November 15, 2020 at 6:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Endangered Species Vol. 1
This is the
first installment of Dark Entries’ series of ultra-rare curiosities emanating from deep within the past; tracks which may have only been rumored to exist, or may have toiled away in a box in a closet or attic, forgotten about for decades. It starts off with “Munich”, a somewhat garish ’80s Bowie knockoff from a pre-Dust Brothers John King, produced in 1983. The synths themselves are a bit closer to some sort of Italo-new wave hybrid, but the vocals are definitely Bowie-esque. The Actor’s “Picture 210” is lonesome, sequencer-driven minimal wave with shades of Gary Numan, definitely closer to the types of music DE was putting out more frequently when they first started out a decade or so ago. Brazil’s “Tvoj Svojet” is simply the Croatian cover of “Mad World” you never knew you needed to hear. Jamal Khe’s “L’Étranger (Ana Gharib)” is French-Algerian disco sung in Arabic, sounding way closer to Italo than raï, and it’s possibly the biggest revelation here. “Abemus Mind” by Nightless is a slower, more haunted one that unexpectedly features some gentle acoustic guitar and jazzy piano soloing, not to mention layers of sinister vocoders which cackle near the end. There’s lots more strangeness to uncover…
November 15, 2020 at 12:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Civic Center: The Ground Below
Chicago trio Civic Center play a blend of industrial and post-punk that balances claustrophobia with composure. Opener “High Beams” sounds like they’re flailing in the dark and being ravaged by invisible ghosts, but “Fly on the Wall” is much more upright, with very Joy Division-esque vocals and bass guitar, and some squealing noises lurking in the background. “The Prophet” is filled with rabid shrieking and echo chamber paranoia. “You Know What This Means” edges closer to power electronics, but without the harshness, and with acid-drenched effects over the enraged, ranting vocals. “Pencil and Pad” is a surprise excursion into dub, with a melodica lead and vast pools of stormy echo.
November 14, 2020 at 12:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
J. Pavone String Ensemble: Lost and Found
The latest album from Jessica Pavone’s unconventional string quartet (two violins, two violas, no lower octaves) contains four pieces which mix traditional notation and improvisation. It was recorded at New Haven’s Firehouse 12, a venue always described as “intimate”, and that’s all too appropriate for an ensemble meant to be “lightweight and compatible”, according to the composer. That said, this isn’t gentle, easy background music. The pieces are all around 10 minutes each, and they all seem to slowly creep from one side to another. It’s almost suspenseful, particularly the somewhat ironically titled “Nice and Easy”, but then there’s no real sense of attack, it just sort of slides away from the action when you expect it to go all in. Even when it all seems like it’s slowly melting and becoming disfigured, there’s still brief moments when it hints at a more traditional sense of beauty, like the more harmonious notes near the end of “Nice and Easy”. “Pros and Cons”, however, could make the listener feel seasick if they play it loud enough. “Lost and Found” is a bit more glacial and actually the most relaxing piece here, although it’s still probably too dissonant to play around your grandparents.
November 13, 2020 at 8:50 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment
S8JFOU: Cynism
is a French electronic musician who lives in a small, self-built, solar-powered cabin on the side of a snow-covered mountain, where he pretty much does nothing but make music all day using self-designed digital synths. Basically, he is living the life we could only dream of, and his music is fascinating. He’s released a few albums since 2016, but
Cynism is the first I’ve heard. It’s generally describably as wondrous yet playful glitch-heavy IDM, with lots of spluttery analog effects. He has an amazing way of making sharp, frigid beats mix with gentle, icy melodies, yet it doesn’t sound quite like any of the other artists doing pretty melodic IDM, post-Arovane, Morr Music, Kettel, etc. He definitely has a more Ilian Tape-inspired way of incorporating breakbeats, but it’s less club-driven than that, even if there’s some fractured garage-ish rhythms. There’s even some moments where he plays dusky trumpet solos. The song titles point to childhood nostalgia but he doesn’t cover well-trodden territory and sample the voices of playing children or emulate grainy public television show soundtracks or anything like that. It’s just highly original electronic music which follows its own whims. I’m in awe of this artist.
