The Answer Is In The Beat

Wrekmeister Harmonies: You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me LP (Thrill Jockey, 2013)

June 23, 2013 at 5:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

Wrekmeister Harmonies: You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me LP

Leave it to Thrill Jockey to make me aware of an incredible project I’d had to prior awareness of. Apparently this project has put out albums on Atavistic, Capitan Records and Tizona, and has featured contributions from members from all sorts of well-known bands, including Tortoise, Codeine and The Jesus Lizard, and this particular album features members of several experimental metal bands, such as Leviathan, Nachtmystium and Yakuza, but I wouldn’t have guessed that at all listening to this. It’s a single 38 minute drone piece utilizing harp, harmonium, slowly drifting strings, and slowly measured horn gusts. Plus some vocalizations and carefully used guitar feedback. Around 12 minutes there’s some shrieking and howling, and some tense, siren-like strings (or possibly synths, or both), and the plucked string melodies that have been developing in the piece become a bit more pronounced. I’m listening to a download promo of this, in which the album is presented as a single track, and I’m wondering how they manage to break it up into two sides for the vinyl release, but at about 23 minutes, I found out why; it gets to the thundering, crashing doom metal part of the piece, with more amplified howling and monstrous, doom-filled drumming. It continues with this heavy, grinding doom rhythm, slowly adding ribbons of electronics spiraling around everything, and starts to get calm around 29 minutes, fading back to drone and slow harp notes. You imagine everyone involved is completely exhausted at the end of all of this. Truly stunning. There’s a video of an edited version of the album, which shows artist Simon Fowler (who drew the album’s cover art) creating an image which I think compliments the music better than the cover itself.

Shells: In A Cloud LP (Life Like, 2013)

June 22, 2013 at 1:45 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Shells: In A Cloud LP

First solo LP from Shelley Salant, expanding her solo guitar style from the tapes she’s been putting out, but also adding some more experimental textures. Her last tape was more ethereal and dreamy, and this one gets a little rougher and more distorted. “Beginning” starts things off straightforward enough, but then “Warm Dub” tosses things wayward with distorted, twisted echo effects. “Grass” drifts along in the breeze, but there’s some sort of hidden undercurrent, sounds like something’s playing backwards very softly underneath. “Raining” has a calm, pretty melody, but it’s blown out and distorted with all sorts of warped, corroded amplification. “Beach” is way toos hort for a song with such a lovely melody, and it gets kind of unraveled for a few seconds, flipping backwards and segueing into the lonely, drifty railroad blues of “All Things Must Pass”. “Not So Wild A Dream” is a layered, looped, tremolo-heavy piece, which ends with a bit more backwards effects, before plunging into “Wash Over”, an electrified, feedback-heavy piece which hits similar to the way the loud guitar comes in at the beginning of “No Aloha” by The Breeders. “New Era” does something completely different, covering a backwards guitar loop with crashing, freeform drumming.

Free record release show for Shells and Rebel Kind next Thursday at Canterbury House in Ann Arbor!

