The Cat
08. El Perro Del Mar: God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)
09. Devendra Banhart: Heard Somebody Say
10. Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra: Some Velvet Morning
11. Scott Walker: Do I Love You
12. Vetiver: You May Be Blue
13. Broadcast: Still Feels Like Tears
14. Joanna Newsom: This Side Of The Blue
15. Susanna & The Magical Orchestra: Time
16. Julie Covington: My Silks And Fine Array
17. Vashti Bunyan: Diamond Day
18. Jose González: Hearbeats

Cover and history below.

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Some Velvet Morning (Soundtrack For An Autumn)

Gene Clark: Strength Of Strings
I first encountered this song on This Mortal Coil's Filigree & Shadow album. It was then sung by Dominic Appleton, who incidentally is Woody's neighbour and friend (is there anyone in the world worth knowing he doesn't know?). I fell for the haunting mood of the TMC track when I first heard it, and was pleased to find that it was also so much part of the 1974 original.

Lou Rawls: Dead End Street (Parts 1 & 2)
I first heard this song on a David Axelrod compilation (Anthology Vol. 2) and instantly loved its raw groove and emotional scope. It just fitted here like a glove.

Magnétophone: A Sad Ha Ha (Circled My Demise)
The second album from Birmingham's Magnétophone certainly widened the scope of the band's work, and this rather haunting track, with vocals from King Creosote, hinted at early 4AD, especially This Mortal Coil. I saw the band perform this particular song, with King Creosote, live at the Luminaire for the label's 25th anniversary, and it was probably even more haunting then.

John Martyn & Beverley Martin: Primrose Hill
I'd never heard of John Martyn prior to hearing St Etienne's The Trip. The song featured on this album, Auntie Aviator (which also now features on MetroPop) was just so perfect in every way that I had to find out more about the album it originated from. Once I'd put my hand on Road To Ruin (Island, 1970), I realised that this little gem was in good company. The album was, according to All Music.com, recorded in August 1970, the month I was born.

Gorillaz: Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head
The track that started this compilation. It originally went a bit unnoticed when I first listened to Demon Days, but its story, told by American actor and film-maker Dennis Hopper, caught my imagination one evening, and it rapidly became one of my favourite tracks on the album. I especially love the last (very folky) verse, sung by Damon Albarn: "O little town in U.S.A, your time has come to see / There's nothing you believe you want / But where were you when it all came down on me? /Did you call me now?".

Merz: Warm Cigarette Room
I was sent a promo copy of Merz's second album but, although I liked the album, I couldn't really see it fit in on themilkfactory. In hindsight, it probably would have been well at home there. This song in particular got me, and it reminded me of some of the early tracks by Dutch band Nits, which remains unfortunately totally unknown here in the UK.

Al Stewart: The Year Of The Cat
I owe the pleasure of knowing this track to Woody, who played it one day in the office a couple of years ago. Andrew was very vocal about why he hated this song, yet, I just love its gentle mood and great melody.

El Perro Del Mar: God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)
I found the self-titled album from Norwegian songstress Sarah Assbring in the last product sale I went to before leaving Virgin. I got it because it was released on Memphis Industries, and I fell in love with its sixties pop atmosphere. This is quite a strange little pop song, and a wonderful little gem.

Devendra Banhart: Heard Somebody Say
One of my favourite tracks from his third album proper, Cripple Crow, this is one of his most produced songs, yet it is as intimate and beautiful as anything he has done.

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra: Some Velvet Morning
The song originally selected for this compilation was Summer Wine, yet, when I was searching for a half-decent title for it, Some Velvet Morning came to mind and seemed to fit the bill rather well. I just couldn't name the compilation and not use the song. This is actually the first song by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra I ever heard, not that long ago, on some compilation. I was fascinated by the dense atmosphere of the piece and its dark tones, unusual for a pop song. Hazlewood's deep golden voice does much to give the song its intense coloration, but Sinatra's almost ethereal response is even more haunting.

Scott Walker: Do I Love You
A bit of a lighter moment here, with something of a romantic song from Walker the Great. I remember hearing this song for the first time some years ago on my way to Hélène and Laurent's wedding. I'd rented a car for the weekend, and I was driving along on a country lane after picking up the car from Charles De Gaulle airport, listening to the promo tape of a Scott Walker compilation that I'd picked up at work. This song came on, and I just fell in love with the melody.

