Wow, well, we thought we'd heard every weird-ass variation on black metal possible... but we had never heard black metal with autotuned vocals before, until now. That's right, autotune, the computer program used and abused by all of today's worst pop stars (and many amusing YouTube videos). In this black metal context, it's pretty funny, and clever, if you're not too "troo" to get into this obscure Norwegian duo's blend of blasting grimnity and (artificially enhanced) soaring melody... And autotune's not the only unusual feature of Formloff's "black metal", other factors that make this disc surreal and subversive include an obvious affinity for both '70s prog (including lots of groovy-proggy organ), and the latest in emo-pop electronica. And more. They have a kitchen sink approach that really works, maybe because it combines the sudden mood/genre swings with plenty of melody. So, there's techno beats on here, alongside hysterical screaming vokills, buzzsaw guitars, spacey electronic textures, symphonic metal, and even a chorus of dogs barking on the track "Gregor Samsa I Las Vegas"... yet it's catchy too.
Yeah, yeah, it sounds a bit silly on paper, and we don't mind silly, but actually it seems like Formloff -aren't- just joking around, or at least that's the feeling we get, though all the singing, autotuned or otherwise (there's all kinds of gruff growling and funny voices as well) is in Norwegian, so we can't judge from the lyrics what the heck is really going on. Maybe a good thing. We imagine they're pretty bizarre though.
This is the Norwegian duo Formloff's debut (and thus far, only) full-length, from 2006, recorded when the band members were still in their teens. Apparently the label that put this out folded not long afterwards, so this release never really was properly distributed. We recently acquired some copies from a friend of the band who thought we might like it... and we do! Pretty amazing stuff, actually, musically and conceptually, and if you're into genre-splicing, mashed-up weirdness a la Mr. Bungle, as well as the Nordic black metal of Darkthrone and Enslaved, you should definitely check out Formloff! To further elaborate on the "for-fans-of" thing, we should mention Sigh's Gallow's Gallery, also Arcturus, Shining, various bands on Garm of Ulver's Jester label, latter-day Master's Hammer, and Pan-thy-monium if you remember them. Not surprisingly, the cd booklet graphics aren't your usual black metal style either, referencing generic 1950s conformist Leave It To Beaver domesticity instead of the usual corpse paint and burning churches. Huh. Well we're enjoying this, and certainly curious about what's next from Formloff, as we're told they've got a new album in the works as well...
Regarding the title and the cover art here, Ferrara Brain Pan - the lone pilot of San Francisco's obscurant project Forms Of Things Unknown - is taking the piss out of the perennial flirtations of Nazi culture found in experimental and post-punk musics over the past 30 or 40 years. It's an odd form of humor, but one that stops at the cover art, never to be brought up within these eccentric and disparate tracks that harken back to the early days of United Daires. Whimsical collages, complete with bongo-boy rhythms and cut-up vocal samples (which really could be an extract from Nurse With Wound's Funeral Music For Perez Prado), are juxtaposed against icy cold electronic tone workouts that draw from the precisely constructed, psychoacoustic experiments of Ryoji Ikeda or John Duncan. Ferrara also interjects his favorite instrument, the bass clarinet, on a few somber pieces that warp the brassy notes of a maudlin funereal passage into air raid sirens. As beautiful as some of these pieces can be, Ferrara's deft use of electronics and the digital razor blade is all the better. All of these tracks are demos, outtakes, or compilation rarities, including the Forms Of Things Unknown contribution to the Nurse With Wound remix album of Two Shaves And A Shine. While there is a disjointed quality to the album, this is a well needed investigation into this music of this seldom heard musician.
"Cross Purposes" is an half-hour of weird, spooky music from longtime AQ patron and obscure music-maker Ferrara Brain Pan. Yes, that's his name -- but here he goes by the Forms Of Things Unknown moniker, a suitably vague and creepy name for this disc of Gothic dark ambient experimentation, that seems to be vying for retroactive inclusion on the famed "Nurse With Wound list". Indeed, NWW's Stephen "Babs Santini" Stapleton makes a guest appearance somewhere on here (see if you can find it)!
The first track, evocatively named "Black Candles & Pentagrams 'n Shit", is sixteen minutes of sinister drone and wind instrument dolefulness. On this album, Ferrara plays bass clarinet, flutes, recorders, saxophones, along with various other mostly archaic and/or ethnic instruments -- and electronics too of course. Perhaps to illustrate that FoTU's influences are eclectic and extend back further than the goth/industrial heyday, "Black Candles..." is followed by an anonymous 14th century composition in both instrumental and vocal versions -- the vocal by lovely soprano Shannon Wolfe, not Ferrara. It's somewhat sombre, but not scary like the first piece. Rather beautiful. Then, again shifting gears and displaying esoteric influence, this disc's final cut turns out to be a moody cover of "Stupid Blood", a song from the Beast Box album by Howard Devoto's post-Buzzcocks band Luxuria. With one Bob Ayres handling the portentous baritone vox, and Ferrara's horns and flutes, this track could just as easily be taken as a tribute to Peter Hammill's Van Der Graaf Generator!
We see that the press release for this new ep from WFMU DJ Jason Forrest (nee Donna Summer) mentions that his previous full-length The Unrelenting Songs Of The 1979 Post Disco Crash "surprised many with its revolutionary rock-disco sample ideology". Well, yeah, it was pretty cool if that's what they mean! We dig Forrest's "rock-disco sample ideology" quite a bit! So now he's back with a teaser for his next full-length. There's four tracks here (with a bonus fifth on the vinyl only), starting off with a blissfully droney piece entitled "The Work Ahead Of Us" that's got the "feedback guitar" of none other than David Grubbs on it somewhere, for some reason. You can't tell it's Grubbs of course, but it is a nice shimmery cut, though not what we expect from Forrest exactly -- but what we expect (mash-up madness!) does for sure come into play on the next (title) track, a computer-assisted collison of prog and jazz, chaotically cut up and then synth-smoothed. Following that, there's "The Lure Of You" which sees Forrest collaborating with vocalist Margareth Kamerer for a schizophrenically new-wavey *and* folky pop number. Lastly, "Sperry And Foil" wraps things up with eight minutes of blenderized beats and snatches of spacey melody, including a sample of something we really like that we totally know but just can't quite put our fingers on right this second -- what is it? Some krautrock electronics, or Joe Meek or something? Argh it's gonna drive us crazy. You'd think that if Grubbs and Kamerer are gonna be credited, this significant sample should be too.... wait a sec, we figured it out, it's Neu! Anyway, the track is great, a little more manic than something DJ Shadow would do, but not that far from his stuff really. A nice lil' ep then, and we're looking forward to the upcoming album!
