Back on track.
Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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After a few years in which only a handful of Merzbow albums seemed toemerge, the typically prolific Masami Akita has returned to histraditional, aggressive release schedule. Having overcome theexhaustion associated with the fifty CD Merzbox, the past six months have offered a plethora of new material, including Frog, Merzbeat, Merzzow, the collaboration with Pan Sonic, and the Russell Haswell collaboration Satanstornade.Finally, Ant-Zen has stepped into the ring with this cleverly packaged4x3" CD set. Each disc offers a bite-sized portion of the diverselynoisy flavors of Merzbow's modern noise compositions. The ferocious"Warhorse" opens this collection with a wailing guitar loop that soonsubmits to the cacophony of abstract percussion and sizzlingsoundscapes. Far removed from his earlier work a la Music For Bondage Performance,the piece hits like an air raid and offers little relief through its 21minute duration. In contrast, the second CD opens with the minimal yetbassy rumblings of "Space Trackin," whose somewhat rhythmic structureexperiences constant interruption from static-laden frequencies. Itstays relatively consistent until roughly the last minute, evolvinginto a squeaky filtered bleep-beat experiment. The accompanying"Ramatam" combines a white hot sheet of electronics with hard rockdrums before yielding to the sounds of burning hard drives. Disc threecomes from the same mindset, if not the same recording sessions, of theMerzbeat project. Of the two tracks here, "Stone The Crow"appeals to me more with its steady, sludgy rock backbeat churning underan array of dominant, menacing squeals and hisses. The final CD soundsmost like an Ant-Zen release. From the onset of "CD Hunter," a reworkof the previously-available "AB Hunter," a muffled rhythm lays thefoundation for stream upon stream of digital noise. After giving allfour discs a good listen, it has become clear to me that Merzbow isreleasing some of the most creative and interesting work of his entirecareer.
Neon Hunk walks the line between quirky and totally annoying. They playtwisted jerky rock music that was probably inspired partly by Boredomsbut is nowhere near as fun. Certainly their garish artwork seemsgreatly in debt to Yamantaka Eye, but like the music it seems a littlediluted. I bet they like the Residents a bit too. Brutalism withkittens might mess up kitchen table if the totally distortedsynthesisers don't mess up the lettuce first and the clattering drumscould probably crush your tomato at fifty paces. I can't really say Ilike this album or don't like it, it just kind of craps about like aflappy kid who tries too hard and knocks everything over while I trynot to get annoyed that I'm not listening to Boredoms instead, and endup mixing metaphors instead of chopping up Robert Sandell from 'MixingIt' on Radio 3 to feed to my pack of hounds who all sound a bit likeXTC but not really and the rest of the CD is quite different and notvery good in actual fact. Not in this HC fact though, its all of thesame quality with a super-dumb drummer who clatters off a bit behindthroughout but that's his minimal charm. Mothmaster seems to be after afingernails-on-chalkboard sound on the synth but falls just short ofutter shrillness. Sometimes they even fuck about playing the tapesbackwards. Its like they wanted the lunatics to take over the asylumbut only got the toytown version with Larry the Lamb and Noddy jinglingbells all night until their mums shouted at them to shut the fuck up.The quasi-songs threaten to fall apart any minute but are usually overjust before that happens. The album is also really short, which mightbe a blessing in disguise but could be one good reason not to shell outfull price for it, if I haven't already put you off. Like Pink andBrown,they give their tracks humourous titles that aren't really very funny,but who cares what the songs are called anyway? They might be quiteamusing to catch live if they pull off silly moves to match the twistsand turns of the gargled unintelligible babbling screeching vocals.Neon Hunk seems like a one trick pony one leg short, but you might keepit around out of some kind of misguided pity. Someone should flog thislot to the Hoxton trendies fast, while they wait for an exciting newband called Radio 2 to pretend they wrote an old Gang of 2 song, whilstnot mentioning that wave, punk and core are now acceptable to theafternoon teatime set. At least Jonathan Ross will never play Neon Hunkon the radio, and that's the immoral of this sordid abortion. Don'teven think about getting this until you have the ultra heavy killerNoxagt album on Load. Fuck Neon Hunk, they couldn't even be bothered toget a classically trained viola player in the band, and what good isthat? 