Vetiver: You May Be Blue
Andrew first told me about Vetiver when I discovered Devendra Banhart, and as it also came with Nigel's seal of approval, I promptly got the band's first album. This track is taken from their second album. Pitchfork said of the song that "[it] recalls vintage Fleetwood Mac at their slinky best" and it has also been compared to the Grateful Dead's American Beauty, none of which, I must confess, I know much about. Still, this is one of my favourite tracks on To Find Me Gone and it fitted perfectly here.

Broadcast: Still Feels Like Tears
What can I say about Broadcast that I haven't said before? I can listen to their albums and EPs a thousand times, and it will always feel a little bit like the first time. This track, taken from the Pendulum EP, is typical of their work.

Joanna Newsom: This Side Of The Blue
I was recommended to listen to Joanna Newsom after falling in love with the two albums by Antony & The Johnsons. Soon I was searching on the web for some sound samples, and the first thing I cam across was a live video on the BBC Experimental site. At first, her voice grated so much on me that I didn't know whether I should laugh, cry or run away, yet, something was dragging me back. I downloaded her debut album and realised how wonderful and unique her work was... this song, which was recently featured in an ad for a mobile phone company, is perhaps the most accessible on the album. Here, it is just perfect.

Susanna & The Magical Orchestra: Time
This wonderful song is taken from the debut album of Norwegian duo formed by Susanna Wallumrød and Morten Qvenild, List Of Lights And Buoys, and reflects the mood of the whole album. This piece is delicate and touching, and I find there is something deeply exhilarating in the chorus. It is also, with the band's cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene, my favourite track on the album.

Julie Covington: My Silks And Fine Array
Another song first heard on a compilation, once again from St Etienne's The Trip. I just love everything about it. Unfortunately, the album it is featured on (The Beautiful Changes) doesn't appear to currently be available. Good job Soulseek came up trump!

Vashti Bunyan: Diamond Day
Legendary song from the legendary debut (and until recently sole) album of legendary folk singer. 'nuff said.

Jose Gonzales: Heartbeats
The track used on "that' famous ad. The original by Swedish popsters The Knife, dripping in phat electro sounds, was brillant, but Gonzales made it his own by giving it light folk textures and breathy atmosphere. What better way to end.

GAGARIN: Ard Nev [Version 2.0] (Geo Records)

2006-09-18T00:51:00.000+01:00

GAGARIN
Ard Nev
GEO009
Geo Records 2006
09 Tracks. 42mins39secs

Gagarin | Filament Recordings

Gagarin is the solo project of Graham Dowdall, whose career as a musician extends far beyond this project. Originally a percussionist and sound designer, he has played with some of the biggest names on the music scene, including Nico, John Cale, Cabaret Voltaire and many more, has worked on a variety of dance and theatre projects and has performed all around the world.

He began developing his electronic/ambient project Gagarin in the mid nineties and set up his own record label, Geo Records at the same time. He released a first self-titled album in 1997, and, following a series of EPs and seven-inch singles, his second album, Earthling, materialised in 2003. Since, there has been very little apparent activity on the Gagarin front, but Dowdall began to work on new material in the latter part of 2005, a first draft of the album originally being released as a very limited edition CDR album on U-Cover in early 2006 while he continued to work on the record. This third album, now released on Geo, sees Dowdall stepping up the pace and sharpening up his atmospheric electronica to include elements of urban dub, even occasionally hinting at dubstep, giving Ard Nev more defined and progressive structures than its predecessor displayed.

For this latest project, Dowdall deploys once again a wide array of sonic tricks and generates warm pastoral soundscapes on which he builds sparse melodic themes. Relying on Spartan rhythmic arrangements to underline these, Dowdall draw the listening into a false feeling of security before inflicting random electric blows, characteristically delivered without prior warning. While Ard Nev kicks off in gentle style with the vast open space of Sandavore, Dirty Sweet unveils a much darker and claustrophobic setting, which is carried on to the following piece, Neovo 5-10, which despite a peaceful respite in the middle, proves to be as oppressive. Echoes of grime and dubstep scratch the sparkling surface as abrasive noises are pushed to the forefront. Merkage and Slewage build further on this urban affiliation and push the album into some rather inhospitable territories.