We love the mashed up million beats per minute ragga jungle drum 'n bass spazzcore as much as the next guy. Breakbeats chopped to bits and re-assembled into unplayable-by-humans hyperspeed electronic grind. Can't get enough. But anyone with a computer can whip up a earsplitting storm of beats and NOISE. There are of course a select few who approach their beats and samples and fist-to-the-face aggression as if they were, well, WRITING SONGS. Obviously this stuff is not for the dance floor, and as much as we love a huge slab of all out white hot sonic mayhem, a deft touch and some strange ideas applied to the very same ingredients can result in something truly amazing. The most recent Venetian Snares is a perfect example, dizzyingly complex drill and bass perfectly placed amidst gorgeous strings and melancholy melodies. And now Mr. Jason Forrest, formerly known in electronic music circles as Donna Summer, has decided to take his own personal splattery drumfuck brutality and temper it with songs, pop songs, vocalists, guitars, some serious HOOKS. Every track on here is still an amazing piece of masterful slicing and dicing, a busy blur of sample upon sample, beats careening wildly into other beats, getting all tangled up into gnarled chunks of dense rhythm and strange lumps of rock guitars and clipped vocals. Each track sounds like it was assembled from someone with ADD whipping through the classic rock stations on the radio dial, lots of wild guitar leads, wailing rock vocalists, throbbing rock bass, groovy pianos, shuffling jazzy interludes, full on rock freakouts, snippets of Steely Dan, Blondie and about a million more almost recognizable samples and of course lots of incredibly dense and un-funky and completely unhinged drum programming. Country chantuese Laura Cantrell sings on one of the prettiest tracks, her gorgeous croon, laid atop a smeary blur of glitchy beats and hiccupping grooves, purloined from seventies AM radio. But that's merely the calm before, and after, and between the storms! Soon you're back on a bucking bronco made from every song you loved in highschool tossed in a blender, careening wildly through dense thickets of heavy metal guitar, prickly drum and bass, walls of guitar solos, cheezy synth jams, and old school funk grooves, creepy childlike vocals, and of course the kitchen sink. This is one of those records that seems too busy and too overwhelmingly jampacked to be at all listenable, but somehow Forrest manages to take all those parts and tie 'em up with a big red bow. Shamelessly Exciting indeed!
The return of Donna Summer! Er. well, not that Donna Summer, the disco diva. We're talking about the WFMU disc jockey / electronic musician who went by the name Donna Summer and who we can only assume no longer does due to legal issues with the -actual- Donna Summer. Whatever. Just wanted to clear up any confusion, since we initially didn't make that Forrest-Summer connection. But since so many of us dug the last Donna Summer record, This Needs To Be Your Style (unfortunately now out of print) we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on this one due to some confusing name change. So what Donna Summer, I mean Jason Forrest, specializes in, is making some serious glitched out spastic plunderphonia with lots of ultra-recognizable pop, from Zeppelin to the Who to all sorts of top 40 schlock. He cuts them up, rearranges them, distorts and disguises them, and creates entirely new songs and new melodies. This mashup shit is getting a bit tiresome we'll admit, as anyone with a computer and a decent record collection can make their own record, but Forrest is really talented, and has a great ear for recontextualising pop ephemera into something much harder and weirder and sometimes even dancable. This record is a lot less abrasive and over the top than the last Donna Summer record, which is actually a good thing as the arrangements and subtleties this time around don't get obfuscated and obliterated by super distorted wooaaarrrggggghh! At least not all the time. Worth it alone for the amazing final track, a reworking of the Who's "Who Are You?" complete with re-done drum solo!
Water Became Wild from Sara Forslund is the second release on the Time Sensitive Materials label (after the Classical, which we reviewed a few weeks back), a sublabel of Time Released Sound, who over the last couple years have releases a ton of amazingly beautiful (and beautiful packaged) avant ambience and mysterious pastoral drone music, most of which we've raved about right here on the aQ list. Time Sensitive Materials was launched to be a home for music that didn't quite fit on Time Released Sound, although Water Became Wild DOES have a more direct TRS connection, as Forslund was half of the duo Birch And Meadow, whose Butterflies And Graves album was a big hit around here.
In our review of the Birch And Meadow record, we mention that Forslund is channeling classic seventies British folk, albeit surrounded by sounds more murky and droney, electronic and cinematic, all warped loops and field recordings, fields of buzz and crumble, but on Water Became Wild, obviously it's still Forslund's voice, but all of that experimental ambience is replaced by more standard instrumentation, acoustic guitars, moaning strings, clouds of cymbal shimmer, this time around it really DOES sound like seventies British folk, Forslund's voice, hushed and delicate, the arrangements lovely and crystalline, the vibe moody and melancholy, a beautifully rendered softly psychedelic folk record, seemingly out of time, but also timeless in it's personal resonance and haunting emotion. Fans of the usual Time Released Sound releases might be a bit thrown off, but folks into Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, Shirley Collins even Comus, as well as modern practitioners of a similar sound like Fleet Foxes and Vetiver, will most definitely find themselves quite smitten.
Unlike most Time Released Sound / Time Sensitive Materials releases, this one is a split release with a European label, who are handling the standard version, which means we ONLY have the deluxe version, which in this case is limited to just 63 copies, of which we only have 3 or 4, and like other deluxe additions on TRS is pretty stunning. Housed in a hinged, lidded box, with a magnetic seal, the box is decorated with a handstamped pattern, and covered with super striking photos of Forslund. Inside is a 3D diorama, under glass, and made from leaves and branches, collected from the Swedish forest where the pictures of Forslund were taken. Also inside is an 8 panel accordion style fold out insert with lyrics and more artwork, the cd housed in a black envelope, along with actual pages from Forslund's journals as well as Forslund's hand typed and signed Swedish poems, flecks of her pipe tobacco, and smudges of her lipstick.
Obviously VERY limited. Once we sell out of the VERY few we have, we will NOT be able to get more.
