Tagged: vocals

February 16, 2014

One Harp, One Guitar

The Harp of the New Cambria

Yeah…Rock! Rhodri Davies finally discovers the power of heavy metal! For years this Welsh genius (improviser, composer, innovator) was known for producing extremely quiet and minimal music with his harp, often in the company of other minimal improvisers, although admittedly he was recently drawn to use of the ebow as a process whereby he could extend the resonating strings into a powerful, humming, ultra-long drone. As is well known we love his work here and some of his recent records (e.g. 2010′s Carliol with John Butcher) have been exemplary in terms of their stripped-down astringency, their frightening sense of purpose, their deep-frozen “core of ice” affect such that to listen was like being stabbed in the head with an icicle. Now on Wound Response (ALT.VINYL av038) he’s embracing amplification and distortion, and with these groovy cuts he’s turning himself into a Welsh avant-garde version of Jimmy Page or Leslie West, riffing away in gorgeous circular patterns with a strong sense of simple melodic drive, anchoring down his quicksilver inventions with a solid root note, and generally updating the blues / rock mode in his own shimmering image of palpitating atonal holydom. In fine this is the sort of harp record that Keiji Haino probably wishes he could have made, during that creative purple patch when he figured he was tough enough to play any instrument known to man and create a hideous racket on it, including the hurdy-gurdy which he memorably transformed into a shrieking wheezy monster of steel and wood. Now Haino must surrender his laurel wreath to a new victor.

Davies is getting this fab new sound from use of transducers, contact mics, a volume pedal, an overdrive unit and two amplifiers, the sort of setup that produced those side-long versions of ‘Dazed and Confused’ (although in fact a theremin was also used I believe). The volume pedal in particular is one of my personal favourite devices and isn’t used enough in my view, ever since Derek Bailey trod his well-brogued foot on one of them during his brief but memorable “electric” phase ¹. Mostly of course the quality of the music here is produced not by means of electronic assistance, but through the sheer dazzling brilliance of Rhodri’s attack. Man, you could use these fingers to mow an entire field of wheat – he’s his own combine harvester! Speed and coruscating energy are the order of the day, at times making music that resembles the hammered dulcimer or autoharp of an acid-fried folk musician, perhaps named Barney Pembleton, on the most gloriously impossible folk-rock record that never existed and was in fact purposely suppressed by Elektra, Island and Transatlantic working in an unholy triumvirate of conspiracy to conceal dangerously good music from the crowd. Now through the gift of channelling the spirit of Barney Pembleton, Rhodri Davies has succeeded in unleashing that monster from the vaults. Lovely screenprinted card presentation on this beast, with drawings by the organist / composer Jean-Luc Guionnet, a Phil Begg recording, and title borrowed from the musician’s personal bookshelf of great literature. And it’s pressed in clear vinyl, which ought to be the clincher. From 26 October 2012, and a total goodie.

The Persian Version

Last heard from Yek Koo with her single Alone Together, now here she is with an entire album recorded for the same label called Love Song For The Dead C (EMERALD COCOON EC009). Yek Koo is Helga Fassonaki from Metal Rouge, working solo with guitar, percussion devices and her voice for this uncanny limited-edition vinyl item, released at the same time as her one-person show at the Human Resources gallery in LA. The order of the day on this highly discursive and ghostified dron-gronathon is a fairly skeletal approach to music-making, selecting bare twigs or bent wire sticks, remnants and rags of material and assembling them with the intuitive flair of a collage artist or maker of bricolage. These tunes unfold in real time, coming to life on the gallery wall rather than enduring a half-life as tracks etched into dead vinyl. There’s a gloriously delirious tone which the press notes describe as “drunkenly stumbling”, to account for the free-swimming odd mismatches of sound-generation here. The very body of each tune appears fragile, so brittle that it might shatter at any second, or so nebulous that you could disperse the entire album by turning on the fan. Yet Yek Koo’s music keeps on going, and the mysterious drug-like logic of her music is as potent as a spell from Circe burning evil incense blocks in her copper bowl.

Everything is suggestive of alienation and distance – distorted, weirdly-echoed effects, beautifully badly-played electric guitar to produce unearthly tones, an out-of-tune waily voice drifting in from a secret chamber – yet in the final analysis, it’s the most honest and intimate music you could hope for. It’s as though Fassonaki has found a completely instinctive way to outwit the subtleties of our own mind games and ego tricks, and bypass normal channels of communication to arrive at a very direct statement delivered from the heart. The label exhibits a certain pride in the “tradition of the great outsider sides of the early 90s”. Although “outsider” is becoming a commonplace term these days, the point is well made, and even the cover art with its simple pastedown wraparound is trying to forge a link with the 1990s “tradition”, if indeed there is one, when great underground music was packaged in master bags with paste-on covers (mainly for economic reasons) and released in near-secrecy. Of course this attentuated, formless wailing sound she makes isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but I personally am completely enchanted with this LP and it’s highly worthy of your attention. Received 22nd May 2012.

