Raster-Noton founders Carsten Nicolai and Olaf Bender released a few EPs on Mute last year with this collaborative project Diamond Version, and now they’ve taken the step and created a full, cohesive album of the project. This album streamlines their glitchy microsound tracks into something more pop-minded, even going so far as to feature Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, singing a weird electro-gospel hymn (“Were You There”). Of the other vocal-based tracks, “This Blank Action” is a wry, sarcastic spoken-word piece, continually playing on the phrases “sorry for your loss”. “Feel The Freedom” has feisty Japanese female vocals, recalling Mu. A few tracks are new and updated versions of tracks that appeared on the EP’s; “Turn On Tomorrow” is a skittering electro track, “Operate At Your Optimum” is a more buzzing, static-y electro track, “Science For A Better Life” has distorted vocal samples of commercial slogans and affirmations, and “Make Believe” is a more skittering Autechre-esque jam. Other highlights include the static-bombarded half-step beat of “Raising The Bar” and the Kraftwerk-inspired phone bleeps and operator messages of “Connecting People”. If you’re already familiar with recent Raster-Noton output, but aren’t afraid of a slightly more accessible sound (and especially if you love the Pet Shop Boys), this is obviously a must-listen. If this sound is all new to you, this could potentially awaken your mind to a lot of possibilities in the digital music world.
First LP from UK-based dubtep/future garage producer. Mostly vocal-based downtempo electronic tracks with intricate production, definitely recommended for fans of most of Ninja Tune’s recent output. “Avarice” has strings and buzzing bass, and a solid steady beat. “The Tempest” starts out with a cool spiralling loop pattern, unconventional beat patterns, ringing guitars and enchanting female vocals. “Hypnotise” has Bjorkian vocals and a more galloping beat. “Linguis” is a cool instrumental with gamelan-like percussion and more buzzing bass. “As You Fall” is a futuristic dubstep ballad, with strings, more clinking, crashing beats, and more buzzing bass. “Pathfinder” has glitchy, obtuse string samples, and more of a thumping beat than most of the other tracks, but even that dissolves and mutates throughout the track. “The Void” is a strong downtempo neo-soul song with a solid minimal beat and synths, and an intense attack of harder synths during the bridge. “Maera” ups the intensity with swirling drum’n’bass breaks, and “All The Lights” is even more overtly d’n’b-inspired, with rapidfire beats, bubbing synths, and strong but not overbearing or overused soul vocals. “Draugr” is where the album gets more drawn out and hazy, riding on simmering synths before some more distorted percussion comes in at the end. “Saltare (Parts 1 & 2)” is a 2-part buzzing, clicking dance instrumental, which seems to get a little slower and less amped-up during its second half. The whole album is pretty great, there’s a lot of exceptional tracks on here, it’s definitely an accessible, slightly poppy album that has plenty of creativity and soul to it.
Synth-heavy instrumental neo-Krautrock. Heavy post-punk guitars, steady drum machien rhythms (both rock-like and technoid), and also some delicate synths. “Velocet Vir Nesat” hits hard with driving rock energy, then “Bounce Synth” is a gentle music-box ballet. “Time Enough” is a future-city cruiser, with clip-clopping drum machines and clean yet fizzing synths. “Shapes And Patterns” basically sounds like its title, with arpeggiating synth patterns and rhythms building on top of each other. “Vapour Trails” is a long, dusty drone with some spare guitar licks on top. “You Are Disko” is a steady electric drive through a desert. “Into Forever” is another delicate, clicking music-box-like composition, with gently floating synths and a half-time beat through part of the second half.