Such a fantastic songwriting duo truly beloved by fans and critics alike! They simply do not make 'em like they used to. Together as The Go-Betweens, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were virtually peerless in their pop excellence. Separately, each gent was a formidable and altogether distinct artist in his own right. Sadly Grant McLennan passed away last year at the age of 48. So needless to say, listening to this posthumous release is nothing short of heartbreakingly bittersweet. He left such a profound pop music legacy. The special deluxe 2cd edition compiles the 'best' of their respective solo works as selected by the artists' themselves. Who better to choose the cream of the crop? The deeper, more robustly voiced Robert Forster's songs were the more rugged, lonesome cowboy numbers whereas the softer spoken Grant McLennan's came across as the more sensitive, sweet and bookish. Delivering his straight-to-the heart, wise lyrics, he would sing in his unmistakable comfortingly gentle voice which was often accompanied by comparatively gutsier guitars. So damn good! Fans will probably already have the original albums from which all of these songs came, but even if you do, this makes an awesome mixtape for any fan of well-crafted pop. Don't miss... seriously!
FYI: Beggars Banquet will be releasing the two cds separately at a later date.
Probably better known as the guitar player in weirdo / outsider avant-jazz free-rock outfit Peeesseye, Forsyth ventures out on his own here, and while we were originally expecting something more like his previous PSI mothership, Kenzo Deluxe is something else entirely, more like a modern warped take on classic Appalachia, the label refers to it as cosmic Americana, which isn't that far off, long form compositions, simple and spare, softly doused with effects, but relying more on the melodic structure, and the subtle rhythms of the pieces.
"First 10 Minutes Of Cocksucker Blues", is a mesmerizing bit of slo-mo abstract blues, a woozy loop gives way to some awesomely emotive melodies draped over the top, a tranced out sprawl of psych-blues minimalism, that finds some slippery slide guitar sneaking into the woozy, hazy drift. "Downs & Ups" is more contemplative, the sounds muted and lovely, sounding almost liturgical, or like some lost piece of arcane holiday music, the melodies lilting, the overlapping guitar lines creating beautiful subtle harmonies, a gentle bit of pastoral guitarmusic.
From there on out, the sound drifts into different directions, lush billows of guitar strum are drenched in distorted crumble, soaring melodies become almost raga like buzz, the sound gloriously distorted, while elsewhere super spare folk builds into dense stretches of lush guitar soundscapery, and still elsewhere, the sound is totally delicate and crystalline, notes ringing out, the melody heart wrenching and dreamily minor key, the melodies unfurling lazily, and drifting into the grey sky above.
What a title! Don't know what the heck it means, but we love the sounds contained inside. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, this is a beautiful solo 12-string record by Chris Forsyth, Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Peeesseye (PSI). But this has a different approach to the solo guitar genre than we've heard before. Focusing on a restless back-porch style minimalism, Forsyth layers overlapping and slow repetitive cascades of mandala-like rhythms and patterns with subtly shifting melodic changes. Often undercut with organ drones, cymbal washes, and minimal percussion, the sounds unfold like intricate patterns of Oriental tapestry or Tibetan sand-paintings, captivating and mesmerizing us into circling and swirling trance-like states. Quite lovely and very limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fort Lauderdale's '1001 Revolutions' could easily be a lost DJ Food or Depth Charge album of funky breaks (some which sound as if they're live) and catchy film noir melodies.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A brand new blast of grim frostbitten Canadian blackness from the masters of Metal Noir Quebecois, Forteresse. We were first struck by these guys when we saw the cover of their first record, an old yellowed photo of a young man cradling a violin, then once we threw the record on, it began with a crackly old recording of some sort of folky fiddle music. Whatthefuck, we were thinking, until the band launched into the first track, exploding in a frenzy of classic sounding nineties styled black metal buzz. That record was a tribute to the folk music and culture of the French part of North America apparently, but as we mentioned in the review of that disc, we never would have known it but for those brief bits of scratchy violin.
This latest disc seems to be also steeped in some sort of mythology, the record cover, a very Burzum like black and grey drawing of some old farm house, of leafless winter trees and thick drifts of snow, they are Canadian after all. The songs separated into movements. The music inside is appropriately frosty and grim, barren and wintry, a distinct departure from the thick black buzz of their debut. Here, the sound is super brittle and high end, the tracks are super washed out, the buzzing guitars so smeared and blurred and mixed down that they sound almost like long static streaks of upper register drone, the drums way down in the mix, surfacing here and there in brief flurries of percussive mayhem, but just as often rendered a relentless muted throb, the vocals a harsh howl sprawled over the top.
The result is amazing and totally mesmerizing, an intense blown out blackness, that is rife with soaring keening high end tones, shards of feedback, the riffs cyclical and repetitive. Our favorite track would have to be "Tenebras", where all of the above elements are made even more extreme, the riffing becomes some soaring looped ur-drone, super emotional majestic streaks of sound are woven into an almost static wall of throbbing high end, the drums more a distant splatter of subtle pulses, the vocals even more anguished, tangled up in the shimmering strands of sound, the result is something truly original and unlike any black metal we've heard. There must be some sort of keyboards happening too, the sound is thick and layered but it just sounds like long drawn out drones arranged into an alien orchestral black drift. WOW.
The sound might have changed, but Forteresse have managed to somehow get both better and weirder, and thus remain still, one of our favorite of the current crop of buzzing black hordes.
Another blast of�Metal Noir Quebecois from the great white North. And we're talking Canada of course, Quebec to be exact (duh). From the same label that brought us the depressive doom laden melancholia of Sombres Forets, and is run by the guys in Canadian black metal legends Frozen Shadows. In case you hadn't figured out�Metal Noir Quebecois, that's�Quebecois black metal! And this is some seriously grim and blasting nineties style frosty blackness for sure, the guitars are thick and massive, a dense black buzz, the drums are blasting, the riffs are killer, while other guitars wail and swoop beneath the main riffs, creating a tangled backdrop of haunting melodies and epic grandeur for the swirling relentless buzzing blackness above.�
Supposedly, with�Metal Noir Quebecois, Forteresse are celebrating�the folkloric music and culture of the French part of North America, which is most noticeable (actually maybe ONLY noticeable) in the intros to some of the tracks, old scratchy recordings of traditional fiddle music (hence the old photo of a man cradling his fiddle on the cover), lots of crackle and hiss, the fiddle sawing out a sort of jig, or jaunty little folk tune, before being obliterated by the black wall of buzzing sound, very jarring, very bizarre, but somehow it works. And the metal itself, even without the strangely out of place fiddle intros, is some of the most glorious blasting buzz we've heard in ages. Definitely one of our new favorite black metal discs...
