The Answer Is In The Beat

The Low Frequency In Stereo: Pop Obskuro (Long Branch Records, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 11:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Haven’t heard any of this group’s previous recordings, but they’ve been around for over a decade and Norwegian avant-rock powerhouse Rune Grammofon released their last one. On first listen, the presence of Krautrock rhythms, analog synths and female vocal harmonies immediately brings to mind Stereolab, and this band’s name doesn’t help defer those comparisons. Even with such an easy reference point, this is still very enjoyable indie-pop, and it definitely seems more informed by vintage electronics than most young bands trying to sound retro. “Cybernautic” has a lovely, catchy chorus and some vaguely Raymond Scott-esque synths (it puts “Cindy Electronium” in my head, and that is a good thing). “Black Receiver” is full of spiraling psychedelic feedback, and “Satellites In Sight” ends with ecstatic horns and keyboards. “Ionic Nerve Grip” is a bizarre spoken word track, with a ranting narrator who reminds me of Einar Orn of the Sugarcubes.

Ezra Buchla: At The Door LP (Care Of Editions, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 10:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I’ll never forget when I first started doing at WRSU when I was in college, and we got the first CD by The Mae Shi. It consisted of 4 brief spazzy punk songs, and then a 50 minute noise jam. We used to play around with that for sound collage fodder a lot, or just play the entire thing when we felt lazy and didn’t want to actually DJ. Since then, Ezra Buchla has had an extensive resume, also playing in Gowns with EMA and contributing to her solo album, and working with Chelsea Wolfe and Whitman, among others. This solo LP is a stunning work, starting with “A Cruel Man”, consisting of droning, minimalist John Cale-like strings, and eerie hushed vocals. “His Thirsts” starts with some solid, clear tones, then adds on shifting sheets of vacuum-like noise layers, and stirs them into oblivion. “Hail Nothing” is similar to the opening track, with strings and vocals, but is more melodic and structured. It’s an astonishingly beautiful lament of despair and bleakness, definitely exactly the type of beautiful, depressing music you want to spend the entire dark, lonely winter crying along to. On the reverse is sidelong string opus “Black Box”, which starts with low, brooding drone, building into wavering, chattering textures, and later blossoming into a wide array of emotions, by turns enormously beautiful and deeply mournful or even scared. It’s the type of piece where you put it on barely noticing that it’s playing, not really expecting anything, and then after a while it just hits you with astonishing beauty and expressiveness. Wow.

Scott Cazan: Swallow LP (Care Of Editions, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 10:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

On side A, harsh screeching metal, harsh screeching strings. Nervous rattling/tapping, vibrations, and some shattering wave tones. On side B, contact and condenser mics, field recordings, and room tones. Starts out sounding like a supermarket checkout line with a deafening sinewave tone and thudding, trudging rumble which nobody seems to notice or react to. It gets quiet for a bit, but then comes back with more voices (which seem slightly, eerily pitched down), and vibrating tones and some ethereal music. This ends without warning, and a few minutes later you’re facing buzzing, feedback and ring modulated noise, along with bass vibrations nervously being pushed out. The shuttering, splintering (but not overtly harsh) noise continues relentlessly for a while, until it sort of disintegrates into tone clusters.

[#/Tau] – Boris Hegenbart: First / Dew LP (Care Of Editions, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 9:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This album is actually a partial reissue of Hikuioto, a CD self-released by Boris Hegenbart under his [#/Tau] alias in 1997. The album consists of low sinewave tones, connection interference/static/crackle, and field recordings. There’s some Japanese talking, so it’s hard for me to understand exactly what it’s about, but some of it sounds like it might be from public transportation, and the beginning of “Tacet” has a sharp voice exclaiming “MIND THE GAP”, so it has a definite city life feel. But there’s a nature feel as well, particularly with the extensive use of insect sounds, and the entire second side being an excerpt of a piece called “Musicforcicadas”. A few tracks also seem to have a reoccurring bit of gentle, blippy IDM-ish melody, starting with “Tripel” and then reprising this on “Folded”, which also features Japanese transit voices. “Drone” features bubbling water sound and low droning voices (possibly slowed down, possibly from an animal or human) and other strange buzzing sounds and voices, chopped up and layered into music. “Pond” ends the side with lots of buzzing insects, high-pitched voices/animals/insects that seem to say “mee mee mee mee”, and more Japanese dialogue. And then all of side B is “Musicforcicadas”, an extended collage of Japanese singing and insects, folded and endlessly looped into a hypnotic Steve Reich/Oval-inspired minimalist glitch mantra. The original CD release extended the piece out to 25 minutes, but the version on this LP is subtitled “(Cut)”, and very abruptly cuts the music off as if the “stop” button was pressed or possibly even the stereo unplugged, with no warning or fadeout.

