The Answer Is In The Beat

Marina Rosenfeld: P.A. / Hard Love (Room40, 2013)

August 1, 2013 at 9:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Experimental composer and turntablist Marina Rosenfeld designed a soundsystem/installation which repositions ambient sounds from the exhibit along with electro-acoustic elements. This album is an album-length study of this installation, featuring cello from Okkyung Lee, and most surprisingly, vocals from Warrior Queen, best known for her brilliant work with The Bug. Hearing her familiar voice in such a different context (electro-acoustic drone) is such a startling culture shock, but the results are seriously intriguing, if nothing else. The radio promo sheet likens this album to an abandoned factory in Kingston, with echoes of dancehalls of past generations resonating, but I feel like this is more bleak and futuristic than that suggests. There’s plenty of glitching and buzzing computer sounds surrounding Warrior Queen’s voice, and on a few instances, her voices gets looped and stuttered. “New York / It’s All About…” begins with a few minutes of traffic sounds, glitching and droning, before Warrior Queen’s dancehall chatter arrives, sans backing rhythm: “It’s all about Marina Rosenfeld and Warrior Queen, seen? Check it!” “Seeking Solace / Why, Why?” is a dark, cold drone with Warrior Queen pouring her soul out about neverending pain in her heart. “I Launch An Attack…” starts with swarming synths and eventually drops a spare, thumping techno beat, before Warrior Queen starts rhyming at a different tempo without the beat, and eventually the beat comes back at its original speed, while Okkyung Lee’s cello sends chills down your spine. “New York / Empire State Of…” features more NYC street ambience, a few incidental beats, and more shuddering cello. You hear some disembodied New Yorkers’ voices, but no Warrior Queen. “HARD LOVE” is the only track on the album that attemps to match Warrior Queen’s vocals with something replicating a dancehall rhythm, but there’s a conspicuous absence of bass. The song’s chorus seems to riff on Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff”, and Warrior Queen’s slick dancehall verse is cut in by glitching noises and moments of stillness. There’s a long period of beatlessness before the rhythm comes back in and the lyrics resume. “Liverpool / ‘Round Downtown By Myself / Tick Tock” features whispered dialogue, presumably from Rosenfeld herself, along with more traffic sounds and chiming electronic tones. The vocals softly imitate the ticking of a clock, and the album’s playing time runs out.

R. Stevie Moore: Personal Appeal (Care In The Community, 2013)

August 1, 2013 at 12:07 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

R. Stevie Moore has long been hailed as the godfather of lo-fi home recording, self-releasing hundreds of tapes and CDRs of his music dating back to the ’60s. Most of his vinyl and CD releases tend to be compilations of older material licensed for release by labels (some big, some small), and this appears to be another one of those releases. His website states that almost all of these songs were actually recorded in the ’70s, the only exceptions being tracks 10 (1981) and 11 (2000). The album fittingly starts with “Why Can’t I Write A Hit?”, which answers its own question, starting with seemingly accessible pop-rock with off-kilter vocal harmonies, but ending with slow creepy drone and a grating voice croaking out “the songs are too weird”. “Make Up Shake Up” features RSM singing in a faux English accent over classical strings (his website credits the backing to “Mozartronic”), and ends with a fake radio voice back announcing. “Old” has big bluesy guitar licks, a constant bell-ringing sound, and faux deep/old vocals. “Structure Of Love” is one of the longest tracks here at 4 minutes, and is a steady, slowly paced guitar instrumental, until the music gets interrupted around 2:45 with a faint voice announcing a technical problem with a splice, before the music resumes. “The Picture” is a sad, melancholy ballad about missing someone and masturbating to their picture. “Quarter Peep Show” is a goofy, hootin’ and hollerin’ echo-heavy bluegrass song about peep shows. “I’ve Begun To Fall In Love” is another strange, heartbreaking sick-love song, with melodramatic synth-string backing. “Pretend For A Second That You Are Very Intelligent” is almost sort of an outsider proto-rap song (recorded in 1978), with very spare guitar and drum backing and a steady vocal cadence, and some insulting spoken interludes, and a fuller arrangement towards the end. “Forecast” has another somewhat proto-rap cadence, which breaks into a rock’n’roll rhythm halfway through. “No Body” is another classic goofy RSM song, ridiculously catchy with silly vocals and lyrics about shampoo and washing hair, with very reggae-inspired dub echo every time he says the word “body”. “Man Without A Purpose” is a droney, minimal synth song with a little bit of guitar, drums and vocals. “Treat Me” has squonking jazz sax and another catchy, offbeat rhythm. “What We Did” is a drunken waltz with perverted, mostly quickly-spoken vocals, which pan wildly between the speakers. “Copy Me” is a catchy drum machine pop song where RSM basically dares you to bite his style. The album ends with a minute-long shrug called “I’m Sorry But Goodnight”. I’ve barely begun to explore this man’s catalog, so I can’t really say if this album is a fair or accurate sampling of his work, or if there’s better collections of his music available, but at the very least you should check it out if you’re not familiar with him at all.

Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom: Daytime Viewing (Unseen Worlds, 2013)

July 31, 2013 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This is the first public release of a 1982 song-cycle by artist/composer/designer Jacqueline Humbert and electro-acoustic pioneer David Rosenboom. The album combines lush, minimal-synth, almost new-age synthesizer arrangements with spoken and sung vocals. and lyrics about being entranced by daytime television. The two “Talk” tracks are definitely in the Robert Ashley mode of spoken drama observations with minimalist music, although this music is much lighter in tone and poppier, and there’s sung vocals as well. “Bareback” is kind of an avant-country-pop song, with a series of “where were you?” questions for lyrics, and a sweet, almost saccharine arrangement and melody. Are those synths imitating accordions? “Domestic Violence” is almost relaxing and even chipper, and kind of cheesy-loungey around the middle (those synth-flutes!), until you realize the lyrics are about, well, domestic violence. Even if you’re not listening to the lyrics, the crying baby after the 5 minute mark will break you out of whatever pleasant mood the lyrics might be putting you in. “Distant Space” is another short avant-pop song, which in some weird way reminds me of some of Negativland’s jingle-like original songs (like “Happy Heroes”). “Wishes” alternates between melancholic sung choruses about wishing to visit New York, Paris, and L.A., and Algebra Suicide-like spoken verse about fashion and plastic, over an oddly gospel-inspired clapping synth-pop rhythm. Another fantastic release on Unseen Worlds, a reissue label which definitely seems to value quality over quantity. They only seem to release about 2 records a year, but the last few were ingenious works by Laurie Spiegel and Maria Monti, and this is another jewel in their crown.

Eat Lights Become Lights: Modular Living (Rocket Girl, 2013)

July 31, 2013 at 10:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Synth-heavy instrumental neo-Krautrock. In the ’90s this probably would’ve been filed alongside bands like Trans Am. Motorik drum machine rhythms and atmospheric guitars, and plenty of arpeggiated, blooping synths. “MOD-ULO-510” could almost pass for a karaoke version of Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator”, if it weren’t for the guitar feedback. “Rowly Way Overlook” and “Los Feliz To Griffith” break from the motorik rhythms for some Cluster/Eno ambience, with the former being rhythmic and almost ballet-like, and the latter being more free-flowing and cloudlike. “Life In The Sprawl” is warm, bubbling ambience with a soft 4/4 beat in the background, and then a fuller drumbeat blossoms in the second half of the song. “Chiba Prefecture” is futuristic shopping mall music, for you to buy trendy designer spacesuits to. “Electromagnetika” is sort of similar to the last couple Dan Deacon albums, but with more of an overt Krautrock influence. “Habitat ’67” cools everything down with a sublime string-synth-heavy pulse. Totally retro-futurist music.

Lastboss: Neighbour 13 (Bad Sekta, 2012)

July 29, 2013 at 12:06 am | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

I haven’t reviewed any breakcore since I started posting reviews to this blog, and I wish there was more high profile breakcore stuff coming out nowadays that was worth mentioning. Pretty much any new breakcore stuff coming out, if there is any, seems to be amateur netlabel artists doing things I’ve heard people do better. This is one of Bad Sekta’s many free mp3 releases, and it’s been sitting in my “review” folder for a while, so I’m finally getting around to reviewing it. Turns out this is all material recorded from 2004-2007, so it certainly has that era’s sound to it; fast, random jungle breaks, gabber kicks and ragga samples. But there’s also a lot of beatless neo-classical pieces on here. The title track does the fast d’n’b-with-noise-bursts thing, but with a bit of space behind it, before it gets more intense and overloaded later on. “That Old Piano Tune From Years Ago” is, in fact, a downtempo piano tune, and quite sad and pretty at that. “Salmonella Pudding Semolina Poison” unexpectedly ends up being another sad piano tune, and “ASIO Trouble” is a mysterious guitar and chiming-synth piece. After a while, it seems like this is pretty far removed from anything breakcore-related, at least after the opening track on the release. “The Distinctly Pungent Return Of Xiao Fan Pei” marks a return to distorted beats, and somewhat random sounds, and it goes into what you think is just a breakdown before it gets crazy, but it doesn’t get more intense, only more forlorn and introspective. “The Undeniable Link Between 14 and 0.restored” has soft acoustic guitars and drums that fade in, and some sort of spoken sample that I can’t quite make out. So overall, while there’s some breakcore on this release, it’s clear that this artist has (had? is he still around?) a much wider scope and is capable of doing many different things.