Show #196 – 6/22/13

June 22, 2013 at 1:33 pm | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

Hour 1
3:01 AM Shells ~ Raining ~ In A Cloud ~ Life Like
3:07 AM Rebel Kind ~ In The Desert ~ Laurel Canyon ~ Life Like
3:10 AM Scissor Now! ~ Remembering Olestra [played on 33 instead of 45 by accident] ~ Not Now, But Right Now! ~ Arbco Records
3:13 AM AkuYou ~ Polchara ~ Body As Weapon ~ Awaken Lions Records
3:16 AM Nice Hooves ~ War Paint Is Not A Mask ~ Nice Hooves ~ self-released
3:21 AM Justin Walter ~ The Way Of Five ~ Lullabies & Nightmares ~ Kranky
3:25 AM Sigur Ros ~ Kveikur ~ Kveikur ~ XL
3:32 AM Deafheaven ~ Dream House ~ Sunbather ~ Deathwish Inc.
3:41 AM Dirty Beaches ~ Elli ~ Drifters/Love Is The Devil ~ Zoo Music
3:44 AM Emika ~ Sing To Me ~ DVA ~ Ninja Tune
3:48 AM Co La ~ Un ~ Moody Coup ~ Software
3:52 AM Housemeister ~ Manchester ~ OP-1 ~ Boysnoize Records
3:54 AM Piper Spray ~ Bright Star Catalogue ~ Epigraph To The Bright Star Catalogue ~ Singapore Sling Tapes
3:57 AM Sonogram ~ Cosmonaut ~ How We Saw Tomorrow ~ Simulacra Records
Hour 2
4:03 AM Boards Of Canada ~ Cold Earth ~ Tomorrow’s Harvest ~ Warp
4:06 AM Ocoeur ~ Astral Projection ~ Light As A Feather ~ n5MD
4:12 AM Gold Panda ~ The Most Liveable City ~ Half Of Where You Live ~ Ghostly International
4:16 AM Jan St. Werner ~ Feed Opener ~ Blaze Colour Burn ~ Thrill Jockey
4:20 AM The Microphones ~ Ice ~ It Was Hot We Stayed In The Water ~ K
4:22 AM Quasimoto ~ Seasons Change ~ Yessir Whatever ~ Stones Throw
4:24 AM Disclosure ~ Stimulation ~ Settle ~ Cherrytree/Interscope
4:30 AM Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette ~ Stars Fell On Alabama ~ Somewhere ~ ECM
4:40 AM Ramesh ~ Sharm-E Boos-E ~ Ramesh ~ Pharaway Sounds
4:44 AM Saturday Looks Good To Me ~ Space Children ~ One Kiss Ends It All ~ Polyvinyl
4:49 AM Ariel Pink ~ I Won’t See You Again ~ Thrash & Burn ~ Human Ear Music
4:50 AM Blanche Blanche Blanche ~ Looks Don’t Run ~ Wooden Ball ~ NNA Tapes
4:55 AM Material ~ I’m The One ~ Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1979-1987 ~ Celluloid/Strut
Hour 3
5:02 AM Black Bug ~ Police Helicopter ~ Reflecting The Light ~ HoZac
5:04 AM Date Palms ~ Dusted Down ~ The Dusted Sessions ~ Thrill Jockey
5:10 AM Ruxpin ~ Where Do We Float From Here? ~ This Time We Go Together ~ n5MD
5:14 AM Melorman ~ Girls In The 70’s ~ Waves ~ Sun Sea Sky Productions
5:19 AM Northcape ~ Arrive Ruttledge Col ~ Exploration And Ascent ~ Sun Sea Sky Productions
5:25 AM [PHYSICS] ~ Random Water ~ Spectramorphic Iridescence ~ Digitalis
5:28 AM Jon Hopkins ~ Form By Firelight ~ Immunity ~ Domino
5:35 AM Dim Past ~ Ghostlord Masterclock ~ Black Dolphin ~ Other Electricities/Roofless Records
5:42 AM Q4U ~ Amdp ~ Q1 Deluxe Edition 1980-1983 ~ Dark Entries
5:44 AM Rexy ~ Nervoso ~ Under The Influence Volume 3 ~ Z Records
5:48 AM Barbeque ~ Levels (Angryrancor Remix) ~ Barbeque ~ Piko Piko Detroit
5:51 AM The One Electronic X Snesei ~ Presidents Day ~ Poutine Split ~ Piko Piko Detroit
5:53 AM Atoms For Peace ~ Other Side (Stuck Together Remix) ~ 50 Weapons Of Choice #30-39 ~ 50 Weapons

Crush Collision 6/20/13

June 21, 2013 at 1:15 pm | Posted in Crush Collision | Leave a comment

Crush Collision 6/20/13
10:03 PM Octo Octa ~ Work Me
10:08 PM Piper Spray ~ Testing Kitchen Blaster SP 1802
10:11 PM Expansives ~ Life With You (Instrumental)
10:16 PM Jon Hopkins ~ Sun Harmonics
10:20 PM Coma ~ The Great Escape
10:23 PM Cyclist ~ Mangel
10:26 PM Gold Panda ~ Community
10:30 PM Magic Panda ~ Days Are Numbered
10:35 PM Orphan ~ Most Of Missing
10:38 PM Storm Queen ~ Look Right Through (MK Dub III)
10:42 PM Disclosure ~ Grab Her
10:47 PM Bobby Draino ~ Gliding All Over (Live Mix 1)
10:53 PM FunkinEven ~ Rolands Jam
10:58 PM Container ~ Obstruction

Rebel Kind: Laurel Canyon 1-sided LP (Life Like, 2013)

June 20, 2013 at 10:52 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Rebel Kind: Laurel Canyon

