The Answer Is In The Beat

Voigt/465: Slights Still Unspoken (Selected Recordings 1978-1979) (Mental Experience, 2017)

August 6, 2017 at 2:16 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

Voigt/465 were a short-lived Australian post-punk group who only recorded one album, one single, and a smattering of additional songs. This CD gathers all of the released tracks plus some unreleased ones (and the digital download adds a few more, including a Faust cover). It opens with “State”, the A-side of their single, which was a pretty solid, driving post-punk tune which got some attention from John Peel. After that, nothing about this band is remotely conventional or predictable. Rae Byrom sounds like Siouxsie but weirder, and does all sorts of strange vocal acrobatics. Songs like “Voices A Drama” start out as giddy, arty post-punk and get stranger and stranger, throwing in noise sections and getting caught in quasi-operatic minimalist cycles. The keyboards are cold and primitive-sounding, far away from the chipper organ sounds usually employed by rock bands up to that point. There’s also a heavy element of improvisation, especially during the discordant 7-minute epic “F1”. The liner notes discuss how nobody understood the band and they were completely out of sync with what was going on at the time, which is why they didn’t last too long, and the music is certainly difficult, but obviously it’s a bit easier to appreciate and admire several decades after the fact. Also, I can’t help but notice that the keyboard part during the middle of “And the Following Page”, a previously unreleased track recorded in 1978, bears a resemblance to the bridge of Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love”, which was recorded a few years after.

Ichinen: Dual Craters (Last Drop Records, 2017)

August 4, 2017 at 10:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Italian techno producers Roberto Bosco and Kiny teamed up to form this mysterious duo, debuting with a 12″ last year and now letting this full-length disperse into the world. This is kind of a world unto its own — it’s very atmospheric and echoey, but it’s not dub(-techno) or ambient, and it’s rarely steady enough to be techno proper. The beats are sporadic and slippery; and they feel like walking the surface of a planet that isn’t quite solid, but somehow it doesn’t need to be, because there isn’t nearly as much gravity as on earth, so you’re propelled with minimal steps. Some of the sounds seem to loop in concentric circles with others, but the tempos still make it hard to seem what direction everything’s going in. But it’s definitely going somewhere, and you feel transported. It’s soothing, eerie, and incredibly alien at the same time. “Strangely Comforting”, as one of the track titles puts it. Vladislav Delay is the only point of comparison I can really come up with. It’s just really immersive and unique and beautiful and you should listen to it.

X.Y.R.: Labyrinth LP (Not Not Fun, 2017)

August 2, 2017 at 10:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Russia’s X.Y.R. has released several tapes on labels like Singapore Sling, Constellation Tatsu, and Not Not Fun, and now the latter is the home of the project’s debut LP. The album contains six tracks of gentle, unhurried drifting, sometimes with soft vocals, and sometimes with rushing waves (or fuzzy static). It’s relaxing, but it’s also a bit lonely, and it’s not afraid to let some rough edges show. If it’s somehow possible to do yoga underwater while listening to music, this might be a good soundtrack for that.

Tobias.: Eyes In the Center (Ostgut Ton, 2017)

August 2, 2017 at 9:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

3rd solo album from Tobias Freund, who has been making techno in one form or another since the early ’90s and is now associated with the mighty Berghain club and its Ostgut Ton label. This is an album of explorations rather than straightforward club tracks. “Cr 24” is a rough, homemade electro track which takes a few seconds to boot up. “Autopoiesis” opens with scattered voices, which soon form waves and then give way to an almost footwork-sounding rhythm. “Blind Mass” is a moody piece with some breakbeats shuffling away underneath, but “Syndrome” is where we finally get to solid 4/4 beats. But even then, the claps play a sort of half-time game, making things seem to move slower than they are. “Single Minded” is another weird half-time dub-sludge creeper. “In Between” is an ambient piece which sounds like spending a night in a slightly eerie, possibly haunted, but generally safe forest. After that, we get various shades of rough electro beats surrounded by lush, spacey sounds. “Geometric” has a very tiny trace of rave synths under its crunchy beat and shadowy drifting. The clapping, sputtering “Eyes In the Center” is another highlight.

Iguana Moonlight: Wild Palms tape (Not Not Fun, 2017)

July 30, 2017 at 7:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This enchanting tape features synth tones surrounding by lots of rushing waves and squawking seagulls. The synths sound lonely but also a tiny bit playful, especially in how some of the notes swoop a bit, and they bring to mind Fumio Miyashita’s early ’80s material. There’s nothing harsh or even really dark about this album, but somehow it doesn’t seem very new age. It doesn’t seem like meditation or healing music. It sounds like, well, being stuck on an island, and feeling both free and trapped. It’s celebratory but also a little scared. It’s fun overall, though.

The Spookfish: Black Hole (Fire Talk, 2017)

July 29, 2017 at 12:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The mysterious Spookfish has been haunting the tape underground for years now, and this is his debut CD release. Detached, fragmentary electro-acoustic lo-fi pop which drifts in an out of lyrics and song structures. Three of the songs are included in two versions each; the acoustic verison of “Black Hole”, all lonesome Microphones-y strumming, chirping crickets, and bummed out Lou Barlow vocals, opens the album before segueing into the proper version of the song. Here, it ends up being a frazzled collage of woozy beats, bitcrunched explosions, and wayward drifting. The contrast provides a startling, fascinating look into the artist’s creative process. “Moon Viewing Road” is also preceded by an acoustic version, which takes the form of a dusty drone, before crunchy beats and gelatinous synths are added for the main version. Following the short acoustic ballad “Everything is Moving So Fast”, “Car Horn (Extended)” is a John Fahey-like solo acoustic journey which shows that this guy isn’t just about weird lo-fi indie pop. “Black Ghost with Red Eyes” is forest-dwelling indie folk with a hint of tape corrosion and minimal keyboards.

Andy Haas: Taballah II (Resonantmusic, 2017)

July 23, 2017 at 9:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I honestly don’t know much about Andy Haas other than that he was in Martha and the Muffins and he’s worked with several prominent downtown NYC folk. And that he also plays the didgeridoo, but not on this album. This one has saxophone and taal tarang (an electronic tabla) as well as lots of hissy, fuzzy electronic processing. The pulsating electronics remind me of Muslimgauze a bit, but the saxophone drifts off into a different space. There’s some intense sputtering and transforming with the electronic effects here, yet it doesn’t disrupt the saxophone journeying. Sort of space-age, sort of fourth-world, even a tiny bit industrial, but definitely not like anything else.