Lafidki: Absynthax tape (Orange Milk, 2012)

July 28, 2013 at 11:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

It took me forever to finally get around to reviewing Lafidki’s split 12″ with Orphan | Oliver after receiving a download promo of it, so the same thing is happening with his tape from last year on Orange Milk. Why do I keep telling myself I’m going to get around to reviewing everything that crosses my radar, and then it just sits on my desk and hard drive until there’s no room and I never listen to anything? But this guy’s stuff is pretty great so I should mention it. Like a lot of Orange Milk releases, this is bright, sparkly, neon, distorted, confusing, and beautiful. “Astral O” is 6 minutes of thundering drums, cascading synths, and blinding distortion. It feels like dancing in a room full of huge, glowing sculpture, and it’s boiling hot, and you’re loving every second of it. “Vong Wong” (a collaboration with Dustin Wong) is a little lighter, with more thundering drums but also trippy, delay-heavy dub guitar. “Pygopagus” starts in a mysterious music-box mode, but switches to something entirely different after a minute, with more bright synths, rippling guitar and thundering distorted drums. “Les Siamois Ne Savent Pas Sur Quel Pied Danser” has a little bit of a darker vibe, with slightly worried (but still bright and sparkly) synths, and bashy, quasi-drum’n’bass beats which sound like they’re fighting their way out of a junkyard. “From Abyss To Constellation Pisces” has more frazzled, fractaled synths and a dubby beat, and changes tempo towards the end, getting brighter and more head-nodding. Lafidki’s sound can almost seem overwhelmingly ecstatic, but in a controlled way.

µ-Ziq: XTEP 12″ (Planet Mu, 2013)

July 28, 2013 at 11:14 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

So Mike Paradinas is suddenly releasing a flurry of new and old material under the µ-Ziq name this year, including 2 CDs worth of unreleased early ’90s material, plus this promo-only mix that I haven’t heard. But there’s also the Chewed Corners album and this 12″ EP. I still haven’t bought Chewed Corners yet, but I heard a stream of it and it didn’t particularly strike me as sounding like µ-Ziq, so I need to spend some time with it when I get around to buying it and appreciate it on its own accord. This EP, however, definitely sounds like µ-Ziq, so I instantly embrace it, although I wasn’t super crazy about the sound clips I heard when they were initially posted to the Planet Mu site. But “XT” has a really happy piano melody, ’80s R&B guitar licks, light dance beats, and the kind of goofy childlike wondrous feel a lot of Paradinas’ work has. “Ritm” is piano-and-string-heavy house, and “Pulsar” is arpeggio-heavy Italo-disco. “Monj2” is where we get closer to the type of distortion sounds µ-Ziq was using on his earlier recordings, but with a clear juke/footwork influence, and gorgeous cascading synths. “New Bimple” is also uptempo, with knocking beats, dreamy pianos and understated arpeggiating synths. It’s pretty short and feels kind of sketch-like, but it’s fitting as a closing track on an EP. Even if XTEP isn’t a return to the drill-n-bass days, it’s still an enjoyable sampling of what µ-Ziq circa 2013 sounds like.

Food Pyramid: Ecstasy & Refreshment (Intercoastal Artists, 2013)

July 28, 2013 at 10:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Newest album from neo-Krautrock group. “Dexedream” kicks everything off starting straight into Neu! territory, with a motorik rhythm and echo-chamber vocals. “Pacifier” starts with brief rhythmic sound bursts, then gains a 4/4 dance beat and multiple female voices speaking different self-help monologues. “Deep Fantasy” is like Sun Araw but crazier, busier and more distorted, and lots of flying, delay-crazy vocals. “The High Life” is dedicated to Francis Bebey, whose excellent electronic works were released in 2011, and there’s definitely a bit of an Afrobeat influence, with funky repetitive guitar licks, but also Suicide organs and squiggly delay. “Maya Control” has even more of a distorted Afrobeat sound, with crunchy beats and industrialized chopped-up vocals. “GmbH” has stacatto uptempo beats and motorik guitars, and echo-covered spoken vocal samples, and then vocoders and female vocals. “Third Wave” has a slow mysterious pulse and waves of synth effects. “Marsh Bar” is also Sun Araw-like, with tropical electronic percussion, a spare, dubby bassline, and snatches of muddled vocals.

Ken Camden: Space Mirror (Kranky, 2013)

July 28, 2013 at 5:03 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Cosmic spacey stuff from Implodes guitarist Ken Camden, drifting away from that band’s post-rock/shoegaze sound towards more ambient synth terrain. Arpeggiating synths, wooshing effects, interstellar guitars. Opener “Spectacle” has pretty guitar soloing. “Eta Carinae” is a little more subtle, sort of sounds like Cluster or Harmonia, but without drum machines. “Moon” almost has a sitar-like drone, but it definitely sounds electronic. Wide cosmic guitar trails swoop over it, and some snakelike synths slither over it towards the end. “Trapezium” is more glowing, dissolving synths, bright but with some darkness around the edges, and it turns into a flickering rhythmic pattern in the second half. “Antares” is more cosmic space-gaze, and “Dominic Sunset” reminds me more of Laurie Spiegel than anything Krautrock-related.