The Answer Is In The Beat

Tujiko Noriko: My Ghost Comes Back (Editions Mego, 2014)

November 30, 2014 at 10:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

First solo Tujiko Noriko album since 2008, and her first on eMego since 2007. This is a bit more of an expanded sound than some of her more poppy earlier works, with tracks stretching out into ambitious suites (opening track “My Heart Isn’t Only Mine” is nearly 15 minutes long!) featuring lush instrumentation (horns, strings, koto, vibraphone, organ) in addition to the usual synths and glitches. There’s also a few guest vocalists (Maxwell August Croy of Root Strata label on several tracks; Chloé Fabre on “Through The Rain”) and drums by Austrian drummer Martin Brandlmayr (Radian, Trapist, Polwechsel, etc) on a couple others. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember hearing Tujiko sing in English as much as she does on this album. “Minty You” comes closest to the glitchy downtempo sound of her previous albums, but “Through The Rain” has far more of a live band sound with her usual quirky melodicism. “Under The White Sheets” changes several times through its 6 minutes, adding whistling synths (maybe a theremin or saw), horns, and different stumbling beats. “My Ghost Comes Back” ends the album with another long, woozy suite of slow, crashing dub-flavored beats, softly strummed instruments and gentle vocals.

Loscil: Sea Island (Kranky, 2014)

November 30, 2014 at 9:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Minimalist ambient dub techno from the drummer for Destroyer. While still minimal, this has a fuller sound than some of his previous works; there’s plenty of panning and miniscule detailed production techniques. There’s also use of vibraphone and Rhodes, and even some vocals (as on “Bleeding Ink”). Eerie minimal reverberations and ocean-wide bass vibrations. “Sea Island Murders” has slow backwards rushes, and slow bass pulses and pianos towards the end. “Iona” goes through 4 minutes of shimmering and drifting until a melodic pulse takes over for the second half of the track. “Catalina 1943” starts slowest and most minimal, but eventually shines with subtle pulses and distortion. “Sturgeon Bank” has another soft, minimalist melody and softly ticking beats. “En Masse” has more upfront pianos atop softly pulsating bass, and kind of granulated textures if you dig a bit deeper and listen to the sounds underneath. “Angle Of List” ends the album with its most straightforward ambient drone. The whole album is relaxing and simple on the surface, but there’s actually quite a bit buried deep if you pay attention to it.

Dreamcrusher: Suicide Deluxe tape (Hausu Mountain, 2014)

November 29, 2014 at 6:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Wichita-based artist Dreamcrusher is redefining all things noisy, distorted and blown-out, applying jarring levels of in-the-red to sturdy mechanical beats. The title track uses rave-inspired breakbeats, but others such as “Godless Chic” and “Ghost Orchid” have more of a trap influence. Tracks such as “Novokuznetsk” weld harsh feedback into melodic as well as rhythmic elements, in surprising and confounding ways. The tempos are surprisingly fast and giddy, and a few almost cheerful melodies poke through on tracks such as “Goths At The Beach”. All of this comes together on the 9-minute finale “Hypernova Bloodbath”. No other release I’ve heard this year (or possibly ever) sounds harsh enough to strip paint off the walls, yet is still grounded in solid beats, and even danceable. This crushes way more than just dreams. An absolute must-download at Bandcamp (tapes are available there, too).

Mark McGuire: Noctilucence 12″ EP (Dead Oceans, 2014)

November 29, 2014 at 5:20 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A companion piece to this year’s LP Along The Way, Noctilucence finds the former Emeralds guitarist stretching out a bit, with 2 of the EP’s 5 tracks exceeding 10 minutes. This release isn’t as vocal-heavy as his last (only opener “Freedom Of Spirit” has some hushed vocals) but the beats are more prominent and even danceable. The guitar solos definitely push things more into classic rock guitar virtuoso territory, especially on the 12-minute title track (which also seems to be the most danceable one). 14-minute closer “Astral Protection” tones things down a bit, going for more of an extended zone-out, with soft rhythms and guitar flares simmering during the song’s second half.

