Tagged: guitar

December 10, 2013

Rubbed Raw / Volume IV: deranged outsider noise electronics skating close to madness and chaos

Rubbed Raw, “Volume IV”, Ormolycka, cassette (2013)

Wacky sped-up chipmunk vocals and glitchy rubber electronics herald this collection of often creepy electronics that almost verges on noise, isolationist dub and Whitehouse-styled power electronics. I have no idea who Rubbed Raw are and what connection they have to a character called Big Daddy Nugg who died in his early 40s in 2010, whether this person was a member of the band, a friend or a major inspiration. The A-side of the recording early on is dominated by a pounding percussion, wobbly watery sounds and deranged guitar feedback drone in parts, followed by a vigorous rhythmic stroll of more blaring industrial-sounding noise electronics with just a dash of techno thrown in. A later track consists of a spoken-voice recording overlaid by shimmering echo that renders the voice alien and sinister, and a quivering guitar feedback drone solo, leading into what sounds like a peculiarly sanitised exchange of gunfire as imagined on laptops and PCs.

Side-B is no less weird or abrasive with occasional rhythm loop forays into something quite funky and almost worthy of admission into dance clubs without fear of being thrown out by bouncers. Blasts of industrial-strength steel noise, searing guitar feedback drone and effects that fly in and out hold you spellbound. This is quite a short side compared to the A-side.

Although this recording seems very lo-fi, the composition, arrangement and execution of the sounds, rhythms, beats and field recordings are excellent and suggest the musicians, amateurs though they might consider themselves, have quite a long history of performing original music. The music is very edgy, skating very close to the jagged point of a sheer drop down into machine noise chaos. There’s a sense of the music being very deranged due to its extreme isolation from familiar music networks; that deranged attitude elevates the sounds into feverish paranoia territory. It can be terrifying to hear and it’s sure to warp your brain the more you listen to it. How can I get more of this stuff?

Contact: Ormolycka, PO Box 649, New York, NY 10163, USA

December 9, 2013

Shipping Lanes

Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek
Ghost Lanes
GERMANY DEKORDER 056 LP (2011)

Custard pie me, why don’t you? Pelt me with rotten veg if you will, but I’m just not a fan of the clarinet. And yes, I do know that Perry Robinson and Peter Brötzmann both favour the “Licorice Stick”. But for me, its over-fruity tonalities are way too anchored in sixties Brit trad jazz revivalism (see Messrs Bilk and Ball…). But…when Monsieur Clarinette’s family tree is revealed to harbour a couple of weirdly-shaped black sheep in its fold in the form of bass and contrabass versions, then colour me an interested party. After all, Rene Garber (Mekanik… era Magma) and Sir Eric Dolphy can’t be wrong surely? And neither can Amsterdam-based Gareth Davis who has introduced this rumblesome oddity (shunned by normal god-fearing woodwinds), into diverse projects helmed by the likes of Robin “Scanner” Rimbaud, Ryan Teague and ECM stalwart Terje Rypdal.

His liaison with Dutch dronist and hyperactive electro-chemist Rutger Zuydervelt (a.k.a. Machinefabriek) a number of years back, resulted in almost instantaneous telepathy. So great in fact, that their very first improv session; the 23.15 min Ghost Lanes was released as a limited, blink and you’ll miss it, 3″ cdr soon after. Since then, the Drape and Grower cds (on Home Normal and Sonic Pieces respectively) have insinuated themselves into the collective ear with positive copperplate by review scribes hither and indeed thither.

So it makes for good horse sense to give that initial session a slight return by occupying one half of the Ghost Lanes vinyl LP, which comes care of the Dekorder imprint, that fine purveyor of avant esoterica. A perfect mothership in fact for Rutger’s over-furtive scrabbling, electricity substation ambience and Gareth’s plaintive sonorities, which soon take on the guise of a beached cetacean, in its death throes, vainly calling out to its pod. Having been recorded eighteen months later, it might be suggested that its companion piece, the charmingly titled “Mackerel Sky” might make the album lack a certain cohesion – but that’s simply not the case, each side complements the other without question. Though, it must be said, Rutger’s guitar/amp loopage is a tad twitchier and occupies a more fragmented, yet cavernous soundstage. His co-conspirator, fully cognizant of this mood shift, also ups the ante a notch and, on a couple of occasions, his horn squealing/reed gnawing delivery really does throw a number of toys out of the hypothetical pram.

Mention must also go to the striking, yet anonymously sourced sleeve art. We see an example of what happens when urban planning goes “rogue”, in which the road system seems to lead to nowhere in particular…but does so suggesting that the journey is more important that the final destination. An idea that just might allude to this meeting of the minds?