Elsewhere, Dowdall delivers subtler, gentler pieces, allowing for vast breathing spaces in between more abrupt moments. Tracks such as 120 Cms, An Tarbet or Skylon, one of the standout moments here, all combine wonderful sonic scopes with intricate details and sporadic melodies, while on Sullum Voe and Buidaig, Dowdall carves more defined melodies cast in superb ethereal soundscapes, bringing this album to a rather elegant close.

CHRISTOPHE WILLITS: Surf Boundaries (Ghostly International)

2006-09-14T00:43:00.000+01:00

CHRISTOPHER WILLITS
Surf Boundaries
GHI54
Ghostly International 2006
12 Tracks. 37mins23secs

Buy it: CD
Christopher Willits | Ghostly

Download Yellow Spring (MP3) courtesy of Ghostly International
Album preview

There is something opulent and comforting in the smooth tones and processed sounds of Christopher Willits’s new album. Hailing from San Francisco, Willits has released records on labels as diverse as 12K, Fällt, Sub Rosa, Nibble and Plop, as well as collaborations with Brad Laner as North Valley Subconscious Orchestra, and with Kid606’s Miguel DePedro and Hella drummer Zach Hill, with whom he is currently recording as Flössin. If this wasn’t enough, he also regularly contributes to diverse multimedia projects and installations.

Ever since he appeared on the music scene at the tail end of the nineties, Willits has developed a delicate blend of layered processed guitars, glitches and statics, which have placed him somewhere on the accessible vicinity of Fennesz. With this first album for Ghostly, his ninth altogether, Willits dips his experimental range in breezy Californian pop to produce a record that sends the Beach Boys into orbit with no intention to ever bringing them back down to Earth. The songs on Surf Boundaries are colourful expressions of various emotional states, which build up deep within each piece to add to the weight of the complete work and form a rather suggestive collection. Allegedly recorded ‘during the rise and fall of an intense personal relationship’, Surf Boundaries bears few emotional scars on its sleeve. Instead, Willits applies sumptuous soundscapes and soothing melodies to appease the mood.

Although Willits’s work is in majority of instrumental nature, the addition of vocal harmonies throughout the record, albeit buried under dense layers of guitars and brass sediments, reveal a blissful dimension to his work that had, until know, only been expressed with parsimony. Here, Willits dares simple melodies and drifts into introspective pop, at times flirting with shoegaze (Love Wind, Finding Ground, Yellow Spring), or stripping down to near-acoustic (Like Water), at others blowing a digital breeze over intricate constructions (Colors Shifting, Orange Lit Spaces).

As the album progresses and Willits redefines his soundscapes with each new track, he manages to retain the peaceful atmosphere all the way through by seamlessly bringing together his compositions with constant sonic touches. Surf Boundaries is one of these records that gradually reveal more depth and relief with each listen and ends up sticking in the mind.

SVALASTOG: Woodwork (Rune Grammofon)

2006-09-12T00:51:00.000+01:00

SVALASTOG
Woodwork
RCD2056
Rune Grammofon 2006
10 Tracks. 45mins25secs

Buy it: CD
Rune Grammofon

Svalastog’s take on Folk music is nothing short of interesting. Using traditional Norwegian acoustic instruments as a basis for his work, Per Henrik Svalastog then processes them to create a series of delicate hypnotic pieces with impressive evocative power.

Originating from Tromsø, Norway, home of Biosphere, Röyksopp, Alog, Mental Overdrive and many more fine electronic artists, Svalastog is perhaps best known for being one half of electronic duo Information, with who he has released three albums to date, the last one, Biomekano, published on Rune Grammofon four years ago, but he has also contributed a number of 12” and remixes under a variety of monikers, and released his debut solo album, Silencer, last year on Beat Service. Now returning to Rune Grammofon with his sophomore effort, Woodwork, he continues to explore the sonic imprints of various traditional instruments.

The idea for this solo project originated from the moment Svalastog found an old Harpeleik, a Norwegian zither, which once belonged to his grandfather, and decided to momentarily turn his back on all things electronic to focus on more natural and organic sound sources. Working from improvisations played on old acoustic instruments, Svalastog weaves intricate vignettes around incredibly detailed and sophisticated loops of incredibly to create a series of impressive cinematic compositions. Dressed in elegant acoustic debris, melodies only emerge to dissolve almost instantly, caught up in tribal rhythmic patterns, contributing further to the fragile aspect of this record.

