June 22, 2013 at 1:45 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Shells: In A Cloud LP
First solo LP from Shelley Salant, expanding her solo guitar style from the tapes she’s been putting out, but also adding some more experimental textures. Her last tape was more ethereal and dreamy, and this one gets a little rougher and more distorted. “Beginning” starts things off straightforward enough, but then “Warm Dub” tosses things wayward with distorted, twisted echo effects. “Grass” drifts along in the breeze, but there’s some sort of hidden undercurrent, sounds like something’s playing backwards very softly underneath. “Raining” has a calm, pretty melody, but it’s blown out and distorted with all sorts of warped, corroded amplification. “Beach” is way toos hort for a song with such a lovely melody, and it gets kind of unraveled for a few seconds, flipping backwards and segueing into the lonely, drifty railroad blues of “All Things Must Pass”. “Not So Wild A Dream” is a layered, looped, tremolo-heavy piece, which ends with a bit more backwards effects, before plunging into “Wash Over”, an electrified, feedback-heavy piece which hits similar to the way the loud guitar comes in at the beginning of “No Aloha” by The Breeders. “New Era” does something completely different, covering a backwards guitar loop with crashing, freeform drumming.
Free record release show for Shells and Rebel Kind next Thursday at Canterbury House in Ann Arbor!
June 20, 2013 at 10:52 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Rebel Kind: Laurel Canyon
Autumn Wetli is in Bad Indians, and her songs tend to be my favorite by that band, so it’s nice to hear her branch out and do a solo project. Recently Rebel Kind has actually been playing as a group featuring members of Swimsuit, but mostly it’s just her solo, and this 1-sided LP just features her singing and playing acoustic guitar, double tracking her voice and using a little reverb, but not overdoing it (not that I can ever get enough reverb). There’s some tambourine, and even an extra electric guitar (distorted on “Mother Nature”, cleaner and kinda twangy on the last 3 songs and bass drum on “Run”, and some delay effects on opener “Wish I Had A Home”, but it’s mostly pretty straightforward otherwise, letting the songs do their thing. Sort of reminds me of the more singer-songwriter end of ’90s indie-pop (Lois Maffeo, Rose Melberg) with a slight bit of a country flavor to it, especially the last few tracks. “Mother Nature” reminds me a little of Kurt Vile (mostly in the way she sings), and I guess there’s a little Mazzy Star in there overall too. “Moonlight” ends with spoken words from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called “To The Moon”. You can listen to the entire album on
Bandcamp and purchase the album over at
Life Like (and there’s also a cassette version with bonus tracks).
June 14, 2013 at 6:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Ruxpin: This Time We Go Together
8th full length album (including a remix LP) from Icelandic downtempo ambient IDM artist Ruxpin. Inevitably, reviewing something like around the release of a new, return-to-form Boards Of Canada album, there’s bound to be some comparisons. Well, this one, as can be deduced by the sentence-heavy song titles, is a lot more literal and straightforward, as opposed to cryptic and mysterious. The melodies are clear instead of hazy, the tempos are a little bit more up, and there’s some actual vocals instead of obscured snippets. The female vocalist on several tracks sounds a hell of a lot like Bjork. Inevitable comparison for an Icelandic artist, but so it goes. “As We Exhale, We Enter” definitely gives you that pastoral BoC feeling more than anything else on the album, but with some lovely occasional drift-off vocals, and a few bursts of distorted synth. “Cloud In My Spacesuit” starts vaguely chiptuney at the beginning, and gets pretty scrambled/cutup towards the end. “Where Do We Float From Here?” has really active skittery beats and has a few points where the beat slows down a bit. “With Our Hands We Form Contact” has a bit more of a danceable beat and autotuned Japanese vocals. “We Have Come To Our End” fittingly serves as an epic, dramatic climax with operatic vocals and soft yet intense skittering beats, and then “This Place Was Ours To Begin With” is a short ambient epilogue, bringing our journey to an end.
