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Brainwashed | Friday, 04 July 2008

News - Site News
It is crucial this early in the game to get sponsors for the 2008 Brainwaves Festival. We need money to pay for air fare, accommodations, theater rental, insurance, and various other things. Once again we're offering three levels of sponsorship packages: Bronze Level: your name in our sponsorship list on future ads and print materials, a link to your Web site from the Brainwaves site, eternal gratitude. ($200) Silver Level: all the above + a merchandise table for one block (Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, or Sunday afternoon) and two free tickets. ($500) Gold level: all the above but the merchandise table for the entire festival duration and free ads on Brainwashed.com for a year. ($1500)
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6/29/2008 - 7/5/2008

Events - Release Dates
There's more old stuff out this week than new stuff, with reissues due from Liquid Liquid, Marc Almond and Soft Cell, and A Guy Called Gerald. New stuff includes music from The Chap, The Durutti Column, and Tricky.
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Nurse With Wound, "Huffin' Rag Blues"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
The first proper Nurse With Wound full-length to come along in quite a while is an album-length exploration of the exotica, kitschy swing and cutout-bin jazz genres that have long been an audio fetish for Steven Stapleton. On paper, the idea sounds great. In practice, Huffin' Rag Blues is sometimes interesting, sometimes laborious, and for a longtime Nurse With Wound fan such as me, largely a disappointment.
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Current 93, "Birth Canal Blues"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
As the world of Current 93 is in the midst of rumblings announcing the forthcoming album Anok Pe: Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain, this new CDEP was released at recent shows, both a stopgap and a preview of future iterations. The good news for those who weren't bowled over by Black Ships Ate the Sky is that Birth Canal Blues is quite different indeed, and represents a new direction for David Tibet and company.
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Charles Atlas, "Social Studies: an Introduction to Charles Atlas"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
The duo of Charles Wyatt and Jared Matt Greenberg, working under the name of Charles Atlas, have been creating quiet introspective music for ten years now that even in its own tight orbit manages to sparkle and shine with a magical vibrant urgency, and unapologetically exists in a time and place all of its own, without reference it seems to the rest of the world. Social Studies is an 11 track primer to their recorded work over that time span, showcasing the delicately brittle emotional introversion that characterises their music of crystal clarity and diamantine dazzle.
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Dan Friel, "Ghost Town"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
The first solo full-length from Parts & Labor singer Dan Friel is filled with electronic pop instrumentals built around distorted beats and blistering melodies. Concise and catchy, it is hard not to get swept away by the enthusiasm and energy flowing from these boisterous tracks.
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Dino Felipe, "No Fun Demo"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
There has always been a somewhat contentious, but notable relationship between conventional “pop” music and the more abrasive spectrum of the harsh and electronic. Throbbing Gristle were never hesitant to put a soft gem out like “United” or “Distant Dreams” alongside dissonance like “Subhuman.” More obscure, but more jarring to yours truly was hearing Japanese noise gods Hijokaidan sneaking a faithful cover of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” on their Tapes album. Recently there’s folks like Fuck Buttons and Wolf Eyes who are more than happy to mix it with dance and punk, respectively. Dino Felipe (Fukktron, Old Bombs), on the other hand, takes a more literal approach and instead creates a purely pop album with a decidedly noise aesthetic.
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Mawja, "Studio One"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
This is the companion piece to the live collaborations I previously reviewed here, however this has the artists collaborating in a studio setting as opposed to a live one. Considering the nature of improvisations, the differences between the two settings are relatively minimal. Recorded during the same period as the Live One disc, the sounds here are, interesting enough, a bit darker, more harsh and dissonant than the improvisations in the live setting.
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Mogwai, "Young Team"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
Mogwai's re-mastered debut is an intoxicating mix of repetition, slowly emerging tunes, and violent crescendos. When we add in their use of conversational voices, dark humor, and a penchant for anonymity they resemble (at the risk of sacrilege) early-mid period Pink Floyd.
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Harvey Milk, "Life... The Best Game in Town"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
With a more than slight line up change (the swapping of their current drummer for their old drummer and the addition of the inimitable Joe Preston on bass), Athens’ finest are back with a new album. Although not their strongest to date, they continue to walk a unique path in the world of metal with perhaps only the Melvins meeting them at the odd intersection.
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Birchville Cat Motel, "Gunpowder Temple of Heaven"