Gareth Davis
Machinefabriek
Dekorder

December 8, 2013

Brand Loyalty

Gary Smith / Sylvia Kastel / Ninni Morgia
Brand
ITALY ULTRAMARINE RECORDS UMO12 LP (2012)

Articulated by a trio of seasoned musical linguists who view every living moment as a virginal entity, Brand stands as a concise study of a full and fascinating musical language. This recording has already earned eloquent accolades from respectable quarters for its idiosyncratic structure, astonishing internal consistency and bat-shit crazy syntax. If its most striking feature is its sleeve, it’s because the musicians ooze, not boom into view like the cover’s majestic moon shot. Viewed from afar, one’s impression of the music may be of a similarly distant and alien body, but real-time playback reveals an audio analogue of the craggy and cratered lunar surfaces displayed on front and rear. The mood is deepened by blurry recording fidelity, from which issues an otherworldly whiff of ‘Le Voyage Dans Le Lune’ as if soundtracked by Derek Bailey and Edgard Varèse.

Cue Smith, Kastel and Morgia, weighing in with skills and sound reserves hewn and honed over years of peripatetic performance and collaboration. Though confined to a relatively little instrumentation, each exhibits a resourcefulness and imagination that ought to put music shops out of business. Gary Smith sits with amp, volume pedal and an extensive array of extended techniques that transports his guitar work at times into the abstract realm of musique concrète, as he jumps, jangles and provides itchy berth for his counterpart, Morgia, who shape-shifts symbiotically from ‘electronic textures’ into ‘pre-war slide blues’ and oscillating feedback; motifs so (wilfully) tentative that they suggest would-be interlopers from beyond the veil of the known. His playing is a blanket or a bludgeon for Smith’s taps and tinkles, and backdrops beautifully the group’s ornamented theatrics.

Largely absent for the first few tracks, but for a faint feline fricative in the first minutes, vocalist Silvia Kastel yawns into elongated view in ‘Allied Forces’, then proceeds to navigate the vacillating void with a cat’s heightened perception; ascending tall, yowling towers; contorting herself bonelessly around strange-shapes with apposite meows, scowls, howls, shrieks and ululations. Trained in a range of styles, she negotiates the slippery antics of the string section with grace and aplomb. Vocals in improvised music usually constitute the make or break factor for me, because potential for discomfort engendered by the overwrought looms so large. However, Kastel’s sense of restraint is as evolved as her vocal versatility.

An additional portent of the trio’s intuitive powers is the judicious brevity of each track, demonstrating a determination not to waste or belabour a single idea, leaving every Goldilocks listener to enjoy ‘baby bear’ cuts exclusively. It throws into sharp relief the difference between chancer musicians who let it all hang out, and those with something to flaunt. Brand falls into the latter camp, teasing you just enough to follow the trio into ‘Brand 2’.

November 21, 2013

The Sea of Heads

John Zorn
The Book Of Heads Performed by Christof Funabashi
GERMANY SCHRAUM LC25003 CD (2012)

Here be 35 etudes for solo guitar written for Eugene Chadbourne to perform by John Zorn way back in 1978, which have already been recorded once before by the unassailable Marc Ribot. Christof Funabashi, clearly a fan of the piece, decides to have a go here, for good or ill.

It may be worth pointing out for those who thrive on detail, (and gossip), that the American guitarist James Moore includes The Book Of Heads in his current repertoire and is apparently also releasing his own recorded versions on Zorn’s own Tzadik imprint in 2014. Whether this implies Zorn’s seal of approval which Funabashi’s release on Schraum clearly lacks, I hesitate to speculate upon. The Schraum website gingerly points out that “…Before embarking on this project, Funabashi and Schraum obviously had contact with John Zorn himself, talking about the compositions and the recording process itself…” although no more information regarding Zorn’s feelings regarding or engagement with Funabashi’s version are forthcoming. This should not influence your opinion of this release in any way; in fact it probably says more about my own inscrutable need to stir this particular (very possibly irrelevant) cat and pigeon broth, so please accept my apologies and allow me to continue with the job in hand.

Let’s consider the basic nuts and bolts of the thing – thirty five etudes for solo guitar is a lot and for some people might be thirty-four too many, but if you have a penchant for the unorthodoxies apparent along the axis of Derek Bailey/Eugene Chadbourne/John Russell/Marc Ribot/Ferran Fages then you have a goodly chunk of guitar schmutter to get your teeth into here. Wikipedia describes The Book Of Heads thus: “…Zorn learned the extended techniques from Chadbourne, and used them to create a piece that would push Chadbourne’s virtuosity to new levels. Zorn incorporated new techniques, such as rubbing balloons on the guitar strings until they pop, holding talking dolls up to the microphone, pulling the guitar strings out of the bridge notch, hitting the strings with pencils, and playing with rice. He also used classical guitar techniques, such as hitting the body of the guitar and multiple harmonics.” Which, I’m going to grumpily point out, all sounds like stuff that people have been doing at the London Musicians Collective, Eddie Prévost workshops, Derek Bailey’s Company Week, Mopomoso, Klinker, Club Integral, FlimFlam, etc. for the last 200 years. And those are just some of the organisations from the UK, never mind mainland Europe and beyond. Indeed, John Zorn post 1978 explored many very different areas of composition, but The Book Of Heads can still be seen as relevant today as a useful reference catalogue of improv manoeuvres.