Best heard on the classic LP Domestic and Public Pieces. Let me know if you ever find a copy. ↩

February 7, 2014

Beyond This Vessel: a dark and demonic sermon of swamp folk psychedelia

Geist & the Sacred Ensemble, Beyond This Vessel, Moon Glyph, cassette MG68 (2013)

It’s time for some dark and demonic ritualistic psychedelic folk from way down in the fetid, humid swamplands of … uh, Seattle, courtesy of a bunch a-callin’ their selves Geist & the Sacred Ensemble. Lazy drawling half-singing / half-declaiming vocals from Geist himself lead the way and what a trail is blazed by these musical gypsy travellers: a lackadaisical rhythm, simple tribal percussion, stark and sometimes massive guitars, and a generally heavy kind of atmosphere.

The guys swagger through “On the Next Full Moon”, simmering up some Southern Gothic rock dirge drudge drone for the monthly sacrificial lynching ritual to appease an angry Old Testament spirit. The music becomes a bit more urgent and apocalyptic on “Seeker”, Geist almost in supplication to the personal demons and angels locked in eternal battle in his heart for his soul. The guitars change from insistently heraldic and emphatic to soft woozy wash. This becomes “Terraformer” and as the title suggests, the music has indeed metamorphosed from structures based on simple beats, repetition and riff loops to soft desultory, dreamy ambience with rippling guitar notes out front and reverbed guitar wash out over the skies above. Geist’s singing sleepwalk barely holds the track together. Black misty shadows rise from the still green waters beneath the tangle of mangrove and tree roots, a giant reptilian shadow glides through the muddy depths, a deep alien machine starts to rumble - perhaps there is a UFO down deep within the marshes?

“Bird Passage” is a peculiar name for the lethargic ritual conducted by Geist in deadened preacher mode, leading an equally enervated congregation in prayer to their unholy chthonic spiritual masters. Woozy wobbly effects and a solemn acoustic guitar accompany Geist on his journey to whatever passes for spiritual enlightenment and union.

It’s a surprisingly short album for its cassette format – the album repeats over on the B-side (this must be the new trend in recording albums to cassette tape) – and with the songs sort of joined up, listeners could be forgiven for wondering what happened to the second half of the album, unaware that it in fact has sailed right past them. The music is brooding and haunted yet not very absorbing; the vocals tend to be exaggeratedly twangy and drawling and need some real sulphurous fire-and-brimstone passion to capture that full-on prophet-in-the-wilderness apocalyptic quality. There probably should be more thumping hypnotic psychedelic music with the guitars soaring at wild and swerving tangents to create an intense rallying mood in which it should be possible for listeners to fall to the floor shaking uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth, perspiring by the bucket-loads and uttering pathetic little cries that appeal to their dark pitiless god for mercy or delivering warnings of global doom in guttural demon tones.