Autumn Wetli is in Bad Indians, and her songs tend to be my favorite by that band, so it’s nice to hear her branch out and do a solo project. Recently Rebel Kind has actually been playing as a group featuring members of Swimsuit, but mostly it’s just her solo, and this 1-sided LP just features her singing and playing acoustic guitar, double tracking her voice and using a little reverb, but not overdoing it (not that I can ever get enough reverb). There’s some tambourine, and even an extra electric guitar (distorted on “Mother Nature”, cleaner and kinda twangy on the last 3 songs and bass drum on “Run”, and some delay effects on opener “Wish I Had A Home”, but it’s mostly pretty straightforward otherwise, letting the songs do their thing. Sort of reminds me of the more singer-songwriter end of ’90s indie-pop (Lois Maffeo, Rose Melberg) with a slight bit of a country flavor to it, especially the last few tracks. “Mother Nature” reminds me a little of Kurt Vile (mostly in the way she sings), and I guess there’s a little Mazzy Star in there overall too. “Moonlight” ends with spoken words from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called “To The Moon”. You can listen to the entire album on Bandcamp and purchase the album over at Life Like (and there’s also a cassette version with bonus tracks).

Show #195 – 6/15/13

June 15, 2013 at 4:47 pm | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

Mic break music = Voice of Eye and Thomas Dimuzio: The Unveiling Of Darkness

Hour 1
3:00 AM Boards Of Canada ~ Jacquard Causeway ~ Tomorrow’s Harvest ~ Warp
3:06 AM Ruxpin ~ Cloud In My Spacesuit ~ This Time We Go Together ~ n5MD
3:11 AM Northcape ~ High Mountain Record ~ Exploration And Ascent ~ Sun Sea Sky Productions
3:16 AM Melorman ~ Walking On Water ~ Waves ~ Sun Sea Sky Productions
3:24 AM Disclosure ~ Latch ~ Settle ~ Cherrytree/Interscope
3:29 AM A Made Up Sound ~ Malfunction (Despair) ~ 50 Weapons Of Choice #30-39 ~ 50 Weapons
3:35 AM Ultrademon ~ Dolphin ~ Seapunk ~ Fire For Effect
3:38 AM Sawi Lieu ~ Subjectless World ~ Pasaraya ~ Constellation Tatsu
3:42 AM Slava ~ Girl Like Me ~ Raw Solutions ~ Software
3:48 AM Piper Spray ~ North Ecliptic Pole ~ Epigraph To The Bright Star Catalogue ~ Singapore Sling Tapes
3:51 AM Jon Hopkins ~ Breathe This Air ~ Immunity ~ Domino
3:56 AM Aloonaluna ~ Shifty Eyes ~ split tape with Motion Sickness Of Time Travel ~ Constellation Tatsu
Hour 2
4:03 AM Quasimoto ~ Astronaut ~ Yessir Whatever ~ Stones Throw
4:05 AM Jan St. Werner ~ Serra Beacon ~ Blaze Colour Burn ~ Thrill Jockey
4:11 AM White Poppy ~ Drifters Gold ~ Drifters Gold ~ Constellation Tatsu
4:14 AM Dirty Beaches ~ Aurevoir Mon Visage ~ Drifters/Love Is The Devil ~ Zoo Music
4:18 AM Deafheaven ~ Please Remember ~ Sunbather ~ Deathwish Inc.
4:25 AM Ariel Pink ~ I Disguise You ~ Thrash And Burn ~ Human Ear Music
4:35 AM Justin Walter ~ I Saw Your Face ~ Lullabies & Nightmares ~ Kranky
4:38 AM Dim Past ~ Spectre In Wire ~ Black Dolphin ~ Other Electricities/Roofless Records
4:45 AM Electric Chairs ~ So Many Ways ~ Under The Influence Volume Three ~ Z Records
4:49 AM Belaboris ~ Baby Pop ~ Once Upon A Time ~ Dark Entries
4:51 AM Kitchen + The Plastic Spoons ~ Happy Funeral ~ Screams To God ~ Dark Entries
4:55 AM Q4U ~ Breidabolsstadur ~ Q1 Deluxe Edition: 1980-1983 ~ Dark Entries
Hour 3
5:00 AM Saturday Looks Good To Me ~ Space Children ~ One Kiss Ends It All ~ Polyvinyl
5:07 AM Peals ~ Pendelles ~ Walking Field ~ Thrill Jockey
5:11 AM Signal Hill ~ Collide Us ~ Chase The Ghost ~ Sun Sea Sky Productions
5:17 AM Date Palms ~ Yuba Source Part II ~ The Dusted Sessions ~ Thrill Jockey
5:22 AM [PHYSICS] ~ Emerald Forest ~ Spectramorphic Iridescence ~ Digitalis
5:25 AM Blanche Blanche Blanche ~ Join The Creative Class ~ Wooden Ball ~ NNA Tapes
5:27 AM Mike Cooper ~ Hilo Hanakahi ~ White Shadows In The South Seas ~ Room40
5:30 AM Taylor Deupree ~ Thaw ~ Faint ~ 12k
5:39 AM 303 Committee ~ Lair ~ 303 Committee ~ Inam Records
5:42 AM Quicksails ~ Bemus Has Wings To Fly ~ Mayville Dream ~ Spectrum Spools
5:45 AM Diego Barber/Hugo Cipres ~ Timanfaya ~ 411 ~ Origin Records
5:47 AM Sao Paulo Underground ~ Evetch ~ Beija Flors Velho E Sujo ~ Cuneiform
5:50 AM Boundary ~ Devil’s Triangle ~ Boundary ~ self-released
5:51 AM Eugene Carchesio ~ Circle Music II L ~ Circle Music II ~ Room40
5:54 AM Black Bug ~ Threads ~ Reflecting The Light ~ HoZaC
5:57 AM Man Or Astro-Man? ~ All Systems To Go ~ Defcon 5…4…3…2…1 ~ Communicating Vessels