The grim masters of Metal Noir Quebecois return with this two song ep, hot on the heels of their full length we raved about a little while back. That record while being a primo slab of intense blackened buzz, was also notable for the song intros, old time scratchy recordings of solo violin, as the band is a tribute of sorts to the French folkloric music of North America (further referenced by the cover art, showing an old photo of a man cradling his fiddle).
For this two song follow up, the fiddles are gone, but everything else remains the same, two intense blasts of furious, classic, epic, Norwegian style black metal, relentless, nearly unwavering blast beats, dense buzzing riffage, insane double kick flourishes, and majestic melodies soaring over the grim buzz. Super intense, and nearly static in tempo, both songs seem to have only two parts, the more buzzing frosty 'verses' and the epic triumphant 'choruses', the songs looping back and forth, repetitive and gloriously trance inducing.
Pressed on thick vinyl, housed in a black and white, very Buzumic sleeve, and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered...
We somehow managed to miss out on Voluspa Part I, but fear not, you can join right in for part two, you haven't missed too much, and if you did it's easy enough to get caught up.�
Fortid are from Iceland and offer up a dense, and epic sprawling prog black metal. With some Viking overtones, and lots of gorgeous ambience mixed in. There's plenty of buzzing guitar and harsh hellish howls for the truly black hearted, but these bursts of blackness are often accompanied by long drawn out piano flecked intros, or loping melancholy midtempo bridges, and more often than not super dramatic, near operatic crooning.�
Opening with a drawn out tranquil soundscape, all glistening synths and warm washes of ambience, the band soon lurch into action, the guitars a fierce buzz, the vocals warm and almost chant like, the drums a blasting chaotic freakout, definitely programmed, but they sound real, sort of distorted, until they stumble through some inhuman fill, which they do a lot, and piano everywhere, even during the heaviest blasting buzz bits, the piano is there, offering up some haunting minor key melodic counterpoint.
The sound is definitely Viking, with plenty of moody melancholy Katatonia sort of musical drama, sweeping and epic and sorrowful, but don't get the wrong idea, sure a lot of this is moody and gloomy and dramatic, but there are also stretches of furious black blasting, old school grim buzz, it's just that those moments are often butted up against something much more melodic or progressive. It makes for a pretty great mix, a very dynamic blackened musical journey for sure.�
Recommended for all fans of progressive and avant black buzz, and this will probably hit the spot for anyone who typically digs stuff on No Colours...
The final installment in the recent batch of tapes from Land Of Decay, this one a three way collaboration between Terence Hanuum, he being one half of aQ faves Locrian, and two other groups we had never heard before, The Fortieth Day and Shee Retina Stimulants, and like the rest of the tapes in this batch (Number None, Ithi, Andre Foisy, Wraiths) this is another slab of grim, low end minimal blackness, a sort of post industrial thrum, all looped layers and blurred rumble and crunch, but LIKE those others, this is way more than just noise, the sound here is lush and haunting, the loops add a subtle rhythmic element, much of the time spent creeping and drifting and woozily shimmering, but the proceedings pocked with bursts of static, blasts of tangled psychedelic noise, the framework provided by sonar like beeps, and softly stuttering clipped loops that become actual rhythms, occasionally sounding like some murky sprawl of heroin house, while at other times like some sort of abstract doom pulse, a heady plunderphonic songsuite of blacknoise, post industrial drift, and blissed out psychedelic minimalism, that manages to be surprisingly hypnotic.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
We were pretty much already sold before hearing a single note from this new Bay Area metal horde, based almost entirely on the record cover, a super bad ass D&D style drawing of a compliment of orcs (we presume, nerds feel free to correct us), wielding axes, shrunken heads on pikes, weird bird dragon things, not to mention a hot naked human female, no doubt the spoils of whatever metal war these guys were waging, and they're called Fortress, the band logo like some stone hewn castle, and of course there's the description of the band on their website: "Fortress are ancient battle sorcerers, who, for one thousand sun cycles, have cheated death and dealt blistering heavy metal thunder upon the known and unknown worlds. They are also nerds." Both of which are true, they most certainly do rain down heavy metal thunder, the sounds classic metal riffery, harmonized guitar leads, the sound epic and supremely majestic! And they are also most definitely nerds, check out the song titles: "Goblin III", "Rad Racer", "Kevin Bacon", "Huxtability Verified" and of course opener "Jumanji", complete with the bellowed chorus: "Robin Williams, you're full of shit!". So yeah, already you can tell, these guys have tongue firmly in cheek, but their metal is no joke. With a slightly different cast these guys could find themselves sonically aligned with Slough Feg instead of Hot Fog, but hell, we digging this, inside jokes and all. The vocals might be the one thing that keep Fortress from being true metal masters, unlike the majestic metal croon of someone like Slough Feg's Mike Scalzi, the vocals in Fortress are more of a raspy punk rock bellow, which had us thinking of bands like Karp or Godheadsilo, but for folks who dig both classic metal and metallic punk, these guys definitely kill it, lacing their sonic epicry with the appropriate sound effects (thunder, rain, etc.), and mood music, and interludes, and even with the punkish bellow, and some straight up joke tracks, the second their sound soars into some majestic metal moments, all fist pumping, head banging, harmony guitars, or power metallized pummel, your metal heart would have to be dead for you not to dig it.
180 gram black vinyl with blood red splatter, the aforementioned killer cover art, and includes a digital download too!
The mysterious Norwegian outfit Fosen provides little to no context for us to describe their music, leaving it much harder to position this set of dronescapes against the next batch. It appears that Fosen's source material is acoustic in nature, possibly being flutes and bells; the group then renders each sound dronological with considerable care via basic loopings, sonar depth reverb, and vast pitchshifting manipulations. The first track entertains a looping passage from a breathy flute stretched into a wonderfully hypnogogic drone that favorably compares with Biosphere's more minimal ambience or the Hafler Trio's fluttering drones. Other tracks flicker with feedback oscillations and attack-modified bell tones, some pitter and clank like some mutant tape construction derived from water dripping in a cavernous warehouse. Altogether, Fosen offers a very evocative if equally mysterious album.