June 9, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: 50 Weapons Of Choice #30-39
Latest comp of tracks from the limited 12″s on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label, which started in 2006 but didn’t really pick up steam until a few years ago. Dark Sky starts the comp off with some slow, heavy bass eruptions and shuddering claps, then picks up a 4/4 beat which skips a beat every other bar, and ticking hi-hats, and some light pads, not too much of a melody. Phon.o’s “Schn33” starts with a classy disco-house beat, then builds to a dramatic progressive house melody. Addison Groove’s “I Go Boom” continues his melding of Chicago juke/footwork with UK bass, looping the titular phrase over mellow synths and detailed, slightly aggressive percussion. Bambounou’s “Deepstaria” has burbling, Drexciyan synths (think “Bubble Metropolis”) and a kicking beat, but doesn’t add too many other elements over its 9 minute running time. Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace project appears in remixed form, with the “Stuck Together” mix of “Other Side”. It starts with quiet, clicky beats and bass, and some hard-panning synths bubble up into the beat pattern, and gradually Thom Yorke’s voice sneaks its way into the mix, albeit mangled and looped. The track stays minimal, but it keeps growing and changing, and ends with some vocodered vocals and a pretty synth melody. Really an impressive track, definitely more interesting than anything else I’ve heard fromt his project. After this is a typically mindblowing track by Anstam, who is easily the secret weapon of 50 Weapons. It starts out with a huge blast of almost breakcore-intense beats, then turns into a slower, glitch-heavy tempo, with dialog samples, and sung vocals saying “hey boy, don’t you wanna dance?”, tabla-sounding percussion, and some ecstatic synthwork. Really not sure why people don’t talk about Anstam more, everything I’ve heard by him has been fantastic. Next up is a track by 2562’s alias A Made Up Sound, a clunky, disjointed techno track called “Malfunction (Despair)”, which starts off with a flickering synth pattern which makes you wonder which direction the track is going to go, but then it completely changes direction once the beat comes in, although the flickering sound does reappear underneath the beat, along with some synths providing a hint of light. Cosmin TRG’s “Sommer” is typical of his recent output, steadily building techno with lots of snare rushes and some dubby echoes. Marcel Dettmann’s “Linux” keeps it minimal with a loud thumping beat, but a solitary synth sequence repeating throughout the entire track. Benjamin Damage’s “Swarm” is another minimal techno track with synths that do swarm a little bit, but not as overwhelming as you might expect a track called “Swarm”. Newcomer Datei42’s “They Explore Themselves” is one of the comp’s exclusive bonus tracks, and is slightly dubby minimal techno with an emphasis on sweeping, static-y percussion sounds. Truncate ends the comp with another exclusive track, “Switch”, a big thumping minimal track with a clipped voice repeating something that sounds like “gather”, or maybe “gabber”. So basically, the comp starts out a little moresong-based and varied, and gets more minimal and track-y during its second half. But I guess these are relative terms. Anyway, interesting stuff as always from 50 Weapons.
