The return of this minimal bleep-glitch super group, or maybe super duo would be more accurate. Cyclo is Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), and for their second record, they've upped the ante conceptually, as the project was already focused on the visualization of sound, on Id, this is taken to its logical extreme, where the duo focused on the actual images of the sound, using stereo image monitoring equipment, and these pieces are the results of creating sounds, by manipulating their visual components, there is a forthcoming book of the images, but THIS is what those images SOUND LIKE. It's pretty awesome. We're fascinated by wave forms as well and had actually often wondered about reverse engineering sound, but these two have done it, and the results are pretty amazing. And as always, not that far removed from the Raster-Noton aesthetic, extreme lows, impossible highs, sine wave tones, rumbles so low you can almost feel them more than hear them, skittery glitches, and abstract squelches, rhythmic, but not seemingly purposefully so, just a result of crafting particular sonic shapes. Headphones are definitely required, but be careful, even at low volume, some of these sounds seem to bore right into your skull, especially the low tones, the opening few seconds is a field of static and barely there dog whistle tones, but when the bass comes in, it rattles your brain, and might hurt your ears if you have it cranked. We couldn't help but imagine blasting this in a lowrider with a massive booming system, it would probably level everything for blocks.
Minimal, austere, haunting, clinical, weirdly lovely, some of the tracks crafted into actual grooves, but strangely alien robotic hyperminimal clean-room click-buzz grooves, some of the sounds super thick and buzzy, these guys could definitely give Justice and Daft Punk some pointers, in fact, a few of these tracks are ready to be sampled, and transformed into dancefloor destroyers.
As always fantastic stuff, and simultaneously the most groovy, and most sonically extreme sounds we've heard from these two, and we're digging it like crazy.
First we've heard from this one man kraut-drone combo from Torronto, but we figured we'd probably dig it based on the list of influences (Taj Mahal Travellers, Fripp & Eno, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster, Manuel Gottsching) and the fact that the music was self-described as "fuzz worship, drones, hails to Big Muff and Dirge Electronics" and it definitely lived up to the promise of all that. From the first few moments of the first track, Cyclopean Wall unfurl a black, caustic, viscous sprawl of rumbling, crumbling distortion, blurred and buzzy, undulating and softly churning beneath spidery guitar melodies, drifting weightless over the roiling neat-metallic churn. And while those above mentioned influences definitely apply, we also hear plenty of SUNO))), Expo '70, even another obscure aQ fave, the Hills Have Amps. But Cyclopean Wall is not all downtuned dirgery, the sound opens way up on the second track, into something much more pastoral, all lush, lustrous chordal swells, and soft focus melodies, with a brief build mid song into something again nearly metallic, before settling right back into that dreamy drift. The flipside offers up variations on the same sonic theme, with one track that buries the melodies beneath a thick layer of gristly static and blackened haze, sounding a bit like some lo-fi Skaters / Tim Hecker hybrid, while the other is the most darkly delicate of the bunch, a hazy slow burn that unfurls languorously, all somnambulant shimmer and gauzy twilit ambience. Super limited, just 50 copies, dubbed onto different colored tapes, each one labeled by hand.
Cylob's new three-track single has caused a bit of a stir here at AQ. Not 'cause of the title track, a catchy electronic pop-dance ditty a little safer than similar efforts from Aphex and Squarepusher ("My Red Hot Car" comes to mind, but this is less edgy, more
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Former Aphex Twin prodigy Cylob has taken an irony-laden approach to early '80s top-40 synth-pop with lots of vocoder vocals about sex and how cool it was to live in the '80s.
So Cylob are kind of a gimmicky band. Once in a while they come up with a great electro pop gem, like the (admittedly love-it-or-hate-it) sea shanty on their Cut the Midrange ep we review also in this list. But now they've bestowed this silly,
The newest Cypress Hill is two discs of whiney stoned bombast we've come to love. The only difference this time around is the addition of.... a metal band on disc two. Ugh. Still sounds like Cypress Hill, but now it sounds like Korn too. You might as well seek out Sen Dog's new metal band if that's the sound you're looking for. Yet another failed rap/metal fusion. I'm still waiting for Morbid Angel to get Method Man to rap on one of their records. Now that would be good.
