May 15, 2016 at 10:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Steve Roach/Robert Logan: Biosonic
Steve Roach’s all-modular
Skeleton Keys album from last year won me over in a big way, and he’s never far from releasing a new album, so I’m excited to hear what’s coming next. He just simultaneously released two with younger UK musician Robert Logan.
Biosonic is a blend of many different styles and approaches, with catalog’s worth of digital and analog synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, you name it. It has its tribal trancey moments, some harder industrial ones, lots of glitching and intricate rhythmic patterns, lots of spacey drifting over everything. It’s really dense, really involved, and absolutely incredible. It feels like being in a giant warehouse full of machines, and every one of them is doing something different, and it’s easy to get lost trying to follow everything and figure out what they’re all doing. “Biosense” in particular is really rapid and complex, if I heard this blindly I would assume it was something on a post-Schematic netlabel. Pretty bonkers, and not the Steve Roach you might be expecting. The final track, “Amniotic Universe”, is 20 minutes long and gets pretty deep and droney after a while.
Steve Roach/Robert Logan: Second Nature
This is the space inhabited by
Second Nature, a more “traditional” Roach ambient album. Four tracks, one of which is a half hour long. Slo-mo pianos, silvery shafts of light, a bit of darkness, but it’s all the name of reflection and solitude. Definitely not the ecstatic thrill ride that
Biosonic is, but it’s certainly haunting and gorgeous, and worth sleeping to.
May 15, 2016 at 9:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Pete Namlook & New Composers: Russian Spring
Confession time: I’ve never listened to Pete Namlook. At least not that much. I have a few tracks on compilations, I heard Alien Community once, I think, and I might’ve bought one of his trance 12″s in a dollar bin and gotten rid of it soon after. This is a reissue of an album from a decade ago, and I have no clue how it compares to the rest of his catalog, but it sounds pretty calming and relaxing to my ears. Really nice, lush ambient textures, but it’s constantly moving and detailed, with nature sounds and mystical voices providing occasional narration of spaced-out thoughts. There’s moments that drift in warped, altered environments, others that are more transportive, and still others that sort of flow out like some sort of neon fountain. Really rich and imaginative, I’m excited to dive into this guy’s catalog now.
May 15, 2016 at 9:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Blood Rhythms: Assembly LP
A couple months ago, I got an unexpected package in the mail from Chicago. Attached to it was an ’80s issue of Rolling Stone with Huey Lewis on the cover, which is too darn awesome. I didn’t keep it, because really what am I going to do with it, but I should’ve at least snapped a photo, but I don’t remember to do things like that. But anyway, there were a bunch of cool CD-r’s in it, and a tape I haven’t gotten around to listening to yet, and this LP. The record doesn’t have a cover, but it was packaged in this custom cardboard sleeve (and I didn’t realize there was a record in it at first and almost threw it out, I just thought it was weird that it was so heavy). The record was apparently recorded in an inactive meat locker with 3 mini disc recorders (a dead format recording in a dead space which used to hold dead animals). The record is “playable at all speeds”, but the A-side is 45 and the B-side is 33. “Coarse Land” on the A-side is a dirty, gray drone made of rusty horns, and it sounds even more like death at 33. The second side, “Cutter Magnolias”, is disturbing in a different way. Really abrasive horns which sound like they’re covered in gunpowder and the musicians are blowing their brains out. Then eventually these horns get cut into samples, and are looped into repetitive, ever-building patterns, until they’re all squonking in unison. Then it just keeps getting heavier and more punishing. At some points it feels like the record’s skipping, but then it changes and you realized how hard your head’s just been played. And then I think it actually does end in a locked groove. Definitely the most hypnotic free jazz/noise record I’ve ever heard.
Blood Rhythms: Skin Flint CDr
The other Blood Rhythms release was the
Skin Flint CDr, which features project founder Arvo Zylo (who sent me the package) along with Wyatt Howland, aka Skin Graft. The opening title track is a 22-mintue excerpt of an hour-long improv session, and it’s constant in-the-red bleeding-ears harsh noise, but it feels like there’s some really blown out melodies buried underneath. Am I just imagining things? It sounds like there’s something trying to break out from all the nullifying static. Is there any escape from noise? “Melt Compartment” starts with a fast pattering rhythm which turns into wet splattering which then somehow turns into an even faster, pulled-apart rhythm. Eventually this all gets swallowed by a pulsating vessel of noise. “Zippers With Eyes” (the unedited version of a track which appeared in shortened form on a split tape) starts with another static-y rhythm, the type Alec Empire might’ve started a track with back in the day. The rhythm splashes with echo between the speakers, and of course it gets built up with distortion, eventually being fashioned into some sort of mutating audio fireball. And then later the beat picks up and gets even more DHR-sounding, turning into some sort of hell-dungeon gabber. Finally it all falls dead on the floor and it takes a good minute or so for my consciousness to re-adjust.