Perhaps inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies deck of cards first published in 1974, Zorn designed the score as a set of 35 cards. These featured both graphic and traditional musical notation plus written instructions allowing both precise direction and interpretation by the performer. It is stated that the cards or “heads” are intended to be performed as written; the means of performance being based on improvisation.

Simultaneously virtuosic and rudimentary; Funabashi presents his own take on multiple options for guitar techniques and styles. It’s a kind of scattergun approach to improvisational strategies, and, for me, in places a rather academic and dry reading. For my tastes, Funabashi’s attempts fall a little short on interest; indeed it sounds uncomfortably to me like he’s maybe flagging slightly on the ideas front towards the end. It’s not all bad; some parts are engaging; but occasionally a trad jazz lick rears its ugly head – there’s a time and place for this sort of thing in my opinion and that’s absolutely and entirely; only ever at a trad jazz concert. This is, of course, my own personal opinion and perhaps I’m being unfair – this pinstriped flourish may in fact be a requirement of the score. But if it is not, then for me its inclusion by Funabashi serves only to diminish the piece. Funabashi, a man who describes himself as moving “…between the song-forms of indie rock, the language of contemporary music and the openness of improvisation…” which, dare I say it, seems a little wide a remit for comfort, has chosen a relatively academic project compared with his other stated interests here.

It is also, for what it’s worth, my opinion that guitarists like Keith Rowe and Derek Bailey have, commendably, done far more than their fair share to promote alternative forms on guitar already. The temptation is there to use The Book of Heads as a kind of shorthand device for extended technique. Which would be a shame if it diminished the work, (or the composer, or the performer), in any way.

For a quick overview, a short promotional video can be found, and should be viewed by anyone with an interest here which in itself is a professional-looking little visual vignette that nicely illustrates the project, but superficially certainly puts the album in a very good light but implies an importance which I’m not totally sure it deserves. At least not just yet – time, and history, will tell.

Schraum

November 17, 2013

Getting Through Accidentals

An astonishing outpouring of energy from Invisible Things on their Home Is The Sun (PORTER RECORDS PRCD-4069) album. The label Porter Records is often home to some far-out free jazz enterprises, but this bizarre monster has most of its clammy paws planted in the art-rock camp…the duo of American players Mark Shippy and Jim Sykes realise most of this dazzling escapade with a guitar and drums set-up, although Shippy also adds rich keyboard layers and sings, and guest player Jeff Ziegler is on hand to supply further keyboard goodiness like so much cookie dough. Drummer Jim Sykes apparently bases his work on a deep awareness of percussion methods from Sri Lanka, applied to modern instruments…given that Sri Lankan percussion traditions are said to be about 2500 years old, and at one time the culture had over 30 different types of drum, this is quite an achievement. On Home Is The Sun, there are 17 short tracks which are in fact index points for a enormous whole thing, a continual and overwhelming flying carpet of remarkable music. I think both players come from a Chicago background, with respective histories in bands Parts and Labor, Grooms, Marnie Stern, U.S. Maple, Miracle Condition, and Shorty, and have been honing this approach to their craft since they met in 2009. Impressive, and not just admirably clever; it rattles and roars with unhinged, psychedelic mayhem. Personally I far prefer this open-ended and juicy lubed-up style of playing to the tight-ass precise renditions of Om, for example. The electrifying cover art truly lives up to the music within. From 9th October 2012.

Seth Cooke realised Pneuma (LF RECORDS LF028) using just his crotales (percussion instrument, a specific type of cymbal array) on one track and a pneumatic drill on the other, hence the title. Certainly a process piece, requiring long duration; two tracks at nearly half an hour apiece; gradual shifts in timbre across continual tones. But not an infuriating piece of semi-preciousness, Cooke’s work retains a steely core of hard-edged realism and never drifts off into the clouds of ivory-tower aesthete-land, where velvet-caped fops may shower you with lilacs. If you just read about the crotales piece, it may put you in mind of soppy singing-bowl type music, but when you actually hear it it’s as sturdy as a sheet of tin; it just hangs in the air like an unyielding, brutal, fact. The drill piece is also surprising; far from the industrial noise-brutality some listeners or fans of SPK might expect, it’s an ingenious well-structured composition whose every waking moment is a vehicle for contemplation. “Drills are the aspiration of the male saga”, is all he’s prepared to tell us, by means of an obscure quote; no doubt he’s alluding to the phallic qualities of the pneumatic drill, a factor that leads most road workers to take up the job in order to cure their problems of impotence and flaccidity. There’s nothing like feeling a powerful metal shaft surging between your thighs to cure those erectile tissue problems. If Cooke can tame the savagery of this particular mechanical penis-like device, methinks he could set out a plausible plan for altering the entire mind-set of the modern world, by a combination of chemical processes and other, more occult, strategies. Given Cooke’s wide range of useful skills – he is a sound artist, percussionist who plays unusual objects, and a practising psycho-therapist – anything seems possible. From 27 December 2012.