November 12, 2020 at 8:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Pure Rave: community Comparator Night at Don’s
Detroit collective
Pure Rave make oblong rhythmic improvisation collages using multiple turntables, prepared records, effects, and drum machines. They were basically the house band at the
Trip Metal Fests a few years ago, and while they seem perfectly fitting within that context, they’re highly confounding outside of it. One of the members once told me about the time they spun in between sets when Yellowman played at El Club, and angry patrons were all “We paid to hear reggae music tonight!”, and they still weren’t feeling it when the DJs played a Scientist record instead. Anyway, Pure Rave recently put a few things up on Bandcamp, starting with a
live gig at Donovan’s Pub from earlier this year which featured Cy Tulip and Dave Shettler on Modular Synth. Basically, they recorded a multi-hour session, cut it into chunks, titled them, and arranged them in mostly alphabetical order, so some bits re-emerge at different parts of the album, making it more indeterminate than it already would be. Throughout the album you hear old techno, house, reggae, jazz, and R&B records hobbling in circles, sometimes creating counterrhythms when the records skip. At some points, they’ll just happen upon a perfect vocal/beat sample loop and just go to town with it, dousing it with echo and effects — try not to smile during “Meowdular RnB”. The sequence of “Trip” tracks (and really any other ones that sound like hybrid genres) all point to possible new directions for a successor to Trip Metal, further applying the already limitless concept to other corners of the musical map.
Pure Rave: № 113
A much more concentrated burst of Pure Rave NRG was released on cassette and Bandcamp by Nostilevo.
№ 113 is 24 minutes of electro claptrap broken breakdance, convoluted tekno acid bells, and a welcome burst of technofied African Head Charge. The B-side is a freewheeling, head-spinning highlight which starts to feel like it’s digesting itself after a while, before youthful voices clamber out, and then it flows into trip rave mode.
Model Home x Pure Rave
Additionally, Pure Rave were handed two copies of DC noise-rap duo
Model Home‘s
One Year record on Disciples, and the label released a mixtape of the results.
Model Home x Pure Rave takes the fracture Dadaist rap tracks and holds them in place, turning them into abstract techno building blocks. Beats hobble, pitch-shifted vocal bursts cut in, key phrases from the album jump out and repeat, but clipped and jumbled. It all stops on a dime, seeming to be another slab of an endless mix session. One assumes that Pure Rave could easily fill up an entire evening using the same album as source material.
November 11, 2020 at 5:34 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Omni Gardens: Moss King
The boss of Moon Glyph presents a
plant-themed synth album that’s warm and fuzzy and full of sunlight, but otherwise brings different types of cheery feelings than
Plantasia. These tracks gentle sway in the air, and they also embrace the cool of the water; you can practically hear them absorb nutrients in real time. It’s super mellow, but at the same time, it sings out and feels genuinely expressive rather than just safe wallpaper music. And there’s just enough of a touch of trippiness to make it stand out. The nature sounds all help greatly, especially the frogs on “Golden Pothos”.
November 9, 2020 at 7:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Rebecca Foon: Waxing Moon
Rebecca Foon has been an integral part of Montreal’s music scene for decades. She’s been part of several notable Constellation Records acts, including A Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire to Flames, Esmerine, and Land of Kush, in addition to releasing solo electro-acoustic work as Saltland. Waxing Moon is her first album under her own name, and it’s significantly more song-driven than much of the bands she’s known for. After opening with a piano-and-strings instrumental which sounds more heavily orchestrated than it really is, most of the songs (except the last, which is a reprise of the first) are dark, dusky neo-classical folk with strings, pianos, organs, drones, double/electric bass, vocals, and usually no drums. Most of these are lyrical, but “Another Realm” is a gorgeous 3 minutes of cinematic suspense with just oooohs rather than lyrics. “Wide Open Eyes” is closer to an atmospheric ’90s alternative pop song, with just a bit of drumming keeping the pulse. The next few tracks are slower and more placid, with “Vessels” (featuring guest duet partner Patrick Watson) being the most stirring. “This Is Our Lives” starts out feeling like it’s the first part of an epic, then it ends up turning surprisingly devotional and hymn-like.
November 8, 2020 at 3:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Thomas Dimuzio: Balance
Longtime synth alchemist Thomas Dimuzio has collaborated with countless figures from throughout the world of experimental music, in concert and on record.
