October 13, 2015 at 8:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Spray Paint: Dopers
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.
October 11, 2015 at 4:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Le Flange Du Mal: Carrion, My Wayward Son LP
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.
October 11, 2015 at 3:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Grant Evans: Silent Refusal tape
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’.
October 11, 2015 at 3:19 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Sindre Bjerga: Fugue States tape
Seriously warped live wreckage making improper usage of mutilated classic rock and reggae tapes, circuit-fried sampling instruments, and bizarre vocal antics worthy of Crank Sturgeon or Ghédalia Tazartès. You feel like you’re starting to melt and decompose and then you get jolted awake by shocking distorted telephone rings. It gets still and ambient for a while, and a lonely, decaying voice calls out via tape. Such a strange, disconcerting tape, I can barely imagine what attending these performances must be like.
October 11, 2015 at 12:03 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Opaline: Open Source tape
This guy keeps getting better and better. Now over a dozen tapes deep, Portland synth artist Hunter Peter Thompson seems to have an endless supply of bubbling, enveloping synth jams. Warm and soothing drones, but with inviting melodies that could be really laid back, atmospheric synth-pop tunes. This tape’s tracklist suggests coming back to a familiar place, becoming immersed and losing yourself, regrouping, and then departing. Listening to his
many tapes continually brings back that feeling.
October 10, 2015 at 11:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Ocean Charter of Values & Lung Cycles: split tape
The OCOV side is some very drifty ambient folk, with distant pounding drums, still summer night air drone, and some lost-in-the-prairie vocals. The second side by Lung Cycles (the artist formerly known as Squanto) stood out to my ears more. Hissy drones played on cheap keyboards in public places during hot, humid days. Sometimes there’s some tape manipulations, adding some scrambled, alien-pitchshifted chattering voices in the mix, and sometimes there’s dogs barking or other incidental sounds. Very cheap fidelity, very hissy and flat-sounding, but it sounds like it was too hot and stuffy to worry about trivial things like that. The last track covers a very soothing keyboard drone with rain sounds and subtle tape manipulations. A really unique perspective on lo-fi tape drone. Free download on
Bandcamp.
October 10, 2015 at 10:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Boytronic: Bryllyant 12″ EP
Not familiar with this group, but apparently they formed in Hamburg in the early ’80s, released two albums and a handful of singles, and then their record label claimed rights to the name and put together an entirely different lineup of the band which recorded a few more albums. Anyway, Dark Entries just put out this EP of some of their early singles. The title track is included in two mixes, one of which features the track slowed down, the way Belgian DJ’s played it in 1988 at the height of the “new beat” movement. Playing 45s at 33 almost always makes them better, and this is no exception. The fact that this record plays at 45 RPM means that you can play it even slower and make it sound even sicker. The other two tracks on the record are entirely different, sounding like a Hi-NRG version of early Depeche Mode, and they’re awesome too, especially “Trigger Track”.
October 10, 2015 at 10:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Gagakirise and Eye: Gagakiriseye 7″
Who knows if the Boredoms will ever release new music, but this 7″ finds Eye fronting a Boredoms-influenced duo called Gagakirise. On “The Flash”, his vocals are alternately operatic and shrieking, and the music is anthemic, spacey, and destructive. It’s great fun. “Robobird2″ is very minimal and quiet for a minute and a half until it explodes with furious drum rolling and bursting, flaming guitars, as well as Eye’s wailing vocals. Lots of ideas packed into this short 7”, hopefully this is just a preview of something big to come later.
October 10, 2015 at 3:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Hylidae: Intransitive tape
Spacey electronic pop created on hardware. Lots of elements of analog synth noise drone stuff, but turned into pop songs. Some of it’s kind of like Peaking Lights, but not quite as dubby (a little bit, but not a lot). The second side amps up the dance beats, with “NTHE” and “Unwound” sounding like something that could be cleaned up and released on DFA, but then it wouldn’t sound as good. The last two tracks are instrumental and zone out a bit more. Could be a name to watch. Name-your-price DL on
Bandcamp.
October 10, 2015 at 3:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Charles Barabé / Jean-Sébastien Truchy: Les Confessions II / Souvenirs Rompus, Oubliés Ou Ma Vie Réinventée split tape
Last year, Quebec composer Charles Barabé released
“Insultes (hommage à John Cage)”, the most flat-out hilarious recording of the year, which set a computer voice reading negative YouTube comments about a performance of
4’33” to clattering, noisy drone. This tape is the first work I’ve heard by Barabé other than that piece, and it’s equally stunning for entirely different reasons.
“Les Confessions II” is a dense, bracing, busy collage of street sounds (clunking footsteps, traffic, chattering) with saxophone flutters, modular synth noise, and later some guitar layers and I think a Fleetwood Mac “Albatross” sample. The modular passages are sizzling, messy, and brain-warping, and the way everything else is mixed creates such an overcrowding, all-encompassing effect. It is just simply astonishing. I haven’t heard Truchy before, and
his side has a similar city-voyager type feel, although it’s not quite as dense or noisy surrealist. Lots of field recordings of public transit rides, and much more of a minimalist, spacious feel. It does eventually get into some eerie synth droning, and then some more piercing, rumbling, noisy tones. Then we get into a ring modulated trip accompanied by close-miked whispering in French, and then eventually landing into some nature sounds. A pretty interesting audio journey, but not as incredible as the Barabé side.
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