We first heard of the Fossil Aerosol Mining Project on :zoviet*france:'s fantastic podcast A Duck In Tree, and we were certainly baffled to discover that this enigmatic project from the outskirts of Chicago has been in existence since the early '80s. A cassette here or there might have materialized throughout the years, but it seems that the bulk of the output was just secreted away until some of this stuff started showing up on their website, revealing a dreamy, narcotic ethos of post-industrial tape-loopery. Think Phillip Jeck. Think Terry Riley. And most of all, think :zoviet*france:! The etymology behind the name Fossil Aerosol Mining Project harkens to the act of rummaging through abandoned warehouses, whose crumbled surfaces were dappled with graffiti. The remnant waste from all that graffiti was the never-ending supply of crushed and spent spraypaint aerosol cans. So, the punk-scavenger miscreants who would find themselves sifting through the rubbish of those abandoned warehouses in search of a motherlode of 16mm film or reel-to-reel tape machines would undoubtably come across countless, discarded cans. Quite a poetic allusion for this tape-heavy Mining Project.
The quotations of bird song and the pleasant ambient wash of the initial 30 seconds snap into something quite foreign with a series of radio communication bursts and snippets of slow-motion monologues from Ronald Reagan, whose soothing, patronizing declarations would raise the hackles of many critical thinkers and agit-prop artists during his presidency. Nowadays, it's something of a distant, sonorous ghost, something that we're supposed to dread but can't quite figure out why. The Fossil Aerosol Mining Project cycles through a myriad of sympathetic loops, each of which harbors its own patter of delay, lending to a complex web of crumbling sound furthered along by backward tapes of textural scrabblings and iridescent drones. This network of eerie, diaphanous sounds and hypnotizingly soft-focus rhythms which may have their origins in a thoroughly forgotten fragment of a song, whose content was wholly lost to the magnetic erasures, dubbing-upon-dubbing-upon-dubbing, and / or the bacterial decay which flecked away the ferric oxide leaving behind an entirely different set of chemical stains. What's left is just a shadow of whatever emotion might have been imprinted onto the tape. It's a beautiful coagulation of sound, the musical equivalent of a Joseph Cornell box... either that or the recapitulation of the classic :zoviet*france: albums (e.g. Look Into Me, Assault & Mirrage, Just An Illusion, etc.). One of the best albums of 2014.
We've long cited the metaphor of sonic exhumation in describing the proponents of a ruined sound design. How often have we likened a marvelous hauntological recording to sound as if it were lifted from the bottom of a bog, still dripping with bunker fuel and vegetal rot as the author feeds this (fictionally) exhumed tape through the reel-to-reel in order to captured the woozy, decayed sounds transformed through time and chemical decomposition. In the art of the Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, we have EXACTLY that process. Well, not the swamp-rot seepage per se, but the accumulation of time-ravaged material from abandoned drive-in movie theaters using the scratched, crumpled, and torn bits of the optical soundtrack from 16mm film. This semi-anonymous outfit has been scouring the forgotten sites of the American rust belt for such material over the past three decades, but only recently have they received any notoriety for their work. After a couple of high-profile collaborations with the like-minded :zoviet*france:, Fossil Aerosol delivers this complete masterpiece in The Day 1982 Contaminated 1971 for their first solo piece of vinyl. Fossil Aerosol snatches bits of dialogue and overly maudlin orchestration from that source material, alongside the various dropouts, abraded noise, and tactile grit; and all of this gets tossed into an overlapping network of tape loops, complete with squiggled machinations, dub accumulation, and uncanny hypnosis. The process of building each track emerges through negation and erasure as much as it is in the accretion of layered sound upon sound. What remains are the ghosts from the process, not only sonically but also allegorically pointing very specifically back to the unearthed 16mm film. The presentation for all this disintegration, rupture, bleachings, shatterings, debris, and lagged delay follows the ley lines of the American psyche - entangled notions of grandeur, ignobility, spectacle, spirituality, and insecurity. Fossil Aerosol take on the part of detached archeologists for the American wasteland, with their aestheticized miasma and dislocation imparting nuanced readings into America's forgotten recent past. Demdike Stare and The Caretaker may have the entire history of the British empire to excavate for their sounds, but Fossil Aerosol's hauntings are so much more eerie given the proximity in time and space. Without a doubt, this is one of THEE best experimental / drone-on records of 2015.
The first 200 copies of The Day 1982 Contaminated 1971 come with a piece of scavenged 16mm film mounted to the cover!!
The first in an occasional series from Graham Lamkin's Kye Records of split releases by like-minded noiseniks. Fossils are an outfit from Ontario, Canada, mostly content to release editions of 5-10 cassettes to their friends, amassing a discography that rivals that of Phil Blankenship or Aaron Dilloway. It's a horrific blackened noise that Fossils muster, with something that might resemble a band trying to break through the 10,000 year old tarpit of tape hiss that everything is buried in. It's either that or a tin can getting kicked around an alley. As those gritty noises settle onto the horizon, Fossils articulate an undulating sinewave that ramps up and down at a slow-motion cycle. This is smashed up in a noise-junk assault with some atonal blurts and alarm sirens screeching behind a smoldering aktionist pipe-fight. The Canadians finish things off with a desolate chorale of bowed metals, smashed radiators, and thumming engine noise, that all pitches into a grim stupor.
Tom Darksmith hails from San Francisco and has one fine piece of obliterated tape-music released on Hanson. He follows the tradition set by a generation of California nihilists (Joe Colley, Scott Arford, John Wiese, etc.) of creating the antithesis to fun-in-the-summer vibes. His hand-off, neurotic-ray-gun synth crawl is one taken right from the Maurizio Bianchi playbook with looping sandpaper textural scraping and EVP-like thumps in the night. This seance of dark electronics snaps to a hiss-laden recording of various rustlings, metallic scrapes, and strange emanations of vibrating ectoplasm. A halo of midrange feedback slowly blossoms across the activities, which collapse into the final episode of slumped activity that could be some nocturnal loop caught from failed demagnetization of tapes run through a 4-track a couple million times. Here lies the negation of sound. Dig it.