The mix of smooth-jazz and four-on-the-floor beats on this new full-length is rather bland on this release from Shitkatapult, who is more commonly known for excellent releases that are usually somewhere between airy and desolate beat-driven songs and flat out boogie down, break out the boom box party pleasers. The grooves on Revolv_er do not always connect, however and I'm left feeling disappointed by its combo of live and electronic sounds.Shitkatapult
"A Night Outside in the Bunker" opens the album with an uninviting belch: the rhythms are clean and fun and then the live instruments begin to ruin everything in a smattering of jazz-like flourishes. Thankfully "Electrobastard" and "This World Is Sound" are more inviting. The latter ends up as a distorted ballad of sorts full of wonderful harmonies and it is backed by completely scathing beat. It's unfortunate that nearly everything goes awry from there on. "Annie Opper" is a great sound collage but is only a brief twenty-four second excursion while "Bangkok" is a nice song, but only nice. Its influences were all too obvious to me and this ruined the effect I think it was intended to have. "Selma" begins promisingly and then that live piano messes everything up: basically destroying the subtle mood that was established so flawlessly and smoothly at the beginning. This turns out to be a contagious problem that haunts most of the songs. Everything on the album just ends up sounding mediocre as a result. I can understand why Shitkatapult released this album, though—there are some fantastic beats and melodies here reminiscient of other performers on the label—but it has an almost overly clean gloss to it that leaves me feeling as if six consecutive days of listening to Merzbow or Whitehouse is a good idea. 
Whether one enjoys these label-sampler compilations depends mostly onhow one's taste agrees with that of the person who runs the label.There are no record labels whose taste I agree with 100%, but I like alot of what LTM does, enough to keep me interested in what label-bossJames Nice decides to issue next. This CD compiles tracks from therecent batch of LTM releases with a few otherwise unreleased songs tosucker in the completists. Hell, it works for me, why not. LTM and itssub-label Boutique seem to have several related missions: to reissuemusic originally released by Factory (other than the bigshots, JoyDivision, Durutti Column, and New Order) to music by bands who might atsome point have had a record (even just a 7") on Factory, and torelease new music by bands who were on Factory long ago and are eitherstill going or who have been ressurected due to Nice's enthusiasm. Oneof those bands, Crispy Ambulance, has donated a live album from thierreunion tour as a bonus CD that comes free with the first run of "BlackMusic" CDs.
Listening to the overtly Eastern influenced percussion Angus Maclise plays on parts of this double CD, I can't help thinking that replacing him with Mo Tucker might've been the best thing that ever happened to the Velvet Underground. They're such different drummers, almost opposites, that you suspect Lou Reed had totally had enough of the hippy dippy guy who'd turn up to play gigs half an hour late and then carried on playing half an hour after the rest of the band finished. Tucker's monotonous tub thump became such a signature of that band that it's hard to imagine them any other way.Sub Rosa
Maclise died almost exactly 24 years ago out in Nepal. Over the last few years this marginal character has been exhumed for public display with a bunch of archive recordings that reveal a curious dabbling with everything from meditative hand percussion to beatnik poetry to electronic tape splice composition. This selection from a much larger cache of recordings rediscovered by Exploding Plastic Inevitable whip cracker Gerard Malanga covers all points, but is intended only for those who want to dig deeper than the festive Oriental tribal music featured on the earlier release Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda. The most impressive selections here are probably the early 'electronics' compositions "Electronic Mix For 'Expanded Cinema'" and "Tunnel Music." "Electronic Mix" exhumes eerie drone flailed at by babbling radiophonic shrapnel and for almost half an hour transcends the shoddy audio quality. Most of the music is rendered quaint and distant by poor mushy recordings, like faded photos that maybe muddy memory as much as clarify.
This is an album that could only be recommednded to people who are fairly obsessive about this whole late sixties New York loft drone scene. Tony Conrad and John Cale collaborate on some tracks, but you'd be better advised to check out their releases on Table of the Elements before getting this. There are two poetry recitals included, and Maclise has a friendly welcoming vocal presence. "Description of a Mandala" has some nice cut up images, but the twenty minutes of "Universal Solar Calendar," where he gave a name to every day of the year reeks of tired hippy dogends and quickly gets tedious. Another half hour instrumental, "Thunder Cut," features a loop of a thunder recording made by Tony Conrad, but everyone else seems to be playing completely out of time with it. You wouldn't even realise it was thunder if it wasn't documented in the booklet. Some of the recordings, such as "Two Speed Trance" are so lo-fi that their character has probably altered entirely, paying Maclise a diservice.
If you don't mind mangled squished violins and cracked cimbalums partially bled by years of magnetic corrosion and recording limitations, and really want to hear every last gasp of a guy who left the Velvet Underground not too soon, then this is the double disc you've been waiting for. Those who are a bit less obsessive about the historical angle might just be left thinking that some ghosts are better left to rest. Mostly this sounds like some hippy farting about. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, but its questionable how many people really need to hear it many years later when there are so many better contemporary recordings around. Nothing left now but the recordings, fading slow.