Local Music Show 6/12/13

June 15, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Posted in Local Music Show | Leave a comment

Hour 1
9:00 PM Wolf Eyes ~ Warning Sign ~ No Answer : Lower Floors ~ De Stijl
9:09 PM Swimsuit ~ Town In My Mind ~ Swimsuit ~ Life Like/Speakertree
9:11 PM Sproton Layer ~ Tidal Wave ~ With Magnetic Fields Disrupted ~ New Alliance Records
9:16 PM Blue Snaggletooth ~ Sector 7 ~ Dimension Thule ~ Arbco Records
9:21 PM Saturday Looks Good To Me ~ Polar Bear ~ One Kiss Ends It All ~ Polyvinyl
9:24 PM Justin Walter ~ Western Tears ~ Lullabies & Nightmares ~ Kranky
9:35 PM Shigeto ~ Detroit Part 1 ~ No Better Time Than Now ~ Ghostly International
9:39 PM No Day Six ~ Birth Of The Ping Dynasty Blues ~ Modern Times ~ Shu-Bu Records
9:45 PM Peoples Temple ~ Highs And Lows ~ 7″ ~ HoZaC
9:48 PM Feelings ~ Name Droppers Of The World Unite ~ 7″ ~ Italy Records
9:52 PM The Webbs ~ LIVE IN STUDIO! ~ WCBN Local Music Show ~ WCBN
Hour 2
10:23 PM Radiant Marks ~ Girl I Know ~ 7″ ~ self-released
10:35 PM Jib Kidder ~ Living In You ~ IV ~ Gnar Tapes & Shit/Hoss Records
10:37 PM Secret Twins ~ Hands Up ~ split 7″ w/ Deadbeat Beat ~ Sneaky Eurekas
10:39 PM Gardens ~ The Onion Peels Of Honest John ~ 7″ ~ Urinal Cake
10:41 PM His Name Is Alive ~ Girl ~ Emergency LP ~ Time Stereo
10:45 PM ADULT. ~ Lost Love ~ Oral-Olio: An History Of Tomorrow 12″ ~ Ersatz Audio
10:51 PM Model 500 ~ Night Drive (Thru Babylon) ~ 12″ ~ Metroplex
10:57 PM Separate Minds [aka Marc Kinchen circa 1988] ~ First Bass (Remix) ~ Techno-1 ~ KMS Records

Move Your Ass 6/11/13

June 15, 2013 at 3:20 pm | Posted in Move Yr Ass | Leave a comment

An extended meditation on Doug Hream Blunt’s “Gentle Persuasion”.
Move Your Ass 6/11/13

Ruxpin: This Time We Go Together (n5MD, 2013)

June 14, 2013 at 6:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Ruxpin: This Time We Go Together