Third release in from the Norwegian Va Fongool label, and this time we’re moving away from the high-energy high-decibel clattery rough-house parties that Eirik Tofte gravitates towards for his Oslo-based label. PGA are the duo of Jan Martin Gismervik and Fredrik Luhr Diterichson, who perform all of Corrections (VAFCD003) using just an acoustic bass and drum set, though the duo are joined by the brass players Nørstebø and Larsen for a couple tracks. Very far from jazz, music, or even improvised music – this intense, minimal stuff just creaks like broken boughs of an old oak, while sloughing its way out of the speakers like three-day old porridge. I just love the severe and sullen aspect of their sound, which makes virtually no concessions, refusing to be held hostage and turning many debtors away from its door. The pair themselves are far from being cranky old geezers though, and come to us from lively backgrounds in group playing – Moskus, Skadedyr, Sagstuen, Karokh, and the Wolfram Trio, where they both played – see here for a review of that album, also on this label. Apparently the rhythm section couldn’t make themselves heard about the blurty racket from tenor saxman Halvor Meling, so their only course of action was to have him assassinated. The Norwegian Mafia were hired to do the job, and they sealed Meling’s feet in a bucket of cement and then threw him in the Hobølelva. With “Old Hooty” out of the picture, Gismervik and Diterichson could proceed unimpeded with their new minimal plan. Sure enough, pared down to a duo of scrapey wooden and metallic noise-production using highly innovative methods, this pair have a chance to shine – or at least to glimmer like the limpid light of a pond in a heavy fog under the obscured winter sun. Arrived 23 October 2012.

We last heard from Hitoshi Kojo with his Omnimoment CD from 2012, although this unclassifiable Japanese musician is also one half of Jüppala Kääpiö, a name which betrays his likely preoccupation with modern Finnish music and its eccentric psychedelic clutter. High Tide Mirror (OMNIMOMENTO OM06 / SHINING DAY SHINE 12) contains six pieces of very accomplished layered studio working, where whatever instruments were originally used are cunningly blended and morphed into kaleidoscopes of shimmering, bustling sound. Not a surface is left unfilled in these incredibly “busy” scapes, presenting elaborate views of a colourful fantasy world. I am always deeply impressed by the surface beauty of this music at first listen, but then find my attention wandering and I begin to wonder if they really need to be nine or twelve minutes long, since little of any value is added by the duration. Instead of of 6 long tracks, it might be interesting if Kojo were to present 24 short tracks, where the intense and dazzling strangeness of his inventions could astound the listener for a precious moment, then swiftly fade away like a vanishing dream. The cover is fantastic, made of screenprinted card with a cut-out hole and a triangular flap, with sumptuous images of foliage and sealife.

October 9, 2013

Eloquence Framed

Jessica Sligter
Fear and the Framing
NORWAY HUBRO CD2516 (2012)

With Fear and the Framing, Jessica Sligter has crafted an eclectic selection of tracks that serve to highlight the wide talents of this Dutch singer-songwriter.

Together, the ten tracks run the gamut from the gentle and folksy to the electric and dramatic. This contrast is never more pronounced than between track one, ‘Man Who Scares Me’, a beautiful, folksy ballad, and track two, ‘If That Was Crooked. This Is Straight’, a rumbling, unsettling instrumental. On first listen, such diversity only heightens the anticipation for the rest of the album, and thankfully the following tracks do not disappoint.

Fans of acoustic, guitar-based songs will find much to enjoy here, most notably on ‘The Perfect Vesse’l and ‘Fall, Here’; whereas tracks such as ‘Pricklet’ and ‘Scott Will Be Hierarch push’ the experimental boundaries. In lesser hands, the result of this mix could have been an unfocused collection of sounds; but here, each track is very much part of a unified whole, which is essentially held together through Sligter’s eloquent lyrics and haunting voice. The overall effect is a highly satisfactory, if slightly unnerving, experience.

Of course, with such diversity going on, this is not an album that will please all of the people all of the time, but it is never less than hypnotic and intriguing. In fact, listening to Fear and the Framing can be likened to coming across an abstract painting in a gallery that you just can’t look away from; the closer you examine it, the more its intricate detail and subtle layers are revealed.

Following her debut 2010 release, Balls and Kittens, Draught and Strangling Rain (which was released under the name JÆ), comparisons to such artists as Will Oldham and Linda Perhacs were thrown around; and there’s no mistaking the influence of Bjork on some of the tracks on this follow-up album. However, there’s also no doubt that Sligter is a true original and deserves to be recognised as such.