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Further into the Angelika Koehlermann riddle, here is a release thatsurprised me by actually not being that bad. It's not really that good,either. However, I'm surprised that a release like this made it onto alabel that seems proud of its unbroken record of pure, unadulteratedsilly crap. B.O.S. is an Austrian trio whose sound is informed both byKrautrock and by current German lap-pop like The Notwist and Lali Puna.B.O.S.' songs use the classic Can formula: a dark, insistent bassrhythm that repeats ad infinitum, to which is added instrumental andpercussion overdubs, trance-inducing vocals, and galaxy of spaceyeffects. B.O.S. alternately use simple guitar chords, trumpet,clarinet, harp, toy percussion and burbling electronics to round outtheir kosmische music. None of these instruments are played with muchskill or virtuosity, but that's really not the point, is it? They havequite a knack for writing a pop hook, as well, even if you can't reallydecipher what the vocalist is singing. As a first release, O-Land showsa lot of promise. There's nothing terribly inventive about a song like"Bring Back," but it does have a passable atmosphere and a rathercatchy melody that make for an engaging listen. Unlike Ted Minsky andBoulder dDash, this album does not have me sprinting for the ejectbutton. Will the Angelika Koehlermann riddle ever be solved? I thinkAngelika herself sums it up best when she says "[My friend Gerhard]stopping swimming after an accident. He's finally like sinking to thebottom of his lonely life. I also try to get home in a way. I had ahouse some times ago, but one day, I went there, and the house haddisappeared." There is absolutely nothing I can add to that statement. 
Ted Minsky is actually Anne Grabow. Why has Anne Grabow chosen such a masculine moniker? Who is Anne Grabow? Who, for that matter, is Angelika Koehlermann? That's like asking who Betty Crocker is. Someone. Anyone. No one. And in the end, does it matter? What evidence can we glean from the press release? Nothing important, it seems, except that Ted Minsky is described alternately as a "young costume designer" and as a "super-architect" leading us "to the borders of pop music." This is pure hyperbole, I'm afraid.Angelika Koehlermann
Ms. Minsky/Grabow's musical travesty Madame Le Ted sounds something like a lobotomized Bjork recording songs onto a faulty four-track in a public bathroom stall. The dimly realized melodies and poorly mixed vocals are covered up with a bland palette of factory-preset distortion effects. The vocals are of the world-weary chanteuse, I-can't-be-bothered-to-actually-sing style. The lyrics are in a confounding combination of German, Spanish, and English. What shall we call this hybrid? Gerspanglish? Spangermlish? How about "annoying"? It's like a series of idiosyncratic in-jokes that nobody actually gets, not even Minsky herself. Songs with names like "Who Will Hold My Boobs?" promise humor and irony, but deliver only detached weirdness. Ted Minsky has an obsession with her own bodily self-image, which is explicated in the song "Proportional." This plays like a musical version of the comic strip Cathy. The desire to turn this music off is nearly irresistible. I think I'm going to give in.
The further I investigate, the more Angelika Koehlermann seems to be a fictional character. According to the press release, she is a girl from Paris who, on a whim, took a train to Koln and met a guy who suggested that they "make an electronic music label." She decided to try her hand at playing "guitar tracks for Japanese young people."Angelika Koehlermann
Ms. Koehlermann's strange biography ends with a passage so beautifully absurd, I am forced to quote it here in its entirety:
I am rendered speechless by this Zen paradox masquerading as a press release. What IS the sound of one hand clapping? Whatever that might sound like, I'm sure it's not anything like Boulder dDash's unfortunate new AK release, Alien Folk Trash. Unfortunately, this album cannot live up to its wacky title. I'm afraid this is yet another exercise in banal, low-fidelity electro-pop noodling. Boulder dDash is Jean-Baptiste Hanak, one half of the French group dDamage. Yeah, I know, I've never heard of dDamage either. The music is made of up uncredited samples and loops from other artists, with extremely annoying drum machine and Casio keyboard stuff on top. It's like Wesley Willis producing a Beck album on inhalants. The thing that really puzzles me about this music is that I can't figure out what audience Jean-Baptiste has in mind for this execrable album. I have a feeling that even his close friends won't listen to this CD all the way through. It's far too painful. They'll probably just be like: "Yeah, Jean-Baptiste, the album is great. I especially like the first ten seconds of track one." As a totally unnecessary and unwanted bonus, the Alien Folk Trash CD also comes with a whole extra full-length album The Dark Side of Boulder dDash in MP3 format. This may be the most unwelcome gift I have ever received. 