Foom: Surface Noise And Imperfections LP (No Fidelity Audio, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 8:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Foom is the long-running moniker of lo-fi loop collage artist Chris Lichatz. His earliest releases plumbed the depths of lo-fi experimental rock, with 1996 seeing the release of a 7″ called “Them Ol’ Stanky Blues” (featuring Beefhartian wailing over a slowed, skipping Led Zeppelin record), as well as a triple 7″ on Stomache Ache Records called “Six Of My Favorite Turds”. Since then, he’s been hoarding thrift store vinyl and creating dreamy collages with one turntable, a splitter and two looping pedals. This is his first vinyl release since the ’90s, and the record is actually packaged in a collaged-over sleeve from one of the thrift-store records that were plundered for samples. The album, as to be expected, is an easy listening nightmare of schlocky strings and vinyl static, repurposed and made much more sinister sounding. Brief opener “Thre” features plenty of evil, maniacal chipmunk giggling, and “Tieu” starts with a backwards shifting loop and lonely bells and harmonica, before tumbling into backwards strings and subdued piano. Evenetually a loop emerges featuring brief pauses, caused from simply stopping the record for a moment and starting it again, and that loop, along with another bed of syrupy backwards strings, is just enough to jolt you up and take notice, if the music has you zoning out or nodding off. Some eerie vocal loop adds to the distant, lonesome quality. On Side B, “Forr” greets us with more gentle but disconcerting string loops, and more ghostly wisps of disembodied vocals. “Tieu” starts with slowly blooming crystalline orbs, before slow disjointed rhythms and buried voices seep out, staggering between the speakers. Some high-pitched soul wails appear out of nowhere, a vinyl slipping and making some sort fo revving-up sound gets looped, and some trudging drums beat against a sad, empty funeral drone. A distant backwards loop of tense, chaotic movie strings disintegrates into a more peaceful loop and some gentle, fluttering female vocals, which gracefully fall like flower petals. A curious sliver of blues piano seems to faintly play right before the album’s end. Highly recommended for fans of The Caretaker and the more easy listening, less oldies radio side of People Like Us.

Jonas Reinhardt: Foam Fangs 12″ EP (100% Silk, 2012) + Rusting Ciphers of a Forgotten Sky tape (VCO Records, 2012)

December 1, 2013 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

One thing I’ve noticed about 100% Silk releases is that if they’re meant to be played at 45, sometimes they just sound better at 33. That Polonaise record is such an incredible cosmic slow-disco record at 33, it just doesn’t make sense at 45 at all to me. This Jonas Reinhardt record does sound fine at 45, but maybe a little too amped up, so I’m listening to it at 33 now and it simmers and stirs. Definitely a good precursor to his Kraut-disco opus Mask Of The Maker which came out on Not Not Fun this year.

Now that I’ve finally gotten around to posting about that 12″, I’m also finally getting around to covering this tape that he also released last year, in collaboration with Abyss Of Fathomless Light. I never got around to touching this tape, literally, because it was sewn shut. The tape itself comes in a beautiful dual-layered paper packet which you have to destroy to retrieve the tape. I managed to pry the thread out from the top without causing too much damage, just a little bit of tear. Musically, it’s nothing like his more dancey material. The synths are still a bit cosmic, but they’re surrounded by disembodied taped voices, industrial gravel percussion, and so much post-civilization dread and despair. Each side is listed as its own extended piece (Side A is “Beneath The Liquid District Of Amalgamation”, Side B is “White Kingdom Of The Five Year Plan”), but instead of focusing on one idea for their duration, they seem to be suites of individual movements. Some parts seem more electrified and invigorated, and others are more decayed, staring at the ruins of society in disbelief and hoping for everything to fade away.

Floating Gardens: Generalife tape (Constellation Tatsu, 2013)

December 1, 2013 at 10:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

More golden laserscapes from CTatsu. Side A features shorter glimpses, while side B is a 17 minute expedition called “Vernal Pool Simulation”. Not the most complex new-age/drone tape out there, mostly just airy, rippling synths and some chirping birds and rushing water, especially on the 50-second “Interlude”. Sometimes all you need are arpeggios and nature sounds. Definitely soothing and therapeutic, as the track title “Chamber Of Regeneration” suggests.