January 26, 2014

Numb Sock Rinse

FRITZ WELCH – RADIO FLOW

Fritz Welch
Radio Free Alcatraz

Fuck me. This gave me a headache. On the cdr it sez something akin to ‘Numb Sock Rinse’ which I thought was a great noise name… but the writing style was so aberrant that I couldn’t be sure if that’s what it really said. After spending two whole days analysing the cover I eventually spotted a sticker emblazoned with the name ‘Dave Welsh’ in the tinniest writing imaginable. Well, that got me mad. Dave Welsh, what a shit name. Utter toss. Not my thing at all. If Someone called Welsh Dave’ tried to sell me his noise works I would BUY!BUY!BUY! and if someone called Dave Walsh tried to sell me his noiseworks I would spit in his EYE!EYE!EYE! – at one point I chucked this CD/R in me bin so profoundly upset was I. Me mate Andy visited later that day and fished the thing out. Andy makes a living from bin robbing and coffin bugging. He’s the finest in Burselm. He was intrigued to know why I was binning the works of Fritz Welch! FRITZ WELCH!!!! Here’s a tip Fritz, it’s an ageing population and we have nothing to live for, if you cause me massive eye-strain-again with DELIBERATELY TINY PRINT, ‘pon my turning the age of 70 I’m going to shoot up some PCP (or the future equivalent which will hopefully be much better) strap some home made explosives to me noggin and come a calling for you, YOU SMALL TYPE BASTARD. Anyway, it was nice to see Andy and hear all about what’s happening in the world of bins and coffins. I had a quick browse of Fritz’s web site where he bangs on no end about ‘Human Sacrifice’ which is all right by me, without human sacrifice how will the gods know we love them? Ahhh, now I see. Human Sacrifice = Numb sock Rinse. Everything always makes sense in the end. Somewhere on the website something says something about how Fritz has got an urge for ‘percussion and objects’ – I love percussion. I love objects. I had a little hope a little flower in my little heart that Fritz in his own tiny writing way was going to build the bridge that joined rockabilly and noise in perfect perfection. Also on his website it says he plays gigs in old Hair Dressing salons. I love hair dressers. Lorna’s Salon in Burselm is like a CHURCH. When I quit the noise game I’m going to become a barber. You can go to the worst, deprived hellhole on Earth and I can guarantee the one man doing good business and loved by all is the fucking barber. Honestly. I’ve done me research and it is an irrefutable FACT. I’ve gone all happy now. Apologies to Welsh Dave for the earlier threats. Oh shit. This isn’t rockabiily. You can file this under ‘sound poetry’ . It’s vocal yammer. Where’s the bloody percussion I was promised? If you wants some lazy ass journalism, I can put it thus if you like vocal theatrics ala Bllood Stereo, then you will surely like this. Me? I find a lot of this thing upsetting. When I see some youth gurning and wheezing and spitting out nonsense I get an urge to kick them straight in the face and send them back to the hell from which they came. I like Keith though. On this CDR he does one long 30+ mins thing with lots of silence. Silence to me is a track break. It says this track is over and another one is just around the corner. To me this is a CDR with 40+ tracks. Keith’s gargling and shouting is committed stuff. Clean sound but it’s not ineffectual. I can sit and listen to this and imagine a lost tribe somewhere, living under an all mighty rock (perhaps they live under ground?) and over the years they have heard a rumour of a rumour of a rumour of a rumour of something called ‘thrash metal’ and they are all fired up by it. With little idea of what is and no instruments at all they create a studio out of the skulls of beetles and set about creating and recording some thrash metal and then they get involved with the international tape trading scene. Am I being a twat? Possibly but no one cannot deny how nice it would be if 90′s noisecore fans / bands (7 Minutes of Nausea, GeroGeriGeGeGe and the like) gravitated to this kind of thing and anyway what could be more metal than ‘human sacrifice’ it’s a lot more metal than a numb sock rinse. Pardon me. There is percussion on this. It’s not just mud from the lungs, there is some noise and effected trickery…but not much, it doesn’t overpower. It’s all quite sparse. Sounds like it could be edited together from live recordings (or even one straight take) with either no overdubs or very minimal ones. It’s all very CONCISE. Compact. Well executed and deliberate. There’s nothing out of place here, there is no fat to trim. In short this is an evocative and enjoyable release – definitely one I’ll be coming back to for repeated listens.

January 4, 2014

We Free Kings

Reines of the Stone Age

Reines D’Angleterre is Ghédalia Tazartès with Jo [Tanz] and Elg. This Globe Et Dynastie thing (BO’WEAVIL RECORDINGS WEAVIL 50) is probably a one-off affair realised in Berlin with help of Daniel Lowenbruck and recorded by Rashad Becker. Tazartès is doing his unearthly singing, vocalising and whispering in the midst of a whirlpool of bizarre electronic music, with some occasional filtered and repeated vocal interpolations, perhaps supplied by the other members of the threesome. I think this shows that wherever he goes and whatever he does, Tazartès helps everyone else realise their potential for exotic, hashish trance visions in sound, sometimes whether they know it or not. I expect anyone who has fallen within the orbit of this unusual character will never forget the experience. This isn’t to denigrate Jo and El-G though; we have come across their splendid work before when they worked as a duo called Opéra Mort, on one side of a single for Spleen Coffin. They have a fierce and uninhibited approach to electronics that allows them to lift up the top of the brain and observe what scurries within. In 30 minutes and five tracks, a surreal and nightmarish avant-Techno trip unfolds, dripping corrosively into your mind like a powerful drug. The deep-bass grunts of Uncle Ghédalia, murmuring away like a benign bullfrog, make it the perfect antidote to a bedtime story. From 13 August 2012.

Ivar The Engine

The Norwegian label Hubro has built up a very fine catalogue of excellent instrumental music, much of it crossing genres in unusual ways. Bathymetric Modes (HUBRO CD2519) is a gorgeous item intended mostly as a solo showcase for musician Ivar Grydeland, an exceptionally able guitarist – and he also plays banjo, zither, ukulele and mandolin. I really enjoy the long track ‘Roll’ which is melodic, lively, spirited and comes with a danceable 4/4 beat courtesy of Jonas Howden Sjøvaag and his snare drum. The layers of string playing, especially the understated pedal steel guitar, are just sumptuous. Supple-fingered Ivar plays like a one-man Grateful Dead, and he’s arguably more technically advanced than eight full-size replicas of Jerry Garcia. ‘Roll’ turns out to be uncharacteristic of the rest of the album though, since the four instrumentals that follow are more about “abstract composition”, and Grydeland creates the basic platforms using his graphic synthesizer called the Terri-on. Wistful and melancholic tunes result, some of them embellished with tasty string work, but it’s getting a bit easy-listening and aimless by this point. Even so, ‘Roll’ flies like a seabird for eight glorious minutes of poignant yearning.