May 15, 2016 at 8:14 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
JT Whitfield: s/t LP
Austin’s Rural Isolation Project label has put out a few harsh, singeing, brutal, excellent LPs, but so far they’ve all been by Quttinirpaaq. Following a few cassettes, JT Whitfield has emerged on the label with another unforgiving listen. “Crawling Homes” grabs your attention immediately, with power electronics blasts and then a throbbing, convulsing industrial beat. “Hunting and Ingrown” starts quiet, then quickly plunges into thick, distorted noise. A spare, big-drum beat begins, and the noise bursts flare around it. It doesn’t exactly get brighter, but it gets less harsh as it goes. The second side is super bleak, though. “Pemphigoid” is seven minutes of droning and something violently crashing inside a huge, abandoned factory. And “Quarto Plate” sounds like something stumbling around and occasionally exploding and being shocked. For nine minutes. Super disturbing. Enter if you dare at
Bandcamp.
May 15, 2016 at 3:35 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Detroit Electronic Quarterly Volume 7: Spring Edition LP
is a magazine-plus-compilation series that has been in existence since 2005. They used to include CDs with their magazines, then they took a hiatus for a while, but last year they came back and started issuing vinyl records. Both the magazines and the albums aim to highlight some of the most exciting, lesser-known artists making waves in Detroit’s ever-growing, always exciting electronic music scene. The first side of this record focuses on house music, with straightforward, soulful tracks from Mike Clark (of Underground Resistance, not the ICP producer) and Todd Modes leading the charge. The Mike Clark track (“Just Can’t Wait”) is the most pop-leaning song here, Todd Modes’ “Serenity” has vocals, too, but it’s more of a band-based jam, with guitar and congas. Quinton McRae’s “Way of the Warrior” is a more stripped-down percussive track with primal cries. Marshall Applewhite’s “My Satellites” is down-and-dirty acid house, with a slower tempo, filthy distorted beat, pitched down vocal sample, and caustic acid squiggles. The second side of the LP is closer to techno, opening with “Song For 4B4A44” by The Valley and the Mountain, an incredible electro track which could’ve fit on one of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence compilations two decades ago. Discogs says this artist has 4 records out already, I’m seriously wondering why I haven’t heard of him/her/them at all before. Gustav Brovold is another new name (no records out, as far as I can tell), and his track the longest and most hypnotic one on the record. Steady, slowly building, minimal, driving, but with a bit of a spacey wash to it. Gary Martin’s “Charlotte” is even more minimal, with sly, ticking beat and a few stray guitar licks, eerie synth scans, and a howling vocal sample in the background. Even though this record just came out, there’s already an 8th volume on the horizon, which will be available this Memorial Day weekend in time for Movement, if all goes according to plan.
May 15, 2016 at 2:16 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Dieterich & Barnes: The Coral Casino
Collaboration between John Dietrich (Deerhoof) and Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk & A Hacksaw). As someone who has never been able to get into Deerhoof and completely burned out on NMH a decade ago, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. In all honesty, I think the fact that this album is instrumental helps me enjoy it so much. There’s nothing to distract me from the splashy drumming and colorful melodies. Apparently these two guys had never worked together before recording this album, but you’d never know it because their styles blend so fluidly here. It sounds like they came up with all of these tracks on the spot, yet there’s so much care put into them. There’s hints of Afrobeat rhythms, vintage soundtrack moods, some baroque-ness, maybe some influence from David Axelrod arrangements, and inevitably a whiff of Zappa. All of the tracks sound different, and it’s never predictable, yet it rarely sounds pretentious or calculated. The last track is about as manic and chaotic as it gets, and “Mummers” is a short burst of crashing drums. Other than that, it’s really spirited and exciting. “Philae Lands on Comet 67p_Churyumov-Gerasimenko” is a really cool jazzy/Krauty outerspace fantasy. “Sandwild” is really dense and frantic, but in an energetic way. “What” has the baroque harpsichord-like flourishes and a stumbling rhythm, but it maintains its composure and progresses in a thrilling way. “Brain Envy” recalls both instrumental Zappa and Can, but a bit more pumped-up than either. “The Frost Pocket” starts out with sorrowful strings and eventually builds to a thundering, dramatic climax. Quite a magnificent, dynamic album.