Günter Schickert: Überfällig (Sky Records, 1979/reissued Bureau B, 2012) + Samtvogel (self-released, 1974/reissued Important Records, 2013)

December 1, 2013 at 8:40 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

So one of my new year’s resolutions for 2013 was to buy more Krautrock vinyl, because there’s so many reissue labels putting out vintage Krautrock on vinyl and I just want to collect as much as I can because so much of it is incredible. Other than all the Neu! albums and a few other things, I didn’t get around to buying that much this year, but once I finally get around to listening to everything I got this year (and, uh, last year) that’s just been sitting around my room, I’ll try and get some more. But one of the main reasons I wanted to get really into this music was because I heard someone on WFMU play Günter Schickert’s “Puls” when this reissue of Überfällig came out, and I just had to hear more. Just a really stunning web of minimalist guitars and drums, which sounds precise and sequenced but it’s not electronic at all. Effortlessly hypnotic, doesn’t seem nearly as long as its 15 minute runtime. “In Der Zeit” is a much more down-to-earth slow acoustic folk song with rushing water sounds, but “Apricot Brandy II” and “Wanderer” return to the panned, precise guitar and drums of “Puls”, but not as fast and forward, more of a slow-burning rhythm, with lots of rim-clicking sounds. Both sound kind of lost and desperate in some ways, with “Apricot Brandy” possibly being in a drunken haze, and “Wanderer” lost and worried. The album ends as it begins with dripping and splashing water sounds.

Earlier this year, Important Records reissued Schickert’s 1974 debut Samtvogel on CD for the first time ever. The album was originally self-released, then issued by Brain a few times, reissued by Spanish label Wah Wah Supersonic Sounds in 2010, and is now finally available domestically on CD. The first version of “Apricot Brandy” seems like an embryonic version of its sequel, not really settling into a rhythm, just consisting of rippling guitar and vocals. The remaining two tracks on the album are expansive suites of guitar looping and vocals, creating furious clusters and patterns with mountains of echo and delay, and forging hypnotic rhythms without the use of any percussive instruments. This year a Russian label also released a private session Schickert did with Klaus Schulze in 1975, which already seems super limited and hard to find. Bureau B also just reissued his 1983 cassette Kinder In Der Wildnis on CD and vinyl, so I’m sure I’ll get around to buying that at some point. But Schickert seems like somewhat of an unheralded visionary, I’m glad a bunch of his recordings are getting out there and reissued.

Merzbow: Samidara (Placenta Recordings, 2013)

December 1, 2013 at 7:36 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

In honor of Jay Watson’s birthday, here is my attempt to review the Merzbow record he released this year. It’s on “piss yellow” vinyl, but there’s also a cassette release. I never get tired of Merzbow’s music, and this album is a pretty good example of why. Noisy and chaotic and unrelenting, but there’s so much going on. There’s squeaking rhythmic patterns suggesting decaying rhythms, there’s guitar noise feedback, there’s crushed distorted drums. The second side has some sort of mutated funk guitar and fast-forward blastbeat rhythms and tape manipulations. Seriously, the drums on side 2, oh my god.

Robert Alberg: Acoustically CDr (self-released, 2012)

December 1, 2013 at 1:13 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

For the past couple years, WCBN has occasionally received homemade CDr’s by this man, most of which don’t seem to actually play in our CD players. Sometimes they seem to have been burned as data discs, and most of the time the discs themselves are really scratchy and have pasted-on labels, and won’t play all the way. We’ve received 3 copies of this particular disc so far, only one of which we’ve been able to play, which we made a copy of for preservation. This copy that I’m reviewing seems to stop working after the first 3 tracks. It’s just as well, considering how similar the songs are. They’re all around 3 minutes, all features Alberg’s nasal vocals croaking in the right channel and distorted close-miked acoustic guitar plucking in the left. The songs all seem to be abstract narratives about nature (titles include “Echo Rock”, “Down River”, “Rainbow Falls”, “Rip Current”). Nothing much left to say other than that this is truly arresting outsider art. Not a whole lot of information about this album online, but his last album is on CD Baby, and seems to mine similar territory. Upon further research, he has somewhat of a cult hit song on Youtube and a disturbing, yet fascinating backstory.