The Answer Is In The Beat

Michael Pollard: Translations 01 (Spectrum Spools, 2012)

February 16, 2013 at 7:12 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Ever since Spectrum Spools started releasing records in 2011, I’ve been pretty obsessive about collecting them. I wasn’t too into the Hive Mind LP they released, though, so I held off on a few of their releases last year, but they still released a lot of gems, especially the epic Motion Sickness Of Time Travel 2xLP. I bought this Michael Pollard album sight unseen, and while I don’t want to say that there’s such thing as a typical Spectrum Spools release, this one definitely isn’t the type of instant-gratification synth-bliss you’d get from an Outer Space or Forma album. It’s mostly field recordings, and it’s mastered by Russell Haswell, who knows a thing or two about recording sounds. Unlike Haswell’s recordings (I’m thinking of the Wild Tracks release), some of the recordings on Translations 01 are modified. Or, rather, they take certain sounds as source material and use computers, synths, and technology to create drone pieces. “Material Study 02” uses a cello and a North Face jacket (!) along with Max/MSP and a few synths, and turns out a glowing, minimal drone. Much more hypnotic is “Spacialisation Study 01”, which is subtitled “One freeze from seven positions in a house”, and poking around online looking for information, it appears that what he’s actually recording is the tone that a sleeping computer makes, recorded from different areas in the house, and turning that into a drone, which is why it’s so warm and glowing. Not just using computers to make music, but actually making music out of the computer itself. The second spacialisation study uses the previous study as source material, isolating and overlaying clicks, creating a collage of short, muffled, decaying bursts.

Oddly enough, possibly the most soothing recording on the album ends up being the most straightforward and minimal. The last track on the album is a pencil being rubbed on rice paper taped to a wall, recorded by a stereo contact mic. The drawing produced in this recording is the album’s cover. Turn the album cover sideways so that the “L” and “R” on the top and bottom of the drawing actually correspond to the left and right sides, and it’s like you’re listening to the album cover in stereo. Maybe “soothing” isn’t the right word, but it definitely has some sort of oddly calming effect, and I think it’s such a brief, simple concept and statement that it ends up being very memorable, and that’s why it ends the album and why the drawing is the album’s cover art.

I didn’t mention the first side of the album yet, which is another unprocessed audio recording, namely that of a stereo condenser hydrophone buried under the sand in a lake, while firecrackers are being set off. So basically, an entire album side of muffled rustling and crackling sounds. I’m still trying to decide if this is something I actually enjoy and would want to listen to, or if it just sounds like a cool concept. The second side has a bit more variation, so it’s easier to appreciate. Of course, the back cover states that this record is “intended for playback in a room via loudspeakers”, and of course I mainly just listen to records at home on my small computer speakers as to not piss off my neighbors. So maybe something’s missing if I’m not blasting these recordings on huge speakers, and really getting inside the sounds so that they’re larger than life.

Charlatan: Isolatarium (Type, 2012)

February 16, 2013 at 3:50 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Foxy Digitalis is no more, so Brad Rose has more time to make and release awesome records, like this one. He sent me promo mp3s of this, but they don’t look or sound as cool as the slab of yellow vinyl currently spinning on my turntable. Anyway, this shows the Charlatan project moving further into beat-driven territory, except the beats seem kind of tethered in a darkened corner and sometimes they just seem to disappear, but you know they’re lurking around somewhere. There’s definitely some sounds and textures that are a bit familiar from recent releases by The North Sea (Brad’s now-discontinued noise project) but this clearly goes in a much different direction. There’s usually a pulse driving the tracks, but it’s overshadowed by all the bubbly synths and sometimes chaotic noises (like those in “Anti-Crash Device”). I tried mixing something off this album into a Crush Collision set recently and it strangely kinda worked. Really a strange and hypnotic record, I don’t have anything else to say about it other than that it’s just great to put on and zone out to, there’s something weightless but electrically charged and free-flowing about it that’s hard to put in words.

Daniel Bachman: Oh Be Joyful (Debacle Records, 2012)

February 11, 2013 at 12:13 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Young musician Daniel Bachman is one of many continuing the legacies of fingerstyle guitarists such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho. I will never fancy myself as much of a folk guy, but neither did a lot of these musicians, and I can never get enough of this type of instrumental guitar music. This guy designed artwork for a posthumous Jack Rose LP on Thrill Jockey, and he’s wasted no time getting his own work out there, putting out a considerable amount of CDs, CDRs, LPs, cassettes and 7″s on a variety of labels, such as Dying For Bad Music and Feeding Tube. Tompkins Sqaure (basically the most major label for this type of music right now) released his Seven Pines album on CD and vinyl, and this one is released by One Kind Favor on LP and Debacle on CDr. Basically, it’s him doing what he does best, namely fine fingerstyle steel guitar instrumentals. Nice rollicking rhythms, but also some more contemplative, atmospheric pieces, including an 11-minute raga called “Sita Ram (Who Is God)”. “Rove Ryley Rove/Wild Bill Jones/Darling Cory” is a duet featuring banjo by Charlie Devine, and “The Bridge Of Flowers” features Ryley Walker, I assume accompanying Bachman on guitar, I can’t hear much other than guitar on that song. “West 45th St.” ends the album on a quiet, contemplative note, sounding like looking up at the sky and wilderness after either a long day, or at the crack of dawn after a long night.