It's no surprise that Cypress Hill is still in 'band mode' after their questionable foray into metal with their 'Skull And Bones' record. But it seems like maybe they've learned a thing or two from past mistakes. It was always a huge diappointment that 2 of my
So Cypress Hill has taken the nu-metal sound of their 'Skull and Bones' record and tempered it a little, with that whiny, bare bones hip hop they are so good at. And things turn out pretty cool. The metal bits only pop up on 3 or 4 songs, but when they do, it's not so bad. It helps that the verses are still all 'So I Could Just Kill A Man'-style with the choruses exploding in a fury of crunchy riffs and shouted metal choruses. The rest of the record, the non-metal bits, shape up as quite a decent Cypress Hill record. Some classic low-rider anthems, some old school NWA gangsta-style shit (feat. NWA's Ren of course), cool surf guitars and not-annoying soulful female vocals, old P-Funk style party tracks. And some guest vocals by Kurupt, Method Man and Redman. A nice surprise after basically having given up on them a couple years back.
Long before the New Pornographers, there was another pop band we were all gaga for, called Zumpano, fronted by Carl Newman (of the New Pornos), but named for their drummer, Jason Zumpano. While the NP's went on to great fame and success, Zumpano stayed behind, doing his own idiosyncratic thing, playing in his solo piano pop combo Sparrows, various solo projects, playing in Destroyer and Loscil, and now you can add the oddly monikered The Cyrillic Typewriter to that list.
We could never figure out why Zumpano weren't more huge than they ended up being, we sorta liked them more than the NP's, we can only think, it was just a bit too weird, and that's sort of a hallmark of Zumpano's various projects, that no matter how poppy or traditional or whatever they are, they're also, sorta weird. Which we imagine is what makes pretty much everything he does so appealing. Thus we have the Cyrillic Typewriter, that was described to us by Zumpano as his new pop combo, which is it, but guess what, it's also pretty weird. A sort of lush, orchestral, baroque, experimental string and piano driven chamber pop. Or something. We found ourselves hearing hints of Destroyer, Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Deerhunter, the Decemberists, Elephant Six, but also Cardinal, the Rollo Treadway, and of course the Zombies, Bee Gees, Beatles and the like. But again, twisted up a bit, and made a little bit weird!
The drums are restrained, often just a sort of martial snare, underneath lush pianos, and lovely strings, the vocal harmonies gorgeous too, but not typical at all, which is reflected by the band often slipping in atonal angular chords and melodies, there is lots of percussion too, the sound slipping from fifties pop to more sixties summery shimmer, from mournful ballads to bouncy sunshiney jangle. The strings make all the breaks sound more like chamber music, and add some gravitas to the proceedings, and unlike the bombast of Zumpano (the band), the sound here is much more measured, plenty of flutter and jangle and shuffle, a sort of avant retro orchestral dream pop that is definitely hitting the spot.
Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, or anyone into cool weird pop, this is for YOU.
LIMITED TO 175 COPIES, each one hand numbered, pressed on super thick vinyl with hand stamped labels, housed in super heavy jackets, each with a printed insert on nice heavy textured paper.
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Mellow MC rhymin' on Matt (ex-Outpunk maven) Wobensmith's new punk-free label "Queercorps".
Since their The Ugly People Vs The Beautiful People album was so warmly received around these parts, we've scooped up a couple of earlier yet still quite recent releases. Glad to report that although this album in particular is laden with heavier more aggressive guitars the overall tone of the proceedings is just as splendid, lush and melancholic as T.U.P.V.T.B.P. The vocals are clearly the force behind the Czars music. The strong, warmly emotive performance of lead singer John Grant once again draws comparisons to John Denver and Mark Lanegan. An additional delight is the glorious male/female vocal interplay between Grant and guest vocalist Paula Frazer. Lovely!