Danger Man

Oren Ambarchi’s Audience Of One on Touch was an exceptional release from 2012, but we mustn’t overlook Sagittarian Domain (EDITIONS MEGO 144CD); at 33 minutes, we might think this piece is almost cut from the same cloth as ‘Knots’ from the Touch album, which as it happens was also a collaboration with string players. But instead of exploring rich fields of tonality like ‘Knots’, Domain is a single-minded night drive along a lonely road, the soundtrack to a spy thriller where the payoff to the story never comes. Oren plays most of it himself – guitar, drums, percussion and using a Moog for the bass, while three string players add cello, violin and viola drones around the halfway mark, although their contributions are heavily treated and at times seemed to have strayed in from a Middle Eastern recording or an Alice Coltrane out-take. Oren opts for a remorseless, minimal, clipped guitar riff (non-riff) that pares away at the soft fruit of your mind like a sharp knife, and he propels it on its deadly path with equally stern and no-frills drumming. The basic framework is like a stripped-down version of La Düsseldorf meeting up with Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, almost mechanical in the execution, and it’s as though Oren is playing out a connection between krautrock and drum and bass by recreating these genres on his own terms. There isn’t much of a melody here, but the “topline” – for want of any other description – occasionally modulates into phased effects or droney guitar solos, just to break up the monotony. I seem to recall that David Bowie’s band tried all this around the time of the Lodger album, and the musicians found themselves in the same cul-de-sac as Klaus Dinger in short order. The difference is that Bowie played his wild card by overdubbing Adrian Belew guitar solos in a weird manner (Belew wasn’t allowed to hear the backing track), and Tony Visconti made several judicious edits to the sprawl to boil it all down into song form. Ambarchi by contrast seems intent on piling on the content to the max, and stretching our nerves beyond the point of endurance. The lack of any “resolution” to these taut 33 minutes is pretty heavy going on one level, but then Editions Mego have been edging their electronic minimalism into the zones of the cruel and vicious for some years now (e.g. Life – It Eats You Up, Guts, and The Iron Soul Of Nothing). However, I’d have little hesitation in pointing out that Oren is as much a studio whizz as Bowie; he recorded this whole thing in a single studio session, and it’s an utterly watertight, steel-belted production with not a single flaw in sight.

January 2, 2014

I am the Eggman

We were sent a box of cassettes from the UK micro-label Mantile Records in January 2013, probably on the strength of their Kayaka release or rather reissue of a CDR called Operation Deep Freeze (see here for review). All of these were released in 2012 and are available in digital form if you don’t like cassettes. The item by Burd called Wild Saloone (MANTILE #019) comprises two long instrumentals, very melodic in nature but not much more than rather tame techno enhanced with some hesitant keyboard playing. The serious lack of “groove” here starts to get a bit wearing for me, although fans of Emeralds may want to investigate. Brood Ma‘s Fission (MANTILE #022) is more interesting, with a slightly darker tone to its electronic jacket and tie. It has a number of shorter tracks, some of them decked out with very surreal titles, and musically it shows that the creator has a range of effects he can wring from his sequencers and beat-boxes, attempting to engage us in many moods – from the upbeat and jolly to the sullen and grim. Like Burd, Brood Ma suffers from a lack of conviction in the playing, even when some of the actual sounds he makes have potential. Probably not quite as grotesque as the cover art would like you to believe. Spoils & Relics have their Stammer Challis (MANTILE #023), which is quite chaotic – lots of creaky and cranky home-made equipment, wobbly tapes and ugly electronic burbles, everything chopped to pieces and served up in an ill-formed and half-baked mess which is barely digestible. A very disjunctive approach to form would seem to characterise the music of this bedroom experimenter. I see there are some other releases which may appeal, on Chocolate Monk and Harbinger. They are (I can’t help thinking of them as a duo, for some reason) comparative veterans compared to Burd and Brood Ma, and have been concocting this kind of broken noise since 2009. Not too bad actually; if you can withstand the utter absurdity of it, this tape can be quite entertaining, in a nauseating sort of way. Lastly we have Fossils with What A Drag (MANTILE #020). At first spin, this derelict oddity may appear to be emerging from the same sort of broken noise outpost as Spoils & Relics, and it exhibits the same attachment to lo-fi recording methods and the production of inchoate, lumpy sounds that are very hard to swallow. Fossils are quite a well-respected improvising / free noise “collective” from Ontario who have been doing it since 2004 and the two key members, David Payne and Daniel Farr (who may or may not be represented on this tape), have been known to pass their tapes over to Graham Lambkin for additional treatment. The Lambkin connection earns them endorsement points from this quarter, and I may even be prepared to validate their parking some day. The tape is still a tough row to hoe for your ploughing ears, however. It’s not a question of harsh, blasting noise, but its determination to remain klonky and non-musical at all costs, as if sawing apart pieces of junk and reassembling them in a degenerate workshop of the mind. If Burd belongs on Spectrum Spools, then this release should also find a home on Public Eyesore.

