The Answer Is In The Beat

Koenraad Ecker: Sleepwalkers In a Cold Circus (Line, 2015)

February 28, 2015 at 5:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Second solo album from Lumisokea’s Koenraad Ecker, following an LP on Digitalis last year. Cold electro-acoustic drone with metallic rustling and scraping and bass tones. Builds tension and suspense but never really releases it. The closest it gets is the swarming strings and electronic birdsong of “There Are No Eyes Here”, and the harsh cutups and ominous beats of “Nazif”. “Parasites” develops a shuddering, convulsing beat, providing one of the more rhythmic moments in the album, which otherwise has a dark, sickly metallic drift.

Stage Hands: s/t (My Idea Of Fun, 2015)

February 28, 2015 at 4:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Stage Hands is the newest project of Brandon Locher of The Meets, and this duo (including drummer Gerald Mattis) seems much more focused than the group improvisations of The Meets. Locher has collaborated with Ghostly International for visual work, and this definitely brings to mind Ghostly acts such as Midwest Product and Shigeto which combine live and electronic drums, synths, and other instruments to create something rhythmic and danceable but still clearly composed and played by humans. The first 4 songs on this short album have standard song lengths and are fluid, melodic and spontaneous yet controlled. They also seem to progressively increase in tempo, with “Adaptive Lines” and “Regardless” being more dancey. “#unabomber” has more of a smoothed out tempo, stretches out past 8 minutes and features vocals reminiscent of Baths. The album’s final, untitled track is barely a minute long, but is a very intriguing taste of what’s hopefully yet to come from this project.

Graham Repulski: Maple Stag tape (self-released, 2014)

February 28, 2015 at 4:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Newest tape from prolific lo-fi songwriter Graham Repulski, who used to be in a fantastic band called Von Hayes. I’m biased because I know the guy (we saw the Flaming Lips together 13 years ago) but I think he’s far and away one of the best people doing lo-fi indie-pop stuff these days. Basically, he sounds exactly like classic-era Guided By Voices, but with a bit more experimentation and weirdness. There’s spontaneous backwards effects, and maybe a Casio or some cheap drum machine. No song length is too short (5 of these 11 songs are under a minute), and there’s never too much distortion or tape hiss. More importantly, there’s amazing songs on here, such as the blistering noise-pop anthem “Rubes”, and fast riffy stomper “Cartoon Meltdown” (which ends with a long backwards guitar section). The longest track is called “Ponderous Little Number”, and it’s the least poppy track here, 3 minutes of tape hiss noise and occasional guitar notes ending with the words “I’m floating away”. “Funeral Games” has the most full-band crunch of any of these songs. “Flux Rebate” ends the tape with nearly 2 minutes of radio static. The tape is available on his Bandcamp page, along with tons of older albums, many of which are available as free downloads.

Kim Fowley’s Psychedelic Dogs: Detroit Invasion LP (The End Is Here, 2014)

February 28, 2015 at 3:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Kim Fowley live at the Hamtramck Blowout in 2012 with some local musicians, produced by Matthew Smith of Outrageous Cherry. Basically it’s Kim doing his thing with younger musicians improvising behind him and trying to keep up. Not all that different in concept than a newer Lee Scratch Perry LP. Fowley often instructs the musicians on which directions to go in, when to sing along, and things like that. The most striking moment is the album’s final song, “Death”, which Fowley introduces by saying that he was asked what is next project was… and his response was that death is his next project. And so the band breaks into a cheery song where Fowley seems excited about dying soon. And of course, a month after this album was released, he died. It seems shocking at first, but after I listen to it a couple times, it makes me feel like I can only hope I have a similar non-morbid attitude toward death when I get to be his age. I just need to make sure that I live a life that’s worth being proud and cheerful about until then. As in, not doing all the sleazy things this guy did. R.I.P.