Overall, this is a distinctive album that is at once soft and jagged; requiring several listens in order to fully fall under the spell of this talented singer-songwriter who will no doubt find her fan base has swelled considerably as a result of this latest impressive offering.

October 5, 2013

Clatter and Beard

Here’s one for those who like their edges jagged, regard scrapyards as recreation spaces and relish the experience of switching on their radio to a moment of nebulous half-silence in the middle of a yet-unnamed modern musical contrivance. London’s Found Drowned will intrigue and impress improv enthusiasts with the savvy smile of a salvage salesman. Their animated racket broadcasts from the setting-up of one of Tom Waits’ Island-era junkyard orchestras: all hammers, nails and swollen thumbs, with a good measure of barbed wire wound haphazardly around the theatre of operations.

The first three tracks slide by with seemingly little to distinguish one set of exploratory scrapes and rattles from another. Halfway through ‘Taken Aim’ though, a plea for a more patient pace seeps from Peter Marsh’s slowly slithering double bass, briefly prompting fellow noiseniks James O’Sullivan (guitar) and Paul May (drums) to settle into more distinct modes of behaviour. But O’Sullivan – at once like a mute trumpet panicked by the directive – proceeds to exhibit his schizophrenia in detail: shards of shrieking shrapnel one way, jostled whammy bar blasting waves of blood into the skull, while May rolls like a sedated Han Bennink, tapping anything that returns a rhythm. Marsh’s cautionary note is reprised in the ever-so-slight ‘Plane’, in which a shy but seething sheet of feedback tempers the rhythm section’s waywardness.

No single state stays fixed for long though. The lineup suggests jazz, but there’s little to indicate an idiomatic ideology, save for a teasing trace of walking bass – sometimes bulbous and bouncy – counterpointed by a high-end spray of scrap-metal cymbals and a drifting scrape of guitar. These moments are perhaps what best defines the Found Drowned sound: the ability to hold together while ripping apart at the seams. Apparent antecedents such as AMM are paid homage.

The recording is so closely miked that the performers’ limbs practically project from the stereo speakers. This takes me back to gigs in small, cold rooms more peopled by musicians than quiet curiosity seekers; the band: sipping a pint, mumbling private jokes, retuning, resuming serious aspect and launching into another undefined journey. However, in the luxury of a warm living room the listening experience can be savoured so much more.

Found Drowned’s James O’Sullivan unplugs (so to speak) from his manifold group activities for a personalised parade of growls, grinds, squeaks, squawks, tings, taps, furry feedback and motorised rumbles on Feed Back Couple (FORWIND FWD02); all rendered via the elastic personality of his electric guitar, which will doubtless delight devotees of John Zorn’s Book of Heads or early Incus recordings, whose damp bedsit atmosphere is recreated here. Over 45 minutes, during which pieces lengthen incrementally (and culminating in the 20 minute fuzz-fest, ‘Fine Line’), O’Sullivan finds space to expound upon ideas that might not otherwise have found sufficient breathing space; fixating on subtleties teased delicate from his six strings, mounted on medium-frequency air and recorded there for posterity.

He demonstrates an attention to detail that sometimes meanders into ambling abstraction, the salience of which lies in the province of the respective listener. Some may be intrigued by his affiliation with Eddie Prevost’s Experimental Workshop, in which certain of O’Sullivan’s ideas presumably originate. Personally, I feel that much of this might have been better incorporated into the Found Drowned album as a set of solo interludes, where the groupings’ respective tendencies to ramble and rant might have had a beneficial influence on one another. However, taken in short measures these recordings have the clear capacity to transport the listener to new and strangely shadowed situations.

Found Drowned
James O’Sullivan

September 15, 2013

A Vinyl Varambolage

Another fine Jean-Noël Cognard project – ever since this veteran French drummer got in touch with TSP, he’s been exceptionally generous in supplying us with his vinyl releases, which happen to be on the Bloc Thyristors label and are usually sumptuous objects pressed in coloured vinyl with screenprinted covers, witness their other releases by Tankj, Empan, Tribraque, Ressuage and others. La Vierge De Nuremberg is a six-piece combo featuring the great Jac Berrocal on trumpet, flute and various “jouets sonores”, Cognard on the drums, plus a jazz-rock-type combo on guitars, bass, sax and “clavier vintage”, by which I suppose the French understand old analogue keyboards. They play a solid and energetic set on Le Retour De (BLOC THYRISTORS 0100), reminding us of a forgotten time when albums really were “albums”, by which I mean a collection of related and well-produced tracks edited into a coherent whole, and not simply two 20-minute sprawls of improvised noise plastered onto vinyl. The band here exhibit diverse interests in jazz, free-form improvisation, progressive rock, psychedelic rock songs, and a fair dose of inventive insanity when the occasion calls for it. Fans who are in the know will appreciate the first track on side two, ‘Rock N Roll Station’, where Berrocal stages a remake-revisit of one of his most famous pieces (the original was recorded in 1976 with Vince Taylor on vocals, but I find Berrocal has revisited it at least twice before in 1996 and 2007), and it’s still an eccentric gem, although its avant-mischief is largely untypical of the rest of this album which is more in the area occupied by great French prog music of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Gong or Lard Free, with perhaps the odd touch of Rock In Opposition groups. Recorded in 2011 in the Pierre Schaeffer studio. Mika Pusse did the highly kinky cover artwork with lashings of spanking, lingerie and tit clamps. From July 2012.