Reviews - Sound Bytes
Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel has been infecting ears with his unique amalgamation of noise and drones for over ten years. Always prolific, he has spawned multitudes of massive, monstrous compositions. With an even subtler touch than usual, this time Kneale turns his gaze to the heavens.
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Tzolk'in, "Haab"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
Tzolk’in, as well as being the term given to the 260-day Mayan calendar system, also happens to be the name chosen to encapsulate the collaborative tribal industrial project instigated by Nicolas van Meirhaeghe of Empusae and Gwenn Trémorin of Flint Glass. Haab is their second album, following on from their self-titled 2004 debut on Divine Comedy, and the eight tracks of dark ambient and industrial inflected dance exhibited here project us into a long-lost and forgotten world of irrecoverable mystery, edged with sharply-bladed sinister undercurrents and spine-tinglingly brooding rainforest atmospheres.
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Legendary Pink Dots go blonde

News - Site News
In a recent email update from the Legendary Pink Dots, it was announced their next full-length album, Plutonium Blonde is now in production with ROIR. Dream Logik 2, on the other hand should be out within a few weeks on Beta-Lactam Ring Records. A tour is taking shape for North America from October-November.
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Peter Christopherson: Benevolent Outsider

News - Site News
Legendary co-founding member of Throbbing Gristle and Coil, Peter Christopherson checks in again with us, this time on his new collaboration with Ivan Pavlov, SoiSong, the legacy of Coil and the ongoing distractions of a pleasant environment.
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Aranos

Videos - The Eye
This episode of The Eye was very special for a number of reasons: Petr Vastl (Aranos) is a great friend, this was our very first in-person meeting, and there are a number of beautiful shots taken around his house in Ireland. We talked about working with Steven Stapleton and Nurse With Wound, the music business, and living in a remote paradise amongst other things. YouTubed: Part 1 of 3 YouTubed: Part 2 of 3 YouTubed: Part 3 of 3 Quicktime download: 36 minute video
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Aranos, "Tax"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
It’s cliché to say, but realistically, the idea of paying taxes to a government and how said money becomes allocated is a definite part of the human condition in most societies. Nations have been built, nations have crumbled, revolutions have been sparked, all based on the people paying their government to do things that they may absolutely not support. It is no surprise then that when Aranos takes on this all too familiar topic he does so at a roots level that eschews his sonic manipulations for a set of folk protest songs.
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Aranos, "Koryak Mistress Stakes Golden Sky"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
Diametrically opposite of the other recent Aranos album, Tax, here is a sprawling 65-minute track of studio processing and electronics wizardry. Different by no means inferior, however, and I would characterize this as a more complex work that has many layers to examine.
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Windy Weber, "I Hate People"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
Windy Weber (of Windy & Carl) tried to release her latest recording on Kranky before releasing it through Blue Flea and Kenedik, but the folks over at Kranky rejected it because it sounded like the sort of thing Nurse with Wound fans would enjoy. This is a crushing and feverish record miles away from Weber's previous work. With Warren Defever helping out, I Hate People sounds absolutely hostile and is one of the darkest things I've heard this year.
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"Radio Myanmar (Burma)"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
For Sublime Frequencies' latest musical tour, Geoff Hawryluk and Alan Bishop set their sights on Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. As highlighted in recent new stories about their flooding disaster, Myanmar's government keeps a pretty tight grip on what comes into and leaves the country. With that in mind, I was surprised at how much Western influence is discernible on some of the selections here.
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The Habibiyya, "If Man But Knew"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
In 1971, members of UK group Mighty Baby and a few Californian friends made visits to Fez and Meknes that left a profound and lasting impression. Converting to Sufism upon their return to London, they recorded and released an album as The Habibiyya, or the followers of spiritual teacher Muhammad ibn al-Habib. The resulting music disarms expectation with its reverence, beauty, and sincerity.
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Amolvacy, "Ho Ho Kus"

Reviews - Sound Bytes
Amolvancy's clear vinyl album and sleeve is reminiscent of the movie poster for The Day of The Locust. The music is shrill, cathartic, erudite and primitive: sort of like beating kittens to death with a copy of a French literature anthology.
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All Sides, "Dedalus"

Reviews - Albums/CDs/Singles
Nina Kernicke is not a composer concerned with bombast. Her already developed (and superb) atmospheres and sinuous melodies are joined on her first full-length by a newly acquired sense of patience and interconnectedness. One song at a time, Kernicke assembles a thriller of a record that triumphs because of its unhurried development and thickly amassed tension.
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Buzz Bin
The Sea and Cake, "Car Alarm" Conifer, "Crown Fire" ASTRO/Hiroshi Hasegawa, "Live at Muryoko Muzen Temple" ASTRO/Hiroshi Hasegawa, "The Echo from the Purple Dawn" Bass Communion & Pig, "Live in Mexico City"

Events
Antony & the Johnsons Avantgarde Festival 2008 Bubba & Matt Kadane NWW Take a Swim Brainwaves 2008: Tickets On Sale Now Four Tet Matmos in Europe and North America A Place To Bury Strangers Marissa Nadler Legendary Pink Dots Matmos and So Percussion Charalambides