March 10, 2018 at 4:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Ray Kandinski & Karl Lumont: Project Chicago EP
The title and Kandinski’s past releases on labels like E-Beamz make this appear to be house, but it’s actually lush, atmospheric jungle filled with birdsong and vintage reggae samples, like the familiar Mikey Dread drop that appears throughout “Make Me Feel So Good”. “Project Chicago” has choppier beats, getting busier but not more aggressive. “Feel It” is more goodtime vibesy with splashing Amens, and “Heal Yourself” is a bit more lo-fi, and with more twisted breaks and spiraling synth pads. There’s also more of a bassline to this track than the others. Next time you’re playing a rave at a botanical garden or conservatory, drop something from this record.
March 4, 2018 at 3:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Lead: s/t LP
Minimal name, minimal artwork, and two sidelong, untitled tracks. This album isn’t overwhelming, and it was created with just a few small instruments in an office building, but even though it sounds sparse and airy, the duo get locked into some entrancing patterns and it catches your attention. The first part of side A sounds like a musical recreation of water dripping into a pail as well as a faintly but deeply hissing radiator. Then the second part has minimalist keyboards which seem to get out of sync. Trying to follow where it’s going ends up tricking your mind a bit, even though it doesn’t seem like all that much is happening, and it’s so quiet you have to turn it up and really concentrate. After a period of puttering drum machines, dubbed-out connection noises, and rhythmic scraping, Amy Howden-Chapman’s vocals, alternating between higher fluttering and lower, lonelier reflections, float over a limited but expressive array of synth beams. The side ends with a percussive bit which oddly sounds like an electronic horseback ride. While the first side seems like a suite of several short tracks, the second side is one continuous piece. It begins with slowly dripping keyboard tones and gentle waves, and there’s some low humming which nevertheless seems to cut through the sounds a little bit. A light, metallic clicking develops, and eventually the vocals go into a higher register. For some reason, this is categorized as noise on Discogs, but it’s almost the inverse of a noise record. It seems simple and basic, maybe even “lowercase”, and it captures the essence of a small, intimate space rather than loudly projecting outwards in attempt to repel or express disgust or anger.
March 4, 2018 at 2:32 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Crazy Doberman: Free LSD LP
Crazy Doberman, formerly known as just Doberman, is an experimental collective from LaFayette, Indiana which includes Wolf Eyes member John Olson. They’re described as “psycho jazz” rather than “trip metal”. They’ve played at several local events such as the monthly Psy Jazz Nights at Trixie’s in Hamtramck as well as various afternoon basement sessions in Ypsilanti, and their participants have included underground noise/improv mainstays like Dan Dlugosielski and Sick Llama. The group’s first LP appears on LA-based Radical Documents, and there isn’t much info provided, but it’s two side-long dreadscapes filled with fogged-out voices, distant, squealing woodwinds, and a looming sensation of overwhelming queasiness. I’d say it reminds me of Robedoor more than Wolf Eyes, to be honest. Side A has a slow, booming drum machine grounding everything, but the blown-out chaos surrounding the rhythm pushes everything to the brink of sheer panic. Side B is a bit more freeform, with loose, pounding drums, and more ominous layers of strings, reeds, and angry elephant brass. The instruments are easier to discern this time around, and somehow it ends up being darker, trippier, and more doomified than the first side. There’s a brief pause in the middle before blasted-out electronics and cranky, zombified woodwinds creep in. There’s no proper end to it really, it just keeps going through different phases of intensity then stops cold at the end of the side. Nauseous and horrifying, but nearly impossible to turn away from. It’s incredible.
February 25, 2018 at 1:52 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Florian Kupfer: untitled 12″ EP
I hadn’t even realized that Florian Kupfer released a new record on L.I.E.S. until I was recently searching through Reckless Records’ website a few days before the last time I visited Chicago. I heard some clips and had to buy it. In some ways, it seems like perhaps the least lo-fi thing he’s released so far. There’s still fat, thumping kicks on opening track “Contact”, but there’s a drifting sensation underneath that’s hard to explain, with scattered pianos aiding in the song’s progression. “TY” is a shorter track with a more complex beat pattern and a thin layer of white noise, but it doesn’t sound “hissy” the way his other stuff did. “Random Chaos” seems to have a more club-friendly beat, and it seems to progress that way, but the percussion seems to imitate the banging hammers of construction workers, and then it just gets wavier and trippier. “Z” begins with several interlocked percussive patterns, none of which are a standard club rhythm, before a soft but vengeful layer of swarming synths hovers over everything. If it were more distorted and there were several more layers to it, it would be close to Somatic Responses territory. Really stunning and surprising, not at all what I was expecting.
February 24, 2018 at 10:21 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Schnellertollermeier: Rights
Cuneiform has announced that they’re no longer going to be releasing new music after being one of the very best sources of experimental music (especially avant-prog and jazz) for over three decades. Part of their final batch of releases is this fourth album from instrumental trio Schnellertollermeier, which is a smushed-together amalgamation of the band members’ last names (one of which is actually Troller, probably no relation to the Austin band of the same name). Their music is very precise and considered, building up from locked-in patterns and seeing how far out they can stretch. It all seems to be played on a standard guitar-bass-drums trio configuration, but there’s some effects added, making the guitars flange and stutter. Of the four tracks, the first and last are over 10 minutes each, and the longer this band plays, the more convoluted and off-the-rails they get. The whole album sounds fresh and exciting, and the band consistently defy expectations at every turn.