The Swifter is a collaboration between the Italian percussionist Andrea Belfi and BJNilsen, plus the pianist Simon James Phillips. Just four enigmatic instrumentals on this eponymous long-player (THE WORMHOLE WHO#02), where the pattern is that each piece starts with uncertain, near-chaos, coagulating gradually out of forlorn percussive scrapes and bangs, as if a house were being put together by renegade builders invading your garden at midnight; and then develops slowly into a glorious melodic crescendo as Phillips executes his assured minimalist arpeggios to soaring effect. What begins as slightly broken music transforms itself into a very stable and pleasing harmonic arrangement. The odd effect of hearing so many drum-rolls and piano introductions that don’t develop anywhere is that the listener is kept in a state of constant anticipation, as though watching a music hall stage where the orchestra are creating the world’s longest build-up for a star singer who never appears. An enigmatic release – the titles refer to capstan bars, wave guidance and neap tides for no apparent reason, and the record purports to be about “space”, but I enjoyed the very crisp and clear sound of the recording, a no-nonsense and unfiltered document of the performances. From 18 October 2012, apparently the second vinyl release from this subsidiary of the cassette-only Tapeworm label.

Guerilla Toss are an American five-piece here with their Jeffrey Johnson (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS FTR 095) LP, just six tracks which make for a shortish LP or a longish mini-album. The band form a basic oddball rock setup with guitars, bass and drums, but much sizzling heat is added by their two secret weapons – the synth of Ian Kovacjr and the vocals of Kassie Carlson. Kassie’s vocals are shrill, high-pitched and harsh and most civilians will reach for their steel helmets after just five minutes in her company, but when she’s in the shrieky mode she reaches new heights of deliberate-obnoxiousness not heard since Japan’s Space Streakings. Mark you, she is also capable of muttering strangely into the mike like she’s just been woken out of a coma in the psycho ward, and is recounting the dreams she just had. Kovacjr’s insane electronics add tasty flavouring too, although I for one would have liked to hear more from his moth-like fingers skittering across the keys and dials. The rest of the band are great though, straining quite hard (perhaps too hard) to play crazy dynamics, with wild stop-starts and frantic explosions of errant rock noise provided as needed. They fit together as a unit like sixteen pairs of odd socks – you never get the same match twice. Their strenuous efforts ensure the music is always extremely surprising (to say the least), even at the expense of structure or song form. Clearly all of these young Bostonians have been digesting their post-punk record collection well. I dig the spontaneous energy of the whole album while it’s spinning, even if it doesn’t leave much of an impression after the fizz has died down. Since we received this item, they’ve got a CD out on Tzadik, so maybe that one’s slightly better “produced”. Jeffrey Johnson gave the album its name and also did the bonkers cover art. (23 November 2012).

Thurston Moore is one of the “executive directors” of Feeding Tube Records and it so happens he’s featured on the album Caught On Tape (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS FTR092 / MANHAND MH131), two sides of recordings taken from a European tour he did in 2012 with the drummer John Moloney covering his back. It’s a tremendous record. As is well known, 2012 was the year that Sonic Youth went on “hiatus”, and not even the press release makes any reference to this seminal band (although there’s a long checklist of Thurston’s other projects). Here, liberated from the song form and the need to hit marks, play on cue, imitate Glenn Branca compositions or do anything other than just play the guitar as he sees fit, Thurston is suddenly unleashed, born again. A meticulous musicologist could probably listen to side one alone and unpick musical quotes referring to anyone from John Fahey to Albert Ayler by way of Tom Verlaine, but everyone else is just enjoying the glorious melodic and psychedelic noise of unfettered amplified axe. Moloney’s drumming finally makes sense to me in this context too. I was usually disappointed by the sluggish Sunburned Hand of the Man records, but here Moloney’s loud and primitive bashes completely fit the bill, and the pair of them genuinely sound like they’re enjoying themselves. How often do we get that sensation these days? Recorded on cassette (like audience recordings) with a rough edge that aids the rawness of the music, the finished product has I suspect been edited in places – one or two splices are detectable on side one at least – but the cumulative effect is a non-stop exhilarating juggernaut of avant-rock madness. Fine art by Raymond Pettibon and Emma Kohlmann completes the package. Since the original “tour pressing” of 113 copies sold out instantly, this edition is a must-have! (23 November 2012)

August 31, 2013

Key Acoustics

The plaintive cry of Loren Connors and Suzanne Langille is I Wish I Didn’t Dream (NORTHERN SPY RECORDS NSCD 031), on a highly opaque CD of intense experimental guitar murk and equally plangent vocalising. These short, clipped poem-songs are exemplary manifestations of the Emily Dickinson approach taken to its post-modern extreme – broken images, unfamiliar emotions, and nascent ideas stumbling into the world scarce half made-up. Who better to delve into these uncharted seas than the two talented Americans in this duo, who singly or collectively have been producing musical puzzles for over thirty years, producing a large body of work that’s proving impossible to decode – and the problem only increases when you have obtuse, distanced and frown-inducing releases such as this one. We last heard from them as two-thirds of Haunted House, a group producing the wonderful Blue Ghost Blues for this same label in 2011, whose hard-rocking and lengthy guitar noodlings may well have struck a chord with all good lovers of avant axe-excess, but this particular sleep-talking mystery bucket of murmurations and unfinished utterances is quite another brisket of bones. The guitar meanders and squeaks, producing icy cold tones from a meat locker situated thirty miles from the studio. The vocalist is closer to hand, her urgent whispers magnified in a small echo chamber, but her cryptical half-sung sketches – fleeting portraits etched on a frozen window pane with a dusty twig – will have you straining to catch the implications behind each intimate gasp. This is blanked-out, impenetrable minimalist art music of the highest water, a more austere version of Annette Peacock and Joni Mitchell running across the snow with the distorted and attenuated guitars of Japanese ghosts in pursuit of their threatened souls. It also comes with a booklet of stark abstract paintings by M P Landis, completing a package that’s guaranteed to confirm everything you ever suspected about the emptiness and futility of life. Gradely! (01/11/2012)

Another American who, I suspect, is no stranger to staring the Gods of futility in the eye is our good friend Nick Hoffman, the sullen and stern genius who utters little while issuing great but perplexing music on his Pilgrim Talk label. One such batch arrived in November 2012. Cockroach Boy (PILGRIM TALK PT22) is a teamup with Satoshi Kanda, one of his many connections in the steaming continent of the East, and they also made a split cassette for this label in 2010. Kanda has been improvising since 2003 using nothing but an electric bass and some empty milk bottles. Well, he certainly delivers the cream on this recording! It’s one of Hoffman’s “play it and guess” recordings where absolutely nothing is explained and it’s up to the listener to decide when the duo have started or ended performing, and whether or not what they are creating can even be called “music”. Ultra-minimal, confusing, yet it’s full of the unbearable tension that these dangerous situations can often create. Soon you too will be drawn into contemplating these strange tones and lengthy silences, and wishing you were nailed inside a coffin at the cemetery in Fukuoka, where this was recorded. The lengthy title to this 40-minute work, if indeed it is a title, compacts references to demons, corpses and Gods and also retains the air of a schlocky horror movie, in keeping with the grotesque Insect-Fear cover art by Hoffman. I love the way this music consistently refuses easy digestion, and all these Pilgrim Talk releases are recommended. (09/11/2012)

The Polish trio Sonda recorded Sonda (AUDIO TONG AT26.2012) in Sopot, a little town abutting the Baltic Sea, performing in an attic space in 2006. Now released on Audio Tong, it’s an engaging set of music played by the drummer Krzysztof Topolski and the guitarist Marcin Dymiter, with vocalist Tomasz Pawlak “Czaszka” joining them with his husky yawps for three tracks. In their endearingly untidy music, the group make a point of confusing musical genres, aiming to indulge their love of “rock, blues, metal, drone, punk, electronics and improvisation”. Two of the seven tracks are a species of obnoxious guitar grindcore racket that should grease the wheels of die-hard Napalm Death fans, while two other tracks are meandery improvisation of the rattle-and-creak variety, with much emphasis on the metallic resonances produced by cymbals and metal-wound strings. Other pieces are just plain impossible to categorise, although the 12-minute ‘Wszystko Dobre, Co Sie Dobrze Konczy’ has a definite vibe of Can threaded into the sinews of its drumming and electronic drone, making snake-like movements across the carpet with the help of the violinist Marek Dybusc. Competent enough performances, but the trio ultimately lack force and conviction, no matter which style they adopt. Lovely deep sea cover art. (02/11/2012)

Strange furry thing from Jüppala Kääpiö, the duo who brought us Spring Promenade in 2010. Despite their Finnish name this band is actually two Japanese musicians Hitoshi and Carole Kojo who live in Belgium. Rewound Grooves (OMNIMOMENTO OM 07) may be a concept record telling the story of the Krampus, a vicious and hairy beast drawn from Alpine mythology who is associated with Winter and may be the enemy of St Nicholas – a sort of early manifestation of the Grinch. The music by Jüppala Kääpiö is however anything but beastly, and comprises four lengthy and limpid drones of ambient swirlery, all created from numerous layers of gentle electronic tones, breathy vocals and endlessly spinning tape loops (probably enhanced by digital means). The album strikes a thoughtful and contemplative pose, and is generally soothing and positive, with only the third track ‘From Veins To Nebulae’ introducing an element of drama or danger. Somewhat diffuse and static music, but there is much craft in the Kojos’ sound-generation technique, and they rarely commit a careless or half-baked statement to tape. Besides the fake fur wrapper, there is also a screenprinted band of card which can be worn like a mask. (29/11/2012)

