The Answer Is In The Beat

Esmerine: Lost Voices (Constellation, 2015)

October 24, 2015 at 4:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Esmerine are one of many bands associated with the Montreal community of musicians which include post-rock groups such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion, and they are especially noted for emphasizing strings (cello and violin) and mallet percussion instruments (such as marimba and vibraphone) over guitars. Their usage of instruments such as sarod, darbuka, and riq give their music an air of otherworldly mystique, but it still has a directness and familiarity to it. Songs such as “A River Runs Through This City” have upfront, snapping drum beats and clear, chiming melodies. “19/14” plays with the tricky time signature implied by its title, but the way it incorporates its melody into the steadily growing waves of sound proves to be enrapturing rather than difficult. “My Mamma Pinned a Rose on Me” is a sublime sea of marimba and strings which sets the tone for the exotic-sounding “Funambule (Deux Pas De Serein)”, which elevates to the most intense crescendo on the album. The album’s last two pieces are shorter and more peaceful, concluding with the graceful “Lullaby For Nola”. A seriously lovely album, full of suspense and wonder.

Doug Hream Blunt: My Name Is Doug Hream Blunt (Luaka Bop, 2015)

October 21, 2015 at 11:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Once again, Luaka Bop unearths a record collector phenomenon/cult classic and gives it a widespread release, hopefully spreading the legend in question even further. Doug Hream Blunt is a San Francisco-based musician who started making music in the ’80s and eventually pressed 2 12″ records which sat in the “local” bins around San Francisco’s record stores, and eventually became discovered by music geeks and made its way to WFMU and other sources for strange, offbeat music. His shining moment is (and will always be) the astonishing outsider soul masterpiece “Gentle Persuasion”, which is entirely the type of song that completely stops you in your tracks the first time you hear it. All I have to say is, you will never hear the word “butt” the same way after you hear this song. I’ve listened to this song more times than I can count (I actually found an original copy of the record when I was in Austin once) and it never, ever gets old. Other than that, there’s the groovy “Fly Guy” (which also ends the album in an instrumental version which replaces the lyrics with loads of flutey synth soloing, unless it’s actually a really bizarre guitar sound, it’s hard to tell) and a lot of songs which, well, sound similar to the other songs but with different lyrics. The liner notes say that some of the songs even have the same backing tracks. They all tend to be around 5 or 6 minutes long and feature rhythms which are almost Krautrock-like in their hypnotic repetition. The songs all have very straightforward lyrics and copious amounts of guitar soloing. Sultry duet “Caribbean Queen” has nothing to do with the Billy Ocean hit of the same name (for all we know, it could’ve been recorded first). “Big Top” is one of of a few songs with cheery, circus-like melodies. It’s impossible to tell when these songs were recorded (even the artist doesn’t seem to know for sure) and some of them are pretty rough sounding, especially “Big Top” and “Trek”, but it all just lends to the off-the-cuff charm. “Gentle Persuasion” remains the smash hit, but if that song strikes a chord with you, you’ll want to hear the entire thing.

Spray Paint: Dopers (Monofonus Press, 2015)

October 13, 2015 at 8:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I’ve seen this band at SXSW twice, and both times I was pretty amazed at how noisy, discordant and just plain off it was. I feel like this album sort of hints at what I saw live but it would be best to see them in person. Still, this recording shows how they construct steady grooves that are a little bit blown out, sideways, dissonant, etc. Early no wave-era Sonic Youth is a starting point for comparison’s sake, but these guys approach guitar sounds in a much different manner. I’d say “Signal Master” is the best track to start with to get an idea of this band’s sound. “Chris’s Theme” and “Anyone Else Want In” are each 6 minutes; the former is more steady and grooving, and it has a layer of synth, and the latter is faster (but still steady) and builds layers of noisy guitars at the end. “Thrash Master” is fast and short, but I’d hesitate to really call it thrash. Also, I really hope the song title “Voice Modulator” is a Best Show reference.

Le Flange Du Mal: Carrion, My Wayward Son LP (Resipiscent, 2015)

October 11, 2015 at 4:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Political art-punk quartet with a small arsenal of instruments including horns, synths, organs, bells, tambura, and more. Apparently this band was active a decade or so ago and this is kind of a lost album, but it’s being released now and coincidentally, the original lineup of the band is playing shows again. Regardless of when this album was recorded, it sounds pretty current; some of it could be Scissor Now! with more instruments. What’s really remarkable is that this group avoids sounding messy or too weird for weirdness’s sake; all of the different instruments and intricate vocal arrangements make perfect sense, nothing sounds random or cluttered. In some weird way it’s even kind of poppy, not really “noise-rock” at all, although it’s still of interest to fans of music that gets branded with that term. The album’s most hypnotic, danceable cut turns out to be a Crass cover (“Shaved Women”). “Iacocca” appears to have some line about “burning Detroit”, if I’m hearing correctly.

Grant Evans: Silent Refusal tape (Invisible City Records, 2015)

October 11, 2015 at 3:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A much darker, more desolate set of drones than I’ve heard from Mr. Evans. Feels like glowing, radioactive machines, which makes it no surprise that “appliances” is listed as an instrument. A lot more is going on than that, however; there’s also cello, harp, guitars, organs, and feedback. It shifts very slowly and subtly over the course of two 25-minute sides. It manages to get darker and more austere during the second side. The title suggests that this is some sort of act of protest, and it’s hard to tell exactly what for, but whatever it is, he ain’t budgin’.