The Answer Is In The Beat

Illuha: Akari (12k, 2014)

August 30, 2014 at 1:53 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This is Tokyo-based duo Illuha’s third album, all of which are on Taylor Deupree’s 12k label. The duo creates slowly drifting electro-acoustic minimalism, utilizing dozens of instruments, found sounds, and field recordings. The 5 pieces on here slowly unfold with layers of piano, fluttering backwards guitar plucks, controlled noise bursts, and measured bass notes holding things together in space. Things start out pretty sparse, especially on “Vertical Staves Of Line Drawings And Pointillism”, but around the middle of “The Relationship Of Gravity To The Persistence Of Sound” there starts to be a more expansive, encompassing sound. “Structures Based On The Plasticity Of Sphere Surface Tension” brings in nature sounds, but it’s hard to tell exactly what they are, it sounds like a combination of birds, water, rushing wind, and maybe others, along with more drifty Eno-ish ambience. “Requiem For Relative Hyperbolas Of Amplified And Decaying Waveforms” has similar rolling drone, but climaxes after 5 minutes with a wave of distorted noise which sweeps through and ramps up the intensity, taking things closer to Tim Hecker or Lawrence English than earlier moments on the album, before winding down to a close like an exhilarated sigh of relief.

Souls Of Mischief: There Is Only Now (Linear Labs, 2014)

August 24, 2014 at 11:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Souls Of Mischief will probably always be best known for the title track to their classic debut 93 Til Infinity. Their newest album has a similar timeless-yet-bound-to-the-mid-’90s feel; even though it’s called There Is Only Now, the now in question is 1994, which is when the album takes place. It’s structured like a radio broadcast, featuring frequent radio drops/IDs from A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammed, but it has a blaxploitation-like story line. Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes make appearances, but their contributions are much closer to their early-career incarnations than their more pop-oriented material. Busta Rhymes’ “Womack’s Lament” in particular is a frantic, cartoonishly violent caper, very reminiscent of the exaggerated-but-not-horrorcore-overkill violence of SOM’s debut, or even De La Soul Is Dead. Adrian Younge (who produced the latest Delfonics album) produced this album, and the music is entirely live instrumentation, no samples or programmed beats. The songs have tight, jazzy, funky instrumentation and are far more concerned with creating a narrative than coming up with easily hummable pop hooks. A creative album that’s highly enjoyable whether or not you’re familiar with this group and their legacy.

Half Japanese: Overjoyed (Joyful Noise, 2014)

August 24, 2014 at 8:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Half Japanese (who formed in Ann Arbor in the ’70s) have been one of my favorite bands ever since I started listening to them when I was in high school. This is their first album in 13 years, but their first album that I’ve actually heard since 1997’s epic Heaven Sent (which consists of an hour-long song, plus several brief variations on its theme). It’s been said that Half Japanese songs are either about monsters or girls, but most of Jad Fair’s work is simply about his pure, unbridled enthusiasm for life, and that’s entirely what this album is about. Instead of the cacophonous teen-angst noise freakouts of their debut 1/2 Gentlemen / Not Beasts, or the tender, heartfelt love songs of albums like Charmed Life, this album mostly consists of musical pep talks from Jad as he encourages you to live life to the fullest. The lyrics are typically off-the-cuff, and the music is simple, straightforward, and usually rocking (“The Time Is Now” is slower and stretches out to almost 6 minutes, a few other songs are slower too, otherwise it’s mostly mid-to-uptempo). Maybe it’s just because I’m so familiar with Jad and his work, but I just can’t help but be entertained by anything he does, I think his enthusiasm is just so infectious, rather than cloying or gimmicky. It feels geniune, he’s just being his own joyous self. So he can get away with saying things like “purrrr-fect, said the cat”, as on “We Are Sure”, in which he also refers to himself in third person as he tells you that you are great and you shouldn’t fear success, you should just do it because you’re on the right track. He can write songs about jumping into bodies of water made of chocolate as a metaphor for falling in love (as on “Each Other’s Arms”), because why not? Love is a sweet feeling. I’m happy that Jad Fair is still doing his thing after 4 decades, and that he’s still overjoyed about life, and I’m excited to see him again next month (9/7) at Trinosophes in Detroit.