February 19, 2018 at 1:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
William Price: Rush Hour
Mind-altering electro-acoustic works from Birmingham composer William Price, inspired by abstract art, literature, and everyday scenarios. Lots of granular processing and manipulation of voices and instruments, transforming the sounds entirely; dipping them in acid, making them sharper and jagged, making them wet and bubbly. His usage of voices, particularly in “2 Days in the Tank” (which has a particularly liquid-like feel, and is based on manipulations of the title of Charles Bukowski’s
The Drunk Tank Judge) and the especially otherworldly “Spline”, are incredibly haunting, blurring and distorting the lines between the familiar and unfamiliar. Brief pieces are alternated with longer, more ambitious ones, and two of them focus on non-electronic instruments. “Sans Titre V” is a lengthy piece for amplified cello, which constnatly shifts between more graceful, melodic sections, abrasive interjections, and silence, with a chilly glow of reverb over everything. “Rush Hour” is a three-movement piece featuring tenor saxophone, which interacts with Price’s electro-acoustics. At times they alter the saxophone, and at one point (during the first movement) they end up forming a fast, jazzy rhythm perfect for zipping along the highways. The short piece “WOOSH” is apparently based on notes originally played by a toy saxophone, recorded using ProTools and manipulated using granular synthesis software. Price’s sound design is consistently impressive, and the compositions are all entertaining as well as thought-provoking.
February 19, 2018 at 11:51 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Ω▽ (Ohmslice): Conduit LP
This NY-based improv ensemble utilizes two drummers, one of which is fed through a modular synthesizer, courtesy of Bradford Reed (who was in King Missile!!!), inventor of what he calls the pencilina. On several tracks, Jane LeCroy delivers stream-of-consciousness poetry over all of this, reminding me of Lydia Tomkiw (Algebra Suicide) but with more of an acerbic edge, and with a freer sense of dynamics. She sing-songs about wanting to get away by any means necessary on opening track “Crying on a Train”, and “Get Matter” is more free-associative and ponders the infinite complexities of the universe, but ultimately determines that “you don’t matter” in a cold, punishing, matter-of-fact way. “Gravity” sounds like it has a didgeridoo but it doesn’t, it must be the magical, sound-transforming powers of the pencilina. After the dark ambient rumblings of “Rusty Ground” is the ominous yet free, unforced doom-jazz of “Paint by Numbered Days”. Closing instrumental “Ohm’s Awe” is like some strange complex structure come to life and lifting off the ground, rotating and emitting wonderful music.
February 18, 2018 at 1:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Tatira: The Light Will Disappear CDr
The latest Inam Records release may be the first one that I’ve seen arrive in a standard CD jewel case. The artwork is bright white with clear lettering, and much of the music is also surprisingly accessible. It combines drone and techno the way other recent Inam releases have, but the majority of the tracks here are punchy and somewhat shiny and polished. There’s even something approaching chords to some of them, and bits of new wave and progressive house elements. At least compared to some of the more dour Inam releases, this is a lot sunnier and brighter-sounding. “All Is Seen” goes on for nine minutes, and it gradually picks up a growling bass lump which sneaks up on you, and can be quite terrifying if you’re driving. Like a lot of these tracks, this one stops suddenly and dovetails into the next one. Some tracks are fully ambient (“The Absentee”, “Son of Machines”), but then there’s other lengthy beat-driven ones, like “Merciful Tyrant”. “Tunnels” is a bit darker and lonelier than most of the other tracks, and it could easily keep going and building for a lot longer than the 3 minutes it gets here. The album ends with the sparse, shimmering drone “The Light Will Disappear”, suggesting that maybe the next release will return to murk, fuzziness, and malaise. Free DL at
Bandcamp.
February 10, 2018 at 10:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Hans Tammen & Dark Circuits Bunker Orchestra: Ten Minutes Late With No Bus In Sight And No Taxi Either
Lengthy compositions played by a gigantic orchestra of synths (including Euroracks, a random tone generator, and a modified Moog Etherwave Theremin) as well as some very unhinged, impulsive drumming. Tammen is credited with “concept, composing, binary conducting”. There’s clear guidance to these recordings; it’s obvious that someone is telling the musicians when to be calm and when to explode and go crazy. When the drums get manic and the synths swell and saturate, it all provides an ultraviolet head rush. Probably the best track overall is “Kafka’s Hat”, a pretty thorough mix of heavy rhythms, musique concrete-like synth-work, and outer space overdrive. “Black Magic and Its Full Expose” is nearly 18 minutes, and interrupts interstellar voyagery with brief moments of far out, frenetic drumming which could’ve been recorded at some sort of carnival. The whole album is highly inventive and never predictable, and sounds like it was spontaneously created by humans in love with the possibilities of technology as well as intense, sprawling rhythms.
February 10, 2018 at 8:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Bruce Russell: Metallic OK
Bruce Russell’s solo material is generally even further out than his work with the Dead C. Rather than making an ungodly racket in a rock band format, his solo work tends to focus on limited sets of weird sounds, and wringing them for all they’re worth. He’ll tune his guitars the way bluesmen like Skip James did, then he’ll play them with knives or other devices not normally associated with music-making. Much of this was recorded live, and you can imagine the audience felt like they were being constantly zapped by high-voltage electrodes, but there’s no way they could possibly turn away or escape. Some tracks eschew guitars, instead using field recordings, metal bowls, and other sound sources. “Electro-magnetic Feedback Study #1 (Strange House in the Snow)” seems to blur the lines between radio and guitar feedback. “Woodchopping (Way On Up, Till the Sun Go Down)” sounds like, well, chopping wood; it’s almost like he’s hacking a guitar to bits and burying it in the dirt, and recording it all with contact mics. The last track (“Excerpt from ‘Motorboeating'”) is the longest one, and it’s the one where everything feels like it’s being consumed in a toxic meltdown.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 