This triple CD collects choice bits from dozens of collaborative performances from 2009 to 2019, with each disc arranged by configuration. Disc one is all duos, and fittingly enough, it’s the most minimal of the three. Much of these pieces are dark drone of some sort or another, from the haunted electro-acoustic of “Gnomon” with Blevin Blectum, full of tiny shreds of voices, to the shifting sci-fi throb of “Yesterday Died and Tomorrow Won’t Be Born” with Greg Bielski (Easy Bake Oven). “Ideal Cycle” with Xopher Davidson (Antimatter) is sort of a cosmic acid rain air raid, then the almighty Wobbly turns up on “Voluntary Limit”, which starts out with blasts of shredded Booper noise before dissipating into the cold night air. His Negativland bandmate The Weatherman pops up in the intro to the following “Directions From Hangar 23A”, giving a legal station ID for KPFA, where the session was (with Lori Varga) recorded. The track is another eerie one filled with scattered voices, wild oscillations, and some strangely comforting ding-dong audio logo tones near the end. “Collecting Particles Under a Dying Sun” with David Molina (Transient) takes things in a different direction, with gentle guitar repetitions and a distant clanging rhythm, later shuddering and whirring to a close. The second disc focuses on trio collaborations, adding an extra dimension to the pieces: mangled guitar strings, momentary bass pulsations, bird chirps, extra sizzles. Wobbly returns, this time with Alan Courtis of South American legends Reynols, and it’s one of the spaciest pieces here, with a few bursts of electricity pushing it in one way or another, and some whirling guitar loops at the end. Joseph Hammer and Rick Potts, prominent members of the highly influential Los Angeles Free Music Society, contribute trails of piercing, squidging guitar noise to “Fluorescent Brown”. Both members of Matmos go into improv mode and play around with skeletal hi-hat rhythms and glitchy oscillations. The track with Aurora Josephson and Chandra Shukla (and actually a few others) is more of an industrial doom trip, before it levels off into floating, meditative vocals. The one with Alexandra Buschman and Angela Edwards is weird because it’s filled with garbled distorted tones and then there’s these sudden loud but comforting bursts that are sort of like the very beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” and even though they aren’t harsh or noisy, they’re still super jarring when they come at you. This is definitely not easy music to fall asleep to. With the last disc, two or three musicians accompany Dimuzio, and these edge closer to free jazz-like improv, featuring more acoustic instrumentation than the first two discs, starting with a noisy, sax-shredding piece featuring Chuck Bettis, Nick Didkovsky, and Michael Lytle. Scott Amendola and Phillip Greenlief particularly shine with the whirling drums, fluttering woodwinds, and muffled voices of “Paging Rubber Chickens”, which ends up turning into a Zorn-like rage-skronk, but with extra smoldering electronics. “We Are Water” (with Emily Hay and Motoko Honda) is one of the more joyful moments, with expressive vocal acrobatics and busy pianos underscored by electronic fuzz. A bit more startling a performance art-like is “I’m One of ‘Em” (with Shelley Hirsch, Thea Farhadian, and Gino Robair), which has a few violent interjections (“You woke me out of my nightmare!”) and crooked, creaking violin. At the end, “The Talisman of Market Street” (with Scott Amendola, Jon Evans, and Ava Mendoza) ventures into more groove-based (but also heavily spacey) electric jazz improv.
November 5, 2020 at 9:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: HOA012
HAUS of ALTR’s
latest compilation hasn’t gotten as much attention as its previous two, but it’s still packed with quality and worthy of attention. Like the others, this one has an all-star lineup of some of the best artists making club music right now. The AceMo/AceMoMA tracks at the beginning, including collaborations with Detroit’s 2Lanes and Kanyon, all go hard with jungle hybrids. The juke/deep house/hardstep fusion of “Omnipresence” (with Kanyon) is particularly innovative and amazing. Other artists dip into spacey sci-fi techno (Akua), fractured lo-fi house (AshTreJunkins), and nosebleed hardcore techno (Buzzi x Xiorro). Escaflowne turns a freestyle hit into ecstatic breakbeat hardcore, bookworms goes electro, and Kanyon’s “Stops Rust” is breakbeat with shades of “Can You Feel It”. Kush Jones does some nice minimal jungle, and North End Track Authority gets points for sampling DBX’s “Losing Control”. Loraine James, Martyn Bootyspoon, Speaker Music (with Lamin Fofana), and others also contribute highlights.
November 1, 2020 at 12:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Baldi/Gerycz Duo: After Commodore Perry Service Plaza
Dylan Baldi and Jayson Gerycz of Cloud Nothings make stripped-down free jazz as a form of release when they’re not writing and performing tightly wound, hook-heavy pop/punk songs with their main band. This is their second album this year, recorded in Gerycz’s basement home studio during a single day in February, and it contains three improvised pieces, with Baldi playing saxophone and Gerycz on drums. The first track takes up 18 minutes, and it’s mostly pretty sparse and arid, at one point feeling like it’s barely scraping along and nearly out of breath, but then it explodes into color and feeling right at the end. “Frog Congress” starts out minimal as well — faint whirring of cymbals, some faint tonal color lines, clacking of the keys — and doesn’t particularly heat up, but does seem to get deeper into the physical properties of the instruments, with more crunching, clanking, rubbing, stretching. “The Holy Retrievers (In Transit)” is much shorter than the other two pieces and much more drum-heavy, and Baldi’s expressive playing takes on much more of an Albert Ayler-like tone, so it’s easily the most active and engaging piece here.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 