Improv instrumental psych-rock featuring members of Talibam!, USAISAMONSTER and Necking. Melodic and rocking, gets into a groove and hammers away at it. “Astral Projections and Suicidal Thoughts” has a constant organ riff of two notes going back and forth, before taking a solo midway through the track, after which the guitars get more crunchy and furious. “Space Boots Foots to Foots” is more condensed and concise compared to the other 2 tracks, being only 2 1/2 minutes long, and sounds like it has some sitar buried in there. “Anointus Venomous Atlanticus” is longer and more sprawling, slowing down the tempo to a more relaxed pace from the first side, adding more spacey guitar effects, and sea-shanty accordion, making it feel like cruising into the sunset on a pirate ship.
Experimental composer Austin Buckett created the 30 minute-long loops on this album strictly by recording the sounds of snare drums and sandpaper. The result is a series of patterns of various speeds which imitate washing machines, photocopiers, factory machinery, and any other repetitive mechanical devices that are a part of daily human life. These rhythms, of course, can be used as DJ tools, or form building blocks for music, and it’s not hard to sample these and create songs out of them. So naturally there’s a remix EP available as a free download. Listening to all 30 loops in succession can be equal parts thrilling/headnodding and monotonous, so the presence of more musical elements added to some of the remixes can be a welcome change.
Austin Buckett: Sand Stems 1-7
The remixers tend to arrange the loops into clicky rhythms, add distortion, or somewhat attempt to make them more danceable. Andrew Pekler turns the rhythms gloopy and nauseous, Scissorlock makes sort of a cut-up hypnogogic hip-hop instrumental, and DJ Earl and Heavee go the footwork route.
Newest solo album from prolific sound artist Ergo Phizmiz. This continues in the vein of his Eleven Songs release from 2 years ago. Eclectic, very British strange-folk pop songs. No plunderphonics here, and some uncoventional instruments, and shambling lo-fi-ness, but as far as this guy’s music, it’s still pretty straightforward. Which means it’s pretty wacky and offbeat compared to most other music. RIYL Syd Barrett, Incredible String Band, R. Stevie Moore etc.
John Chantler: Even Clean Hands Damage The Work LP
Excellent modular synth music. Buzzy and swirling and all-encompassing. “November Part 2” is the noisiest and most psychedelic track here. “Dismantled Cabaret” is more spacey and sparkling. “Wollmar Organ” is an extended pretty (yet bracing) drone and “The Knight Firth” is less musical, more a bunch of fluttering, bubbling sounds.
R.E.M.: Unplugged 1991 & 2001: The Complete Sessions
I’ll always have a soft spot for R.E.M., but I’m not sure I’ll always have a soft spot for R.E.M.’s soft side. This 2CD collection features all of the tracks from both their MTV Unplugged sessions, including the outtakes that didn’t make the actual broadcast. And this is definitely the side of R.E.M. that thousands of mediocre campus coffee-house folk-rock bands have been trying to emulate for the last 30 years. R.E.M. unplugged means plenty of mandolin, accordion and hand drums. Not that these types of instrumental flourishes are uncommon to R.E.M.’s albums, or unwelcome, but their albums are usually more eclectic and varied. This is two entire albums of R.E.M. sounding like that. And the first disc is from right after Out Of Time came out and conquered the world, so it has a lot of the forgettable deep cuts that nobody actually likes from that album. But it does have “Perfect Circle” and “Swan Swan H” and a bunch of their ’80s hits, and a weird beatnik instrumental (“Rotary Eleven”). The second disc is from 2001, after drummer Bill Berry left the band for health reasons, and the band had been relying more on drum machines and studio musicians to fill in the gap. This concert was ostensibly promoting their album Reveal, which was a decent but non-canon later-era album whose songs are mostly skippable. The only song they reprise from the first session is, what else, “Losing My Religion”. They also play “Country Feedback”, which the band always stands by as their best song (and, to my ears, has aged way better than expected), which includes a muffled “fuck off” which I’m assuming had to have been bleeped by the censors when it was broadcast. And there’s also a few ace album cuts (“Cuyahoga”, “Find The River”, “Electrolite”), and just a few more ’80s hits (“The One I Love”, “So. Central Rain”). For some reason, though, the sound quality on the second disc is a little grainy, it actually sounds like it was taped off the TV, which is kind of lame. Overall, it’s good to have these recordings if you’re a fan, but it seems like there’s been a ridiculous amount of R.E.M. live albums, best-ofs and reissues as of late, so it just seems like more product being pumped out in lieu of the band’s breakup.
What a coincidence that I end up reviewing 2 bands in a row whose names start with the word Hiss. Both seem to like field recordings, and both can maybe be somehow categorized as experimental/post-rock/drone, but Hiss & Hum is far more noisy and lo-fi and homemade. All of his tapes and CD-r’s are hand-assembled and feature his own spraypainting, cursive writing, and crossed-out text. The Live Broadcast CD-r is an album of late-night improvisations featuring field recordings, synth and guitar, and is dedicated to late-night spontaneous road trips to nowhere. It is recommended to be played louder than most people are comfortable with. 3 of the 5 tracks here are well over 10 minutes. “The Shield Around The K-Hole” builds up a cloud of guitar drone and then attacks it with a downpour of drum machine hi-hats. “Brain-Dead Chile (Slight Return)” has a ratty drum machine beat cha-cha-ing along, along with truly convoluted keyboard and guitar distortion. “Burqa” starts off deceptively pretty and chiming, then has another trudging beat and meandering guitar, then goes a bit wild, before smoothing out, going into some strange beeping, then taking some sort of strange late-night visit to a convenience store or something.
Hiss & Hum/Fever Witch: You’re The Worst/You Deserve It split tape
The other recent release he sent me is a split tour tape (limited to 28 copies) with Fever Witch. The two Hiss & Hum tracks here are entitled “You’re The Worst” and “The Plague”, and start out with meandering guitar which gets louder and noisier and driftier, and the two pieces bleed together, tied by a clinking drum machine which gets louder and more crushing, until the side ends. The real treat, however, is the Fever Witch side, which is fortunately up on Bandcamp for all to hear. Completely dark and ethereal funeral music, with spooky whispered voices, the doomiest chimes you’ll ever hear, and arresting banshee-with-piano wailing. At one point there’s even some Gregorian chanting and some weird lightsaber-like noises?!? I don’t know what all this is, but it’s captivating. I hope there’s more coming. There’s also this tape, which is still available in physical form.
There’s also a Hiss & Hum VHS out called Im//Perfect Color. I don’t have a TV or VHS player, but at least I can post this excerpt because it’s on Youtube:
Newest offshoot of Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Set Fire To Flames, and a collaboration with Kevin Doria of Growing and Total Life. This is way more on the ambient/field-recording/drone side of the GY!BE/Constellation spectrum, so don’t expect crescendo-core here. There’s guitar, synths, piano, and even occasional cello, but the guitars sound closer to bowed string instruments here. It’s eclectic and not strictly any type of music, but there’s plenty of rolling, droning soundscapes and slight distortion. And then there’s tracks like “Drake Motel / “9 Gold Cadillacs””, which is a minute-long glimpse into the life of two old folks playing harmonica and ranting about life. Seems like little comic-relief slice of life in between all the serious-sounding drone. “Ahhh-Weee Dictaphone” is a short recording from a scratchy, whirring dictaphone, which also begins the next piece. I’m assuming most people who hear this will probably be interested because of the GY!BE connection, but for anyone more interested in Growing, there’s a few moments on here that come close to that band’s gated, vibrating guitar sound, particularly the end of “Halo Getters”. “For The Transient Projectionist” is where it all seems to come together here: field recordings, digital processing, guitar drone, and creaking noise effects and ambience. “Test Recording At Trembling City” starts out with quiet, calm guitar tones, and then gets really alarmed midway through, before tapering off. “Beijing-Bullhorn / Dopplered Light…” ends the album with a distorted, decaying transmission which seems to just melt into nonexistence.
The Answer Is In The Beat 