Botanist: VI: Flora (The Flenser, 2014)

August 21, 2014 at 5:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Botanist is easily one of my favorite concent bands of all time. Plant-themed hammer dulcimer black metal! It’s almost too good to be true. All of the music is created by one guy, but they’re an actual band for live performances. I’ve only heart Botanist’s 2011 double(!)-album debut, but this is its 6th chapter, including an un-numbered split EP from last year. The project seems to have softened a bit since its debut. The lyrics used to be about plants taking over the world and destroying humanity (best song title: “Rhododendoom”), but this album finds Botanist at peace with his plants, and appreciating their natural beauty. The vocals here aren’t so much growled as they are whispered, and the hammer dulcimers have such interesting textures to them, sometimes they sound like layered sheets of guitar, and sometimes like pianos, and even sometimes like a harmonium or some other droning instrument. And of course there’s the hyperspeed drumming. It definitely sounds more like a band than a solo project. Unless he really is playing other instruments on this one and it just doesn’t mention it in the liner notes. Regardless, this is truly original, astounding music.

Crowhurst: Crowhurst And Montage tape (Trashfuck Records, 2014)

August 17, 2014 at 9:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A far cry from Crowhurst’s usual noise/black-metal, this is more wacked-out, Butthole Surfers-inspired weirdo experimental rock. The first track “No Dollar Menu Items After Midnight” has spoken lyrics taken from a Yelp review of McDonald’s, and it sounds like a lost King Missile song. Fucking amazing. After that, there’s lots of backwards effects, screwed-up instructions on how to operate a compact disc, a buried reggae sample, and a bonus cover of “Sweet Leaf”, which sounds appropriately blown-out and wasted. Available for free download on Bandcamp.

Richard Carr: Music For Four Electric Violins (self-released, 2014)

August 17, 2014 at 8:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Multi-layered, reverb/delay-utilizing compositions for modified violins. The first track reminds me of Jon Hassell, so that immediately piques my interest. Other tracks have kind of a rolling, minimalist rhythm to them, bringing to mind Steve Reich at some moments, and Dustin Wong at others. The middle of the album has calmer, more introspective pieces, but then there’s other pieces that are more effects-driven, creating multiple layers of movement using distortion and panning. Relaxing but still challenging and creative music.

v/a: Life Blood tape (Life Like, 2014)

August 17, 2014 at 7:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Life Like released its first compilation Lifers 2 years ago, and now its sequel is finally here. This one is a little shorter and less experimental, a bit more pop-focused, but still in an abstract way. It starts with a brief instrumental jam by the prolific Hydropark (which is already up to 4 tapes, all untitled), and then new songs from Ian Svenonius’ Chain & The Gang, E6-y indie-pop group Household Objects, and of course Saturday Looks Good To Me. Then there’s a few great tracks by some new names: really nice atmospheric electro-pop by Creme Betweens; dubby, High Places-like dreaminess from Babydown; dark, reverby folk from Itasca. Then there’s a brief, devastating track by dream-folk duo Raw Honey, who deserve to be much more well known. Then there’s a brief sample-and-beat blip by someone credited as Loop Goat, and then a more rocking track by Glass Clue, who I initially confused with Glass Rock and was wondering why it sounded more grungy and had a male singer. Then more cello-and-guitar dreaming from Known Moons (who is 1/2 of Raw Honey), and hard-jamming organ-driven noise-psych-rock from Mother Whale which suddenly cuts off mid-thought. Side B starts off with a brief, twinkly loop from Shigeto (who has a tape coming out on Life Like one of these days), and then a strummy song fro, Rebel Kind, who put out a 1-sided LP on Life Like last year. Then there’s an edited-for-immediate-direct-impact track from Scared To Death, a doom-metal/post-rock group who are sort of one of the secret weapons of the Ann Arbor music scene. Their album on Arbco is seriously amazing and deserves to be more widely known. Then there’s Wolf Eyes, who need no introduction, and some noisy free-rock from Anonymous Touch, and then local garage-rock heroes Tyvek end the tape. Limited to 100 copies and still available direct from Life Like.