Pop music has become associated recently with certain bands that loveto either impersonate early rock n' roll to no avail or slickeverything up in fancy production to make up for the horriblesongwriting. This delicate debut does neither and ends up inducing aneased state of mind. It also happens to include a second full albumwith each track mixed by the likes of Rafael Toral, Hrvatski, andChristoph Heemann. Every instrument and every little nuance takes itstime to develop and never raises its voice beyond a low murmur. Thelyrics are lighthearted, sometimes nonsensical, and always have atendency to pass in and out of the spotlight. There's a sense ofheartbreak here and there, especially on "Moon" and "I Don't Mind."Slightly treated guitars and pianos phase in and out of eachother andon the latter a small, gentle voice declares "I don't mind if I'm notby your side" as if it were a catharsis and a resignation. Sun has afantastic sense of space and their more laid back songs areparticularly excellent: there's always room to breathe and stretch outwithin the songs themselves and so every small detail stands out andsparkles as if it were the proud star of the show. The closing "It'sNot Real" is a blues-inspired mark that puts a pit right in the centerof my stomach. The impression is one of loneliness and a dying sense ofhope. I've often sat down outside at night with this playing and justzoned out completely; everything just slows down right along with themusic. The remix album is entirely different from the original. Themusic is still mostly low-key and some of the original elements areretained but there are noiser and more cavernous waves of sound used.Perhaps I'll go take a drive and remember all the places I used to hangout while listening to this, there's a sense of childhood throughoutthat makes me want to reminisce about a few things. 
Tell the hippies come back and be crushed to dust! This is easily BardoPond's best album and maybe the most dazzling recording I've heard in adecade or so! Straight out of the flimsy artwork bereft plasticenvelope on its first wonderful spin even their previous run ofoutstanding vented trip-fuck drone-rockers hadn't quite prepared me forsuch fine honed intensity and sheer beauty. Bardo Pond have alwaysliked their psychedelic stew very heavy and deeply hypnotic. These sixsongs take a trip through beautiful cosmic mindfuck sex energy and outspinning around stars, dissolving into pure light. If you want headexpanding drone rock with mammoth slow guitar overkill, this is theplace to find it. I didn't think they'd ever be able to surpass theirprevious highpoint Set and Setting,but they have and then some. The recording is sharper but that doesn'tdetract from the heady riff brew, just fires it to harder glory. Whereonce they were sludgey they now burn clear and bright with no sops tovapid commerciality. Two guitars overdriven with effects trace patternson the sun. Isobel Sollenberger sings beguilingly of every man being astar which sounds trite on the screen but fits the music perfectly.There is a deceptive lull when one of the guys, probably bassist ClintTakeda, takes a mumbling stroll through "Walking Clouds" in a superiortake on the kind of psych-folk Flying Saucer Attack used to excel at.When the final swirling megablast of "Night of Frogs" atomizes solarrevolution time, it's obvious that Bardo Pond have penetrated so farbeyond the mundane now that there isn't any turning back. Just at thepoint of collapse, about to t(r)ip over into infinity, On the Ellipseis such a fitting title—this would be a great soundtrack to leaving theplanet, dropping out forever.Mogwai have proclaimed them theirfavourite band, but Bardo Pond are universes beyond. The word is thatthey're going to be touring Europe with Jackie-OMotherfucker and Threnody Ensemble in the Autumn. Maybe it'll be timeto hit the road and never come back. 
Ex Models torment their instruments, creating sounds that can be lookedupon as pushing the equipment to its limits or just plain making ithurt so that it screams in pain and joy. They are the latest masters ofthe no wave sound, emerging from the New York underground only severalyears ago and already boasting a mature sound and a loyal following. Zoo Psychologyis their second full-length, and it shows growth over their debut asthe band grows comfortable in some ways but branches out in others.These musicians want to dismantle the song structure, abating therelentless verse-chorus arrangements to allow for more adventurous andimprovisational terrain. At the same time, there is an overalldismemberment of melody and time signatures. All throughout, thebrothers Motia intertwine the screams of the guitars with the shrieksof Shahin, who seems to enjoy pushing his vocal cords until they don'teven have the will to relent. It's not easy listening, and it's not aneasy listen, either. It's organized disorder, with a fine sense ofhumor and a generous helping of tongue-in-cheek, particularly on thesong titles ("Fuck to the Music," "Brand New Panties," and "HeyBoner"). In fact, its the sexual charge that gets these songs across,despite the almost disjointed nature of the music. It's not foreveryone, but the near funk of "Hott 4 Discourse" and the jackhammer"What is a Price" can appeal to most anyone who likes post punk eardamaging noise. A band that's this unafraid to push their limits can'tdo anything but improve, and it'll be a strange and pleasureable rideevery time.samples:
