brainwashed

I am UtterOverMoon that MAGOG AT THE MAYPOLE (SEX OF STARS), my first solo art exhibition in the USA, is to be held at the remarkable and visionary White Columns art gallery in New York. The exhibition lasts from 3 March to 14 April. I will be at the opening night on 3 March, which is open to everyone. So I look forward to meeting you there.

New stuff is expected this week from Nurse With Wound & Graham Bowers, All the Saints, and FM Einheit/Imler/Paul Young as well as old music from Damon & Naomi with Ghost and Doug Jeremine

This "musical illustration" of the events occurring in the brain following a lethal stroke is a dramatic, chilling and emotional portrait. Musically, it is removed from anything else Nurse With Wound have done (even if it does touch on similar influences as the rest of Steve Stapleton’s body of work) as Bowers adds a more composerly hand to Stapleton’s surrealist drift. Bowers and Stapleton have crafted something unique that does not fit neatly into any categories, even amongst Nurse With Wound’s expanded horizons. This is draining, devastating and utterly compelling.

It seems that I badly underestimated William Basinski, as I stopped following his career several years ago out of frustration with his apparent creative stagnation.  His methods and conceptual underpinnings have certainly evolved steadily, but it seemed like the end result was always something murky, free-floatingly melancholy, and endlessly repeating, regardless of how he got there.  Then I heard this 2009 album and was unexpectedly floored.  Basinski seems to have found whatever it was that he was missing.

This album actually came as quite a surprise as soon as I started spinning it.  I've always associated Wiese with hyper-kinetic, harsh laptop-sourced noise above all, and the seven tracks on this compilation instead show a tamer, more droning electronic sound, with the occasional bit of abstract electro-acoustic collage.

The year's first contender for top honors comes from violinist and composer Eyvind Kang. This new full-length on Ipecac sits among his major works, displaying a rare breadth of compositional talent, spectacular playing, and raw emotion.

This English guitarist's first full-length is just as impressive as last year's excellent Brown Bear EP, but displays quite a significant and somewhat unexpected evolution.  Rather than playing up the psychedelic touches and constant sense of motion that made his earlier work immediately gratifying, Dean has taken the more difficult and distinctive road of shifting his emphasis more strongly towards space and decay.  Thankfully, his melodies are usually strong enough to support that potentially perilous decision.  As a result, Son of the Black Peace is as much a bold artistic statement as it is a great album.

Two sides of a paranormal equation are presented in this cluster of songs. Decorated with primitive drums, avant drones, eclectic voices, and an array of stringed splendor, the two groups arrive at a meeting ground in the crossroads, with the arcane formulas of folk magic flowing down one street, and the poetic musings of a post-modern bard immersed in his lyrical wonderland on the other. Where one is ecstatic in the throes of Dionysian abandon, the other zones out into a haunted, rarefied Aethyr.

The use of 8 bit chiptune sounds has been extending beyond the insular video game world and into other genres.   Dusty old Nintendo consoles and Commodore 64 computers have been reprogrammed into musical instruments for years now, and there is an entire compilation album of artists using only the Game Boy based Nanoloop software.   Return of the Bloop Beep Buzz pushes this concept even further, using the even more primitive Atari 2600 as its primary source, resulting in a limited, but still unique sonic palette.

Loops of Your Heart is Axel Willner, better known as The Field for his three albums to date on Kompakt. His debut full-length under this new moniker sets aside the minimal techno formulae of his primary guise for a far more ambient experience. Unfortunately, he discards many of the distinct characteristics of The Field in the process, downplaying his established strengths.

In their third collaboration, Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto go for a more conceptual approach:  Sakamoto recorded 24 piano improvisations to open concerts during a Japanese tour, each within a different key.  These 24 pieces were then handed over to Fennesz, who added his touch to them.  The result is a compelling, if sprawling, work of gentle improvisation.

This archival release, captured live in Philadelphia, is a valuable companion piece to the previous Bardo Pond and Tom Carter session, 4/23/03, which was originally released on CD nine years ago, and is receiving a vinyl reissue this week. It is a joy to hear another side of Carter and Bardo Pond playing together, this time in a live setting.