May 20, 2013 at 1:12 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Lord Of The Mics IV
The UK grime scene is alive and well and underground as ever, even with Wiley releasing poppy major label albums and having #1 UK pop hits. This a fantastic, mixtape-style sampler of the current crop. P-Money shouts out to other grime artists and clubs all over the world. Diesle’s “Shell” is an excellent song about music bringing him out of his shell. Jammer reps Boy Better Know for life. M.I.K. assures that whoever told you he couldn’t do this is a liar. Shorty reps Boy Better Know some more with a nice freestyle over a tight minimal beat by Masro. Sox offers an incredibly sharp, funny rap called “I’m Not Stupid”. “Straight Up” is a huge posse cut adhering to the credo of “no bullshit, no lies, straight up”. “Skyyy” by Frisco (another BBK veteran) is another highlight, and then Wiley kills it freestyling over Preditah’s “Circles”. Discarda and Jammer’s “Banged Your Head Off The Wall” is hilariously drunk and pissed off, flinging insults aimlessly like beer bottles. Lay Z & C4’s “Pride” is another instantly recognizable Preditah production (having a few signature samples dropped in every track you produce will do that), and the rhymes are tight and hilarious as well (“I just turned David Blaine on a bitch”). K Dot’s “Nail In The Coffin” is another loud, brash slayer, opening with a taunt of “are you daft?” and not letting up until the 3 minute mark, after which the track fades out. JME acknowledges Skepta and Wiley as his peers, and everyone else as inferior competition, with a sly, sing-song flow over a minimal, martial beat. I didn’t have time to watch every minute of the DVD, but I watched at least a little bit of all 7 MC battles, and my favorites were particularly fierce battles between Lady Shocker and L.K, Blay and Fangol, and Jaykae and Discarda.
May 19, 2013 at 10:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Richard Pinhas: Desolation Row
I’d been aware of Richard Pinhas’ solo work for a while, as well as his recent collaborations with Merzbow and Wolf Eyes, and I’d always enjoyed all of those, but I finally got around to hearing Heldon recently, and WHOA. Totally insane progressive synth-prog-noise-rock, and maybe a bit underappreciated. Now he’s back with a politically charged solo album, and Etienne Jaumet, Lasse Marhaug, Noel Akchote and Oren Ambarchi are on board as guests. Arpeggiating synths, smoldering noise guitar, and trippy drums. Seriously top quality avant-noise-rock. Songs go on forever and you wouldn’t want them not to. “North” is molten lava overload, “Square” is relatively chilled and straightforward, and “South” starts spacey and pulsey and gradually gains drums. “Moog” is a long Moog drone with 4/4 dance beats and cosmic sax. “Circle” has a constant, shifting drum beat which gets buried by delay/flange-heavy guitar and insectoid synths. “Drone 1” is a long, fractal noise drone with sax and heavy, shredding guitar, in line with most of Pinhas’ solo albums. Another great album from a truly innovative artist, always pushing the boundaries of progressive and electronic music.
May 19, 2013 at 8:20 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Violeta Vil: Lápidas y Cocoteros
Dream-pop from Spain via Venezuela, Chile and the Canary Islands, with shadowy female vocals in Spanish, drum machines as well as live drums, gauzy synths and gazey guitars. Some woodnlock-sounding percussion, but I would hesitate to call their sound anything close to “tropicalia”. But there’s definitely some Factory Records vibes here, plus some bits that sound like psychedelic ’60s pop songs where they’d bring in a harpsichord, even though this band isn’t actually using an instrument like that. Easy standout tracks are the opening title track, “Amish”, the peculiar beach-psycch of “Tormentas (Sonrisas)”, and the 4/4 shoegaze-disco-psych thump of “La Pericona”. This leads into a bunch of remixes that end the album, the best being Not Not Fun associate Cuticle’s murky take on “Amish”.
Minus the remixes, you can listen to the album here.
May 18, 2013 at 6:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Saturday Looks Good To Me: One Kiss Ends It All
Local heroes SLGTM return to Polyvinyl and to their early-mid ’00s sound; multiple singers, heavy Motown and Northern Soul influence, and tape-damaged lo-fi production. Except it’s a bit more hi-fi this time around, with a drum machine on first single “Sunglasses” and touches of modern indie-pop production throughout (the relaxed tempo and hazey synths of 8). Very subtle and layered production, plenty of hidden voices, some Arthur Russell textures, some spacey interludes. But most of all, it has the exact type of catchy, instantly memorable songcraft of all the other SLGTM albums. Betty Marie Barnes returns on two tracks (“Negative Space” and “The Everpresent New Times Condition”), Amber from Swimsuit and Damned Dogs is on a bunch of tracks, Autumn from Bad Indians and Rebel Kind sings on “Empty Beach”, and new vocalist and violinist Carol Catherine is all over the album. Also, the NOMO horns return on a few tracks, which is welcome. Basically, it’s another classic SLGTM album, and it’s arriving at the perfect time, right as it’s starting to feel like summer.