Zeek Sheck: JOINUS 2xLP (Resipiscent Records, 2014)

August 17, 2014 at 3:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

First album in over a decade from lo-fi experimental pop artist Zeek Sheck. The band has a concept about a society living in a complex underground maze, with one of the members of the society sending his son to the surface to see the sun. The inner gatefold of the LP shows this maze, which feature a series of blue, red, yellow and green doors, each of which correspond to a side of the double LP. The first disc (blue and red doors) focuses on shorter, poppier songs, although in Zeek Sheck’s world, poppy tends to mean repeated mantras like “join us” or “I am nothing”, over a basic, hypnotic lo-fi beat and flurries of noises. There’s also some spoken word narratives tying this together. The main singer has sort of a scratchy Daniel Johnston quality to her voice, but the songwriting and instrumentation and basically everything else is totally different. “Magnet” has a bit more of a folky melody than other songs here, but the music is a thudding drum machine beat with lots of crazy backward violin. It seems as if the society is doomed, however; the last song on the disc is called “Trapped” and it ends suddenly after a brief chant of “we are all going to die”, and the group’s website lists this as the project’s last album. But before it ends, there’s the album’s second disc (yellow and green doors), which features two longform compositions which take up the entirety of each side. “Notch Your Stick” (the Yellow Door side) starts with wordless vocals and bomb-shelter noise, later going through deep foghorns and ending with a long passage of intertwining clarinets and horns. “The Mind Will Travel” (the Green Door side) is bookended by more spoken-word narration, along with noise, spiralling synth patterns, and finally cascading pianos, before the epic conclusion to the story.

Opal Onyx: Delta Sands (Tin Angel Records, 2014)

August 16, 2014 at 10:19 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Dark, murky, dreamy bad-trip music. Think Portishead meets early Zola Jesus and Circuit Des Yeux, and maybe Chelsea Wolfe too. Opener “Black and Crimson” is definitely the more trip-hoppy track, it seems to skip like an old record and then fall into quicksand. “Personal” is much more melodic and uplifting, with clear, chiming acoustic guitar sounds. “Evaun” is more gauzy and ethereal, with layers of echoed vocals, but also a persistent pounding rhythm. “Iron Age” is strange and floating, but there’s a faint, fastly beating 4/4 beat buried underneath which seems to get faster before it dissipates. “Desperate” has a hypnotic groove (if just a spare, repetitive bassline built on a note or two can be considered a groove) and is hypnotic enough to remind me of Swans’ softer material. Come to think of it, Jarboe and recent Swans associates St. Vincent and Cold Specks come to mind while listening to this album too. “The Devil” is another dark dirge with chain-gang-like rhythm and strings. “Arrows Wing” is more of a bluesy dark folk song, and “Bright Bad Canyons” is the album’s sparest and most acoustic song. “Delta Sands” has synths that shift like the song’s title, and eventually a softly pulsating electronic beat.

Dilated Peoples: Directors Of Photography (Rhymesayers, 2014)

August 13, 2014 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I loved this group in high school, but I haven’t paid attention to them at all since their second album, which came out back in 2001. Since then, they’ve had a minor hit single with Kanye West in 2004, and released several independent solo albums. This is their first proper album as a group in 8 years, and their first independent album, since ending their major label contract. Musically, their sound hasn’t really changed since their earlier stuff, it’s simply a refinement of their style of underground hip-hop. The production is still heavily influenced by RZA and DJ Premier (who actually produces a track on here), and DJ Babu still constructs dense, clever sample collages. It’s actually somewhat refreshing to hear a new hip-hop album stay true to the culture of turntablism, even though it doesn’t seem like that long ago that it was so commonplace for hip-hop (underground or not). “Figure It Out (Melvin’s Theme)” comes somewhat close to a chopped-n-screwed sound, with a slow tempo and pitched-down chorus vocals, but there’s still some lightning-quick scratching, almost an entire verse’s worth actually. Now-mainstream pan-genre neo-soul crooner Aloe Blacc provides a chorus on “Show Me The Way”, sort of coming full circle, as he started out doing underground hip-hop and released albums on Stones Throw before crossing over. Nothing here sticks in my head as much as “Triple Optics” and “Work The Angles” did, but it’s still a solid album.