A couple more items from Nick Hoffman and his Pilgrim Talk label, these from 9th November 2012. Back Magic is his “garage rock” combo in which he performs (I assume) as Hair Exp, the guitarist and singer, with just a drummer named Terror Trans to back him up. Blood Plaza (PT23) is a small lathe-cut three track which barely plays at 45 RPM. If it’s lo-fi you’re after, this particular wan item turns that aesthetic into a new form of trans-dimensional travel – you never heard such a pale and sickly sound, drums changed into soggy cardboard packets and the guitar screeching like a stillborn weasel. True connoisseurs of lame 1960s garage punk (as collected on Pebbles, Nuggets, etc.) tend to cherish the real bottom of the barrel stuff, Midwest bands who couldn’t afford proper recording facilities and yet still somehow got a record made on the cheap, most likely by piling into a phonebooth and using the receiver as an amplifier. Freak-beat lovers who dig that stuff should get their collecting fangs deep into this slice of anaemic coffin-fodder, while there’s still a pulse. The other CDR, Jonestown Death Tape (PT24), seems to be another release for the infamous Jim Jones tape recording, which has been issued in various forms by assorted sickos; at least three other versions can be accounted for since Genesis P. Orridge did it on Temple Records in 1984. While I’m personally slow to see the appeal of this “icon” of death culture, there’s no denying it’s a classic of nihilism and despair, and as such it fits into the Pilgrim Talk aesthetic perfectly.

The LP by Egg, Eggs is called The Cleansing Power Of Fruit (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS FTR073). The secret weapon of this zanoid American combo is the vocals and performing skills of David Russell, a charismatic fellow who is much more than just the singer in a band – just check out any of the numerous Egg, Eggs videos on YouTube to get some idea of the eccentricity and physicality of what transpires when a microphone is slipped into his paw. He looks like he just stepped out of a 1950s Bleecker Street café – he projects this formidable image of a burly jazz-loving beatnik with his wild hair and fearsome hornrims, and even so none of this prepares you for the sheer untrammelled craziness of his vocalese. You might expect free-form poetry of some kind, but what Russell offers us is mostly unintelligible – high-pitched whining, squeaking, barking and wailing, occasionally given added weight by nursery-rhyme styled chanting of nonsensical phrases. The main appeal is just the sound he makes with his voice – the twists and turns of his accent and phrasing, akin to which very little else sounds. Except David Thomas, of course. The press notes here do note the resemblance to Crocus Behemoth, and there’s even a physical likeness to some degree. Russell’s degree in far-out-ology should not distract us from the music on the LP – the collective efforts of Sheldon, Crespo, Robinson, Lee, Brewster, Callahan and St. George are all here, along with the drummer John Moloney (from Sunburned, and recent drummer for Thurston) and special guests including Matt Valentine. Together, these crazed North-Easterners blast out unhinged free rock sludge using guitars, basses, electronics, and lots of drums, also adding their vocal efforts to the general hullabaloo. It’s overblown, over-worked, and exhausting to listen to. This particular LP has been edited together from numerous live performances recorded in a three-year period (2009-2011), and this does add extra fire to the material; the editing knife always kicks in precisely at that moment when David Russell’s performance is at its most manic and emotionally heightened. This strategy is guaranteed to give the listener a high ratio of jolts and shocks per square inch of vinyl. For that reason, it’s a bit more rewarding than sitting through some of the longer YouTube episodes, which don’t seem to vary much over 20-40 minutes. Egg, Eggs is clearly a “live band” experience and I expect you really had to be there in Massachusetts to receive the full charge of 115 volts to your rocking bones, but if you want to collect more physical emanations from their odysseys, there are at least two dozen (very limited) cassettes of their work available from this label.

December 21, 2013

Through a Pre-Memory: a heavyweight sound experience of alienation and despair from two musical heavyweights

ÄÄNIPÄÄ, Through A Pre-Memory, Editions Mego, CD 175 (2013)

On their own and with other collaborations, Mika Vainio and Stephen O’Malley are formidable players so one might approach this debut recording, representing three years’ worth of recordings made in Berlin, with some trepidation. This is a very solemn and heavyweight sound experience but with some very delicate and deft touches throughout. The album moves at a sure if slow pace giving listeners plenty of time to savour both SOMA’s deep guitar rumbles and Vainio’s icy crystal electronic tone poems, plus the looming space behind the sounds. You’re thrust into a very stark world in which every bit of audio information carries significant import for you personally.