As far as we can tell, we're pretty darn sure there are no Russian emperors present in this Denver, CO band's roster, but if it's any concession, there are five very talented musical fellows. On this their second full length, there's definite shades of the kaleidoscopic yet richly earthy scope of Pink Floyd as well as the lilting rock grandeur of Radiohead. All of that said though, in-store play has also drawn a couple of customer comparisons to the lush mellowness of Calexico. The lovely gentle horns, reverbed atmospheric pedal steel and piano surely don't hurt matters in that department. Lead vocalist John Grant has one of those voices that's so warm, deep and velvety, there's no question he could break your heart simply by singing his grocery list. That's what Cup thinks anyways. On the other hand, Jim thinks he sounds like John Denver! Cup thinks the only things remotely John Denver-ish are Paula Frazer's vocal harmonies on "Lullaby 6000" (more on that song in a bit). Imagine equal parts Thom Yorke, Rufus Wainwright, and Roy Orbison. Aaaah, that's a voice that packs quite a wallop! The Czars generally keep things wonderfully gentle and laidback - getting more so as the album progresses and allowing the listener to gradually sink into its gorgeous melancholia. Lots of guests added their vocal and instrumental two bits worth (and more). For instance, Ms Frazer sings on three of the twelve songs. Please do yourself a huge favor and give the abovementioned song "Lullaby 6000" your full attention! Absolutely breathtaking! Also appearing: Ron Miles, Rick Benjamin (of Elephant 6 Collective galore), Glen Taylor, Elin Palmer, and oh yes, and did we mention... Simon Raymonde (of Cocteau Twins) and Giles Hall who also co-produced. Originally released in the UK on Raymonde's Bella Union label, and now finding it's home on Manifesto. Don't your ears need this album?
Since their The Ugly People Vs The Beautiful People album was so warmly received around these parts, we've scooped up a couple of earlier yet still quite recent releases. This four-song ep has moments that are considerably more amped up and aggressive than both Before... But Longer, and T.U.P.V.T.B.P. with the addition of fuzzy synths and fiery guitars ("One Single Thing") to the usually lowkey twangy proceedings. Yet, the rich earthiness of John Grant's lilting voice and soothing piano shine through the wall of distortion. Hearing him break out of his characteristically solemn tone proves to make for a pretty great contrast.
Nearly forty years old and still as stunning as ever, Holger Czukay's first solo effort, Canaxis, gets a fully re-mastered second reissue. Recorded in 1968, just months after the formation of CAN, Czukay, a former student of Stockhausen, teamed up with producer Rolf Dammers to put these two nearly twenty minute pieces together, comprised solely of taped material culled from shortwave radio broadcasts. Czukay employed one of the first uses of "sampling" by putting loops of Medieval Choral music, Japanese Koto, Australian Aboriginal chanting, bells and most notably recordings of two anonymous Vietnamese singers together and subtly shifting and manipulating their tape speeds. What could have been a mere music concrete exercise, would become an engagingly disorientating meditation on what Brian Eno and Jon Hassell would later term "Fourth World" possibilities, harmonizing the organic and the mechanical of ethnic and western musical idioms yet tempered through Czukay's humanistic and idiosyncratic approach to his far-flung material. That it was illegally recorded at Stockhausen's studio just adds to the mystery and pedigree of this amazing recording (supposedly Czukay and Dammers, frustrated with the limitations of their own tape machines, broke into the Master's studio and recorded Canaxis in one night!). Newly repackaged in a 3 panel digipak with liner notes and the artwork of the original private pressing, and beautifully re-mastered by Czukay and Andreas Torkler. It features two bonus tracks (different than the one from the 1995 first reissue) from the CAN Solo Edition concerts in 1999. Highly Recommended!!!
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Holger Czukay (ex-Can, y'know) starts out "La Luna" on the right foot with Zoviet France-like dark ambient electronic loops, but to my ears missteps with the inclusion of new ageist female vocal incantations (from his wife, U-She) intended to draw from the power of the universe. Those who liked the long, ambient track at the end of his last solo album should check this out, however. And it's not deliberately wacky like some of his earlier solo work.
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Can's Czukay teams up with Dr. Walker (of Air Liquide) for two discs of live-recorded (on tour in the USA and in Cologne) "techno" jamming. This is a little better than we thought it would be, but it's still pretty bad. Thick rhythmic throbbing, utilizing dictaphone, shortwave radio, samplers, and an 808.