There is a sturdy unity running throughout this record. The process used seems almost identical from one track to the next, yet on closer inspection, Svalastog combines the various elements of a particular composition into ephemeral structures, which give each piece a unique tone. From the onset of The Wood Metal Friction, which slowly lifts off from a vaporous flute-style wind instrument to develop into a cyclic rhythmic theme, Svalastog establishes the master process for the rest of the album. Snow Tracer, which follows, appears as a simple continuation of the previous track, but slow luminescent tones illuminate the background all the way through and give the piece an entirely different emotional facet. On Mouse Tracking, he liquefies the sonic incantations by introducing sliding string elements and builds on sparse bass drums and light percussive twitches to give Reforestation delightful magnetism. Even on the monolithic ambient Slow Blowing Wireless, Svalastog develops a series of deep-reaching patterns and assembles them into a stunning sonic composition.

Very much like Thomas Strønen with his solo debut, Pohlitz, released earlier this year, Per Henrik Svalastog creates an impressionist piece of work, using delicate touches and light textures to highlight the natural sheen of his original sound sources. Magnificent, graceful and evocative in every way, Woodwork is one of the most compelling Rune Grammofon releases to date.

COLLEEN ET LES BOITES A MUSIQUE: Colleen Et Les Boîtes A Musique (The Leaf Label)

2006-09-07T23:22:00.000+01:00

COLLEEN ET LES BOITES A MUSIQUE
Colleen Et Les Boîtes A Musique
BAY53CD
The Leaf Label 2006
14 Tracks. 38mins55secs

Buy it: CD
Colleen | The Leaf Label

Colleen is a very singular artist with a sharp visionary mind and a deep understanding of a wide range of music genres. Based in Paris, where she has spent most of her life, Cécile Schott as she was born, was classically trained, but she has since embraced modern technology to support her work.

Colleen's work first emerged on a joint compilation from French imprints Active Suspension and Clapping Music, which rapidly lead to her being signed on Leaf. Her first album, Everyone Alive Wants Answers (2003) made good use of electronically treated acoustic elements and samples to create rich evocative soundscapes in which she dressed her compositions. Her second effort, The Golden Morning Breaks saw her abandoning this process to focus solely on acoustic instruments, something she had been using during live performances for some time.

Her latest offering comes in the shape of a wonderfully poetic and ambitious mini album. Originally commissioned by French public service radio station France Culture for their Radiophonic Workshop programme, the work featured here is entirely based on sounds sourced from music boxes, with Colleen adopting, for one release, a collective name. For this project, Schott worked with a wide array of music boxes, not only utilising them as they were intended to, but also playing them with her fingers or with small mallets. The sounds were sampled and reassembled to create a string of exquisite compositions centred around incredibly sophisticated and intricate melodic formations, with only the odd effect affecting the dynamic range of the sound sources. At times deceptively simple, at others finely layered, the fourteen tracks create a wonderfully dreamy soundtrack which ebbs and flows with the assorted rhythmic patterns and melodies that constantly flourish all the way through.

Even more so than on her previous recordings, Colleen favours here utterly intimate and delicate tones and crafts a masterful piece of work with deep emotional roots. Although she works here with very few components here, she creates a series of wonderfully evocative and rich poetic vignettes in what is her most fascinating record yet.

ADRIAN KLUMPES: Be Still (The Leaf Label)

2006-09-07T01:07:00.000+01:00

ADRIAN KLUMPES
Be Still
BAY56CD
The Leaf Label 2006
09 Tracks. 51mins05secs

Buy it: CD
Adrian Klumpes | The Leaf Label

Adrian Klumpes usually officiates as part of Australian formation Triosk, with whom he has released two albums, including the recent The Headlight Serenade, and collaborated with experimental sound artist Jan Jelinek. Be Still is his first foray into solo work.

Built from recordings made during a single five-hour long improvisation session, Be Still originally intended to capture part of the creative process behind his music, yet the subsequent processing revealed a much more complex and somewhat abstract tone. While the recording context certainly influences the nature of this record, the nine tracks collated here appear especially suspended in both time and space. Although the scope of these tracks varies greatly, from the dreamy introspection of the piano-lead Cornered, Be Still or Passing Pain and the gleaming cinematic Unrest to the darker and more minimal Weave In And Out or Alone and the oppressive Why, Klumpes creates here a surprisingly captivating work. Melodies are delivered either in voluptuous swathes or rarified dry splinters and indifferently placed in various places throughout these compositions, sometimes forming the main body of a piece, at others hopelessly left drowning in clouds of sounds.

