The Answer Is In The Beat

Shells: Outside tape (Astral Editions, 2022)

December 8, 2022 at 6:40 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Shelley Salant’s newest tape was recorded in her Detroit backyard last September, and it has a breezy feel as if it’s been picked up by the early autumn breeze and it’s just suspended in the sky. It’s a little like the longform pieces of Another Time from a few years ago. Her guitar playing just floats up and cycles, with gentle effects pulling the notes in different directions or prolonging the reveries. It’s quite scruffy and homespun, definitely the type of release that makes sense on a cassette. It’s very easy to just lose track of time listening to this. She already released a record called In a Cloud, but this one evokes that feeling even more.

Fadensonnen: Mirror/Creeper 1-sided LP (Fadensonnen Records, 2022)

November 27, 2022 at 2:57 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This Illinois noise-rock group’s newest vinyl release is a 20-minute slab of bleary, half-conscious confusion, with a stylophone. Starting with the drunken whirl of “Dekadence Ballet”, we’re flung into waves of lurching bass grooves and indecipherable vocals. The title track has a refreshing blanket of noise, and “Flophouse Waltz” is closer to mutated classic rock “Strollin'” is a haunted garage band trying to keep it together, and it has the same “what speed is this supposed to be playing?” feel as records by all those bands people were calling “shitgaze” 13 years ago.

TISM: Collected Versus (Seeland/Genre B. Goode, 2022)

November 25, 2022 at 6:12 pm | Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments

The newest release from Negativland’s Seeland label is a double CD anthology of a long-running Australian band called TISM (This Is Serious Mum). Going into this, I was expecting them to be some sort of mega-obscure experimental outfit that had loads of cassettes and maybe an actual record or two. Turns out this band was actually quite popular in their home country, even scoring a Top 10 gold-selling album in the ’90s. Musically, it’s very peppy, hook-filled dance-rock with bitterly funny lyrics that make fun of absolutely everything. Much of their music is filled with hyper-specific references to local culture that won’t make sense to anyone who isn’t Australian (or even from outside of Melbourne), but it’s easy to amused just by the absurdity of it all. Much like groups such as Sparks, Ween, and Captain Ahab, this is very much a band you have to get, but if you get it, they’re brilliant at what they do. The first disc of this compilation contains all their singles in chronological order. “40 Years – Then Death” appears early on, and it seems like a much more serious reflection on the brevity of life than their other songs. Besides that, though, it’s loaded with songs about subjects like Led Zeppelin’s drug provider, Martin Scorcese, wanting to quit the band and start a family, and Fred Durst as the messiah. The sound evolves from new wave to thrashy breakbeat techno, and I think they were at their best when they embraced techno-pop in the ’90s. I guess Chumbawamba is a good comparison, except TISM never had a moment of universal ubiquity. The more sample-driven tracks are definitely on the same wavelength as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (aka the KLF), and I’ve never listened to Half Man Half Biscuit, but they seem to have a similar sense of humor in regards to song titles. Also, I know I’ve heard someone, most likely Negativland, sample the unforgettable intro to “(He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River”, which goes “I’m on the drug that killed River Phoenix!” And “Garbage” is an amazing song against classic rock and the endless recycling of nostalgia. The second disc tells much more of the TISM story, with another 80 minutes of fan favorites. This includes a long rant against Jim Morrison, a cheerful sounding pop song about clubbing seals, several songs and rants about how life is shit, and a rant against rave culture from an aging rocker (though I’m not sure why Elastica is mentioned, they were clearly a rock band. But I guess to a middle-aged grizzled dude who loves pub rock, they would’ve sounded close enough to dance music). Finally, the band throws themselves into the landfill with the rocket-powered rave-up “TISM Are Shit”. A fun discovery for the rest of the world; their Wikipedia page is worth a perusal as well.

Pulse Emitter: Dusk (Hausu Mountain, 2022)

November 21, 2022 at 6:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Pulse Emitter’s second Hausu Mountain full-length is up there with the best of Steve Roach in terms of synthesizer music which evokes lush natural landscapes. Electronic music rarely feels as aquamarine as “Cloudside Dwellings”, a rippling, tunneling seaside expedition. More curious, fantasy-like new age pieces follow, with “The Road to Thrax” having more of a mysterious, haunted portal feel, but there’s also touches of playfulness to this music, even when it seems to drift down a forbidden path. “Fireflies” is pure magical forest music, and “Snow Diamonds” is essentially holiday season music for synth freaks. “Darkening Forest” is an accurate name for something that grows a bit more ominous, but “Mulch” feels like waking up and realizing you’re stuck in a blizzard, with a few sporadic gusts of wind blowing snow this way or that.

Good Willsmith: Is The Food Your Family Eats Slowly tape (Hausu Mountain, 2012/2022)

November 16, 2022 at 6:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Hausu Mountain is celebrating their tenth anniversary with reissues of a few of the well over 100 releases they’ve put out. Is The Food Your Family Eats Slowly was the label’s first cassette, and the very first release by the label’s flagship trio, Good Willsmith, which features two of HausMo’s founders, Doug Kaplan and Maxwell Allison, plus Natalie Chami. Like all of the band’s gigs and releases, this is an improv session constructed with loops, synths, and found sounds. Later Good Willsmith releases are more playful, more jammy, more rhythmic, more Krautrocky, but this is more of a glowing raga-influenced electronic drone. It’s divided into six tracks, but it’s really just one continuous piece. Vocal cries ebb and flow, synths sparkle and flicker, and guitar waves crest, breaking from the more meditative state with fritzy electronics and imitation whale calls near the beginning of the second side. The guitars sharpen and rise up as the vocal cries return, and then more lopsided guitar strumming and fuzz helps put the entire session to bed. Emerging from the noise/drone scene but with a new age sense of levitation, Good Willsmith’s debut opened a new portal in the universe of improv and experimental music.