8th full length album (including a remix LP) from Icelandic downtempo ambient IDM artist Ruxpin. Inevitably, reviewing something like around the release of a new, return-to-form Boards Of Canada album, there’s bound to be some comparisons. Well, this one, as can be deduced by the sentence-heavy song titles, is a lot more literal and straightforward, as opposed to cryptic and mysterious. The melodies are clear instead of hazy, the tempos are a little bit more up, and there’s some actual vocals instead of obscured snippets. The female vocalist on several tracks sounds a hell of a lot like Bjork. Inevitable comparison for an Icelandic artist, but so it goes. “As We Exhale, We Enter” definitely gives you that pastoral BoC feeling more than anything else on the album, but with some lovely occasional drift-off vocals, and a few bursts of distorted synth. “Cloud In My Spacesuit” starts vaguely chiptuney at the beginning, and gets pretty scrambled/cutup towards the end. “Where Do We Float From Here?” has really active skittery beats and has a few points where the beat slows down a bit. “With Our Hands We Form Contact” has a bit more of a danceable beat and autotuned Japanese vocals. “We Have Come To Our End” fittingly serves as an epic, dramatic climax with operatic vocals and soft yet intense skittering beats, and then “This Place Was Ours To Begin With” is a short ambient epilogue, bringing our journey to an end.

v/a: 50 Weapons Of Choice #30-39 (50 Weapons, 2013)

June 9, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

v/a: 50 Weapons Of Choice #30-39

Latest comp of tracks from the limited 12″s on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label, which started in 2006 but didn’t really pick up steam until a few years ago. Dark Sky starts the comp off with some slow, heavy bass eruptions and shuddering claps, then picks up a 4/4 beat which skips a beat every other bar, and ticking hi-hats, and some light pads, not too much of a melody. Phon.o’s “Schn33” starts with a classy disco-house beat, then builds to a dramatic progressive house melody. Addison Groove’s “I Go Boom” continues his melding of Chicago juke/footwork with UK bass, looping the titular phrase over mellow synths and detailed, slightly aggressive percussion. Bambounou’s “Deepstaria” has burbling, Drexciyan synths (think “Bubble Metropolis”) and a kicking beat, but doesn’t add too many other elements over its 9 minute running time. Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace project appears in remixed form, with the “Stuck Together” mix of “Other Side”. It starts with quiet, clicky beats and bass, and some hard-panning synths bubble up into the beat pattern, and gradually Thom Yorke’s voice sneaks its way into the mix, albeit mangled and looped. The track stays minimal, but it keeps growing and changing, and ends with some vocodered vocals and a pretty synth melody. Really an impressive track, definitely more interesting than anything else I’ve heard fromt his project. After this is a typically mindblowing track by Anstam, who is easily the secret weapon of 50 Weapons. It starts out with a huge blast of almost breakcore-intense beats, then turns into a slower, glitch-heavy tempo, with dialog samples, and sung vocals saying “hey boy, don’t you wanna dance?”, tabla-sounding percussion, and some ecstatic synthwork. Really not sure why people don’t talk about Anstam more, everything I’ve heard by him has been fantastic. Next up is a track by 2562’s alias A Made Up Sound, a clunky, disjointed techno track called “Malfunction (Despair)”, which starts off with a flickering synth pattern which makes you wonder which direction the track is going to go, but then it completely changes direction once the beat comes in, although the flickering sound does reappear underneath the beat, along with some synths providing a hint of light. Cosmin TRG’s “Sommer” is typical of his recent output, steadily building techno with lots of snare rushes and some dubby echoes. Marcel Dettmann’s “Linux” keeps it minimal with a loud thumping beat, but a solitary synth sequence repeating throughout the entire track. Benjamin Damage’s “Swarm” is another minimal techno track with synths that do swarm a little bit, but not as overwhelming as you might expect a track called “Swarm”. Newcomer Datei42’s “They Explore Themselves” is one of the comp’s exclusive bonus tracks, and is slightly dubby minimal techno with an emphasis on sweeping, static-y percussion sounds. Truncate ends the comp with another exclusive track, “Switch”, a big thumping minimal track with a clipped voice repeating something that sounds like “gather”, or maybe “gabber”. So basically, the comp starts out a little moresong-based and varied, and gets more minimal and track-y during its second half. But I guess these are relative terms. Anyway, interesting stuff as always from 50 Weapons.

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