May 15, 2016 at 1:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
An Atomic Whirl: Mado Ni
Second album from a Tokyo-based noise-rock duo who recently played at Far House here in Ann Arbor. It was the most packed I’ve ever seen that basement, and these guys lit the house on fire. Seriously legit, reminds me of the Boredoms and Lightning Bolt but not as weird or punishingly noisy, but still really good. The tracks on this album vary from being intense and shouty or a bit more brooding and swirly. Some of it gets a little complex and mathy, but not enough to give you a headache. Free download on
Bandcamp!
May 11, 2016 at 10:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Iglooghost: Little Grids 12″ EP
Really bizarre, hyperactive, colorful fast-n-choppy electronic music from a UK producer who put out another EP on Brainfeeder last year called
Chinese Nu Yr that similarly confused and delighted me. It seems like he has some sort of hip-hop background, but this is just far more fast and glitchy than you’d expect from the beat scene. Very hyperkinetic songs which seem to pack tons of ideas into three minutes, sounding like something from any number of Japanese breakcore netlabels but less abrasive and with more of a pop sheen/focus. “Gold Tea” even has lush, choir-like R&B vocals. I think this is what I always hoped PC Music was going to sound like. Super cutesy and meta and impossible to exist without the internet, but without the ditzy girl-next-door vocals or bad taste or creepiness. This guy could end up making brains burst into cotton candy and sprinkles for a long time.
May 11, 2016 at 10:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Niagara: Hyperocean
First and foremost: this is not the Detroit artist Niagara who was once the vocalist for Destroy All Monsters. Nor is it any of the other bands called Niagara (it seems like every country has at least one). This is an Italian experimental electronic duo making glitchy, dreamy, sometimes hyperactive avant-pop. Sometimes they use a sea of samples (as in opener “Mizu”), other times they use their own distorted vocals. “Escher Surfers” starts with a staccato melodic loop reminiscent of Olive’s “You’re Not Alone” (I still love that song, not gonna lie), then surrounds it with clacking drums and multi-tracked vocals. The duo pack an enormous amount of detail into their fractured, rapidly flickering songs. They feel like they’re overflowing with activity sometimes, but they’re still structured in some sort of song structure. Basically, it’s a headphone album and takes several listens to fully absorb. Once you do, you uncover worlds of sinister voices, abrasive beats, and melting/flaming computer data. It gets messy and violent at times, like on the intense “Roger Water”. Yet there’s still an underlying calmness to even the most striking moments. There’s so much uneasiness, but even the album’s ugly moments pull you in. I don’t feel like I’ve unpacked nearly everything there is to discover inside this album.
May 11, 2016 at 10:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Chris Abrahams: Fluid to the Influence
The newest solo album from the Australian pianist (and member of The Necks) layers unconventional guitar techniques, cascading pianos, and abrasive glitches, sounding a bit discordant but balanced. A lot of this album might sound jumbled and displaced at first, but it makes more sense once you listen and get used to it. The tracks are all around 5 minutes in length, and the way they begin doesn’t always indicate the way they’ll end. “1 Liter Cold Laptop”, for example, begins with dazed, buzzing electronic tones and oddly twangy guitar, and halfway through it suddenly breaks and shifts to abrasive drilling noise. “Scale Upon the Land”, on the other hand, is contemplative piano with some minor glitchy processing. “Receiver” is one of the more cluttered, topsy-turvy tracks, with sounds spilling, scratching, and swooping all over the place, in a fascinating way. “Clung Eloquent” is more reflective, jazzy piano with some sort of weird electro-acoustic atmosphere and occasional soft bass drum thumping in the background. “Trumpets of Bindweed” introduces organs and cymbals which ring like bells, and is one of the album’s more spirited, magnificent pieces (even if it doesn’t really progress all that much). “The Stones Continued Intermittently” is a 6-minute drift through a stormy, shifting swamp, and ends up much sparser than most of the album. “As Tranquil As An Apple” has really precise, music box-like metallic tones, spinning and shining prettily, and joined by playful percussion thwacks. “Rust and Comet” seems like some sort of gritty guitar contraption spinning out of orbit. Some of this album reminds me of the more recent Oval material, but generally way more interesting. It’s hard to entirely grasp what he’s doing, but it’s different, and it often sounds great.
« Previous Page —
Next Page »
The Answer Is In The Beat 