Flug 8: Trans Atlantik (Disko B, 2014)

November 28, 2014 at 8:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Newest album from musician/photographer Daniel Herrmann, whose Flug 8 project explores minimal electro-pop and Krautrock-inspired techno. Several tracks feature Herrmann’s monotone, minimal-wave-inspired vocals, but the beats are steady enough to fill a tech-house dancefloor. “Trans Atlantik” and “Musik Aus Metall” show the most blatant Kraftwerk influence, although the latter features metal sounds by N.U. Unruh of Einsturzende Neubauten, and there’s a few other kling-klanging moments on the album as well, such as “Hohenkammer”. The album detours for some more downtempo moments a few times, with “Watch Me Grown” and “On A Spear” featuring Bjorkian vocals from Mono Girl. “Android” turns the arpeggiator up and the tempo down closer to actual Trans Europe Express speed. “Ostsee” is even slower, more shimmering, and lyrical. “Zukunft” is the album’s longest tunnel-trance moment, at nearly 10 minutes. “Maler” provides the album with one last fluttering, twinkling midtempo blissout, before the shakey, sputtery “Zeckenwalzer” ends the album on a somewhat confusing note.

Secret Pyramid: The Silent March LP (Nice Up International, 2011/reissued Students Of Decay, 2014)

November 28, 2014 at 6:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Following last year’s Movements Of Night LP (one of my favorite releases of the year), Students Of Decay is now reissuing the project’s 2011 tape The Silent March on vinyl, as well as releasing both as a 2-for-1 CD. Compared to the more drifting, icy Movements Of Night, The Silent March seems to be more overtly guitar-based, coming close to ’90s space-rock (pick any favorite Kranky or VHF band) and Popol Vuh soundtracks, with softly flowing waves of sad guitar drones. “Still Return” in particular shreds with noisy guitar and soft vocals. “Her Spirits” strips back to spare, slow guitar strumming and whispered vocals, until the scorched distorted guitar comes in after a minute and a half, followed by tambura drone and chimes. “Eternal” is another lost, wandering drone with guitar and chimes that builds over 8 minutes, getting increasingly intense during its second half. The two “Silent March” interludes briefly call out from the gray fog.

David Greenberger & The Pahltone Scooters: Fractions By Stella (Pel Pel Recordings, 2014)

November 23, 2014 at 3:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This album was recorded in the mid-’90s and originally released in 1999 under a different title (I Still Feel Like Myself) in an edition of 100 copies by a label called Ponk Records. The album features David Greenberger reciting monologues based on conversations with members of the Duplex Nursing Home and an elderly center in Schenectady, and features a cast of backing musicians including Frank Pahl and Eugene Chadbourne. I haven’t really dug into the numerous Duplex Planet CD releases over the years, but I’m assuming they’re along the lines of this one. The main thing on this album that sticks out to my ears is “Everything Belongs To Someone”, which is based on a conversation with Jack Mudurian, whose stream-of-consciousness rambling-geezer opus Downloading The Repertoire is essential listening. On this song, Mudurian (channeled by Greenberger) rattles off a list of things that apparently belong to someone (appliances, vehicles, household objects), but he doesn’t say who they belong to. He even stops a few times and says he can’t think of anything else, but then he remembers more and keeps on going, just like on Downloading. And he stops and tells David he needs a new belt, and he ends it all by stopping and says he needs a drink of water. Can’t even imagine what having a conversation with that man would’ve been like. Besides that, this album has songs about headaches, eggs, snow, smoking, drumming, Frankenstein, and some sort of murder mystery. The instrumentation is the kind of eclectic, often found/prepared instrumentation typical of the artists involved (Chadbourne plays an electric windshield wiper on “Mechanical Men”, and there’s prepared instruments, toy instruments, and things like harmoniums, ocarinas, zithers and conch shells), and the pieces are mostly short miniatures which musically illustrate the brief snippets of conversation and then make their exit.