A gorgeous collection of home recordings from one of Takoma's unsung 'American Primitive' guitar masters, Mark Fosson, whose playing reminds us (and apparently John Fahey too back in the day) of Leo Kotke quite a bit. We reviewed Fosson's collection of lost sessions for Takoma a while back, and while many of the same songs are included here (these are the recordings that led to him signing to Takoma), these versions are a bit more raw and intimate, but still manage to resonate with energy and emotion, and in fact, for home recordings, these sound better than many proper studio recordings. Fosson's playing is lush and lyrical, intricate and emotional, and like those Takoma sessions have an energy and melodic sensibility that also reminds us of James Blackshaw. Of all the tracks here, our favorite here might be the goofily titled "Cosmic Hiccup" with its lush melodic sweeps, and seemingly impossibly intricate melodies, that make Fosson sound like he's playing several guitars at once, but all the tracks here are gorgeous, the sound ranging from classic old timey Appalachian folk to more progressive and intricate compositions that seem to meld classical and folk idioms into a sound that's lush and lovely and melodically complex. Most definitely recommended for fans of Fahey, Kotke, Blackshaw and the like.
Just when you thought that the mine of Appalachian, finger pickin', Fahey influenced guitar records had gone dry out comes one of the best unknown records we've heard in ages, and whaddayaknow? It's on Fahey's own Takoma imprint. Mark Fosson's playing recalls the amazing sound of the first two Leo Kotke albums (yes Leo made a couple great records before getting, umm... sort of not so hot) in fact a few times that we've been playing this in the store different customers have freaked out thinking it was some early unreleased Kotke gem. Actually when Fahey first heard a tape of Fosson's demos he wrote on a piece of paper "The best thing since Kotke." Recorded in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1976 these songs by Fosson not only resonate with as much beauty as anything that's come out on Takoma, but has also quite nicely stood the test of time. Besides the Kotke guesses many folks in the store also thought they were hearing a new recording by one of our favorite present days guitar masters, James Blackshaw. We're really happy Drag City have unearthed these long lost sessions as these are sounds that deserve to be heard!
A new album from this faery tale folk maiden!
Her first two highly acclaimed albums certainly defined her otherworldly music as distinctly of another time and A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing is perhaps even more so (at least for us English monolinguals). Not only is it her interpretations of seven nineteenth century compositions by Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and Robert Shumann, but it's sung entirely in German. If it weren't for the presence of guest player Brian Goodman's sinewy, distorted guitar, you could easily imagine this being some recently unearthed ancient folk artifact. That said, it is the dissonance of the electrified strings that make for a terrific contrast to Foster's oft-ghostly serenades. Check out the sixth track "Auf Einer Burg". Wow. Spellbinding.
What better current singer to tackle texts by reclusively prolific American poet Emily Dickinson than the elusive Josephine Foster? Translating 26 out of the thousands of poems Dickinson wrote into the gentlest of song forms, many matching the brevity of the originals, must have been a daunting task. Poems do not translate into songs as easily as one might think, just as songs don't always translate into poetry. But not really since Aaron Copland in 1950 has anyone really delved so deeply into the idea. And Foster is largely successful. The arrangements on guitar or ukulele are very minimal and while her lilting delivery can be a little same-y, each song on its own, unearths a tiny jewel of intimate beauty that is quite something to behold. The material may be too rich for one sitting (unless your knitting on a rainy Sunday perhaps), but we think this might be the perfect sublime ephemera for the shuffle feature on your iPod.
If you picked up last year's All the Leaves Are Gone album by folk singer Josephine Foster -- whose vocal stylings have caused us to dub her the Shirley Collins of Chicago -- you heard her with a nicely weird-making psychedelic rock backing band, The Supposed. Now she's back sans band, doing solo intimate acoustic folk numbers that hew even closer to the British folk tradition that's an obvious influence (Shirley Collins, if you weren't sure, is a '60s UK folk singer of reknown, whose tremblingly pure voice rescued rustic ballads from the mists of the past on her many LPs). The mists of the past hang heavily over Foster's entirely self-penned tunes too. Not just the Brit-folk but also oldtimey down-home blues/gospel too. This disc consists of fourteen tracks of pretty, pastoral, "cosmic madrigals" sung in her high, wavering, angelic voice, self-accompanied on guitar, kazoo, harp, bells, sitar, tambourine, tin whistle, wooden spoons and "black cat" (?) amongst other instrumentation. Willowy, melancholic, melodic... certainly something that anyone who has got a "contemporary indie acid-folk" section going in their music collection is probably gonna want! File with your Banharts and your Six Organs and your Espers and your Skygreen Leopards...
But should we feel band reviewing this since we haven't yet got 'round to listing a bunch of the Shirley Collins reissues that we also recently got in stock?
Another 7" dose of limited musical confections from Artschool Dropout, this time from the siren of lo-fi folk, Josephine Foster. Six lovely songs, half of which were home recorded with ukulele, have the dusty feel of recently unearthed 78 recordings from the 20's. Comes in silkscreened paper sleeve with artwork by Plastic Crimewave.
SUPER LIMITED, once these are gone we won't be able to get more...
Ms. Foster's woozy warble can shriek as loud as a banshee or whisper quiet as a church mouse. And if you are at all familiar with her live sets, she often changes instruments from acoustic guitar, to lap harp to the quaintest of string instruments, the ukulele. On this highly limited edition cd-r from 2004 she goes for the latter in both cases, in these lo-fi 4-track recordings of her finest and softest songs paired with the ukulele's strained tonalities. But like a songbird with clipped wings, Ms. Foster makes the best use of these limitations and provides a fine and archly subdued performance that we're sure her fans will love.
Another timeless gem from Chicago's Josephine Foster. Her third full length, This Coming Gladness is a heartfelt collection of breezy folk tunes that don't veer too far from Ms. Foster's usual stylings. Her wavering, Shirley Collins-ish voice we know and love is accompanied by Victor Herrero on lead guitar and Alex Nielson (Richard Youngs, Jandek) on drums. The two do a fine job of creating a warm, relaxed environment that perfectly envelops the voice and words of Ms. Foster. And inside on the sleeve is an awesome picture of the beautiful Ms. Foster herself, posing wearing a plastic armor breastplate, like an ancient warrior. What a charming gal.
Now on vinyl! Probably our favorite Josephine Foster album. Here's the review from when it was first released, on cd:
Chicago's Josephine Foster we'd heard before in the folk duo Born Heller. We immediately were impressed with her voice -- she's basically a dead ringer for Brit-folk legend Shirley Collins! But Born Heller was maybe a little bland, compared to this, where Foster's uncanny and timeless vocals are set in a more exciting, acid-psych folk-rock format. I know some people who are actually put off by this and Born Heller 'cause she sounds just so much like Shirley Collins, but you know, why not? If I could sing like this, I would! And for all we know, Foster's actually an English transplant who grew up at her grandmother's knee listening and learning old ballads and it's just in her blood. Even if she's just a Chicago hipster with good taste in old folk music, that's cool too. One to file with your Vetiver, and P.G. Six, and Six Organs, and so forth!