If you’d prefer drone music with more darkness lurking in the corners, then as ever Sum Of R will satisfy your thirst for all that’s lugubrious and sombre. The sounds on Ride Out The Waves (STORM AS HE WALKS SAHWLP001) are produced mostly by Reto Mäder working in the studio overdubbing his keyboards, bass, electronics and percussion, although Julia Wolf (what a brilliant name for a supernatural horror combo like this one) adds poignant stabs from her fatal guitar at chosen stages on the forest pathway. I tend to remember Sum Of R records as an unbroken feast of thick occluded dark ambience, but Ride Out The Waves has a lot more variety and incident than their usual output, each track quite unlike the last, until the LP becomes the soundtrack to a very disjointed and episodic horror film. Said film, if it exists, is characterised by much bloodshed, sabres, and men on horseback cutting down villagers with a pitiless scowl of contempt. Aye, there is still plenty of the characteristic bubbling black tar music which induces fear and misery, but the heavy metal guitar swipes add a very welcome element of tension, plus the spare percussion will appeal to all you hard-boned stoner freaks – just check out the slowed-down battering effects on ‘Alarming’, the truly apocalyptic nightmare that brings the album crashing down into ruins. I’ve always said Reto Mäder should have made a Black Metal LP, but I feel that genre may sadly be in decline now. Even so, Mader should join forces with MZ.412 some day, and the results would be truly monstrous – they could produce the ultimate “atmospheric dread and cold death” album. The photo shows a promo CD, but the release is vinyl.

August 27, 2013

Stump Collecting

How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck If A Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood?
How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck If A Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood?
ITALY BORING MACHINES BM042 / AVANT! RECORDS AV!022 LP (2012)

A blackened stump emblazoned in the centre of a black cover, apparently the inspiration for the group name, a homage to that most eldritch and sinister of beasts, the woodchuck and the fiendish rhymes associated with it.

35 minutes of empty and blackened music pass by like wisps of some decaying cerement, mournful and minimal wraith-like guitar figures accompanied by strained and awkward vocals as if the vocalist had forced down a nutritious but dry breakfast of bark chippings. Spindly guitar notes are left to ring out and decay in a way that, through a glass darkly, recalls the Spaghetti-Western-referencing licks of hoary and ghoulish post-rock touchstones like Tortoise or Labradford.

Under guitar parts like bare branches and twigs knocking together our Vincent Price-esque vocalist roams, spiritually tortured, disgruntled, wrapped in black and noisome rags, over the forest floor. A dank atmosphere seeps past tolling bell-like guitar tones carrying with it the petulant spirits of mouldering leaves who whisper to themselves snatches of gothic poetry across the gloomy wood as they pass. Shadows, and – weirdly – the shadow of Hank Marvin, flit through our haunted and crepuscular copse. There is a sense, as well as of lurking camp, of lurking menace, impending distortion, of something stalking behind rotting tree trunks, or at least behind humming practice amps. The threatened explosion never occurs, though, wind rustles and sighs and the threat passes, creeping away like the Green Manalishi, just beyond sight.

Sometimes the album seems an extrapolation of the obligatory atmospheric instrumental usually inserted into blockbusting 80s metal albums to demonstrate conventional musical prowess and provide moments of respite (this category includes tracks incorporating bastardized references to the Great Old Ones). Happily any sense of bombast leaking from this source is effectively diffused by idiosyncratic production touches, plenty of negative space and a pleasingly ramshackle air. Overproduction could easily have swamped this, but for the most part it remains aptly sere and ragged, allowing the mind to fill in the details. Don’t get the impression, despite the references and presentation that the music is heavy, per se, the heaviness is always implicit, what is recorded is spare and restrained.

The twangy touches remain an unusual ingredient; whilst the album would function as a soundtrack for a dream quest through haunted (and woodchuck infested?) woods such as that undertaken by Randolph Carter, often as not, rather than in Unknown Kadath, you will find yourself by some infernal trickery approaching a gothic, doom-laden horse opera territory. The band being fellow countrymen of Morricone this makes some poetical sense, it does however leave one with the incongruous image of Howard Philips Lovecraft in a Stetson, perhaps fraternising with Johnny Cash. Nevertheless this stumpy plastic missive may well be a useful listen in a lichen-encrusted hour when wishing to evoke a miasma of arboreous atmosphere. Could be a grower…

Boring Machines
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