Rob Mazurek: Alternate Moon Cycles LP (International Anthem Recording Company, 2014)

February 28, 2015 at 2:16 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

In contrast to his phenomenal, explosive album last year with Black Cube SP, this is a more stripped-down, meditative Mazurek. This piece is entitled “Waxing Crescent”; there is also a “Waning Crescent” available on cassette. This is minimalist drone, with droning organ, softly pulsing electric bass notes, and a single cornet note being played for relaxed, extended lengths. There’s also some gentle talking and clatter in the background, as if people are having breakfast in the background. The second side (the one with a white label) is similar but with a lower note played on the cornet, so it has a slightly darker, less relaxing feel, but a few more bass guitar notes enter the orbit. Towards the end he breaks through and plays a much more expressive, melodic solo, which elevates the piece a bit from its purely meditative state.

Deutsche Wertarbeit: s/t (Sky, 1981/reissued Bureau B, 2014)

February 22, 2015 at 8:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Bureau B seems to be on a quest to reissue every obscure Krautrock record ever recorded, and if I had the money I’d buy all of them. This album was one I immediately knew I had to own once I heard the preview clips. It had actually been reissued a few years ago by Medical Records, but both pressings of that reissue are long gone, so now Bureau B is reissuing it with the original artwork. This project was a solo effort of Dorothea Raukes of German band Streetmark, who I’ve never heard of, but this is a fantastic album of cosmic new wave which covers a lot of ground in its 6 tracks. There’s catchy arpeggio-heavy tracks with drum machines and vocoders and rich synth melodies (with vocoder anthem “Auf Engelsflügeln” being a highlight), but then there’s extended space odysseys which tread closer to vision-seeking Tangerine Dream territory (most notably 10-minute closer “Der Grosse Atem”). Hopefully the Streetmark catalog will be reissued, but this is worth investigating, if you missed it when Medical reissued it, which I did.

Rima Kato: Faintly Lit (flau, 2015)

February 21, 2015 at 2:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Japanese label flau typically releases melodic experimental electronic music, but some of their releases lean towards indie/folk songwriting, and this is one of them. The songs on Rima Kato’s debut album feature hushed vocals in English with a heavy Japanese accent, along with strummed guitar, Casio, flute/recorder and glockenspiel. It’s light and precious, and warm and dreamy as the song titles suggest. Track 4 is called “Have Fun” but somehow it seems like the most downbeat, depressed song on here. The closest the album gets to being “jaunty” is harmonica-led closer “Ferris Wheel”; even the tracks with Casio beats are pretty laidback and calm. I tend to like flau’s more electronic releases better than ones like this, but it’s still undeniably sweet.

Dan Deacon: Gliss Riffer (Domino, 2015)

February 21, 2015 at 1:21 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The newest Dan Deacon album is one of his poppiest yet, with clearer (yet still heavily vocoded) vocals, and less of the ensemble orchestration of his past 2 albums. It’s still not quite a return to Spiderman Of The Rings era; this is the older, wiser Dan who doesn’t build songs from cartoon samples anymore. More lyrics that seem to seek transcendentalism, and mostly higher tempos (a few tracks are a steady midtempo, but they build towards something rather than just head immediately for frantic release). A few tracks are listed as instrumentals in the liner notes but they still have aggressively chopped up vocal samples in lieu of lyrics, and they manage to say a lot in terms of mood and feeling. “Meme Generator” in particular has a really nice blend of a tough midtempo electro beat and pretty melodies. Some of the beats and chopped samples seem to have a bit of a hip-hop (particularly Southern/booty/ghettotech) influence to them, but just in terms of tempo and pitch, not so much that it seems like he’s overtly trying to make that type of music. It works really well, actually. There’s also a slight classic rock theme here, at least in the first track (which mentions Tom Petty’s “Into The Great Wide Open” song/video) and the fact that the last track is called “Steely Blues” (Steely Dan has a song called “Deacon Blues”). “Take It To The Max” comes closest to the orchestrated maximal-minimalism of his last 2 albums, building up a fast polyrhythmic drum pattern and zapping you with a flurry of chopped-up samples at the track’s climax. “Steely Blues” also builds up with a fast tempo, but seems much more relaxed and light, and ends with a very long sax fadeout. Once again, Dan has created something highly joyous yet actually quite serious, and his return to the Magic Stick in Detroit in 3 months is highly anticipated.