Child: untitled tape (Life Like, 2014)

November 16, 2014 at 5:57 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This was a super-secret limited-to-20-copies tape that Child created for his performance at Far House a couple days ago. The entirety of his performance was the first track on this tape, a 2-minute eerie synth-drone-sample-plus-delay piece called “What The Sermon Said”. After that piece blusters and fizzles out, a trippy, fuzzy, fun synth-arpeggio song called “Drug-Free Youth” starts, and continues for the remainder of the side. “Glass Box (Version)” takes up the entire B-side, and it’s a much darker, more distorted thing, getting noisier and more horror-summoning as it progresses, especially with the presence of a creepy melody that sneaks into for the final few minutes.

Supersilent: 12 (Rune Grammofon, 2014)

November 16, 2014 at 5:31 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Supersilent is a long-running Norwegian improv supergroup, consisting of Rune Grammofon regulars Arve Henriksen (trumpet), Ståle Storløkken (keyboards) and Helge Sten (“audio virus”). Sten recorded a series of groundbreaking dark ambient albums under the name Deathprod in the ’90s and ’00s, which were collected on an incredible box set in 2004. Since drummer Jarle Vespestad left Supersilent a few years back, the group’s sound has shifted a bit closer to that dark ambient Deathprod sound, but also reminiscent of early pre-arpeggio Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh, as well as other dark eerie soundtrack artists from the ’70s. Some of the group’s earlier albums are sprawling, patience-requiring sessions, but this one is relatively concise, with 13 mostly-short tracks totaling 43 minutes. Generally dark and shadowy and slow-moving, with some theremin-like sounds (as on “12.2”), woozy vibrations and rusty clanging (“12.4”), solitary trumpet (“12.5”, “12.7”), bugged-out distorted organ (“12.6”), and a couple notes of stumbling, murmuring piano (“12.10”). Closing track “12.13” is the longest at nearly 6 minutes, and begins with chaotic synth washes, rumbling, and bell-like tolling, then gets quiet and alien for the second half.

Andy Stott: Faith In Strangers (Modern Love, 2014)

November 16, 2014 at 4:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Andy Stott’s Luxury Problems album from 2012 was truly an eye-opener, taking the “knackered house” sound he’d been developing and transforming it into something more otherwordly, with angelic vocals and a few harsh jungle breakbeats. His newest effort, Faith In Strangers, goes even further leftfield in several more directions, and is even more fascinating. When “Violence” first started making the rounds online, I was immediately in love, and at this point it’s probably my favorite song of the year. It starts out sparse with hushed vocals and alarming distorted synth tones, and then when the beat hits a few minutes into it, it just swarms and gets really powerful. Completely addictive. And of course, the rest of the album doesn’t sound quite like it, but it also uses space and ambience and distortion and ethereal vocals and harsh beats and bass in different combinations and almost always ends up with something thoroughly engrossing. “Time Away” starts the album with a simple-enough drone to set the mood, but after “Violence”, “On Oath” shifts through skeletal, clanging beats and lunging bass tones, and more faint, echoing vocals. “Science & Industry” adds some vintage drum machine beats, adding a minimal-wave pulse, along with more clanging beats, bass tones and gorgeous vocals. “No Surrender” starts with a metallic cascade of distorted synth chords, and after this dissolves into chiming sounds, the track REALLY begins, with severely blown-out bass and mutilated, slurred, mushed-up breaks, taking the “diseased” sound of his previous works to new levels. “How It Was” brings Stott back to the “knackered house” sound he was exploring a few years ago, with a corroded 4/4 beat and sickly, muffled bass. “Damage” sounds like Stott’s fractured take on grime, with lurching beats and distorted bass pings shooting straight into the gutter. “Faith In Strangers” is the most accessible, poppy song on the album, with post-punk bass guitar, a sprightly tempo, a bit brighter synths (but still a bit dark and gloomy) and ghostly-yet-catchy vocals. “Missing” ends the album with another dark, funereal dirge, with hollowed-out bass guitar emanating from a distance and some faint chiming synth sounds, and shadowy vocals reminiscent of Zola Jesus’ background vocals. A truly wondrous albm, confounding expecations even from his previous diversions into unknown territory, and the second brilliant album Stott’s released this year (the other being Millie & Andrea’s Drop The Vowels, which explored jungle/juke permutations and was more dancefloor-focused).