The two are joined by Alan Dubin, he once of James Plotkin’s OLD and Khanate, whose distinctive screech presses out lyrics adapted from the 20th century Russian modernist poet Anna Akhmatova on “Muse” and “Watch over Stillness / Matters Principle”. Akhmatova’s work offended the Soviet state which censored her writings but she chose to stay in the USSR and experienced the pain of oppression (her first husband was killed by the secret police and her son and second partner spent time in gulags). These tracks can be very intense in delivery and have a raw sound. “Watch over Stillness …” has juddery rhythms and sections of slashing tiger guitar growls and active aggression that keep listeners off-side and uncomfortable while the track lasts.

Much of the album might be confronting the issue of alienation arising from forced isolation, even incarceration; the soundscapes of “Toward All Thresholds” evoke visions of deep cavernous labyrinths stretching far, far into Blackness. Fragments of sound, rhythm passages and steely-toned guitar make periodic appearances, as though coming up for air through the dark murk, only to fall back, lost forever. The sound world becomes quite rich as the track proceeds and its mood changes considerably throughout. In a later part of the track, the darkness almost engulfs the music and wisps of sound barely hold the piece together as it slowly disappears.

“Mirror of Mirror Dreams” features a trio of string players (Eyvind Kang, Moriah Neils, Maria Scherer Wilson) providing a layer of forlorn desolation to SOMA’s impassive drone rumbles. One thinks of the vastness of space and humanity’s relative insignificance in the cosmos while meditating on this piece.

It’s a deeply absorbing experience and after hearing this, you will find your perceptions changed: things you formerly took for granted take on a new seriousness and those issues that occupied all your attention before fade away as the superficial fluff they are.

December 19, 2013

Fraudulent Jazz & Loony Tunes

The JazzFakers
Here Is Now
ALREALON MUSIQUE ALRN043 CD (2013)

The first time I heard about ‘fake jazz’ it was John Lurie’s description of his Lounge Lizards outfit. Word had it that jazz purists were irked, though I was bemused by the idea of sensibilities offended by the cool cohabitation of its smooth (by No Wave standards) jazzy contours and Arto Lindsay’s barbed guitar strangling. That was my first love in ‘jazz’: one that has developed over the years. Much has changed in the world of NY jazz too, if the (latest incarnation of) JazzFakers provide trustworthy testimony. Low on goose honks, but high on something I’d rather not try; the above stylistic demarcations have haemorrhaged heavily, and rockier tendencies – those found in ensembles such as Dr Nerve or This Heat – impregnate Here Is Now, along with all manner of unnameable scrap suggested by the sleeve. Here and now, it all swirls together like a melted radio.

Propelled by sax and keyboard man, David Tamura – something of a mover and shaker in the NY underground scene it seems – The JazzFakers max the volume on their effects boxes and shred with abandon. ‘Fake jazz’ gestures are absent, but there are lots of distorted guitar runs, bassy plinks and plonks and wave upon wave of treated, nauseating noise. It’s a New York native and no mistake. Such self-intoxication and avowed alienation of structure will likely distance lovers of straight melody and (even) avant-skronk, which is, I suppose, as ‘punk’ as one can hope for in this post-everything point in time. Simply put, everything explodes in all directions and cares not for your acceptance, nor mine. Ten out of ten for attitude; but points off for the carsickness.

I prefer the moments when the iridescent morass coagulates into something ‘musical’ – as on the energised bass and sax run on ‘Nowhere Is’ (the oblique Sun Ra reference suggesting a sly wink, possibly conceit) and ‘Weise Horn’, in which the sea of distortion encroaches like a tar flood that washes the band away. By ‘Horse Wine’ the addition of a stable, skinned rhythm to the mix establishes a sound one could click fingers to, provided amphetamines were within easy reach.

In case you hadn’t noticed, track titles are all anagrams of the album title – a trait that further contributes to the album’s sense of hermetic self-containment, in which every idea is indulged to fruition. The trend culminates in the aptly titled ‘Hero We Sin’- the biggest beast at nearly 13 minutes – perhaps an implied tribute/apology to the hardy few to brave the waves of ugly sound between every milestone of rubbery jazz, by drenching ears in a distillation of everything this album is.