Moody and dense, Be Still appears at times unsettling, especially when Klumpes manipulates the original piano source sounds into thick structures, as on the stern Why, or to a lesser extend on the compulsive monotone Exhale. At its most experimental and treated, this album becomes almost entirely textural and atmospheric, yet, when he returns to more clearly charted territories, Klumpes crafts highly contrasted emotional landscapes on which this album ultimately relies on to express its narrative in full.

There is a similar scintillating aspect to this as to Triosk’s recent The Headlight Serenade. The way Klumpes approaches music through cascading sheets of pianos, and processes his sound sources into tiny particles that often hang in the air long after he has finished with them, give his work a pleasing gloss and contributes to his music being somewhat more accessible than one would initially expect from such a dry creative process. While he sometimes deals with darker concepts, and he certainly does here on a few occasions, he still relies on lighter elements to lift up his experimentations and bring them to life.

MINT: Out Of Context / INIGO KENNEDY: Transaction (Rednetic Recordings)

2006-09-05T07:55:00.000+01:00

The ever-excellent Rednetic deliver another couple of fine releases with new EPs from Mint and Inigo Kennedy.

MINT
Out Of Context
RN008
Rednetic Recordings 2006
07 Tracks. 29mins17secs

Mint | Rednetic Recordings

Out Of Context is the latest offering from Mint, AKA Murray Fisher, who also operates as one half of Boltfish Recordings. Collecting five original tracks and two remixes, this EP, Fisher’s first for Rednetic, is another foray into classic electronica territories. Lush melodies, crisp beats, warm soundscapes; Fisher builds impressive formations here, from the moody Coerce, which opens, and Out Of Context, to the feverish electro of Roman Triangle, the rampant melancholy of Russian Doll or the uplifting luminescence of Future Automation. Each track offers a slightly different angle to Fisher’s approach, yet they all integrate perfectly with each other, creating a constant flow of rich electronic soundscapes and ambiences. Mint’s own remix of Coerce reveals a much more dance floor-friendly touch, while Neytoda’s take on Out Of Context gives the track a surprisingly urban feel.

Fisher creates here another fine record, at times hinting at classic Detroit techno, and certainly reminiscent of early Warp or ART releases. Yet, this EP is certainly no painful nostalgic homage. Fisher knows very well how to manipulate classic ideas to make them sound fresh and modern, and he does it here once again with great elegance and disconcerting ease.

INIGO KENNEDY
Transaction
RN009
Rednetic Recordings 2006
07 Tracks. 38mins52secs

Inigo Kennedy | Rednetic Recordings

A London-based musician and DJ who has released an impressive amount of records under various aliases on countless labels, including his own, Asymmetric, Inigo Kennedy delivers here a sumptuous collection of electronic pieces for Rednetic. Spread over almost forty minutes, the seven tracks forming the backbone of this release go from beautifully crafted dreamy down-tempo compositions (Passing Doorways, It’s Complicated, A Timeless State) to raging techno moments (Runway Dreams, Quirky Night) without for a moment threatening the finely tuned balance of this album.

All the way through, Kennedy assembles incredibly complex compositions yet manages to retain the melodic aspect of each piece. Passing Doorways sets the standard for the rest of Transaction. Here, Kennedy brings together a haunting melody, sharp glitches and vast soundscapes into a tortured piece, articulating them around three distinct sections expertly jointed together.

Both Runway Dreams and Quirky Night hint at a much more dance floor-orientated approach, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on any Dust Science releases. While a crisp driving beat rolls over moody analogue waves on Runway Dreams, creating a sharp hypnotic piece, Quirky Night introduces a much lighter tone. At times reminiscent of B12 or early Black Dog, the spirit of Detroit is perhaps much more palpable here than anywhere else on this record. The last four remaining tracks bring the pace down drastically, with Kennedy exploring different atmospheric settings, from the dreamy It’s Complicated and A Timeless State to the more earthy Ideas Arriving and Faraway Towns. Transaction is a truly stunning collection of beautifully produced electronica which is likely to leave any admirer of the genre wanting more. Much much more.