Hot Guts: Edges LP (Blind Prophet Records, 2012)

February 11, 2013 at 12:10 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

First LP by a Philly post-punk group, on the Blind Prophet label (run by Sean Ragon of Cult Of Youth), which also released an excellent LP of hypnotic, trancey minimal-synth industrial dance by Future Blondes. Haven’t heard much of the rest of the label’s output, but Pop. 1280 is also on there, and they’re Sacred Bones labelmates with Culf Of Youth. Also, Pop. 1280 did a split 7″ with Hot Guts in 2010. Anyway, this Hot Guts LP has really nice packaging; clear, marbled vinyl and a glossy gatefold sleeve, plus a download code. Lots of work put into the design here. The cover is just a stark black void surrounded by flames, plants and sand. Musically, it has pounding deathrock drums, dark (but not overtly gothy) vocals, and some snarling synths, but not on every track. “Unawares” brings in some witch-house-esque slow, detailed drum machine beats, blending guitars and synths which coil around each other. “The Ballad Of John Simon” is surprisingly anthemic, heartfelt school-dance type of number, with pounding tom-tom drums and Peter Hook-ish guitar. The second side starts with a fast drum-machine-led synth-pop song which inevitably reminds me of “Maniac”, but the vocals sound closer to Peter Murphy, and it’s obviously a much different atmosphere. Nice arpeggiated synths and more killer New Order-y guitar. Song ends abruptly, and then there’s another slow, minimal drum-machine-led one, which features labelmate Void Vision. Album closer “Small Brass Cage” is tense, bloody and a bit perverse. Slow pounding drums, but quick monotonous vocals, followed by slower, chanted ones, and anxious synths. After the vocals end, the rhythm keeps going, and some of the synths seem to fly off their hinges. Madness.

Voigt & Voigt: Die Zauberhafte Welt Der Anderen (Kompakt, 2013)

February 11, 2013 at 12:07 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Long-awaited debut LP from Voigt & Voigt, the duo of Kompakt demigod Wolfgang Voigt in collaboration with his brother Reinhard. The duo’s collaborative output has so far been limited to Speicher 12″s and a few compilations, but last year they started releasing 12″s on a new label called Erdingertrax, and here’s a full-length on Kompakt (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, counting the opening of its original record store in 1993 as year zero). Musically, this album should sound familiar to fans of either Voigt, from projects such as Wolfgang’s Gas and All to Reinhard’s Sturm, among dozens (maybe hundreds) of other names. Which is to say, lots of staying-in-place loops fading in and out, and subliminal sounds and textures. “Intro Konig” fades a beat in after two minutes of foggy atmospherics, and uses sounds that approximate barking dogs and chirping insects, along with guitar loops which reverse and retract. “Der Este Zug” shuffles some xylophone loops with more mutating, shifting synth textures, along with another insistent groove which seems to endlessly pogo in place. “Der Keil NRW” starts with live-sounding drums looped at a higher BPM, fooling you into thinking some sort of rock’n’roll song might be developing. But then we’re thrown for a loop with minimal, eerie synth atmospherics, disembodied vocal samples and some dramatic orchestral samples. “Tja Mama, Sandra Maisehberger” is where things get really haunted, starting with creepy horror-movie piano, shuddering footsteps, and spoken female vocals, all of which get reversed and re-looped. More disembodied male vocals loop (basically the same sample as the previous track, pitched down), along with a sliding bassline and measured beats. “Sozial” is a surprise downtempo track, with jazzy brushed drums, hints of sax, and plenty of billowing flutes. Sounds like it could get a little too laid back, but some softly arpeggiating synths underpin the track, giving it just a little bit of tack so that it doesn’t float away completely. “Die Glocke (Endstation Wiener Platz)” is kind of a deconstructed cousin of “Tja Mama”, with the same sliding bass and disembodied vocals, and horror strings. “Hotel Noki” builds up more horror-movie atmospherics with haunted pianos, shifting, reversing strings, and another stay-in-place groove. “Akira” is a monotonous looping string drone, and then “Triptychon Number 7” is maybe the most straightforward dance track on the album. It still has a stiff, singular groove, but a consistent beat, more straightforward building structure, and some neat arpeggiated synth lines. Not that this track would ever be mistaken for any of the Kompakt label’s more poppy artists, like Gui Boratto or Superpitcher, there’s still the type of creepiness present in the rest of the album, but this is definitely the track to go to if you want to hear something more accessible on this album, I guess. “Der Letzte Zug” ends the album with a Burial-like dark atmospheric 2 minutes sounding a bit like a train drifting through late-night foggy mist. The album ends with “Akira” again, but instead of 2 and a half minutes of monotonous string looping, it’s extended to 26 and a half, without much perceptible variation. I guess they must have been really feeling that loop in the studio, but I can’t say I am, at least not for nearly a half hour’s worth. Overall, the album’s a little bit of a mixed bag, but it still holds a few surprises, even for longtime Kompakt fans.