The Black Neck Band Of The Common Loon
The Fleshing Beam
UK FOOLPROOF PROJECTS prj030 CD (2013)

Dandruffy ‘freak-folk’ flecks fall from the shoulders of this multi-man behemoth – The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon – which lumbers in a manner more akin to psychedelic troubadours Sunburned Hand of the Man or Volcano the Bear, with a hint of Tom Waits’ old boneyard rhythm section. This open-door cast ensemble hails from Brighton – to my barbarian ears seemingly well graced by strange and interesting artists these days – and is driven by Foolproof label don Andy Pyne and mysteriously monickered multi-instru-mentalist Blue Pin, accompanied by a Jason Williams on (correct me if I’m wrong) tenor sax and a rather angry electric guitar. Going by Blue Pin’s (darkly) illuminated cover one might anticipate something along the lines of a Constellation release: atmospheric and emotive long-form rock orchestrations. Such a notion wouldn’t necessarily be inaccurate, though the sound of this earthy anomaly is far from as streamlined as much of what I’ve heard from the respected Canadian label.

Clattering clumsily into being on most of the eight tracks, the group lurches in a manner menacing by virtue of its disregard for passers by. For the most part, it’s warbling woodwinds, screeching strings, saw-toothed guitar and steam train percussion – thundering slowly towards God-knows-where, like a nightmare carriage glimpsed in a protagonist’s blind spot in a Thomas Ligotti story. Of particular note is ‘Open Mouth Mounting’, which sports rhythm and rambling vocals suggestive of an esteem for the more driven, psycho-ethnic improvisations of Sun City Girls – particularly those on Kaliflower or early Carnival Folklore entries. From charcoal to abysmal, every track is a different shade of black, and the violence – though often implied – is jarring and intrusive. This manner is most successful when individual elements do not encroach, though there are times when the relentless shredding becomes a little overwhelming. Still, there’s a time and place for such scorched-earth antics.

December 8, 2013

Brand Loyalty

Gary Smith / Silvia 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 23, 2013

People Go into the Stratosphere

The Martin Archer all-you-can-eat buffet is open for business…better bring a big plate and an extra fork…we received the self-titled double CD set by Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere (DISCUS40CD) on 19 November 2012, and it’s a real grand bouffe ¹. This is another grand scaled project organised by Martin Archer in Sheffield and released on his own Discus label. Archer, highly conversant with saxophone and electronics, has been a past master of small and intimate group situations involving those instruments, but increasingly these days he is thinking big; there’s a large number of gifted people involved in this ambitious project, and while the core Orchestra itself – mostly keyboards, electronics, synths and percussion – comprises just five players, there are also performances from La Garotte String Quartet, The Divine Winds (a saxophone and woodwind group), and Juxtavoices, the unique singing choir whose work is also represented on this label on the record Juxtanother Antichoir From Sheffield released this year. With this small army of musicians, this lengthy album presents a cosmic sprawl of massed organ drones and electronic doodlings, enhanced with jazzy brass blasts and free-style vocal episodes from the choir. Think of Tangerine Dream to the power of ten, joined by an early incarnation of the Mike Westbrook Band and the Scratch Orchestra – an early 1970s music fan’s dream come true!

On ‘Seen From Above Parts 1 and 2’, the Orchestra create a truly enormous and cavernous sound, occupied by detailed passages of free playing; it’s a remarkably sustained effort to keep the space as nebulous as possible, without allowing the work to collapse into a sludgy mess. Philip Glass saxophone arpeggios leak into this open-ended gaseous billow of Gong-esque organ and synth drone. ‘The Opposition Effect’ should appeal to anyone who enjoys the work of the John Aldiss choir on side one of Atom Heart Mother (and I know not many Pink Floyd fans do), with Juxtavoices chanting their clipped syllables in a strident manner to the backing of a lumbering rock beat, solid organ chords and flipped-out sax squawkings. “It’s a 25-voice choir that works on the premise that any 25 note chord is probably going to be OK,” is how Archer described the choir to me in 2011, reflecting on the mixed abilities of the singers in the group. “It’s more about text and performance and maybe experimental poetry.” That side of the choir is also to the fore on ‘An Open Vista Is Revealed’, an excellent short piece on the second CD, with the voices whistling and whispering in mysterious manner against a very restrained and open-ended instrumental backdrop. There’s more of their free-form poetry chants on ‘Star Procession’, which when combined with the dissonant string sections and electronic drones produces a heavy-duty dose of out-there weirdness.

Archer has stressed that he isn’t out to experiment with variety just for the sake of novelty; rather he regards his multiple approaches as different ways of solving the same problem. This double CD set abounds with experiment and innovation, exploring ways to make these group combinations work. On ‘Almost Unrecognisable But For Its Surface Markings’, the string quartet wander an alien landscape in amazement, while percussion clatters around them in tiny explosions. In that case, the keynote is uncertainty and doubt, but not so on ‘Duty Music’, a big-band escapade with the strings and brass creating a very forthright and upbeat mood. ‘The Umbral Length of Shadows’ is an extremely bold attempt to use most if not all of the musicians in one collective blast; a somewhat lumbering beast results, which misfires in places and gives us almost too much to listen to as it tramps along its path propelled by a faux-funky beat; but you’ve rarely heard such remarkable combinations of unusual sounds, timbres and pitches. And at 20 minutes, ‘Nimbus’ is another major showcase for noodling keyboards, heavy drone and errant string solos creating unearthly effects, only slightly let down by the rhythm section providing an unimaginative drum and bass beat which somehow falls short of the best moments of Can. That said, Can never used strings and brass to such powerful effect on their records.