TRIOSK: The Headlight Serenade (The Leaf Label)

2006-09-02T19:38:00.000+01:00

TRIOSK
The Headlight Serenade
BAY49CD
The Leaf Label 2006
11 Tracks. 56mins05secs

Buy it: CD
Triosk | The Leaf Label

Triosk were formed in Sydney, Australia, in 2001 by Laurence Pike (drums), Adrian Klumpes (piano and keyboards) and Ben Waples (bass), three musicians with deep roots in improvised jazz. The first manifestation of the band was their collaboration with Jan Jelinek on 1+3+1, published in 2003 on ~Scape. The music on this album was created out of largely improvised sessions over pre-recorded loops, a process they also adopted for Moment Returns, their proper debut album, released on Leaf a year later.

The Headlight Serenade is the fruit of a much more considered approach. While improvisations still serve as the main basis for the compositions presented here, the tracks were developed over a longer period of time, each idea being worked on to its full potential. This results in a much more accomplished collection of tracks and a more consistent feel to the whole album. Right from the opening moments of Visions IV, the melody blows a gently breeze over shimmering orchestration and discreet drums, creating a rich dreamy setting far removed from urban connections. All along this album, Triosk refine the same principle, expertly applying it to various sonic contexts. Although there are still strong connections with the electronica movement to be found scattered over this album, Triosk seem to have adopted a resolutely more live approach. If the source improvisation have been processed and rearranged, the band’s aim at retaining the organic aspect of that part of their work means that this album feels extremely natural and flows beautifully from start to finish. While it is certainly apparent on Visions IV, One, Twenty-Four or Fear Survivor, and even more so on Intensives Leben, the vast sonic spaces of Lazyboat or Vostok reveal multiple layers of iridescence all contributing to the glistening feel of each piece.

There is more of a classic jazz feel to The Headlight Serenade than there was on its predecessor, yet this is not to say that Triosk have turned their back on experimentations. The tail end of Lazyboat or the cascading dissonances of Headlights are amongst the most obvious escapades into rugged terrains, but Triosk continuously challenge their boundaries to assert their sonic space. With this album, they combine accessible structures with more difficult sections with great agility and never lose focus on retaining the most vibrant part of their live improvisations.

MARSHALL WATSON: Math And Other Word Problems (Highpoint Lowlife Records)

2006-08-30T22:04:00.000+01:00

MARSHALL WATSON
Math And Other Word Problems
HPLL019
Highpoint Lowlife Records 2006
09 Tracks. 47mins52secs

Marshall Watson | Highpoint Lowlife

Seattle-based Marshall Watson returns to the Highpoint Lowlife shore with a second collection of brushed electronic tones and chilled moods. Follow up to The Time Was Later Than He Expected, released almost two years ago, Math And Other Word Problems sees Watson dive deeper into warm melodic electronica to explore a much wider range of soundscapes and atmospheres. While he was at times showing a certain lack of maturity on his debut, this sophomore effort is much more cohesive and mature.

Wrapped in gentle dub, crisp minimal techno and lush electronica, Watson’s compositions become wonderfully fluid and evocative as he punctuates this album with cinematic moments and intricate sequences. All the way through, he alternates between expressive layered soundscapes and more intimate minimal structures to finely balance the general atmospheric tone of the record. From the ambitious setting of the opening track, Invariant, with its faux-airs of soulful pop song and its lethargic groove, to the vast expanses of Ungula, the faint glitch abrasions of The Rules Of False Positions or Pascal’s Triangle or the obsessive frenzy of Parallelagram, Watson constantly refines sounds and atmospheric elements, applying them with infinite precision. This results in Math And Other Word Problems being consistent and flowing well from start to finish.

All throughout though, it is on melodies that Watson focus is. Already a strong feature of his first album, it becomes here even more omnipresent here. But he doesn’t always go for the most obvious, developing instead interesting sidelines underneath layers of sound. This is very much the case on The Law Of Signs and, to a lesser extend, on Parallelagram, where, instead of building the overall sonic structure around the leading melody, he inserts subtle tonal nuances in the background and creates tunes out of very rudimentary components. Elsewhere though, he dares sweeping pastoral escapades (Ungula, Harmonic Analysis Of Periodic Function), acoustic whirlwinds (Imaginary Number) or heartfelt emotions (Pascal’s Triangle).

While Watson’s debut album was a rather promising offering, Math And Other Word Problems steps up the mark and delivers with every track. His focus is much clearer and concise, and the delivery much more polished and full of class.