Saturday Looks Good To Me: Forever/Inside tape
Also just released is a new tape on Life Like, the latest in a long stream of mostly tour-only CDRs and tapes of demos and outtakes and rehearsals that SLGTM has been releasing since the beginning. This one’s particularly muddy, demo-ey and collage-like. Lots of brief snippets of tracks from the new album, 2 Velvet Underground covers, a few oldies, and a “screwed” version of “Sunglasses”, which slows the song down, adds heavy glitching, and tons of spacey effects. It’s completely overwhelming. It’s also the longest song on the tape, at just over 3 minutes. Everything else is usually just a short, abruptly cut off fragment, and it all runs together in a delicious mess.
May 12, 2013 at 10:13 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Lonnie Holley: Just Before Music
I’ve been completely fascinated by this album lately, can’t stop listening to it at all.
Holley is an artist who creates sculptures out of found, discarded objects, and his artwork is amazing, but this album is something else entirely. Meditative minimal synthesizer backing free-associative sung verse about technology, humanity, earth, and cosmic beings. 3 of the tracks stretch well past 10 minutes, the longest being the 25-minute “Planet Earth And Otherwheres”, and these longer tracks are my favorites because he really gets entranced in what he’s saying. Most devastating is the 15-minute “Fifth Child Burning”, about a little girl in Birmingham who burned to death in her own house. One of Holley’s sculptures was constructed from objects found in the burned-down house. The song features wavy synths, which Holley stops every time he sings a line, and it’s just unbelievable. Really forward thinking space-age blues. “Earthly Things” is another eye-opener, where he stretches his soulful, throaty, world-worn voice over minimal ambience. And then “Planet Earth And Otherwheres” is another long, devastating meditation, moving a bit slower, and eventually featuring double-tracked vocals. Unbelievably life-affirming, conscience-expanding music, that sounds like absolutely nothing else on earth. Holley also recorded a 2-hour session at WFMU, all unreleased, improvised material, and you can download this for free at the
Free Music Archive. And you should, because it’s also incredible.
May 12, 2013 at 7:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Sun City Girls: Eye Mohini (Sun City Girls Singles Volume 3)
First off, why do we have almost nothing by Sun City Girls at WCBN? We have a huge chunk of the Sublime Frequencies catalog, and some Alvarius B, which is great, but barely anything by SCG, which is criminal. For a band as legendary, diverse, influential, prolific and weird as SCG, we should have the entire catalog. Anyway, this is the third CD volume of singles and rarities from the band. The full tracklist, track times and dates the songs were recorded and released are listed in the liner notes. Most of these songs were originally released on 7″ vinyl, so they tend to be short tracks. The tracks from the “Eye Mohini” 7″ from 1992 sound like they were mastered off of vinyl, with audible hiss and crackle. Everything here was originally released in the early ’90s, but as with a lot of their 7″ releases from that period, there’s a lot of tracks that were recorded way earlier, as far back as 1986. A lot of the collection focuses on brief Arabic-inspired surf-ish instrumentals, pseudo-Asian vocal styles (most of the lyrics aren’t in English), and mostly acoustic guitars, although there’s a few electric tracks here, such as the 30-second opener “Sun Damaged My Ass”, 2-minute freakout “It’s Ours”, and the devastating final track, a 10 minute live version of “Soar/The Flower”. Tracks 3, 7 and 11 are credited to “traditional folklore”, but it’s hard to tell whose. A couple other highlights are “Rose Room”, a minute-long country-ish instrumental, and “Esoterica Of Abyssynia”, which actually features both Bishop brothers playing electric guitars. An excellent collection of hard-to-find tracks from a visionary, much-missed band.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 