2004 cd-r recording of live performances from the All The Leaves Are Gone tour with The Supposed.
The first (and before now, only) Fotheringay album from 1970 is one of our favorite records of the British folk era, but they were a group that from the beginning seemed like they were never meant to last. Led by a post-Fairport Sandy Denny and her husband, former Eclection guitarist Trevor Lucas, Fotheringay was more like a temporary dalliance away from the larger entity of Fairport Convention with Denny departing for solo stardom (and tragedy) after their first album, and most of the other members joining Fairport later on. A second album was in the works but never completed, well, until now that is! The Fledg'ling label has gone to great lengths to rescue the shelved tapes and restore the tracks to their seventies British folk glory. The sound is incredible and typical of Joe Boyd and using a light touch, sounds like a lost artifact from a previous era. While these are mostly traditional tunes and covers, their are five original compositions including two from Sandy Denny that have been little heard before now. We can't say that it betters the first album, but there are plenty of great songs for fans of this era. Named after the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded, it's interesting that after 38 years when this recording was started and long after it's two principle members have passed on, that the ghosts of the past are singing once more.
At last, this excellent early '70s Brit-folk-rock album is back on cd, in a nice new edition complete with four live bonus tracks. Fotheringay features the exquisite, sweet vocals of the legendary Sandy Denny. The band was formed by Denny and her husband, former Eclection guitarist Trevor Lucas (who also sings here), shortly after she left Fairport Convention, releasing this self-titled LP 1970 (the same year Denny was voted the UK's top female vocalist in Melody Maker magazine). They only did this lone album before Sandy went solo, but it's definitely one of Sandy's best and essential for all fans of her previous brilliant albums with Fairport like Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief. It's largely dreamy and pastoral with a country tinge (as with Lucas' "The Ballad Of Ned Kelly"). So lovely. In addition to original compositions by both Denny and Lucas, there's Fotheringay's album-closing arrangement of the traditional tune "Banks Of The Nile", a langorous, eight-minute epic, almost post-rock in scope, that's definitely one of this album's highlights. And as well, the band does a song each by Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot, and one of the added live tracks is Chuck Berry's "Memphis Tennessee".
Oh man. If you are a faithful Aquarius list reader and lover of musical oddities, just stop right here, and push the buy button because you need this record. Judson Fountain was born in 1952 and was obsessed with radio dramas since he was old enough to talk. In fact as soon as he was able to talk he began doing impressions of cackling hags, wicked witches and all sorts of animals. All of which would come to play a big part in these radio dramas right here. Recorded between the ages of 17 and 22, these eight dramas are only a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of radio plays Judson wrote and performed. All of them primitive and simple, but amazingly creative and entertaining, and all featuring Judson's unique vocalisations along with his partner/foil Sandor Weisberger. But there's no way to describe them, you just have to hear them. Judson has a crazy East Coast accent, and he talks like a hyper school boy who thinks faster than he can get the words out, which you can hear in a handful of interviews preceding some of the radio dramas. Using crude sound effects and sometimes painfully deliberate plot exposition, these dramas all rely on Judson and Sandor's crazy array of voices, from Irish Brogue, to old Thai man, to teenage gangster to tuneless singing grandma, to British detective to various witches and demonic women, all with distinctly hysterical and completely bizarre cackles. The plots are all very simple, good vs. Evil, haunted houses and witches and stuff. But they are all done so sort-of-professionally and so earnestly that they're just completely irresistable. Listen to "Garbage Can From Thailand" and you'll immediately know what we mean. Judson is just so cute. And so is Sandor who introduces each drama (which he pronounces drahmmer) and also reads the credits afterwards. I've had a Judson Fountain cassette for years now thanks to AQ pal Jay Lesser so you can imagine how excited we were that some of this stuff was actually finally getting released. Our only complaint is why did Innova make it a cd-r??! It's got a professionally printed booklet and everything, so how hard would it have been to press up real cds?! It costs as much as a real cd after all. Cd-r or not, this is so good, and so funny, and so cute, and so weirdly brilliant, that it definitely needs to be in your collection!
Holy cow!!! A whole second collection of radio dramas from the amazing Judson Fountain and his faithful sidekick and loyal announcer Sandor Weisberger. The aQ faithful will no doubt remember Completely In The Dark, a mind blowing compilation of funny, goofy, clever, way over the top dramas, performed by the two men, each taking on various characters, voicing men and women, even monsters, stealing the various incidental sounds and background noises from old sound effects records. Totally lo-fi and DIY and so so so genius. Not sure we could describe Judson and his oeuvre any better than we did in that first review, so for those who missed that first Judson Fountain collection (if you did, you NEED that one too!) or just need a refresher, here it is:
Judson Fountain was born in 1952 and was obsessed with radio dramas since he was old enough to talk. In fact as soon as he was able to talk he began doing impressions of cackling hags, wicked witches and all sorts of animals. All of which would come to play a big part in these radio dramas right here. Recorded between the ages of 17 and 22, these dramas are only a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of radio plays Judson wrote and performed. All of them primitive and simple, but amazingly creative and entertaining, and all featuring Judson's unique vocalizations along with his partner/foil Sandor Weisberger. But there's no way to describe them, you just have to hear them. Judson has a crazy East Coast accent, and he talks like a hyper schoolboy who thinks faster than he can get the words out. Using crude sound effects and sometimes painfully deliberate plot exposition, these dramas all rely on Judson and Sandor's crazy array of voices, from Irish Brogue, to old 'foreign' man, to various witches and demonic women, all with distinctly hysterical and completely bizarre cackles. The plots are all very simple, good vs. Evil, haunted houses and witches and demons and stuff. But they are all done so sort-of-professionally and so earnestly that they're just completely irresistible. Judson is just so cute. And so is Sandor who introduces each drama (which he pronounces drahmmer) and also reads the credits afterwards.