With titles such as ‘Anti-Crepuscular Rays’, ‘Rainforest Tension’, and other titles quoted above you’ll have noticed the meteorological and sky-gazing themes of this release ². It’s a promise that is borne out by the very airy and open sound the Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere are capable of generating with their competing frequencies and strange juxtapositions, at their best achieving the ethereality of the air itself. As to the music, which incidentally has taken three years to complete, the press notes make explicit aspirations in the direction of Terry Riley, Stockhausen, Alice Coltrane and Krautrock – which should give you sufficient orientation. I think this is an exceptional work, which testifies to Archer’s very sociable and outgoing approach to making music; he simply likes people and likes to gather them around him so he can perform music with them, and I would estimate that a significant percentage of this album is performed live or in real time. Certainly the electronic effects are kept to a minimum, with only a few audible foot-pedals to tweak the organ drone, and acoustic instruments abound, holding their own against the amplified section of the Orchestra. And the sheer length is mightily impressive. In duration alone this would have occupied a four-LP box set in the old days, a generosity that pays off even when the music does sag in places (‘Coherent Backscattering’, a rather formless and laboured piece, is one notable failure) and the work overall might have benefited from a little editing or a more selective production strategy. The major disappoint to me is the utterly unprepossessing cover art, a grainy image of hideous browns and blacks which eventually resolves itself into a murky treated photograph of the band playing a concert in a venue. The cosmic Theta on the back cover is a good notion ³, but this powerful sign has had its energy somehow sapped by digital imaging, and it floats vaguely against a bitty background of artefacts when instead it should pulsate with all the mystical power of the black monolith object on Presence ⁴. The cloud photos printed on the discs are slightly better and fit the concept of the record. But overall I believe the strength of the music is seriously under-communicated by these poor visuals. This plaint aside, Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere makes good its printed claim to “propose an alternative reality”, and is warmly recommended.

I refer to the film of this title directed by Marco Ferreri and released in 1973. ↩
For perfect conceptual unity, the record really ought to have been pressed at Nimbus, who manufactured most of the releases for Recommended Records. ↩
Theta is used in meteorology to represent potential temperature. ↩
i.e. the Led Zeppelin LP. The puzzling cover art is one of Hipgnosis’s best, in my view. Storm Thorgerson appeared on a recent TV documentary about the making of Wish You Were Here, and neatly summed up Hipgnosis’s cultural achievement; he was simply fed up of rock album covers that were no more than photographs of old geezers. ↩

October 24, 2013

Culture Clash

“…traditional song given a screaming punk twist…”

KIV Orchestra
La Roue
AURIS MEDIA AUM 035 / VIALKA VIA-012 CD (2012)

La Roue is a new collaboration between French-Canadian Turbo-Punk band, Vialka, and the Israeli Avant/Hardcore/Klezmer/Karate band, Kruzenshtern & Parohod. While the bands previously worked together in 2006 on a split album (aum011), this release represents the first time they have collaborated on new tracks under the moniker KIV Orchestra.

The result is a highly original and varied five track EP which, as expected, given the roots of KIV, reflects any number of cultures and musical styles. The EP opens strongly with the powerful ‘Bad Bad Horror’, complete with Marylise Frecheville’s unmistakable vocal, and continues to build momentum throughout.

Fans of the accordion and clarinet certainly won’t be left disappointed, as the instruments appear on several of the tracks. When combined with Frecheville’s emotive vocal, much of the EP gives off a distinctly French vibe. However, there are also traces of Berlin-style cabaret from the 1920s and some traditional Russian classics, which have been modernised to give the EP a definitely modern slant.

In truth, there are times when the influence of so many cultures and voices result in a bit of a chaotic and random sound, which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but does leave the EP lacking a certain coherence in places. This is especially true of the last track, ‘Po Shpalam’, a traditional Russian song given a screaming punk twist, which feels like it has muscled its way in from a whole different recording.

Overall, however, La Roue offers an accessible and interesting set of tracks that manage to evoke a traditional sound whilst also providing something new and innovative. This is just a sample of what fans and newcomers can expect from this ongoing collaborative effort; and no doubt any future releases will prove just as challenging, provocative and eclectic as this one.

This collection is an exciting introduction to the work of both Vialka and Kruzenshtern & Parohod, which no doubt many listeners will be inspired to further explore as they await the next release from KIV.