Sold yet, you should be, as every single one of these drahmmers, as well as the ones collected on the first compilation are a total hoot. The scary ones are only barely frightening, instead, they're fun and funny and kitschy, there's always a moral, the bad guys usually get their comeuppance, the good guys prevail, or if they don't it's because they foolishly failed to heed repeated warnings and sage advice. All of these radio plays are from the early seventies, and are GENIUS!!! But there is a bonus track as well, a radio play called "The Nasty Roomer!" written in the style of Judson Fountain, by one of Judson's biggest fans, and performed by Judson and Sandor, reunited in 1995 and broadcast live on WFMU! The crazy thing is, the two of them sound exactly the same, and sound like they're having a blast, often slipping into giggles, performing the play after only having seen it for the first time a few minutes earlier. So fantastic and fun and joyous and still so goofy and silly and practically perfect.
Unlike the first collection, this one is an actual cd (not a cd-r) and comes with a huge booklet packed with photos, and the transcript of an interview that took place at the same time as the performance of "The Nasty Roomer!", and there's even a mention of a possible volume THREE! Bring it on!!!
The latest Darren Aronofsky film The Fountain has been eagerly anticipated by many folks around here (we dug his previous works Pi and Requiem For A Dream). Haven't had a chance to go to the theater yet, but we have had a chance to hear the movie's soundtrack which sparkles with its own magical light. It is a particularly nice surprise because it features new recordings by Mogwai and Kronos Quartet. They're performing compositions penned by Clint Mansell. Now, they couldn't help but be anything but a perfect musical fit for Aronofsky's visual splendor, could they? That said, this album is somberly wonderful all on its own. Close your eyes and sink in. Sweepingly epic and intricate and absolutely moving. A must for fans of both groups.
This is an amazing pop record. Really. In the way Weezer and OkGo! and a handful of other MTV bands make amazing and accessible (but still a teensy bit subversive) pop. Super well produced and lush and catchy and funny and clever. The only real problem with Fountains Of Wayne is the lyrics, which are pretty cringeworthy at moments. There are some clever bits and some really funny lines, but lots of it is simple and fluffy and very songwriting 101. But if you're in the mood for some summery, sweet, melancholy but rockin' pop, the kind that sounds so good blasting from your car stereo when the top is down and you're driving around aimlessly, with songs about how hot your friend's mom is, your favorite waitress, getting drunk and losing your wallet, and girls and love and all that stuff, then this may just hit the spot.
Newly discovered Soft Soul album.
Most DJ mix cd's end up leaving us a bit cold. Either the selections are too obvious, or the need to scratch and make it "funky" kind of kills the mood and wastes the good tracks that might be there. But leave it to Kieren Hebden (aka Four Tet) to get it just right! We would kill to walk into a club to find him behind the decks. Especially if this is the stuff that was flowing from the speakers. His taste is pretty damn immaculate and refreshingly varied as well. Starting off with the avant pioneer David Behrman (cofounder of Sonic Arts Union) and along the way dipping into everything from Heldon, Curtis Mayfield, Gong, Madvillian, Cabaret Voltaire, Heiner Stadler, Stereolab and so much more. Like the best DJ's, Hebden is a master of timing, pacing and flow. Seamlessly spinning from an early '80s electro jam to a classic Nonesuch explorer series track from Zimbabwe like they were always meant to be side by side. Keeping your body twitching and your synapses firing... what else could you want from a DJ? Highly recommended!!!
Everything Ecstatic introduces an unexpected, fresh direction for Four Tet. We haveta say though that the title does seem somewhat incongruous with the music. After referring to the dictionary, we wouldn't say this album evokes: 1. a state of being beyond reason and self-control; 2. a state of overwhelming emotion; especially: rapturous delight; 3. trance; especially: a mystic or prophetic trance; nor 4. a synthetic amphetamine analogue... (with) mood-enhancing and hallucinogenic properties. Nope, none of the above. Really, that title seems like it would've been more fitting for any of Kieran Hebden's previous releases. The song titles are oddly playful and sweet too. Weird, maybe Hebden was ON ecstacy when he was naming stuff and deciding on the kooky album art?! Hmmm. Anyways, after a consistent stream of well-crafted, dreamy, shimmery electronica, Hebden (also of Fridge) has allowed the storm clouds to build. This is a much darker, heavier and even funkier Four Tet, encorporating considerably more aggressive rhythms and ominous sounds (for instance deep resonant chimes replace delicate tinkly cymbal washes). Edges are harder, resulting in tracks that come across as more sturdily constructed and defined. It's not a complete transformation however, you'll still find some of the old Four Tet loveliness lingering.
Geez, should we be calling this release Four Tet's 'black' album? Besides the predominant color of the cover art, the music contained within is some of the darkest to date from Mr. Kieran Hebden aka Four tet. This album follows up his Everything Ecstatic 'white' album which came out last summer, and which offered some hints as to the heavier, edgier direction in which he was apparently heading. This jam-packed Part 2 is comprised of a dvd filled with videos and animated bits plus a cd with five new tracks (including radically expanded and revised versions of a couple of numbers from Part 1). We'll cheekily propose that the second track places Hebden firmly in the running to uproot Philip Glass from his Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack throne. These thirty five minutes of music are at times meditative and hypnotic, at others highly kinetic and frenetic. In fact, there's an explosive segment around the ten minute mark of the lengthy lead-off "Turtle Turtle Up" during which it wouldn't be at all surprising for a big pink stuffed teddy bear to drop from the ceiling amid a cloud of streamers, confetti, bells and whistles. Yay, you win!
Another of our favorites from 2015, Four Tet's Kieran Hebden surprised us with this beautifully paired down release based on the meditative structure of Indian raga. Two side long tracks derived from the Morning and Evening themes of Hindustani classical music, Hebden doesn't mimic the raga form or employ the traditional instrumentation as much as using the structure to experiment with sonically stretching time and mood. Utilizing vocal samples from a female Indian singer on both tracks, the Morning side has a forward moving momentum that feels like a new day beginning, the lilting vocal taking us higher, before the structure disintegrates and reforms. The Evening side is more subdued, filtering the vocal into spacey washes and quieter focus. Each side takes the form into unpredictable spaces beautifully collapsing and rebuilding in unexpected ways, but yet never taking us fully out of the meditation we've been hypnotized by. This transportive sonic journey comes highly recommended!
My Angel Rocks Back and Forth delivers pleasant, slightly sweet, non-threatening electronica by Fridge's post-rocker, Kieren Hebden. The sound is minimal and ambient using broken chimes, a little backwards feedback and a DJ Shadow kickdrum. This album is more just contemplative than overly challenging. Some very pleasant listening. It also includes a DVD disc featuring four music videos!
